Looking Back Pt. 2: X800 & Catalyst Under The Knife
by Ryan Smith on February 22, 2006 12:05 AM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
Far Cry
Keyword: ATI Radeon X800
Getting to our first game, Far Cry and its CryEngine 1 represent the first of the modern graphics engines that truly utilized the abilities of SM2.0+ hardware. With its lush jungles and sandy beaches, even as it’s pushing 2 years old, Far Cry is still unrivaled in presenting what a tropical paradise should look like. As a game that has traditionally performed better on ATI’s hardware than NVIDIA’s, it also gives us a chance to look at what, if anything, ATI did for performance when it already had a clear lead in a game.
By enabling AA/AF, however, we see an entirely different story. With the 5.03 drivers, ATI posted a very impressive 30% performance improvement, moving the game from the realm of being fairly playable with these settings to extremely playable. ATI cites this as being due to efficiency improvements in vertex processing on the R420, which impacted this game heavily. While we can’t see this change without AA/AF, it’s very obvious here with it.
When it comes to Far Cry, there’s little to say here other than praise for being able to pull off this kind of performance improvement without touching image quality or simply fixing a bug.
Keyword: ATI Radeon X800
Getting to our first game, Far Cry and its CryEngine 1 represent the first of the modern graphics engines that truly utilized the abilities of SM2.0+ hardware. With its lush jungles and sandy beaches, even as it’s pushing 2 years old, Far Cry is still unrivaled in presenting what a tropical paradise should look like. As a game that has traditionally performed better on ATI’s hardware than NVIDIA’s, it also gives us a chance to look at what, if anything, ATI did for performance when it already had a clear lead in a game.
By enabling AA/AF, however, we see an entirely different story. With the 5.03 drivers, ATI posted a very impressive 30% performance improvement, moving the game from the realm of being fairly playable with these settings to extremely playable. ATI cites this as being due to efficiency improvements in vertex processing on the R420, which impacted this game heavily. While we can’t see this change without AA/AF, it’s very obvious here with it.
Catalyst 4.05 versus 6.01 (mouse over to see 4.05)
When it comes to Far Cry, there’s little to say here other than praise for being able to pull off this kind of performance improvement without touching image quality or simply fixing a bug.
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breethon - Wednesday, February 22, 2006 - link
I never download the "FULL" package drivers from ATI. I always use the option "dial up - driver only"(the first of three options under the dial up links). I use atitool for any tweaking. I don't have the CCC (atleast I don't believe I do). Don't let the dial-up words trick you. I pull from ati.com just as fast as the broadband links. Hopefully this helps.archcommus - Wednesday, February 22, 2006 - link
I'll admit the CCC takes a long time to load and is bloated, but if you disable it from startup and don't mess with the settings much, it's really not that bad.microAmp - Wednesday, February 22, 2006 - link
If you search the Far Cry forums, there is a way to do a quick save, through the console, IIRC.archcommus - Wednesday, February 22, 2006 - link
Yes, I wouldn't even bother playing the game without doing that, don't care for repeating things endlessly.wing0 - Wednesday, February 22, 2006 - link
from all the comparison for 9700Pro, it seems to me that I should stick with my 5.7 cat?Cybercat - Wednesday, February 22, 2006 - link
I do see a change in the shadows under the dock. I don't know if you could say it's better or worse though.Ryan Smith - Wednesday, February 22, 2006 - link
That's actually fog. We couldn't get an exactly perfect screenshot because of the rolling fog(though we kept the scene because it does a good job showing everything), so there is a slight difference due to that. There are no differences however due to driver IQ changes.tfranzese - Wednesday, February 22, 2006 - link
But is the CCC the cause of the increased boot time or is it the .NET Framework in general? I've never given CCC any use personally, just want to be sure that the distinction was made when you took the measurements.Ryan Smith - Wednesday, February 22, 2006 - link
It was the CCC, the machine already had the .NET framework on it.Scrogneugneu - Wednesday, February 22, 2006 - link
Yeah, but is the slowdown caused by the CCC itself, or by the .NET components loading because there was a .NET application launched?I believe the Framework won't load itself until one application requires it. If the CCC happens to be that application, then there's not much ATI can do about it. However, if it isn't... then they should definitively take a look at that (I'd rater have a better CCC than a "half-a-fps" faster driver).