Warp2Search.net » News » August 2004 » Catalyst 4.9 Beta out...

ATI is providing an early version of CATALYST 4.9 to users interested in increasing performance of Doom 3.



PLEASE READ ALL OF THIS BEFORE YOU PROCEED:

The BETA display drivers found here are offered AS IS, without warranty of any kind, and have NOT been completely qualified by ATI. Usage of these drivers are without support of any kind, and you use them at your own risk.

ATI does NOT recommend installing these drivers in systems used for mission critical operations or where productivity of any kind is a concern.

Unless you are very comfortable with installing and un-installing drivers, we DO NOT recommend that you use the drivers provided here. These BETA Drivers are NOT SUPPORTED by ATI Customer Care or any other ATI department.

Catalyst 4.9 Beta

Thanks to Pr()ZaC

Domingo Unregistered

#55681 Posted on: 08/04/2004 12:34 AM Cool. Not bad that these are being released on the same day the game has officially hit the streets. I'm curious exactly how much these betas will squeeze out, but I have a feeling that before it's all said and done we'll see the ATI cards catching up to Nvidia's equivalent cards. I'll post if I get any major gains when I get home.

digitalwanderer Junior Member Posts: 3 Joined: 2004-02-22

#55683 Posted on: 08/04/2004 12:52 AM Don't forget that you don't actually have to install the whole new driver package to take advantage of the new openGL module, just extract all the files from the .exe using winzip and then find the file "atioglxx.dl_" and expand it using winzip also (that "_" at the end instead of an "l" means it is zipped ) and you'll have the file "atioglxx.dll" which you can just copy over into your "D:Windowssystem32" folder and voila' you got the new openGL. (I recomend backing up your old atioglxx.dll, just in case. I rename mine according to the cat version it's from...this one is now "omeg4.7atioglxx.dll", in case I ever want it later. ) These give a very minor improvement to R3xx cards, but a healthier boost to the R4xx class ones. (.5-1 fps compared to a 5-6fps roughly, but that's only tests between 3 people.)

evilally Unregistered

#55684 Posted on: 08/04/2004 12:53 AM Substantial gains on my 9800 Pro 256Mb. Running timdemo demo1 on high quality 1024x768 I got 45fps, now I get 52fps. System: Mobile 2500+ @ 2.4Ghz/400fsb 1Gb Twinmos Radeon 9800Pro 256Mb 445/750 Asus A7N8X Haven't tested it much, can't vouch for image quality/bugs....

Dakisha Unregistered

#55685 Posted on: 08/04/2004 12:54 AM Actually it's all in the silicon; nvidia included extra 'stuff' (Wish I could find the link for this info) that benifits OpenGL. ATi didn't include this same 'stuff', and so in this case, nvidia will still win out most likely.

Davka Unregistered

#55686 Posted on: 08/04/2004 01:17 AM Cool !! It must be hard decision to ATI to release BETA drivers They almost never do this.

Stimpy Unregistered

#55687 Posted on: 08/04/2004 01:31 AM A good decision by ATI... My old 9700Pro gets another 2FPS out of this driver. 41.1 FPS at high quality 800x600

Naser Unregistered

#55688 Posted on: 08/04/2004 01:57 AM I'll copy paste this info, thx man, thats a lot easier to try diffrent ones.

Naser Unregistered

#55689 Posted on: 08/04/2004 02:21 AM Just ran it twice with each driver (using DW way).Does the demo LAG when running it the first time with u ALL ?? 2nd run is smooth anyway here. FX53(939),A8V,1GB (2-2-2-11),Gigabyte Vivo X800pro modded 2 XT (16piper). Cat4.8 32.6 - 36.4 Cat4.9 35.4 - 38.4 Nothing special really, im running 1280x1024 ULTRA setting & 2xAntialising. I think ill swap my 6800Ultra 2morrow. Hope this helps

digitalwanderer Junior Member Posts: 3 Joined: 2004-02-22

#55690 Posted on: 08/04/2004 02:38 AM I do three runs everytime now and the last two are the ones I trust. The first run thru all those stalls are textures loading into memory for the first time, for the next runs the texts are already there.

BetrayerX Unregistered

#55691 Posted on: 08/04/2004 02:41 AM I get 39fps at 1024*768 HQ And 44 if I o/c it to 380/630. Nice tip(thnx Devourer)....AF is set at 8x default in the cfg.....set it to 2 or 4x. Also try to see if seta com_maxfps 200 helps. I find odd that my system defaults at 60Hz when entering the game...try disabling v-sync.

Yakumo Junior Member Posts: 2 Joined: 2004-05-27

#55692 Posted on: 08/04/2004 02:42 AM interested to see in depth reviews of these drivers, have they really improved the way ATI cards handle openGL, or is it quack all over again..

Static_x17 Unregistered

#55694 Posted on: 08/04/2004 03:39 AM If Nvidia would have done this, everyone would be accusing them of "cheating" My 9800 non pro just isn't doing enough for me. I might switch to a 6800 sooner or later.

Hancoque Member Posts: 86 Joined: 2003-12-28

#55696 Posted on: 08/04/2004 03:44 AM I ran "timedemo demo1" on Catalyst 4.7 with my Radeon 9700 (non pro, 128 MB) Card in High Detail. The first run was with the OpenGL driver that comes with the 4.7 driver suite. For the second run I changed the OpenGL driver to the 4.9 version. I did 3 passes for each driver. The second and third pass had the same result in both runs. The first runs were slower because of hard disk activity. Results: 4.7: 21.6 fps 4.9: 21.8 fps (+0.2 fps) That isn't really what I call an improvement. :/ But maybe those driver enhancements will only apply to the X800 series. It may also be possible that not only the OpenGL file is responsible for the promised performance gain.

thomas997 Junior Member Posts: 12 Joined: 2003-04-21

#55697 Posted on: 08/04/2004 04:00 AM Dont bother using high detail, stick with medium. I cant tell the difference between medium and ultra, other than the huge lag on ultra.. I dont get why people bother.

DJZaagmans Unregistered

#55699 Posted on: 08/04/2004 05:12 AM I did some benching too with the "timedemo demo1" thingy; firstly most important sys specs, than results. Specs: CPU: Pentium 4 2.4 Ghz RAM: 1 GB 3D: ATI Radeon 9700 Non-Pro standard clock speed OpenGL tab settings ----------------------- AA: Application Preference AF: Application Preference Texture Preference: High Quality Mipmap Detail Level: high Quality Wait for VSync: Default Off Truform: Application Preference Results: High Quality 800x600 ============== Cat 4.7 -------- 2nd run: 38,0 3rd run: 37,9 Avg: 37,95 Cat 4.9b ---------- 2nd run: 40,7 3rd run: 39,7 Avg: 40,2 Avg gain: 2,25 FPS High quality 1024x768 ============== Cat 4.7 -------- 2nd run: 30,4 3rd run: 30,5 Avg: 30,45 Cat 4.9b ---------- 2nd run: 31,4 3rd run: 31,3 Avg: 31,35 Avg gain: 0,90 FPS Ultra quality 1024x768 =============== Cat 4.7 -------- 2nd run: 24,9 3rd run: 24,7 Avg: 24,8 Cat 4.9b ---------- 2nd run: 25,2 3rd run: 24,9 Avg: 25,05 Avg gain: 0,25 It's important to note that the margins get tighter with the higher res and the higher quality setting, my guess is that when the graphs get more intense, the vid card is already being stressed to it's (near) max and the bottleneck becomes the CPU and RAM, which in both cases are the same of course. I also did some benches using NVidia's Treemark, results: Cat 4.7 -------- Simple 1st run: 181,818 Simple 2nd run: 176,305 Complex 1st run: 52,5431 Complex 2nd run: 52,5017 Cat 4.9b ---------- Simple 1st run: 182,849 Simple 2nd run: 178,795 Complex 1st run: 52,2876 Complex 2nd run: 52,3314 These results are too undecisive to draw conclusions, well, one could conclude that the 4.9b's aren't that much to jump up and down about. Last but not Least I ran some GL Excess tests @ 1024x768, I won't go into further details, results: Cat 4.7: 10783 Cat 4.9b: 10976 The cat 4.9b's seem to have a little advantage, as one might expect. Final words: The cat 4.9b's may indeed seem to add a few f's to the ps, but I wouldn't go running circles around a bonfire for it, let's just wait and see what the cat 4.9 finals will bring us. Credits to ATI for rushing this Beta's, but to me it seems more like a kind gesture than an actual allout attack to do something about the GL business.

Hancoque Member Posts: 86 Joined: 2003-12-28

#55700 Posted on: 08/04/2004 05:19 AM Okay, we now have two 9700 tests in here. But I doubt that the promised optimizations apply to those old cards. Therefore I'd like to see some X800 and 9800 XT comparisons.

Hancoque Member Posts: 86 Joined: 2003-12-28

#55701 Posted on: 08/04/2004 05:21 AM Well, some more tests, since there are already two.

RJM Unregistered

#55702 Posted on: 08/04/2004 05:51 AM opps Thats Radeon 9600xt card hehe

BetrayerX Unregistered

#55703 Posted on: 08/04/2004 06:49 AM There are NO CPU bottlenecks with a 2.4GHz and 1 Gig of Ram. You are completely GPU limited by this test. I did some tests of my own and I o/c my 2.4 to 3.4 and didnt even gained 1 lousy fps with a 9700np running @ 380/630, and yes it behaved the same at stock speeds.

dzjepp Member Posts: 43 Joined: 2003-04-30

#55704 Posted on: 08/04/2004 07:13 AM I tried copying over the 4.9 OGL file but now I can't launch Doom 3/Quake 3. (Yes I renamed it to .dll) The file is significally smaller than the older version (2mb versus 6) so I'm guessing that it didn't "expand" correctly? What am I doing wrong?

PnP Unregistered

#55705 Posted on: 08/04/2004 08:19 AM open a command line window then type "expand atioglxx.dl_ atioglxx.dll"

ewwhww01 Unregistered

#55707 Posted on: 08/04/2004 11:08 AM DON'T instlall these drivers if you have an AIW card. It will muck up your WMD drivers, and keep your TV tuner from working. Just follow the directions for extracting the DLL needed for Doom3. I know, I tried just installing this updated drivers, and that is what happened to ME. LOL

hinkle Unregistered

#55709 Posted on: 08/04/2004 11:33 AM nice, these are the "fast" driver HardOCP used for their official Doom3 benches. So I definitely don't want to know how the slower Catalyst drivers performed in Doom3 compared to nvidia

DJZaagmans Unregistered

#55711 Posted on: 08/04/2004 02:26 PM I would just like to mention here that I didn't use 3DMark 2001, so your post is based on nothing, check my post.

DJZaagmans Unregistered

#55712 Posted on: 08/04/2004 02:29 PM You can also open the .dl_ file with WinZip.

Warp2Search.net » News » August 2004 » Catalyst 4.9 Beta out...