yes I know, it's that pesky thing again. I just updated my graphics drivers to the latest beta-version and looked for ports 9000-9032 to be unblocked (Router says no port is blocked, windows firewall has all three PA.exe files in it's trusted apps list, I also tried deactivating it completely) Im running on Windows 8.1 without Steam, just through the launcher. What shall I try next?
Unfortunately it's not enough because Windows 8/8.1 have built-in drivers which is broken for PA and they won't be replaced by AMD installer by default. Only to fix that problem: Open Device Manager (video how-to) Find "ATI Radeon HD 4800" in "Display adapters" subsection (check this screenshot) Uninstall built-in driver. Now download and install "Latest Beta Driver" from AMD website: http://support.amd.com/en-us/download/desktop/legacy?product=legacy2&os=Windows 8 - 64
You don't need to be that descriptive, I know basic computer stuff, but thanks anyway. I just have a problem with installing the drivers. Deinstalling the standard windows-drivers works perfectly fine, display looks like crap, but that's how it should be. Now to installing the AMD beta-drivers: When installing (Custom), I get shown only three options: - AMD Catalyst Install Manager - AMD APP SDK Runtime - Catalyst Control Center I wondered if there shouldn't be more, especially an option called "Driver" or so... Still, i tried to install all that, but it didn't help. The install says everything worked out fine, however the dxdiag says otherwise. My second display doesn't get recognized, I can't up the screenresolution. So basically the installation routine for the driver doesn't exist or failed. I tried to restart after that, but that triggers windows to install the default drivers again. What next? I'm kind of stuck here, I have no idea where I should get a working driver install from...
Don't you just tried to use "Express" install? All AMD stuff are permanently bugged so express install might just work which custom might not. You might try to remove "AMD Catalyst" though Control Panel and then try to do express install. According to your DxDiag your graphics card don't have any driver right now. It's pretty strange because for other 3 players it's worked just fine. Anyway if I remember correctly if you open Device Manger once again, select your GPU and choose "Update driver" then click on "Update manually" then you should see two different drivers in list like that: One of them will be system built-in driver and other should be one you just installed.
Other option, you might to use modified driver installer like this one: http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=372799 Follow instructions clearly and it's should work. I'm not person who usually recommend stuff like this, but at least tested by people while few months ago AMD site had red bold text with following statement: "AMD Legacy drivers don't support Windows 8 blah blah".
Finally, thank you so much! What I did now was to install the alternative drivers, THEN head into the device manager and click update drivers->manually->select from list That way, the list was finally a bit like the one you showed, i could select the drivers and update them. The device manager now says the driver is from 2012-01-02, but it works, and that's all that counts, right? Again, thank you so much, I would have never been able to find that alternative driver myself.
Better get and check contents of DxDiag.txt, I'm not sure if device manager manager show correct dates. Actually date should be same as for built in drivers, e.g April of 2013. Still if everything will work just ignore it.
