# [Windows 8.1] Need AMD Radeon Vega 8 Drivers for AMD Ryzen 3 2200G Chipset



## HarveyHouston (Mar 12, 2021)

*Let me preface this by saying - I will not upgrade to Windows 10. Please do not answer with "Upgrade to Windows 10", as this is not the solution I am looking for.*

For those who don't know, I am running a custom-built computer with an *AMD Ryzen 3 2200G* processor. Specs are here: https://www.amd.com/en/products/apu/amd-ryzen-3-2200g  As you can see, it has Radeon Vega 8 graphics built in.

My OS of choice is *Windows 8.1 Professional* - I had upgraded from Windows 7 due to the end of extended support. Unfortunately, this puts me in a terrible spot. According to my research, AMD stopped Radeon graphics support of Windows 8.1 back in the summer of 2017, and the Vega 8 graphics were released _after_ the cancellation. My choices are:

Upgrade to Windows 10 to install the drivers - something I will NOT be doing!
Replace my chipset with one that is compatible with Windows 8.1; that would be a costly venture.
Attempt to force Windows 8.1 to install the drivers designed for Windows 10. I succeeded to do so, but upon restarting to apply the changes, it freezes at the motherboard's logo.
Search for a modified, working set of Vega 8 drivers that will work with Windows 8.1; so far, no luck.

I'm reaching out to this community to see if anyone can help me with my problem. I'm trying to get the drivers working for some games and an emulator I want to use.


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## Joom (Mar 12, 2021)

I'd recommend installing a Linux distro. Gaming on Linux has come a really long way, especially for AMD systems. Lutris and Proton make it a breeze. The "hardest" part is just getting the Vulkan drivers installed and enabled. Your other option is to modify the driver installer to include your hardware's IDs so the driver gets forcibly installed, but this is incredibly difficult to do (I've tried in the past for my Mac since Apple hasn't maintained the Bootcamp GPU driver since 2017), and I believe AMD's installer now has a sanitation check before running to make sure it hasn't been modified or compromised, which causes even more headaches. Personally, I moved to Pop_OS because Windows has become absolutely abysmal to use, and gaming performance ended up being miles better anyway.

Here's a screenshot of my Lutris library so far. All of these games play flawlessly, and I haven't been able to find a game that I can't get to run either through this or Steam's Proton.



Edit: I take that back. I have problems with MHW, but that's only because of the crack it uses. I haven't bothered to setup a Steam emulator for it yet.


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## HarveyHouston (Mar 12, 2021)

Joom said:


> I'd recommend installing a Linux distro. Gaming on Linux has come a really long way, especially for AMD systems. Lutris and Proton make it a breeze. The "hardest" part is just getting the Vulkan drivers installed and enabled. Your other option is to modify the driver installer to include your hardware's IDs so the driver gets forcibly installed, but this is incredibly difficult to do (I've tried in the past for my Mac since Apple hasn't maintained the Bootcamp GPU driver since 2017), and I believe AMD's installer now has a sanitation check before running to make sure it hasn't been modified or compromised, which causes even more headaches. Personally, I moved to Pop_OS because Windows has become absolutely abysmal to use, and gaming performance ended up being miles better anyway.


A great suggestion, however some programs I am trying to run don't work well or at all on Linux, as they are designed solely for Windows. Also, I already have a Ubuntu laptop.


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## Joom (Mar 12, 2021)

HarvHouHacker said:


> A great suggestion, however some programs I am trying to run don't work well or at all on Linux, as they are designed solely for Windows. Also, I already have a Ubuntu laptop.


Which ones would these be? There's really only a tiny handful of things WINE can't run these days, especially if you use wine-staging. Lutris even provides helper scripts on their site for both games and applications. They utilize winetricks and perform the entire environment setup for you, so it's pretty much "click and go" these days.

Here's a helper script for Sony Vegas, for example.
https://lutris.net/games/vegas-pro-15-edit/


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## HarveyHouston (Mar 12, 2021)

Joom said:


> Which ones would these be?


Stuff for the Rock Band Customs Project. RockBiink, MiloMod, C3 CON Tools, Rudi's Downloaders, etc. They weren't made by the developers for Linux, and I doubt that WINE can efficiently run them.


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## tech3475 (Mar 12, 2021)

Worst case scenario, can you just buy a new GPU and disable the onboard?

What happens if you run the AMD automatic detect and install utility?


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## Joom (Mar 12, 2021)

HarvHouHacker said:


> Stuff for the Rock Band Customs Project. RockBiink, MiloMod, C3 CON Tools, Rudi's Downloaders, etc. They weren't made by the developers for Linux, and I doubt that WINE can efficiently run them.


You got a link to any of these? I'm Googling around, but not really finding much. I'm willing to wager a lot of these tools were made in C#, or some other .NET language, which is incredibly simple to run under WINE.


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## Hambrew (Mar 12, 2021)

HarvHouHacker said:


> Stuff for the Rock Band Customs Project. RockBiink, MiloMod, C3 CON Tools, Rudi's Downloaders, etc. They weren't made by the developers for Linux, and I doubt that WINE can efficiently run them.


No source in the RBCP GitLab to compile a native Linux version? That's a bit cringe. Also, looking in the README...


> For Linux users, WINE *may* work. Anyone who tests these in WINE is welcome to report their findings, and create new issues if they run across problems.



If I were you, I'd take my chances and use a LiveUSB to test if they work.


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## HarveyHouston (Mar 12, 2021)

tech3475 said:


> Worst case scenario, can you just buy a new GPU and disable the onboard?


I _could_, but it might not function well.



tech3475 said:


> What happens if you run the AMD automatic detect and install utility?


I get an error saying that my hardware does not support the OS; i.e. AMD Radeon will not work on Windows 8.1.



Joom said:


> You got a link to any of these? I'm Googling around, but not really finding much. I'm willing to wager a lot of these tools were made in C#, or some other .NET language, which is incredibly simple to run under WINE.


I guess so? You can find most of that stuff here: https://rhythmgamingworld.com/forums/topic/list-of-all-authoring-stuff-reaper-magma-tutorials-etc/ Also, several of the developers are on my Discord; you're welcome to join and ask them.



Hambrew said:


> No source in the RBCP GitLab to compile a native Linux version? That's a bit cringe. Also, looking in the README...


RBCP is a collection of software, not a source code for a single piece.



Hambrew said:


> If I were you, I'd take my chances and use a LiveUSB to test if they work.


I'll consider it only if the software I want to work will not work. Anyhow, most of the RBCP software works well; it's just stuff like RPCS3 that is giving me fits.


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## Joom (Mar 12, 2021)

I found the C3 Tools at least, and I was right about that. You get this without .NET 4 installed:

```
0024:fixme:mscoree:parse_supported_runtime sku=L".NETFramework,Version=v4.0" not implemented
```

You just need .NET 4 installed, which winetricks can do for you easily.

```
winetricks dotnet40
wine C3CONTools.exe
```
And voila:




HarvHouHacker said:


> I guess so? You can find most of that stuff here: https://rhythmgamingworld.com/forums/topic/list-of-all-authoring-stuff-reaper-magma-tutorials-etc/ Also, several of the developers are on my Discord; you're welcome to join and ask them.


Awesome. I'll try a couple more here in a few, but I can't imagine they'd be all that hard to get running. With .NET applications, you just need the framework installed just like on Windows.


Hambrew said:


> No source in the RBCP GitLab to compile a native Linux version?


If they're .NET, you can't really build a truly native Linux version as you can only build them as an EXE, and either run them with WINE or Mono. A Mono build would be more "native", but not by much.


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## tech3475 (Mar 12, 2021)

HarvHouHacker said:


> I _could_, but it might not function well.



Any particular reason? I ask because I’ve never heard of this happening before (only exception was some weird software/driver I was using).

Or do you mean performance wise?


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## HarveyHouston (Mar 12, 2021)

Joom said:


> I found the C3 Tools at least, and I was right about that. You get this without .NET 4 installed:
> 
> ```
> 0024:fixme:mscoree:parse_supported_runtime sku=L".NETFramework,Version=v4.0" not implemented
> ...


Hey, that's awesome! I'll report that to the developers and see what they say.

EDIT: This does not mean my problem is solved, however. I'm still looking to see if I can make Windows 8.1 do more before I decide to switch away from it.



tech3475 said:


> Any particular reason? I ask because I’ve never heard of this happening before (only exception was some weird software/driver I was using).
> 
> Or do you mean performance wise?


If I am to stick with Windows 8.1, most modern (no older than three years) chipsets don't support Windows 8.1. AMD Radeon has dropped support completely since 2017, so any AMD Radeon graphics chipsets I get for my system would not have drivers built just for Win 8.1. I don't know about Intel, but I'm pretty sure they are the same way.


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## tech3475 (Mar 12, 2021)

HarvHouHacker said:


> Hey, that's awesome! I'll report that to the developers and see what they say.
> 
> EDIT: This does not mean my problem is solved, however. I'm still looking to see if I can make Windows 8.1 do more before I decide to switch away from it.
> 
> ...



Ok, I thought it was just the GPU driver you were after.

On a side note, if you do use Linux then you could potentially use Windows 8.1 in a VM if the software which can’t run under Linux isn’t too demanding.

AFAIK this should bypass most of the driver related issues since they typically emulate their own chipset, gpu, etc. From my experience by default.


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## Deleted member 397813 (Mar 27, 2021)

does windows 8.1 still work without the drivers? because i think the only thing the drivers do is bring the software and thats it.

i am using windows 10 and ryzen 3 3200g with vega 8 incase you are wondering.


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## Tom Bombadildo (Mar 27, 2021)

AMD drivers are fucking dogshit, period. I had to fiddle with some hacking on a mobile APU to get something moderately stable with their drivers, so try the following:

1. Download and extract the AMD GPU drivers to wherever.
2. Navigate to /Packages/Drivers/Display/WT6AINF
3. Open up "C0365275.inf" in a text editor
4. Find: "ATI.Mfg.NTamd64.10.0", and copy everything in this section. This is essentially how the software dictates which version of the driver you can install for your version of Windows.
5. Find: "ATI.Mfg.NTamd64.6.3.1" < This is the code for Windows 8.1. Paste what you copied from the above under this heading. This will "force" the drivers to recognize your version of Windows as a valid version.
6. Install the driver MANUALLY with Device Manager
A. Press Win+R, type: devmgmt.msc and hit enter
B. Find your AMD GPU in the list, right click it, and choose "Update Drivers"
C. Choose "Browse my Computer for Drivers", and navigate to the folder with the modified .inf
D. Drivers should then install, reboot​I can't guarantee this will work perfectly for you, when I had to do this with a mobile APU driver I would occasionally get BSODs, but it's either this or update to Windows 10.


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## HarveyHouston (Mar 28, 2021)

CPG said:


> does windows 8.1 still work without the drivers? because i think the only thing the drivers do is bring the software and thats it.
> 
> i am using windows 10 and ryzen 3 3200g with vega 8 incase you are wondering.


Yes, but I wanted the drivers to work. I'm now exploring alternate GPUs; NVIDIA looks good.



Tom Bombadildo said:


> AMD drivers are fucking dogshit, period. I had to fiddle with some hacking on a mobile APU to get something moderately stable with their drivers, so try the following:
> 
> 1. Download and extract the AMD GPU drivers to wherever.
> 2. Navigate to /Packages/Drivers/Display/WT6AINF
> ...


Did that. I succeeded in getting them to install, but my computer hung at the boot screen when trying to start normally, so I had to boot into safe mode and uninstall the drivers again. After talking with others about it, they suggest it may be a kernel conflict. IDK. I would very much _like_ to use the AMD GPU, but the drivers don't seem to "just work". I don't know if further modification is needed? I can give you all the relevant specs of my computer, and link to the latest driver package for Radeon Vega 8 so you can browse the files.

EDIT: If you already have the latest Radeon driver package, I can skip sending you that package. Just compare it against my hardware specs.

RE-EDIT: Here are some pics.


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## JanFralst (Apr 9, 2021)

Tom Bombadildo said:


> AMD drivers are fucking dogshit, period. I had to fiddle with some hacking on a mobile APU to get something moderately stable with their drivers, so try the following:
> 
> 1. Download and extract the AMD GPU drivers to wherever.
> 2. Navigate to /Packages/Drivers/Display/WT6AINF
> ...



Hi Tom

This method really sounds interesting to me. I have a laptop with a Ryzen 5 4500U (model: Acer Aspire A515-44) - and a would like to run Windows 8.1 on this one. I've tried your method modifying the .inf file. I tried on:

Radeon Software Adrenalin 2020 Edition 21.3.2 Driver for Windows® 10 64-bit
Radeon Software Adrenalin 2020 Edition 21.3.2 Driver for Windows® 7 64-bit

None of these have the ATI.Mfg.NTamd64.6.3.1 option so I tried to create it in the .inf file - but I get an error like "hash value for....??...is missing". Do you have suggestion how to do this the right way - or if you maybe could guide me to some links....?

Best Regards

Jan


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## HarveyHouston (Apr 10, 2021)

JanFralst said:


> Hi Tom
> 
> This method really sounds interesting to me. I have a laptop with a Ryzen 5 4500U (model: Acer Aspire A515-44) - and a would like to run Windows 8.1 on this one. I've tried your method modifying the .inf file. I tried on:
> 
> ...


I agree. I also would like to know!


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## JanFralst (Apr 10, 2021)

HarvHouHacker said:


> I agree. I also would like to know!


I agree with you HarvHouHacker according Win 8.1. Of course I run both Win 10 and Linux on many machines - but in the Microsoft ecosystem I personally prefer Win 8.1.

Why?

A fresh installation of Win 10 has approx 150 background processes in idle state. With rather hard tweaking you may go under a hundred. 

Some simple tweaking of Win 8 takes you easily down to 20-25 background processes! Thats what I like!! I dont want my OS to be cooking under hood - I want to decide myself whats going on!!

 The free world of computing is tightened up by different means, and manufacturers. People have less possibilities to choose themselves. 

Legacy boot for example is also now a memory too - enjoy as long as its possible to turn off Secure Boot!!


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## JanFralst (Apr 10, 2021)

JanFralst said:


> I agree with you HarvHouHacker according Win 8.1. Of course I run both Win 10 and Linux on many machines - but in the Microsoft ecosystem I personally prefer Win 8.1.
> 
> Why?
> 
> ...


So, it would be very much appreciated if someone could and wanted to contribute with a deeper and more detailed knowledge on how to mod for example latest Adrenalin 2020 Win 7 drivers to work for Win 8.1!! If it is possible at all...??


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## Joom (Apr 10, 2021)

JanFralst said:


> So, it would be very much appreciated if someone could and wanted to contribute with a deeper and more detailed knowledge on how to mod for example latest Adrenalin 2020 Win 7 drivers to work for Win 8.1!! If it is possible at all...??


You can look into this guy. He's why I know how tedious custom AMD drivers are as he releases them for Macs Apple and AMD no longer wish to support. 
https://www.bootcampdrivers.com/

His drivers require some tinkering in Safe Mode, like using the community GPU driver uninstaller to fully remove any drivers. OP's PC might have failed to boot because of a conflict caused by the drivers not being fully uninstalled. I can't say for certain, though, but this site should be a good starting point.

All this said, I'm still of the mind that moving to Linux is a better solution. AMD systems are thriving on it right now, and it's really beginning to make Windows look obsolete what with the advancements there and in WINE. WINE 6 just hit stable, and it's brought soooo much to the table.


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## JanFralst (Apr 10, 2021)

Thanks a lot Joom - very much appreciated! I'll have a look at this!!

And I agree with you about Linux - but occasionally you also need to be in the MS ecosystem!!


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## HarveyHouston (Apr 11, 2021)

JanFralst said:


> So, it would be very much appreciated if someone could and wanted to contribute with a deeper and more detailed knowledge on how to mod for example latest Adrenalin 2020 Win 7 drivers to work for Win 8.1!! If it is possible at all...??


AMD's more recent Windows 7 drivers are mostly for older hardware. My chipset requires Radeon Vega 8 drivers, which are available only for Windows 10.

As I mentioned with point three in my head post, I got the drivers to install, but my computer freezes at startup. Not sure if this is a memory issue or something? I'd like to know if there's a particular value or set of values I need to change in the INF file for Vega 8 to work, or if I even need to add or replace the driver files with something more compatible with Windows 8.1 so Vega 8 can work.

EDIT: Sorry, missed the posts about BootCamp. For some reason, the thread didn't refresh when I clicked on it. I think I tried these, and didn't have much luck. I suppose I could give them another try; are there Vega 8 drivers built with 8.1 there?


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## Joom (Apr 11, 2021)

HarvHouHacker said:


> EDIT: Sorry, missed the posts about BootCamp. For some reason, the thread didn't refresh when I clicked on it. I think I tried these, and didn't have much luck. I suppose I could give them another try; are there Vega 8 drivers built with 8.1 there?


They probably won't be useful to you as they're meant for Macs that are no longer officially supported by AMD. The guy that releases the drivers has a YouTube channel full of guides on them, though. So, while you'll still most likely need to modify the installer, I'm fairly certain this guy has a guide on how he does it. You may be able to reach out to him for advice, too. He also provides the necessary tools in his driver pack, so you can grab them from the latest release.


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## HarveyHouston (Apr 12, 2021)

Joom said:


> The guy that releases the drivers has a YouTube channel full of guides on them, though. So, while you'll still most likely need to modify the installer, I'm fairly certain this guy has a guide on how he does it. You may be able to reach out to him for advice, too. He also provides the necessary tools in his driver pack, so you can grab them from the latest release.


Is it Mat HD? What Discord handle does he go by?


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## Deleted member 397813 (Apr 18, 2021)

holy shit i know im late, but have you tried out this
https://www.win-raid.com/t5648f52-S...-driver-Update-Vulkan-OpenCL-API-support.html


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## HarveyHouston (Apr 19, 2021)

CPG said:


> holy shit i know im late, but have you tried out this
> https://www.win-raid.com/t5648f52-S...-driver-Update-Vulkan-OpenCL-API-support.html


No, not at all! I'll download this package to see if it works. Too bad I'm not so great at reading Cantanese.


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## Deleted member 397813 (Apr 19, 2021)

HarvHouHacker said:


> No, not at all! I'll download this package to see if it works. Too bad I'm not so great at reading Cantanese.


dont worry, its in english


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## chrisrlink (Apr 19, 2021)

HarvHouHacker said:


> I agree. I also would like to know!


if theres a stage 1 install (where it unpacks everything) get the w 7 driver then using device manager navigate to the unpacked folder normally unpacks on the root of C: install the drivers that way then look for an exe called ccc2_install.exe that will install the radeon control panel then reboot (this is what i did for my RX580 which has no 8.1 drivers also C:\AMD\Non-WHQL-Radeon-Software-Adrenalin-2020-21.3.2-Win7-64Bit-Mar29\Packages\Drivers\Display\W76A_INF is the folder i browse to,  also check the search subfolders checkbox as well to make sre it's right also ccc2 is in the "B365567" folder if your wondering


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## HarveyHouston (Apr 19, 2021)

chrisrlink said:


> if theres a stage 1 install (where it unpacks everything) get the w 7 driver then using device manager navigate to the unpacked folder normally unpacks on the root of C: install the drivers that way then look for an exe called ccc2_install.exe that will install the radeon control panel then reboot (this is what i did for my RX580 which has no 8.1 drivers also C:\AMD\Non-WHQL-Radeon-Software-Adrenalin-2020-21.3.2-Win7-64Bit-Mar29\Packages\Drivers\Display\W76A_INF is the folder i browse to,  also check the search subfolders checkbox as well to make sre it's right also ccc2 is in the "B365567" folder if your wondering


That would be great... if the drivers for my chipset were available for Windows 7. This chipset (Ryzen 3 2200G) requires Radeon Vega 8, which is ONLY for Windows 10 officially. Anyhow, I'm going to try the drivers linked by @CPG before I try something else.

I also have notified the developer at BootCampDrivers.com about my issue. I gave him my IDs (the same ones I provided here) and said he would try to add them to the custom drivers list. So far, I haven't heard back from him, but if the drivers linked at Win-Raid work, I may not need his drivers after all. Still, it wouldn't hurt to have two working solutions, would it?


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## Deleted member 397813 (Apr 19, 2021)

HarvHouHacker said:


> That would be great... if the drivers for my chipset were available for Windows 7. This chipset (Ryzen 3 2200G) requires Radeon Vega 8, which is ONLY for Windows 10 officially. Anyhow, I'm going to try the drivers linked by @CPG before I try something else.
> 
> I also have notified the developer at BootCampDrivers.com about my issue. I gave him my IDs (the same ones I provided here) and said he would try to add them to the custom drivers list. So far, I haven't heard back from him, but if the drivers linked at Win-Raid work, I may not need his drivers after all. Still, it wouldn't hurt to have two working solutions, would it?


btw, as someone also on windows 8.1, you might have a hash cant be fouynd error, so you will have to disable signature checks


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## HarveyHouston (Apr 19, 2021)

CPG said:


> btw, as someone also on windows 8.1, you might have a hash cant be fouynd error, so you will have to disable signature checks


I have Test Mode on from trying to install drivers before, so I don't think I'll have a problem with that.

EDIT: It didn't work.



 
What do I do now?

RE-EDIT: *IT FINALLY WORKED!!!* Here's what happened:

The Vega 8 drivers showed up in the list of available drivers in Device Manager for my display, after several failed attempts to install the drivers @CPG provided directly from the INF file, so I just selected it and reboot. This led to a boot-loop that I couldn't seem to recover from, so I decided to mess with BIOS settings. I changed the graphics settings from external to internal, enabled Windows 10 WQHL support, and adjusted some other things that I forgot what they were, then rebooted again.

The result? Well, see for yourself:


 


 

Games that didn't work before now work, and those that worked poorly work even better now. *Let There Be ROCK!*


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