4870x2 8.54 drivers = Wow Performance in COD4!!!!

BigCactus

Gawd
Joined
Jul 2, 2008
Messages
743
If your having cod4 performance issues with vsync on try changing these lines in your single player and multiplayer cfg profiles. I went back to 8.9s again as they are indeed the best performers.

Change this setting:

seta com_maxfps "0"

to this:

seta com_maxfps "60"


Alright guys, I have finally solved the cod4 choppiness issue that I griped about in my "4870x2 dissapointment" thread. I can finally say with great relief that the problem was definitely bad drivers. I would behoove everyone that has a 4870x2...experiencing any kind of performance issues to use version 8.54 ASAP. Supposedly the 8.54 drivers are actually 8.9 betas...and if that is true...this is an excellent preview of what the 4870x2 is all about....and we have a lot to look forward to when the official 8.9 drivers come out. I'm definitely holding on to this thing now!

Note before I installed these drivers on vista 64...I made sure to install all the vista updates, chipset driver, etc. I also installed a Karma Bay cooler and a pci slot exhaust right below my 4870x2...I'll take pics later today. Not sure if these variables made any kind of impact on what I'm seeing...but I'm pretty sure it's the 8.54 driver version that made the difference.

Alright, you can download the 8.54 drivers here: 116mb version
http://rapidshare.com/files/138655128/Catalyst_8.54.rar

Or the huge version. Note I had success with this version, it's over 300mb in size
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=U7USVHPY

I found these links at rage3d.com here: Page 2 post #51..
http://rage3d.com/BOARD/showthread.php?t=33929301&page=2

Installing them was tricky, as I would constantly get errors. So here is what I did to successfully get them installed correctly on vista 64.

- Uninstall your current catalyst drivers through the usual way via control panel.
- Run Driver Sweeper
- Restart
- Extract the catalyst ver. 8.54 drivers
. Go to device manager...then click on display adapters...and right click on the "standard vga adapter" and click update drivers
- click browse my computer and browse through the driver folder...specifically Catalyst 8.54/Packages/Drivers/Display
- Then I believe you click next and it will ask you if you want to install the driver and click yes.
- It will prompt you to restart...so restart.
- Once back in windows...install the catalyst drivers as you normally would...clicking the setup icon.
- Choose custom install...and deselect unnecessary stuff like media center...all you really need is the display driver and CCC.

- After you restart, go to the CCC panel and click the information panel and you should see this:

854.jpg


I played cod4 after I did this and everything was not only smooth, it was crisp....and this was at a mere 3.06 OC on my Q6600. Just visually stunning....and definitely worth playing through the cod4 single player game again. Settings were at 1920x1200 4xaa/16xaf..everything maxed. I was very impressed, and I haven't seen this game this smooth since my 8800 ultra sli set up. I am also relieved as I was actually going to return this card tomorrow :p. I know Dan has the same issues as I do and I'm pretty sure that if he installs these drivers, he'll finally be able to get rid of his gtx280s...maybe :eek:. I would definitely recommend that everyone with a 4870x2 try these drivers out, and let me know how it goes :cool:. I am definitely a believer in the 4870x2.

More good news with these drivers. As I was making this post, I noticed that my idle temps with these drivers went down to 59c. It is a bit cool this morning though...just thought I'd throw this in there. Note that this is on auto mode...I made no adjustment to the .xml profile to manually speed up the fan.

idletempnew.jpg
 
Ok, guilty as charged, I rushed to judgement on this video card due to poor performance in my favorite game. Can we talk about these beta drivers now, lol.
 
lol honestly i rarely see a difference between beta drivers and official drivers. It is like AMD and Nvidia throw out these drivers that they label as beta and be like "Ok.....not too many people are having issues so lets just go with this as our official drivers" :p It honestly seems, at times, that both companies use us as guinea pigs for their "official" drivers.
 
Well I'm telling yah, if you own the 4870x2 these are the drivers to get. Power play is definitely functional obviously, as there is no way I would be ideling at 58-59c on auto fan control.
 
I need to try these with GRID. Currently it's unplayable, at least on the version I bought from Steam and with the 8.8 Official drivers. It slows down... and then the video catches up and I go crashing into a wall.. Very annoying. TF2 is fine though.
 
I have a different alternate method for installation which I find works as well:

Uninstall "custom" and select display and CCC. Don't reboot yet, but go into control panel > device manager> both populated 4870x2 > right click and uninstall remove drivers then reboot and install new ones. Use "custom" CCC and display only installation.
 
Well I'm telling yah, if you own the 4870x2 these are the drivers to get. Power play is definitely functional obviously, as there is no way I would be ideling at 58-59c on auto fan control.

Right after reboot I was idling at 83C after installing the drivers. What is power play exactly?:confused:
 
Whatever works for you man, let me know what your idle temps are at kadozer...make sure your fan settings are on auto BTW.
 
He also stopped his order of the GTX280 to get this. He changes his mind on what graphics card he wants by the hour.
 
Right after reboot I was idling at 83C after installing the drivers. What is power play exactly?:confused:

Hmmm...that's interesting. Did you look at the information panel to verify 8.54 drivers are installed. Also did your run driver sweeper...and manually delete your old profile folder. I also manually delete all the ati folders in the "program files" folder and the "program files x86) folders for good measure.
 
Ok, guilty as charged, I rushed to judgement on this video card due to poor performance in my favorite game. Can we talk about these beta drivers now, lol.

Awww, damn I was going to send you some adderall today just so you wouldn't go all ADD about your graphics cards and start 3 threads simultaneously about how your buying two different cards and returning two other cards back.
 
I told you it was drivers. (Classic I told you so moment. :D)

Congrats! I am glad you got it worked out. Going to do some benchmarking?
 
Alright, I'll run fraps, I've reinstalled vista quite a bit. I'm gonna have to work my way up to act 2...as that is the most demanding level and the only one really worth benching in cod4 imo.
 
Alright, I'll run fraps, I've reinstalled vista quite a bit. I'm gonna have to work my way up to act 2...as that is the most demanding level and the only one really worth benching in cod4 imo.

I hope you get banned again. You make ADHD kids like me look really, really bad.
You jump to conclusions and have the worst attempt at proper grammar I've seen in a long time.
 
I need to try these with GRID. Currently it's unplayable, at least on the version I bought from Steam and with the 8.8 Official drivers. It slows down... and then the video catches up and I go crashing into a wall.. Very annoying. TF2 is fine though.

I think i had the same issue. Sometimes it will just slow down making it very unplayable. I had this mainly with 8xAA turned on. Im on the 8.8 official too. Let me know if the driver works for you. I am out of town so I can't test myself =/
 
I was getting ~P13,700 in Vantage with video at stock clock. This is with a quad @ 3.4ghz. Glad you got it working. Mine so far is fine with the 8.8 betas but now I want to attempt the 8.9's :)
 
Alright, I'll run fraps, I've reinstalled vista quite a bit. I'm gonna have to work my way up to act 2...as that is the most demanding level and the only one really worth benching in cod4 imo.

Actually The Bog early in the game is supposed to be as demanding as anything in the game.
 
Random Screens of "The Bog". Tried to screen shot the most action fights and whenever I ran to the next section of the map.
Verdict: These drivers are the best so far.
Can confirm game play was much improved though by how much hard to quantify.
Min FPS stayed the same but average and max shot up. No hitches, Microstutter, choppiness unless the saving and loading is counted.




Edit:
resolution: 1920x1080
8.8 beta drivers posted here
Edge Detect 4x
Adaptive AA
Side note: Vantage score went down couple 100 points not really worth mentioning but noted. game play is what counts.

Random eyecandy pics:
 
Random Screens of "The Bog". Tried to screen shot the most action fights and whenever I ran to the next section of the map.
Verdict: These drivers are the best so far.
Can confirm game play was much improved though by how much hard to quantify.
Min FPS stayed the same but average and max shot up. No hitches, Microstutter, choppiness unless the saving and loading is counted.


You know you can press F11 in FRAPS and generate performance spreadsheets with min, max, and avg FPS numbers, that's the easiest way to do it I think.

What settings and resolution are these?
 
nice to hear the 8.54's worked for you. I've been using them for a couple of days already(4?) and its with those drivers i had my frame rate problems. At this rate ill probably return the card and get in december when i build my nehalem comp.
 
You know you can press F11 in FRAPS and generate performance spreadsheets with min, max, and avg FPS numbers, that's the easiest way to do it I think.

What settings and resolution are these?
Ok I'll try it out.
 
I found a quirk with these drivers: power play doesn't initialize upon boot. I found that I have to start a 3d app...and exit it before power play is able to kick in. When it does kick in though temps still go to 59c which is awesome.
 
I found a quirk with these drivers: power play doesn't initialize upon boot. I found that I have to start a 3d app...and exit it before power play is able to kick in.

anyspecific 3d app, and i usually alt tab to see the clocks and they kick in when ou get in game at the latest, just not in the menus. Anyway, these are the drivers i have problems with, but ill play through the bog mission right now at:

1280 x 1024
12x CFAA
16x AF
Quality Adaptive AA

All in game max

And use FRAPs to benchmark and come back and compare
 
Im running 8.8's on X64, and get the same FPS as you at

1920x1200 @ 8xaa 16xaf, and every option manually forced at very high quality.

Never drops below 35 FPS, and is usually 50+.

ill take some screenshots of the bog and my settings w/ FPS using fraps when I get home from work.
 
I installed these. The OP's method didn't seem to work so I just ran setup.

I have no anti aliasing options in CCC. I do have the option to turn on adaptive AA though. Everything else seems fine.

Noticed zero difference in COD4.
 
Random Screens of "The Bog". Tried to screen shot the most action fights and whenever I ran to the next section of the map.
Verdict: These drivers are the best so far.
Can confirm game play was much improved though by how much hard to quantify.
Min FPS stayed the same but average and max shot up. No hitches, Microstutter, choppiness unless the saving and loading is counted.
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Image quality is excellent. Good to see some confirmation that this driver is working with others. I did run through bog already then, and this video card pretty much laughs at that map with these drivers. It needs more of a challenge...run act 2 / sniper level. Or better yet start running 8xaa at 1920x1200.
 
I installed these. The OP's method didn't seem to work so I just ran setup.

I have no anti aliasing options in CCC. I do have the option to turn on adaptive AA though. Everything else seems fine.

Noticed zero difference in COD4.

Hmmm...did you download the small set of drivers or the large set of drivers? I tried installing the smaller file a few times and didn't have much success. I had success with the 300mb file though. I also made sure to manually go through and delete the profile folder, and the other ati folders in the "program files" folder and the "program files x86" folder. You also might want to try running driver sweeper in safe mode. Getting rid of all the old junk may be the key to success here.
 
The 8.54's don't have AA unless you have a modded INF.

The links that I put in my first post are links to the 8.54 drivers with the inf file already modded. If you go through that thread on rage3d, you'll see that the op eventually posted the 8.54 drivers with the modded inf already packed inside.
 
anyspecific 3d app, and i usually alt tab to see the clocks and they kick in when ou get in game at the latest, just not in the menus. Anyway, these are the drivers i have problems with, but ill play through the bog mission right now at:

1280 x 1024
12x CFAA
16x AF
Quality Adaptive AA

All in game max

And use FRAPs to benchmark and come back and compare

I only tried cod4 actually. I start single player, get to the menu, and exit the game. After you exit the game, watch the temps drop to the floor.
 
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