ATI's Catalyst 3.8 Drivers: ATI Sanctioned Overclocking
by Derek Wilson on October 8, 2003 3:02 PM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
Eager to get started with testing, the next stop on the list was the 3D tab.
Rather than having separate tabs for DirectX and OpenGL, ATI has combined them into one panel with a radio button selecting which API we are working on at the moment.
Since the selection of AA, AF, and quality options has been removed to a separate dialog box (activated by clicking on the "Custom" button), it seems like ATI is pushing the use of the Quality/Performance slider, which I don't personally like but is used to simplify things for the masses who don’t know what AA/AF are. Of course, they have made up for this by adding a feature to save a settings profile. Since people tend to tweak their settings for each game they play, there is much less hassle involved in the settings process.
What we would really like to see in the future is the ability to associate settings with an actual game executable file, so we can set all our games the way we want them and never have to touch the control panel.
The properties dialog opened by the customize buttons on the D3D and OGL panel brings us to a rather familiar looking list of selections. Nothing has really changed here other than the separation from the rest of the controls.
Of course, when we look at the top, we see the smartshader tab. We didn't expect this feature to be any good at all, but honestly we were strangely fascinated with it. Still definitely only an oddity, but its interesting for a few minutes.
That’s it for UI and functionality enhancements, lets check out the performance.
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Anonymous User - Thursday, October 9, 2003 - link
so... 50 and 51 ... do you play your games for 10 minutes, then turn off the computer to let it cool down so you can get better fps? hell no. you play and play and play till yer done.doing all these benchmarks without letting the card cool down (whether it shows the 3.8 full potential or not) is more like what users will experience on their systems. That makes this data more useful to me than anything else they could have done.
crazy ati fanbois
Anonymous User - Thursday, October 9, 2003 - link
I'm with 50. He is right.Anonymous User - Thursday, October 9, 2003 - link
trying to test a temp related mod without controlling temp in the case is just assinine. This proves absolutely nothing. They themselves said they did not allow cooling between tests so they don't know how the overdrive was working. I would be more impressed with just the change in speed numbers than the fps. That would at least tell us whether the overclocking was used throughout the test and not shut off after the card got hot on the 2nd benchmark. The test had no control basis and therefore all the data is trash.Anonymous User - Thursday, October 9, 2003 - link
when the 9600 XT is going to be realased, i'm waiting for itAnonymous User - Thursday, October 9, 2003 - link
In your discussion of image quality, I don't seea comment on HALO. Yet on my PC (P4C 2.8,
Radeon 9800 PRO, Catalyst 3.6) I get clear drawing
errors. Looking at the sky in any outdoor scene in
level 5 or 8, it shows just a gaping hole which
should've been obscured by fog. More subjectively,
the fog in the swamps at the start/end of level 6
also doesn't work as well as on the XBOX.
What are the experiences of people with different
hardware/drivers?
Anonymous User - Thursday, October 9, 2003 - link
I dont see the overdrive tab, is this only visible with 9800pro etc.My card is a 9500pro!!
Anonymous User - Thursday, October 9, 2003 - link
... so they will only allow the Mhz, where every card works?Anonymous User - Thursday, October 9, 2003 - link
maybe we are gonna see unofficial moded versions of these drivers, with the overclocking limit removed :d . ATI just cant allow this difference between the users cards, when one has a "overclocker" card and gets his 10% and the other has something "allergic to speed" card lol and gets nothing. ATI just cant make the speed of the card luckAnonymous User - Thursday, October 9, 2003 - link
I'm disappointed that Anand didn't try to find out why overdrive didn't produce better figures.Overdrive might not overclock as much as some people want, but it should still give more impact than just 0,5fps.
Since the 9800XT is mainly an overclocked 9800Pro we should be able to accurately estimate the impact of overdrive on the 9800XT.
I suspect that we would get far better numbers if Anand had used 1024*768 instead of 1600*1200 4xAA.
Afaik overdrive only overclocks the GPU and not the memory. At 1600*1200 you are more likely to run into a memory bandwith limited situation. (Especially with all those DX8 games)
In such a situation it is logical that overdrive won't give any large increase in fps.
The other explanation is that the air termperatuur in the computer case Anand uses was very high and therefor overdrive was not able to overclock much.
In either case it is a shame that Anandtech didn't do anything at all to discover where the disappointing results came from.
(I hope nobody here actually thinks that ATI would go through the trouble of creating overdrive when it would only gain 0,5 fps)
Anonymous User - Thursday, October 9, 2003 - link
this is getting way too geeky... Anand, you are indeed the master geek. I mean in this in a good way... or am I? hahaha hust kidding. You guys sure have a lot of patience. Incredible!