How much will drivers improve 6970?

[magoo]

See thats what I keep looking at. I see these specs and think where is all the performance? With the reviews all being all over the place on scores I am totally lost on what to believe. How immature are these drivers?? Has AMD made any comments?

I'm not a genius,nor a coder.
But if you use the 5870 as an example,this card was the hardware king until nvidia finally released the 480/580.

There was all kind of buzz about the "potential" since this thing had monster hardware.

Yes, it's a really good card, I had 4......and Eyefinity was/is awesome, but the card just had a ton of little issues that are still not fixed.

To wish on a star that the 6970 will magically get better than it is now (and it ain't bad now performance/price wise) is a bit too hopeful.

 

[reaper12]

That alone should be a warning sign. How do you release a card that doesn't have official drivers for it?.

What?? lol, Nvidia released the 480 without proper drivers!! It was only after that they released drivers that fully supported the 480/470. Even the 197.41 drivers that came out after the release didn't officially support the 470/480, even though they did improve performance.

there were huge gains in the 480 drivers from first release to now...so the 580 drivers are already pretty well optimized at launch which is a much better scenario then having to wait 7-8 months for it...which if ATI's previous track record holds should be the case with the 6970

plus to say that there won't be much more improvements with 580 drivers is silly...Nvidia's driver development people are much better then AMD's...Nvidia spent $2 million on Crysis 2 so I'm sure we will see some major improvements for that release and the countless other Nvidia sponsored games yet to be released

and there is an official driver for the 69xx series...the Catalyst 10.12a hotfix

Thanks, you just supported my arguments You do realise that the 4xx series and the 5xx series are essentially the same cards? ie Fermi. So they won't get massive increases in performance anymore from the 5xx because Nvidia already have, as you say, fully optimized them already. I am not saying there will be no more improvements, but it will only be for specific games and even then it won't be much.

Another reason you won't see massive increases in performance is because of the reasons you mentioned above, that Nvidia work very close with game companies. So games are released already optimized for use on Nivida cards.

Take Crysis, since you mention it so much, at first it ran way better on Nvidia cards, but, now in most situations it runs better on ATI cards. I would imagine Crysis 2 will come out fully optimized for Nvidia cards at launch, if it doesn't then it will have been such a waste of 2 million. So no I don't think there will be a big driver boost.

And seriously, are you really going to sit there and say that the 10.12a hotfix driver is an official driver? lol, come on, if it was a proper official driver it would be available on the download page on their website. So it isn't a proper driver its just a quick hotfix to add 69xx support while they work on releasing the proper 10.12 drivers.

 

[polonyc2]

Why is this bad?
Enlighten me please

wasn't Makedon one of their top driver guys?...plus he was so accessible via Twitter, Facebook etc for people to get in touch with him with any driver/GPU issue...he stated on his Twitter page that he wasn't sure if his replacement would be on Twitter etc as that was a personal choice he made...he's getting a promotion within AMD but it's a huge loss for their driver development team

 

[polonyc2]

What?? lol, Nvidia released the 480 without proper drivers!! It was only after that they released drivers that fully supported the 480/470. Even the 197.41 drivers that came out after the release didn't officially support the 470/480, even though they did improve performance.



Thanks, you just supported my arguments You do realise that the 4xx series and the 5xx series are essentially the same cards? ie Fermi. So they won't get massive increases in performance anymore from the 5xx because Nvidia already have, as you say, fully optimized them already. I am not saying there will be no more improvements, but it will only be for specific games and even then it won't be much.

Another reason you won't see massive increases in performance is because of the reasons you mentioned above, that Nvidia work very close with game companies. So games are released already optimized for use on Nivida cards.

Take Crysis, since you mention it so much, at first it ran way better on Nvidia cards, but, now in most situations it runs better on ATI cards. I would imagine Crysis 2 will come out fully optimized for Nvidia cards at launch, if it doesn't then it will have been such a waste of 2 million. So no I don't think there will be a big driver boost.

And seriously, are you really going to sit there and say that the 10.12a hotfix driver is an official driver? lol, come on, if it was a proper official driver it would be available on the download page on their website. So it isn't a proper driver its just a quick hotfix to add 69xx support while they work on releasing the proper 10.12 drivers.

there's no such thing as 'fully optimized'...if that was the case Nvidia woudn't bother releasing any more drivers for the 580...there are always optimizations to be had, whether for specific games or for general usage...the 580 is not the same card as the 480...yes it shares the same general architecture but it's a better version of that architecture...hence the power, noise etc reductions

I never mentioned Crysis...I mentioned Crysis 2...but both AMD/Nvidia should be able to run the first game pretty well now since it's been forever since that came out...I'm sure Crysis 2 will have 'special' drivers

to say that the 10.12a hotfix is not an official driver is silly times 100...if you need me to give you the link then you shouldn't be using a 69xx card...in fact a 9800 Pro would work best for you...AMD will not be releasing another 'proper 10.12 driver'...10.12 is what it is...other then hotfixes the next driver to appear on their 'main download page' will be Catalyst 11.1

 

[reaper12]

there's no such thing as 'fully optimized'...if that was the case Nvidia woudn't bother releasing any more drivers for the 580...there are always optimizations to be had, whether for specific games or for general usage...the 580 is not the same card as the 480...yes it shares the same general architecture but it's a better version of that architecture...hence the power, noise etc reductions

I never mentioned Crysis...I mentioned Crysis 2...but both AMD/Nvidia should be able to run the first game pretty well now since it's been forever since that came out...I'm sure Crysis 2 will have 'special' drivers

to say that the 10.12a hotfix is not an official driver is silly times 100...if you need me to give you the link then you shouldn't be using a 69xx card...in fact a 9800 Pro would work best for you

What, not only do you contradict yourself in your own posts you also make no damn sense and don't seem to have any logic at all.

10.12a isn't an official driver. Hotfixes are never official drivers, ffs. These drivers are also older than the 10.12 drivers available on the AMD website.

did you read anything I wrote at all? Read my post, in fact here is a quote read it again, because you missed it last time.

Nvidia already have, as you say, fully optimized them already. I am not saying there will be no more improvements, but it will only be for specific games and even then it won't be much.

You missed my point completely with Crysis, just like you missed all my points. AMD will make more gains in performance in some games because Nvidia work closely with a lot of game companies and games already come optimized for Nvidia hardware. I was using crysis as an example because you are expecting big performance improvements on the 5xx series when Crysis 2 is released. I am saying that is unlikely to happen. Remember The biggest improvement in performance in Crysis didn't come from Nvidia, it came from ATI.

And lastly, the 580/570 and 480/470 are the same cards, just the 5xx has a few improvements on transistor level and a vapour chamber cooler. It's the same Fermi architechture on both sets of cards. Can you not get this? The Nvidia driver team have been working on these cards since March.

 

[flip-mode]

AMD will make more gains in performance in some games because Nvidia work closely with a lot of game companies and games already come optimized for Nvidia hardware.

According to everything I've seen, that's a falsehood. The GTX 480 and 470 have seen substantial performance improvements from driver releases since launch.

Nvidia works with devs to get them to include Nvidia-specific features and perhaps sometimes to remove advantages for Radeons, but the technological foundation of the games is Direct 3D, so Gefroces stand to gain as much from driver improvements as do Radeons.

According to what I have seen, Nvidia squeezes more performance from drivers than AMD. AMD does good drivers, but I think Nvidia still has the edge.

 

[polonyc2]

10.12a isn't an official driver. Hotfixes are never official drivers, ffs. These drivers are also older than the 10.12 drivers available on the AMD website

you really don't know what you're talking about...a hotfix IS an official driver from AMD...just like a beta driver from ATI/Nvidia is still an official driver...an 'unofficial' driver would be if some dude from [H] forums wrote a driver and posted it on his site...to say that AMD does not endorse the 10.12a hotfix is just plain wrong

if as you say the 10.12a hotfix is older then the 10.12 drivers then how come the 10.12's do not support the 69xx series (as you were complaing about in an earlier post)?

as far as your incorrect gaming stats the poster before me gave you the answer

 

[jeremyshaw]

you really don't know what you're talking about...a hotfix IS an official driver from AMD...just like a beta driver from ATI/Nvidia is still an official driver...an 'unofficial' driver would be if some dude from [H] forums wrote a driver and posted it on his site...to say that AMD does not endorse the 10.12a hotfix is just plain wrong

if as you say the 10.12a hotfix is older then the 10.12 drivers then how come the 10.12's do not support the 69xx series (as you were complaing about in an earlier post)?

as far as your incorrect gaming stats the poster before me gave you the answer

The 10.12a do add support for the HD6900 series (officially) and eyefinity 5x1, however, the 3D driver (the actual driver, not the overall CCC package) version inside is older. It's from the 8.79 branch, instead of 10.12 WHQLs 8.80 branch. I dunno about the 2D driver (tile based games - 3D just means 3D world, not that stupid glasses thing).


Crazy, but true. o.0

 

[reaper12]

Yes they are older, they are driver version 8.79.6.2, and I think these are the drivers the reviewers used. The 10.12 available on the AMD wesite are 8.801. And by officially supported drivers I don't mean betas or hotfixes.

Several people in this thread have already tried to explain to you that there won't be be major performance increases in the 5xx series of cards. And what has flip-mode said to support your argument? I have said several time to you already that the 480 and 470 have received good performance improvements from drivers since launch.

I have given you a specific example of a game, Crysis, which was a nvidia game that started out with Nvidia hammering ATI cards in benchmarks, but within 6 months the ATI cards were doing better. So who made the most performance gains?

And again I am not saying that Nvidia won't make some tweaks and performance increases. I am saying that AMD will make larger improvements with Cayman than Nvidia will make with Fermi.

 

[x3sphere]

I am saying that AMD will make larger improvements with Cayman than Nvidia will make with Fermi.

Time will tell, but I have a feeling this is the case as well. Mainly due to the fact that the VLIW4 design is a massive change. Either way I am happy with the 6970's performance right now. If it gets better then that's icing on the cake.

 

[Raap]

Definitely. A general performance increase( not just game-specific), large or small, is very likely. But it really is icing on the cake, and shouldn't really be part of anyone's buying decision.

 

[kllrnohj]

the 580 is not the same card as the 480...yes it shares the same general architecture but it's a better version of that architecture...hence the power, noise etc reductions

The architecture is for all intents and purposes completely unchanged. Nvidia fixed the manufacturing design flaw that caused the 480's terribly power problems, it wasn't an architectural problem. The 580 did get a few new tricks (key word there is "few"), but those all appeared first with the 460, so they still aren't "new".

 

[NKD]

I'll say it again...$2 million....Crysis 2...don't think there will be a big driver boost?
even more bad news...this is starting to get really bad for AMD

what is so bad about it, one guy leaving his post constitutes to something bad happening. May be it is happening for the opposite reason.

Do you have any idea why companies sponsor a game. They dont pay 2 million to make them run crappy on competition cards. I dont know why you think 2 million has anything to do with driver boost. If anything they would have good performance from the day of the release. I always said that with new games you will see improvements from both teams, its a totally different thing for a new architecture and older games. I just think that you hate amd sorry, why do you think a guy leaving his post mean anything for the future of AMD. Your arguements are typical of a fanboy. Yea I have Gtx 480 in my system.