AMD degraded AF quality with 68xx launch!

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Richthofen

Limp Gawd
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Hi,

during launch day PCGamesHardware in Germany were on of the few or only websites that analyzed the AF quality on the new AMD Barts based products 6850 and 6870 in deep. A lot of websites just followed the standard reviewing procedure which is understandable because not much time was given by AMD as far as i know.

AMD was advertising fixed/better AF with the Banding problem fixed. Unfortunately this is not 100% truely the case.

In fact AMD fixed the banding problem a littlebit in the standard and high quality setting of the driver but on the otherside flickering problem increased at the same time. PCGamesHardware.de was asking AMD about this and they confirmed this! So in fact IQ on the standard driver setting "Quality" in the AF area got worse.
PCGamesHardware analyzed it more in detail also comparing to Nvidia and their verdict is that they from now on compare AMD HQ to Nvidia Q because according to them these settings are most comparable.
Here is the link to the test - unfortunately its in German only.
http://www.pcgameshardware.de/aid,7...irectX-11-Generation/Grafikkarte/Test/?page=4


Now today another major website in Germany (Computerbase) investigated on this issue. They made screenshots and uploaded videos. The results are similar to what PCGamesHardware found out. Standard AF filtering on the quality setting is at the level of the former AI Advanced. Furthermore the HD5xxx series get the same degraded quality on the standard setting with the new Catalyst 10.10 driver. Computerbase will similar to PCGamesHardware from now on compare Nvidia Quality vs AMD High Quality. The latter one is on average 5 to 6 percent slower than the standard setting in the driver.

Here is the link to the test - again in German only
http://www.computerbase.de/artikel/grafikkarten/2010/bericht-radeon-hd-6800/

To be honest more websites should investigate on this one. This is absolutly not acceptable for graphics cards in year 2010 and reminds me of Nvidia's G7x fiasco regarding the AF image quality. They have been bashed pretty hard for this one back then with in the end good results for the end user. Since G8X they prodive really good AF quality. The media should force AMD to better not continue with this practise with future products. I will not use the word chea**** but it is quite close.

@Kyle and HardOCP folks
Is there a chance that you will investigate on this one?
 
Yup, AMD keeps gimping their AF ... no one seems to care, personally the deficiencies drive me batty. Shame since 69xx looks insanely good.
 
Aaron11 said:
why does it take some random German review site to find this out?
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First of all these are two really big sites and as i said not much time was given by AMD for the reviews so i suppose most of the reviewers stick to the reviewers guide. AMD advertised improved AF so most of them probably did not bother around with it very much.

I think the guys from 3DCenter.de will also have a deep analysis on this, like in the past. I know from the editor's of PCGamesHardware that they will have a deep follow up on their launch review with regards to AF and image quality in general on the new products on the web as well as in their print magazine.

I would like to know whether HardOCP will also analyze this because in the past usually this site has also been one of those that analyze more in detail and verify the promises from the IHV's
 
I'm sure this is a problem...but is there a issue in actual gaming? My German sucks :) ...can someone post actual pics from a game that shows the problem...all this tech gibberish means nothing to the average gamer without some type of photo before and after shots. Richthofen- You work for Nvidia? Seems the few posts you have are all negative to ATI/AMD (and no I'm not an ATI/AMD fan boy :) )
 
I know I took AMD for their word about AF quality since they were spouting improvements in that department.

Will be interesting to see if AMD does anything about it.
 
RipperMac said:
I'm sure this is a problem...but is there a issue in actual gaming? My German sucks :) ...can someone post actual pics from a game that shows the problem...all this tech gibberish means nothing to the average gamer without some type of photo before and after shots. Richthofen- You work for Nvidia? Seems the few posts you have are all negative to ATI/AMD (and no I'm not an ATI/AMD fan boy :) )
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Nope i don't work for Nvidia but i don't want a new competition about who provides the worst AF in a trade for FPS. Current products are fast enough so image quality matters. Btw you have to download and watch the videos. You will not notice this stuff in screenshots as much as in actual gaming. Flickering can get really anoying.

The link below provides the videos.
http://www.computerbase.de/downloads/system/grafikkarten/af-videos-fuer-hd-6800-launch/
 
skizzled said:
I know I took AMD for their word about AF quality since they were spouting improvements in that department.

Will be interesting to see if AMD does anything about it.
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Well for the moment they will do nothing. PCGamesHardware asked them about the degraded AF quality in the standard setting and they confirmed that the AF filtering of the standard quality setting of the driver is more agressive than before and that they will keep it that way. This is a rather bold move as they were advertising better AF and pretty much knew very well that 90% of the reviewers will bench with the quality mode and not with the high quality mode which results in 5 to 6% more performance.
 
Richthofen said:
Nope i don't work for Nvidia but i don't want a new competition about who provides the worst AF in a trade for FPS. Current products are fast enough so image quality matters. Btw you have to download and watch the videos. You will not notice this stuff in screenshots as much as in actual gaming. Flickering can get really anoying.

The link below provides the videos.
http://www.computerbase.de/downloads/system/grafikkarten/af-videos-fuer-hd-6800-launch/
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Yep, well said.
 
Hardocp is behind on articles as it is. Still no follow up article of either of the 3 suggested over a week ago from the 6800 series release. I think they need more reviewers but meh what do I know. I too would like to see this investigated thoroughly and if there is any validity to it then I feel as though the game benchmarks should be re-run amd high quality vs nvidia quality to show the performance gains they stole (if they are guilty)

+1 for hardocp investigating, not sure they can fit it in schedule but...(grabs popcorn anyway)
 
I looked at all the screen shots and essentially saw nothing.

Which two videos am I supposed to look at to see a difference (I am not wasting my time DL them all).

So far this looks like much ado about nothing.

Edit NVM, it says I have to register to download videos. Forget that.
 
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So wait, let me get this straight. There are at least two settings: Quality and High Quality. And the big news is that "Quality" is slightly worse but slightly faster than "High Quality"? Uh... no shit? What am I missing? Or is this just an outlet to nerdrage over nothing?
 
I set texture filtering to HQ in the CCC and unticked the surface format optimization. A 6850 lost 2FPS @ 1920x with 4xAA|16xAF in the 40-70FPS range. IMO there's no reason not to use the highest texture filtering and to disable the surface format optimization.
 
And the usual army of Nvidia fanboys finally makes a return. The reviewers guide specifically spelled out the changes made to the settings in the control panel and the difference in results in the HD5xxx and HD6xxx series of cards at default settings. This article reeks of Nvidia PR spin.

Edit: No wonder they are making a stink about this. Nvidia wants websites to test their shitty "Stop sign" filtering:

GF104
gf104-af3.png


Against AMD's arguably superior filtering:
Barts
barts-af3.png
 
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Richthofen said:
Nope i don't work for Nvidia but i don't want a new competition about who provides the worst AF in a trade for FPS. Current products are fast enough so image quality matters. Btw you have to download and watch the videos. You will not notice this stuff in screenshots as much as in actual gaming. Flickering can get really anoying.

The link below provides the videos.
http://www.computerbase.de/downloads/system/grafikkarten/af-videos-fuer-hd-6800-launch/
Click to expand...

Turn up lod bias to a positive value and flickering disappears. It was a common cheat that GFX makers did in the old days. Positive lod gives higher framerates then negative at the cost of texture sharpness and detail.

Its nice that the check this though. I have a thread investigating the 5000 series AF filtering over at B3D:
http://forum.beyond3d.com/showthread.php?t=57870

Edit: If anyone want to test or contest the effect of positive lod, you can download the program and use the settings as shown here:
http://www.rage3d.com/reviews/video/amd_hd6870_hd6850_launch_review/index.php?p=6

In my 3Dcenter filter tester, the texture to load is called ground2, not texture2. :) Increase the lod bias and see the shimmering disappear. If you do this in games and benchmark the games, the framerates becomes higher. Its a performance cheat, but shimmering disappear.
 
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kllrnohj said:
So wait, let me get this straight. There are at least two settings: Quality and High Quality. And the big news is that "Quality" is slightly worse but slightly faster than "High Quality"? Uh... no shit? What am I missing? Or is this just an outlet to nerdrage over nothing?
Click to expand...

Quality and high quality, but AMD is Supposedly cheating on the quality & high quality setting with optimizations on their quality and high quality settings so even their high quality is only comparable to nvidia's quality. Nvidia's HQ is supposed to be uncontested by either of AMD's implementations. Could be fud but worth investigating, none the less. They are saying that tests should be run amd hq vs nvidia quality to have a even measure.

(grabs 2nd bag of popcorn)
 
D/L the first vid...gotta register to get more?!! No thanks.
Still not sure what to look for or what I'm missing with this "defective" 6850 driver issue....it is a driver issue right?
 
Lorien said:
Edit: No wonder they are making a stink about this. Nvidia wants websites to test their shitty "Stop sign" filtering:...
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You do realize that the 5000 was much MUCH worse than Nvidia on AF filtering and it was only notice on 1 game pretty much?

Go troll some other place, because if the bigger difference between 5870 and the 480 in filtering wasn't perceived until the very specific case of Trackmania's track textures then you are bordering on "audiophile praising the danceable 7k $ audio cable" level.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/3987/...enewing-competition-in-the-midrange-market/5#
 
GoldenTiger said:
Yup, AMD keeps gimping their AF ... no one seems to care, personally the deficiencies drive me batty. Shame since 69xx looks insanely good.
Click to expand...

They are slipping further and further towards being a bargain basement chip company. Launching a new series that is slower to than the old and skimping on image quality are just a few recent examples. It's a shame really. :mad:
 
PRIME1 said:
They are slipping further and further towards being a bargain basement chip company. Launching a new series that is slower to than the old and skimping on image quality are just a few recent examples. It's a shame really. :mad:
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Last I checked the 6850 was quite a bit faster than the 5770.. and the same holds for the 6870 and 5830... you know, the cards they are replacing.
 
ryan_975 said:
Last I checked the 6850 was quite a bit faster than the 5770.. and the same holds for the 6870 and 5830... you know, the cards they are replacing.
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dont feed the troll. all he does is bitch about ATI/AMD and tries to start a flame war in any ATI/AMD thread he can.
 
ryan_975 said:
Last I checked the 6850 was quite a bit faster than the 5770.. and the same holds for the 6870 and 5830... you know, the cards they are replacing.
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Please, don't respond to him...............I still can't rationalize why he hasn't been at least marginally reprimanded for his inane posts.

And this topic is bleh.....
 
heflys20 said:
Please, don't respond to him...............I still can't rationalize why he hasn't been at least marginally reprimanded for his inane posts.

And this topic is bleh.....
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because there arent many admins that venture into the video card section of the forum unless a post is reported.
 
heflys20 said:
All it takes is a questionable topic accusing AMD of cheating.
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I apologize if my post offended anyone. I just don't understand why anyone would want to sweep this under the rug? If this was about NVIDIA there would be plenty of pitch forks and torches to attack them with, But since it's AMD we can't discuss it. :confused:

Anyways looking at the links, it appears to be a real issue and one that might concern people who care about image quality. Discussing flaws in a company is not trolling. Suppressing the information certainly is.
 
PRIME1 said:
I apologize if my post offended anyone. I just don't understand why anyone would want to sweep this under the rug? If this was about NVIDIA there would be plenty of pitch forks and torches to attack them with, But since it's AMD we can't discuss it. :confused:

Anyways looking at the links, it appears to be a real issue and one that might concern people who care about image quality. Discussing flaws in a company is not trolling. Suppressing the information certainly is.
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because its a load of crap just like you. your taking 1 post for face value from a bunch of no name sites in the hardware benchmark world. do your own bloody research. but why am i even wasting my time making this post? because some one else dumb enough to feed your bullcrap trolling ways will so i might as well do it before some one else posts that doesnt know your a useless troll. how about you stick to your nvidia section of the forum.

feel free to warn me if you want admins but some had to finally come out and say it.
 
PRIME1 said:
They are slipping further and further towards being a bargain basement chip company. Launching a new series that is slower to than the old and skimping on image quality are just a few recent examples. It's a shame really. :mad:
Click to expand...

Stating that AMD is a (quote) "bargain basement chip company," and claiming that the 68xx series is slower than the cards they replace, when the previous mainstream cards for AMD were the 57xx series, isn't trolling? Particularly when you've been told countless times that the 69xx series is the replacement to the 58xx? Rigggghhhtttt...........

And no one (aside from major enthusiasts) really cares about this AF stuff.......It's just an incentive to accuse AMD of cheating. However, both companies have relied on questionable practices to further their agendas.
 
heflys20 said:
Stating that AMD is a (quote) "bargain basement chip company," and claiming that the 68xx series is slower than the cards they replace, when the previous mainstream cards for AMD were the 57xx series, isn't trolling? Particularly when you've been told countless times that the 69xx series is the replacement to the 58xx? Rigggghhhtttt...........
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First if the 68xx replaced the 57xx they would have called it the 67xx. Why did NVIDIA catch a ton of shit for their naming schemes and AMD gets a pat on the back?

And no one (aside from major enthusiasts) really cares about this AF stuff.......It's just an incentive to accuse AMD of cheating. However, both companies have relied on questionable practices to further their agendas.
Click to expand...

Actually only people who care about image quality and getting what they paid for are concerned about this issue.
 
PRIME1 said:
First if the 68xx replaced the 57xx they would have called it the 67xx. Why did NVIDIA catch a ton of shit for their naming schemes and AMD gets a pat on the back?



Actually only people who care about image quality and getting what they paid for are concerned about this issue.
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no one's giving AMD a pat on the back. we all find the current naming scheme of the 6k series retarded. while it makes sense its still retarded. but nvidia's naming scheme and rebranding of crap is on a whole different level.

and yet no ones actually concerned about this issue because theres still no major review site that can back up these guys assumptions about the AF so until that happens its still BS. if it was really a problem. im pretty damn sure Kyle or Brent would say something. they dont care who sends them the cards they typically call it as they see it. so seeing as how they didnt notice any problems im going to take the benefit of the doubt that what these guys came up with is bogus.
 
First if the 68xx replaced the 57xx they would have called it the 67xx. Why did NVIDIA catch a ton of shit for their naming schemes and AMD gets a pat on the back?
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Gee....Were you here a month or two ago? I'm certain you were, and are likely aware of people discussing the name change. BTW, the naming of these recent cards has nothing to do with your original statement. You've been told countless times and have even commented on topics with slides stating that these cards are AMD's mainstream replacements.

You need to work on your red herrings.

Actually only people who care about image quality and getting what they paid for are concerned about this issue.
Click to expand...

Funny, most of the people I see complaining in this topic own Nvidia products.
 
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