ATI produce tool to increase Doom3 scores

tornadotsunamilife · Oct 13, 2005

I can see why they invested so much into the new memory architecture

Ingonuts13 · Oct 13, 2005

If they can do this with D3 the I would like to see it possible for other games as well. The Memory controller architecture being so new probably has a lot to do with the drivers laggin behind in optimizations. This definitely could turn the tide in ATI's favor over the next few months if these "tweaks" prove to be possible.

FrgMstr · Oct 13, 2005

I wonder how long ago Joe Macri saw this vision? And I wonder how much of his implementation was key in their production hold ups, if any? Somebody go interview him!

FrgMstr · Oct 13, 2005

Erasmus354 said:
I thought that was your job?

Hehe, I was hoping Brent is listening.

Mabrito · Oct 13, 2005

Ingonuts13 said:
If they can do this with D3 the I would like to see it possible for other games as well. The Memory controller architecture being so new probably has a lot to do with the drivers laggin behind in optimizations. This definitely could turn the tide in ATI's favor over the next few months if these "tweaks" prove to be possible.

I would agree with this. It seems like ATI has alot of things up there sleeves. Rumor has it that Adaptive AA will be supported by there future drivers for the X800 series soon. Whenever they finish re-doing there Open GL drivers and release those, im sure that will proove to be some interesting results. Cant wait for next months and the months after that driver releases, and sees what ATI will bring to the table.

FrgMstr · Oct 13, 2005

It seems to me that there is ALWAYS a rumor about someone with something up their sleeve. It is just whether or not, in this instance, ATI can execute. Execution has been their one pittfall for a while now. I think certainly they have a black eye from it now and are fully aware that our community expects great things from them.

Moofasa~ · Oct 13, 2005

It gets better and better...

sireric said:
This is independent (completely) of D3D -- D3D has a different driver and different MC settings systems. Though, there are lots of D3D improvements coming up too...

Very interesting...

jebo_4jc · Oct 13, 2005

AtomicMoose said:
It would behove them to not make claims they can not keep. Between that and paper launches...

I think it's "behoove" but I could be wrong.

BTW welcome, Moose to the VC forum of death and destruction . j/k. But I am glad to see the recent changes---they make a lot of sense to me, and I hope we can have more civilized discussions and not have to sift through 15 pages of flames just to find one or two intelligent posts.

I suppose these driver optimizations should really come as no surprise.
First, ATi obviously had to push this gen of hardware out the door as quickly as they possibly could since they were already way way way behind the game. It would make sense that there is room to better fit the software with the hardware. Come to think of it, I'm actually surprised the x1k's aren't suffering from more compatibility issues, since I'm sure the time spent during testing was less than usual.

Second, I got the impression ATi specifically designed the R5xx to be more flexible. If this is the case, and if there really is a light at the end of the R520 tunnel, the most interesting thing to see will be how quickly they can get the driver optimizations out the door so that their (I'll call it) "on-par" performance doesn't hurt their sales too badly. ATM, I don't think anybody is questioning the fact that nVidia is a much better buy for your dollar (and that doesn't even touch on availability issues of the x1600 and x1800xt).

Brackle · Oct 13, 2005

wow just wow......reminds me of when AMD kept delaying there A64 chips because they kept tweaking with their memory controller......Props to ATI

isnt technology great

LyCoS · Oct 13, 2005

Ingonuts13 said:
I agree completely. Part of successfully selling a product is proper marketing/hypeing as to what may or may not be possible on said platform, especially when it comes to us geeks at the [H]. If they continue to "over hype" and under deliver well then we probably won't be buying many of their products in the future.

The other question I have to go along with this is: "WTF is Nvidia going to pull out of their ass to counter such a move on ATI's part?" Do they have some double secret gizmo on their current 7800 series that we don't know about that can improve performance on par with ATI?

latest rumours sugest a 90nm 7800gtx + 512 of ram, not necessarily 32 pipes, but higher clocked...

seems that even that can't help, the 7800gtx doesnt seem to scale that well when you add a few Mhz... the x1800 on the other hand are very Mhz hungry, and very memory bw hungry... and scale very well... and this is just the begining of the driver tuning, the 7800 architecture is a tweaked 6800, which has been out for 18 months, the drivers can be considered almost completly polished...

Dan_D · Oct 13, 2005

LyCoS said:
latest rumours sugest a 90nm 7800gtx + 512 of ram, not necessarily 32 pipes, but higher clocked...

seems that even that can't help, the 7800gtx doesnt seem to scale that well when you add a few Mhz... the x1800 on the other hand are very Mhz hungry, and very memory bw hungry... and scale very well... and this is just the begining of the driver tuning, the 7800 architecture is a tweaked 6800, which has been out for 18 months, the drivers can be considered almost completly polished...

It's a little more than a tuned 6800. The pipelines do alot more per clock cycle than they did with the 6800 series cards.

FrgMstr · Oct 13, 2005

Ingonuts13 said:
The other question I have to go along with this is: "WTF is Nvidia going to pull out of their ass to counter such a move on ATI's part?" Do they have some double secret gizmo on their current 7800 series that we don't know about that can improve performance on par with ATI?

I don't really think NVIDIA is in a situation to have to do anything. ATI is yet to fully execute their launch from last week. We have yet to see much anything in the ways of true stock. X1300 still not there. Bascially just a few have X1800XL and the sales numbers do not seem to be anything stellar. ATI has begun to execute on their latest promises, but I have yet to see them all fulfilled. Of course, they are doing much better than they were with CrossFire, but that is not saying much.

{NG}Fidel · Oct 13, 2005

^Still its not much new at all.
As are the X8x0s not much more than 9700s or 9800s.
The pipe lines were improved but other than that and clock speed not much else has been worked on (Hardware Wise.

OldBoy · Oct 13, 2005

Lazy_Moron said:
I would agree with this. It seems like ATI has alot of things up there sleeves. Rumor has it that Adaptive AA will be supported by there future drivers for the X800 series soon.

It's not a rumor; it's been possible for weeks now. You can either hack it manually or just do the easy thing and download ATI Tray Tools and use the option there.

OldBoy · Oct 13, 2005

Sir-Fragalot said:
Agreed, I think ATi has to deliver a product first to the masses. The ATi X800XT-PE was faster than the 6800 Ultra, however you could get a 6800 card almost anywhere, for the longest time there were no X800XT-PE's to be found. When you did find them, they were at a huge price premium.

Point is valid but then again it depended on where you looked. As long as you were willing to call around there were always XT PEs in the pipeline, just not that many. Personally, I got a hold of 15 in the six months after launch so for me I never had any problems getting some although I had to typically pay about $0-$50 over MSRP depending on supplier. Point is that the X800 XT PE wasn't a paper launch like Crossfire, it was just not a launch with an abundance of cards. Coupled with high demand people got the mistaken impression that it was a "paper" launch.

Nasty_Savage · Oct 13, 2005

If ATI can pull this off, I may rethink going back to nVidia in my next overhaul. If they can squeeze more power out of the x800 Pro and fix their crappy, albeit vastly improved from yesteryear, drivers...and give this card more value...i will be pleased. I wound up getting the x800 Pro because of the supply problems and whatnot. I just could not wait any longer and I had the money and an itchy trigger finger on my Credit Card. Gotta fix that then supply route too ATI....but my antennae are protruding. Just don't drop the ball.

Dan_D · Oct 13, 2005

The thing I want to see is nVidia and ATi unlocking their drivers so that you can do Crossfire or SLi on any motherboard with two x8 or x16 PCI-E slots.

Because if ATi comes out with a killer card that rapes nVidia's I can't go to their cards because at this point and time there is no dual Opteron ATi chipset. Even if there was, it would have to have a solid feature set that can be used to create a board that is equal to my Tyan K8WE or better.

bigpspender · Oct 13, 2005

Rori said:
It's a 9700Pro and yes it works just fine for old school CS which is what I play. I think you are a little optimistic though with the 200fps. With everything on, it hovers around 60 with occasional dips into the 20s. With everything off, it stays mostly in the 90s with occasional forays into the 50s.
edit - After reading that, I thought I better qualify. That's at 12x10 on an XP 1800+.

Mate have you tried installing the Ati Catalyst drivers? I used to get a better (constant 60fps) frame rate on my old celeron700 with a 32mb geforce 1 ! at the same res too.

Either that or change your CS to run from OpenGl instead of direct 3d. hl1 is a better ogl app.

101 · Oct 13, 2005

Sir-Fragalot said:
The thing I want to see is nVidia and ATi unlocking their drivers so that you can do Crossfire or SLi on any motherboard with two x8 or x16 PCI-E slots.

Because if ATi comes out with a killer card that rapes nVidia's I can't go to their cards because at this point and time there is no dual Opteron ATi chipset. Even if there was, it would have to have a solid feature set that can be used to create a board that is equal to my Tyan K8WE or better.

This whole platform specific motherboard bullshit has to end now. There is no legitimate reason that each competitors dual card solution cannot run on any dual slot motherboard. If the childish crap doesn't end now they will both be shooting each other in the foot eventually, albeit ati sooner than nvidia given the install base of SLI.

My productivity box has a K8WE in it, and for platform compatability alone, I would be sticking with NF4 for my upcoming game box if AFR Vsync had a chance in hell of being fixed (keep your empty driver promises to yourself). As it stands, I'll end up with a crossfire solution and videocards I can't migrate together to another platform when the time comes.

Don't turn computers into proprietary locked down shit. Consumers need choices, compatible choices. If you don't understand that, extrapolate the videocard battle into an ingrained motherboard war with consumers unwilling to jump ship even more than they are now. The end result is it becomes significantly more expensive to change vendors than it is to upgrade within the same supplier. If this becomes the case, there is no positive outcome for the discriminating consumer.

OldBoy · Oct 13, 2005

101 said:
This whole platform specific motherboard bullshit has to end now. There is no legitimate reason that each competitors cards cannot run on any dual slot motherboard. If the childish crap doesn't end now they will both be shooting each other in the foot eventually, albeit ati sooner than nvidia given the install base of SLI.

My productivity box has a K8WE in it, and I would be sticking with NF4 for my upcoming game box if AFR Vsync had a chance in hell of being fixed (keep your empty driver promises to yourself). As it stands, I'll end up with a crossfire solution and videocards I can't migrate together to another platform when the time comes.

Don't turn computers into proprietary locked down shit. Consumers need choices, compatible choices. If you don't understand that, extrapolate the videocard battle into an ingrained motherboard war with consumers unwilling to jump ship even more than they are now. The end result is it is significantly more expensive to change vendors than it is to upgrade within the same supplier. If this becomes the case, there is no positive outcome for the discriminating consumer.

Well, if you go Intel you just pick up a 955X chipset and you're set for both.

Ingonuts13 · Oct 13, 2005

Sir-Fragalot said:
Agreed, I think ATi has to deliver a product first to the masses. The ATi X800XT-PE was faster than the 6800 Ultra, however you could get a 6800 card almost anywhere, for the longest time there were no X800XT-PE's to be found. When you did find them, they were at a huge price premium.

That is exactly why last year I had to buy a 6800Ultra. There were no 850XTPE's available for purchase anywhere and it looks to be the same for me again this year. Iv'e been holding out for a month now to see how this crossfire thing would work out. That I am dissapointed in the availability again is an understatement.

Dan_D · Oct 13, 2005

101 said:
This whole platform specific motherboard bullshit has to end now. There is no legitimate reason that each competitors dual card solution cannot run on any dual slot motherboard. If the childish crap doesn't end now they will both be shooting each other in the foot eventually, albeit ati sooner than nvidia given the install base of SLI.

My productivity box has a K8WE in it, and for platform compatability alone, I would be sticking with NF4 for my upcoming game box if AFR Vsync had a chance in hell of being fixed (keep your empty driver promises to yourself). As it stands, I'll end up with a crossfire solution and videocards I can't migrate together to another platform when the time comes.

Don't turn computers into proprietary locked down shit. Consumers need choices, compatible choices. If you don't understand that, extrapolate the videocard battle into an ingrained motherboard war with consumers unwilling to jump ship even more than they are now. The end result is it becomes significantly more expensive to change vendors than it is to upgrade within the same supplier. If this becomes the case, there is no positive outcome for the discriminating consumer.

Well there is good news on this front. Intel of all companies has our backs. (They do more often than most people realize) They want to get ATi and nVidia to unlock their drivers so that the new Intel chipsets can be certified. Intel's got more money than ATi and nVidia do and they aren't afraid to squeeze them into submission. They don't want them muscling in on their chipset business. Intel will be damned if they'll allow someone to release chipsets with kickass features they can't have for their own chipsets. They'll put an end to that crap quick. Hopefully that will help us out on the AMD side.

Intel doesn't like to be muscled.

101 · Oct 13, 2005

Sir-Fragalot said:
Well there is good news on this front. Intel of all companies has our backs. (They do more often than most people realize) They want to get ATi and nVidia to unlock their drivers so that the new Intel chipsets can be certified. Intel's got more money than ATi and nVidia do and they aren't afraid to squeeze them into submission. They don't want them muscling in on their chipset business. Intel will be damned if they'll allow someone to release chipsets with kickass features they can't have for their own chipsets. They'll put an end to that crap quick. Hopefully that will help us out on the AMD side.

Intel doesn't like to be muscled.

I hear you, but no one that actually cares about performance has bought an intel chip in a couple years, and there's no hope in sight on intel's roadmap until calendar '07. Perhaps if Dell could demonstrate a mindless market for the multi-licensed chipsets AMD would follow (law)suit.

It's hard to express the joy that a nice dual opteron box brings tho, one of the few platforms that really delivers that I have owned over the years. My K8WE would sure make a nice home for some retired r520s in 18 months.

EDIT: "a couple years" might be a little long, refering to the i875/i865, socket 478 hay day from about 18+ months ago (I have two of these boxes myself). Before the Prescott dark ages.

zone_86 · Oct 13, 2005

Intel will likely make a comback though. It's nearly inevitable with the amount of money and R$D thay have. They could buy nVIDA outright.

Commander Suzdal · Oct 13, 2005

Between this ATI news and the design of Creative's X-Fi, it's starting to look like ring architectures are the wave of tomorrow. Crossbar controllers were a big leap, now this. Hopefully all companies can capitalize on the advantages relatively quickly. Wonder if it's too late for G80 to incorporate a ring controller design, or if it already has one?

Terpfen · Oct 14, 2005

I skimmed the thread, but didn't see anything related to my question, so I'll ask here:

What's the word on performance improvement on low-end cards? I've got a Mobility Radeon X300. Just how much should I care about this?

OldBoy · Oct 14, 2005

Terpfen said:
I skimmed the thread, but didn't see anything related to my question, so I'll ask here:

What's the word on performance improvement on low-end cards? I've got a Mobility Radeon X300. Just how much should I care about this?

Anything not x1x00 has no relation to this atm.

Eej · Oct 14, 2005

That's one hell of a skim read, 'cause it's been mentioned a few times that it only applies to R5xx. Fancy new hardware and all.

Terpfen · Oct 14, 2005

Eej said:
That's one hell of a skim read, 'cause it's been mentioned a few times that it only applies to R5xx. Fancy new hardware and all.

The discussion was about the effects of the tweak on R5XX hardware, which is different from being a declaration that the tweak works ONLY on R5XX hardware.

OldBoy · Oct 14, 2005

Terpfen said:
The discussion was about the effects of the tweak on R5XX hardware, which is different from being a declaration that the tweak works ONLY on R5XX hardware.

Well, considering they're tweaking a particular feature only found on x1x00 cards it's safe to say that even if they tweak some memory settings on the x800 series it'll get nowhere near the boost seen by the x1x00 series and possibly only the x1800 parts will even show such huge performance gains.

jebo_4jc · Oct 14, 2005

I think a few ppl have mentioned that there might be benefits seen in the drivers for R4xx cards, but I'm not holding my breath. It's the R5xx architecture that is really benefitting here.

Trimlock · Oct 14, 2005

the tweak they applied here was for the R5XX and the new MC

they said they could get gains with the R4XX, but they would not be able to get as noticable amount as they will be able to with the MC on the R5XX, what this is pointing out is the flexibility ATI has now with their current architecture

still would be nice if they showed a little bit of luvin to the R4XXs

zone_86 · Oct 14, 2005

101 said:
This whole platform specific motherboard bullshit has to end now. There is no legitimate reason that each competitors dual card solution cannot run on any dual slot motherboard. If the childish crap doesn't end now they will both be shooting each other in the foot eventually, albeit ati sooner than nvidia given the install base of SLI.

My productivity box has a K8WE in it, and for platform compatability alone, I would be sticking with NF4 for my upcoming game box if AFR Vsync had a chance in hell of being fixed (keep your empty driver promises to yourself). As it stands, I'll end up with a crossfire solution and videocards I can't migrate together to another platform when the time comes.

Don't turn computers into proprietary locked down shit. Consumers need choices, compatible choices. If you don't understand that, extrapolate the videocard battle into an ingrained motherboard war with consumers unwilling to jump ship even more than they are now. The end result is it becomes significantly more expensive to change vendors than it is to upgrade within the same supplier. If this becomes the case, there is no positive outcome for the discriminating consumer.

Very well put. My sentiments are the same.

RooK · Oct 14, 2005

in the past i've said that ati and nvid were both guilty of leaving their drivers unoptimised until they needed a slight boost to compete with 'whatever'

now that ATI's latest card offering is out, and it really doesn't do as much as nvid's, are they "unlocking" some driver features to compete and make their cards more attractive?

I have an ATI card in my rig right now, so don't think i'm bashing - its just that I have seen this happen (especially with ATI) so many times that its beginning to become old news...

I can just see the executives sitting around the tables

CEO - So we are really taking it hard right now - our cards are not doing as well as hoped.
CFO - can we charge more and make people think they are better becuase they are pricey?
Software Lead - no, that wouldn't work. The [H] would smack us down with benchmarks
CEO - can we add a chocolate candy bar in the box... people like snikers!
CEO - oh wait... I ate all of them. Any more ideas?
BOFH - i've got some C4... want me to head to nvidia's headquarters?
Software Lead - too violent - wait... I just remembered that we havn't unlocked the doom3 tweak. Not only will it raise some eyebrows and give people hope that our cards are as good as nvids, but it will also make people think our driver dev team is really on the ball.
CEO - i'm hungry... anyone got some snikers?
CFO - no
Software lead - no
BOFH - i've got one with stricnine I was saving for the PFY
CEO - ah screw it... lets go with the driver idea, i'm starving.

Also, on a side note, there is already a program out there called "ATITool" that is good for overclocking and such, and I can already see about 10,000 people googling for ATI TOOL and getting a program that will not give them stupendous increases.

Spank · Oct 14, 2005

RooK said:
in the past i've said that ati and nvid were both guilty of leaving their drivers unoptimised until they needed a slight boost to compete with 'whatever'

now that ATI's latest card offering is out, and it really doesn't do as much as nvid's, are they "unlocking" some driver features to compete and make their cards more attractive?

If ati had this tweak available when they sent out cards to reviewers they would have included it in the driver. I doubt they had to wait for the reviews on the net to figure out that they where behind in d3.

RooK · Oct 14, 2005

Spank said:
If ati had this tweak available when they sent out cards to reviewers they would have included it in the driver. I doubt they had to wait for the reviews on the net to figure out that they where behind in d3.

You are probably right... I was making an attempt to be humorous... Anyways, from the looks of it, R4xx users won't benfit much anyways.

Trimlock · Oct 14, 2005

the R4XX users won't benefit much from the MC tweaking, but they could benefit from the openGL rewrite ATI is doing right now

OldBoy · Oct 14, 2005

Trimlock said:
the R4XX users won't benefit much from the MC tweaking, but they could benefit from the openGL rewrite ATI is doing right now

That's of course assuming they *ever* finish it. They've been promising the rewrite for what seems like years now.

jellyhead · Oct 15, 2005

RooK said:
You are probably right... I was making an attempt to be humorous....

I laughed

Devnull · Oct 15, 2005

My 9800 Pro ran doom3 well and my X800XT PE ran it flawlessly, not like the performance is poor as it stands... Any inprovement is good though.

ATI produce tool to increase Doom3 scores

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