What does catalyst A.I. do

[rcf1987]

I can set it to standard or high or disable it, what does it do?

 

[n64man120]

i believe it optimizes some settings for a little extra performance boost, possibly adding a bit more cpu load... but not positive

 

[Brent_Justice]

it is the filtering optimizations

standard does standard optimizations, high is more agressive but can use more cpu

disabling it disables all filtering optimizations

 

[browndwarf79]

Thank you. Been wondering the same thing.
High it is.

 

[burningrave101]

disabling it disables all filtering optimizations

Eh, it disables most of them but it certainly doesn't disable all of the optimizations. I forget exactly what it doesn't disable but if it did disable ALL of the optimizations then ATI's benchmark performance would be much lower then it is as compared to tests where they manually hacked the drivers to fully disable all optimizations.

Here is some info on Catalyst A.I.

http://www.elitebastards.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=6931

 

[Tripp17]

Everyone is right, i will say this though......ive had both 6800GT(i flashed it to 6800ultra speeds) and now i have a X850 XT and when it comes to driver optimizations, ATI wins hands down. They both use them alot this round, but ATI uses them less and it shows. When you set the drivers on Nvidia cards to no optimizations, you still get alot, granted its less and most people wont be able to tell, but without the optimizations Nvidia would really be behind ATI. ATI on the other hand isnt completly free of optimizations either, but when you set the drivers to no optimizations, there are ALOT less then Nvidias "no optimizations" setting. In a real benchmarking test where both cards couldnt use ANY optimizations, ATI would really look good. Id say ATI would lose almost 1,000 points in 3dmark where Nvidia would lose close to 2,000-2,500. They heavily depend on the optimizations in there drivers, and i think ATI had enough of looking like they were inferior and followed suite. Most people who buy these cards will have no idea what they look like or care, and if thats the main factor, then you go for who ever has the better scores when deciding a particular card. I didnt know untill i had both to compare to. The Nvidia drivers are down right ugly, where as with ATI, you can make them just as ugly, but are not limited to that, you CAN make it with "almost" no optimizations. Nvidia......forget it, even at the best settings, they are LOADED with optimizations and if you dont use them(i.e. driver hacks)then you will lose major performance. An example would be you use 4xaa and 8x af in UT2004, without all the driver optimizations, you can almost cut those in half in order to keep silky smooth game play. Where as ATI, you will gain, but you dont lose as much.

 

[Andrew_Carr]

What's wrong with optimizing drivers for games? Guess once upping the hardware becomes such a pain, working with the software provides more benefits. But as long as it keeps performance going up, I don't see a problem

 

[Brent_Justice]

the problem becomes when those optimizations start reducing image quality in order to gain that performance

it is this sacrifice of image quality over performance that is the crux of this debate

 

[burningrave101]

Everyone is right, i will say this though......ive had both 6800GT(i flashed it to 6800ultra speeds) and now i have a X850 XT and when it comes to driver optimizations, ATI wins hands down. They both use them alot this round, but ATI uses them less and it shows. When you set the drivers on Nvidia cards to no optimizations, you still get alot, granted its less and most people wont be able to tell, but without the optimizations Nvidia would really be behind ATI. ATI on the other hand isnt completly free of optimizations either, but when you set the drivers to no optimizations, there are ALOT less then Nvidias "no optimizations" setting. In a real benchmarking test where both cards couldnt use ANY optimizations, ATI would really look good. Id say ATI would lose almost 1,000 points in 3dmark where Nvidia would lose close to 2,000-2,500. They heavily depend on the optimizations in there drivers, and i think ATI had enough of looking like they were inferior and followed suite. Most people who buy these cards will have no idea what they look like or care, and if thats the main factor, then you go for who ever has the better scores when deciding a particular card. I didnt know untill i had both to compare to. The Nvidia drivers are down right ugly, where as with ATI, you can make them just as ugly, but are not limited to that, you CAN make it with "almost" no optimizations. Nvidia......forget it, even at the best settings, they are LOADED with optimizations and if you dont use them(i.e. driver hacks)then you will lose major performance. An example would be you use 4xaa and 8x af in UT2004, without all the driver optimizations, you can almost cut those in half in order to keep silky smooth game play. Where as ATI, you will gain, but you dont lose as much.

You've got it totally backwards dude. When you disable all of the optimizations in the nVidia drivers it actually disables them ALL included AF ops. This is why there is a bigger performance hit than what you see on ATI cards. ATI however does not allow you to disable ALL of the ops through the AI function. Anisotropic Filtering optimizations are still fully enabled.

ATI optimizes out the ying yang and thats why they got pulled on it by several major sites includeing Tech Report and Tomshardware last year because ATI was telling everyone they used full Trilinear filtering which they never have with the R300 or R400 cores. The way it worked was the drivers could detect when you were testing for driver optimizations and it would disable them.

http://techreport.com/etc/2004q2/filtering/index.x?pg=1

If you will dig around and find one of those reviews where i believe this German site manually disabled all the opts through a console command or driver hack and look at the massive FPS drops you'll see what i'm talking about.

ATI lives off of optimizations, especially AF ops. But as long as there isn't noticeable IQ differences then i dont have a problem with it because it does help improve performance alot.

IQ has been compared between the NV40's and X800's on multiple occassions and outside of driver bugs there is no noticeable IQ difference. ATI does offer a little better AA quality though but nVidia offers a greater number of AA options.

 

[Mac[X-D]]

i ran some quick tests on my X850XL PE

off 3dmark 05 5850 - standard 5955 - on 5964 using the 5.3 cats, with the 5.1 cats i used to get 5980+ but its no biggy to me. i never tried any actual game play though.

Mac.

 

[Jbirney]

ATI optimizes out the ying yang and thats why they called pulled on it by several major sites includeing Tech Report and Tomshardware last year because ATI was telling everyone they used full Trilinear filtering which they never have with the R300 or R400 cores. The way it worked was the drivers could detect when you were testing for driver optimizations and it would disable them.

Not to split hairs, but your facts are not right when you say R300 cores, as the 9700/9800 do full trilinear. Its the ones based off the 9600 and upwards that do not. And no one noticed it when it first showed up on the 9600 cores..it was not till 6/7 months later.. But yea would be nice to get full tri on newer ati cards...

If you will dig around and find one of those reviews where i believe this German site manually disabled all the opts through a console command or driver hack and look at the massive FPS drops you'll see what i'm talking about.

The only problem is we really dont know what else they turned off. Shure they turned off the filtering ops, but whos to say that another valid op was not shut off in the process? I am not saying that the site was wrong. Just they did not design the card so they really dont know ALL of the inner workings of what is going on inside it...

 

[burningrave101]

Not to split hairs, but your facts are not right when you say R300 cores, as the 9700/9800 do full trilinear. Its the ones based off the 9600 and upwards that do not. And no one noticed it when it first showed up on the 9600 cores..it was not till 6/7 months later.. But yea would be nice to get full tri on newer ati cards...

So your trying to tell me that ATI uses optimizations for the more powerful X800 cores and the 9600's but not the 9700/9800's? Yea right dude. Link me to proof.

The only problem is we really dont know what else they turned off. Shure they turned off the filtering ops, but whos to say that another valid op was not shut off in the process?

There is no such thing as a "valid" optimization. When you disable optimizations its suppost to disable everything. Not just some of them. An optimization is something that improves performance by sacrificing something else. Those who are not die hard ATI fans can attest to the fact that you get better AF quality through enabling it in-game instead of through the console because through the console AF is applied the way ATI wants it and it has been further optimized to improve performance. If you enable it in-game then you get the AF applied like the game developer wanted it.

 

[spine]

So your trying to tell me that ATI uses optimizations for the more powerful X800 cores and the 9600's but not the 9700/9800's? Yea right dude. Link me to proof.

As I understand it; the newer cores have stuff in hardware allowing further optimisations where the older cores don't. The newer cores could do it like the older cores (which is, so people say, better) but since they have the capability of the optimisation, ATI force it on in the drivers.

Fair enough. I doubt it really makes a difference.

 

[arentol]

So your trying to tell me that ATI uses optimizations for the more powerful X800 cores and the 9600's but not the 9700/9800's? Yea right dude. Link me to proof.

http://techreport.com/onearticle.x/6739

Last line mentions that in addition to having this filtering technique on the x800, it's also been on the 9600 for over a year (since it came out in other words), and earlier in the article it mentions the differences can be seen when comparing x800's to 9800XT's.

http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=15971

Same thing here. States 9800's don't have the optimizations and X800's and 9600's do.

 

[Jbirney]

So your trying to tell me that ATI uses optimizations for the more powerful X800 cores and the 9600's but not the 9700/9800's? Yea right dude. Link me to proof.

See arentol's post above for the proof. I could link others but I guess one is enough. Enjoy

There is no such thing as a "valid" optimization. When you disable optimizations its suppost to disable everything. Not just some of them. An optimization is something that improves performance by sacrificing something else. Those who are not die hard ATI fans can attest to the fact that you get better AF quality through enabling it in-game instead of through the console because through the console AF is applied the way ATI wants it and it has been further optimized to improve performance. If you enable it in-game then you get the AF applied like the game developer wanted it.

I guess I took your post out of context. I thought you were refrerring to the drop was just caused by AF optimizations in the filtering stanges. I was trying to point out that there are other forums of optimizations that may have very little effect on the IQ (and thus are probably more "valid") and those could be turn off which helps to explain the FPS drop (shader replacement is one example). Again they are forcing off stuff and they probably don't know the interactions inside the card. I was just trying not through caution to the wind here....

 

[burningrave101]

http://techreport.com/onearticle.x/6739

Last line mentions that in addition to having this filtering technique on the x800, it's also been on the 9600 for over a year (since it came out in other words), and earlier in the article it mentions the differences can be seen when comparing x800's to 9800XT's.

http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=15971

Same thing here. States 9800's don't have the optimizations and X800's and 9600's do.

Interesting. Does that still mean the the 9700/9800 do full Trilinear filtering? What about AF optimizations?

You can see pictures compared between the X800Pro and 9800XT here:

http://translate.google.com/transla...air=de|en&hl=de&ie=UTF-8&prev=/language_tools

 

[Jbirney]

Interesting. Does that still mean the the 9700/9800 do full Trilinear filtering? What about AF optimizations?

IIRC yes...will try to dig up links later tonight (bussy atm, but if anyone wants to beat me to it..)

 

[Tripp17]

I dont want a war, and most likely i wont be back to check anyones replys, but i had both cards(6800GT PCIe @ 430/1200, and X850 XT @ 550/1200) and YES.....you can turn off the opts for the Nvidia cards, but even when they say they are all off, they arent at all. In fact, its very easy to see them. ATI on the other hand has them too but when you turn them off(yes, you can turn them off but you need the cat control center to do it) there are NONE. With Nvidia, they say there arent, but trust me, there are. Its one of the main reasons i got rid of my 6800GT, i couldnt take the opts, and if i disabled them, i couldnt play my games with 4xaa and 8xaf like i wanted to. SO i go to ATI and get a BBA X850 XT(yes, they did make some) and when i loaded the drivers for the card, i was amazed that even though i turned off the opts, they too were still present. So i tried the control center cats, and that did the trick. They are off untill you use "catalyst AI", as long as the catalyst AI is off, so are the opts and you cant see them at all. Nvidia on the other hand even when off, there just not as bad as when on...lol. It was pretty bad. All the opts im talking about were AF opts and were very easy to pick up on. I hate it when people tell me i have things "backwards" when i know what im talking about. I read the articles, i know what was said, but i HAD both cards and did my own testing, and i know what i saw....so much in fact that i sold my 6800GT, never to go back to Nvidia again. I tried Nvidia when the 5900Ultra came out and it was a MAJOR dissapointment, got a 9800pro......then went to the 6800GT and flashed it to a ultra and the opts were so bad i couldnt take it, even with them off they were still that bad. All the reviewers who did there articles did so with the regular cats that you cant disable the opts( just like the Nvidia cards), but when going to the control cats, that made all the difference, i was able to game with out em. For once.

ALSO: You cant beat the AA settings for ATI, temperal AA is the best thing to come around in a long time and my 6800GT didnt have anything on my new X850 XT, not in performance or looks. Sad really.

 

[burningrave101]

I dont want a war, and most likely i wont be back to check anyones replys, but i had both cards(6800GT PCIe @ 430/1200, and X850 XT @ 550/1200) and YES.....you can turn off the opts for the Nvidia cards, but even when they say they are all off, they arent at all. In fact, its very easy to see them. ATI on the other hand has them too but when you turn them off(yes, you can turn them off but you need the cat control center to do it) there are NONE. With Nvidia, they say there arent, but trust me, there are. Its one of the main reasons i got rid of my 6800GT, i couldnt take the opts, and if i disabled them, i couldnt play my games with 4xaa and 8xaf like i wanted to. SO i go to ATI and get a BBA X850 XT(yes, they did make some) and when i loaded the drivers for the card, i was amazed that even though i turned off the opts, they too were still present. So i tried the control center cats, and that did the trick. They are off untill you use "catalyst AI", as long as the catalyst AI is off, so are the opts and you cant see them at all. Nvidia on the other hand even when off, there just not as bad as when on...lol. It was pretty bad. All the opts im talking about were AF opts and were very easy to pick up on. I hate it when people tell me i have things "backwards" when i know what im talking about. I read the articles, i know what was said, but i HAD both cards and did my own testing, and i know what i saw....so much in fact that i sold my 6800GT, never to go back to Nvidia again. I tried Nvidia when the 5900Ultra came out and it was a MAJOR dissapointment, got a 9800pro......then went to the 6800GT and flashed it to a ultra and the opts were so bad i couldnt take it, even with them off they were still that bad. All the reviewers who did there articles did so with the regular cats that you cant disable the opts( just like the Nvidia cards), but when going to the control cats, that made all the difference, i was able to game with out em. For once.

ALSO: You cant beat the AA settings for ATI, temperal AA is the best thing to come around in a long time and my 6800GT didnt have anything on my new X850 XT, not in performance or looks. Sad really.

Ok well maybe you should describe to us all what these "ops" you saw on the nVidia card when you disabled the optimizations in the CP lol.

In nearly every review i've read since the release of the NV40's and X800's, reviewers have said the IQ is nearly indistinguishable between these two cards. ATI's AA quality is a little better and nVidia's AF quality is a little better from what i've seen in tests.

All these optimizations must be in your head or your looking at a few distinct game bugs and addressing them as optimizations.

And ATI does not give the option to disable all optimizations. Just because there is a little box that says disabled doesn't automatically mean everything is disabled. AF optimizations are not disabled.

I like how ATI offers 6xAA and Temp AA but nither equal the quality of 8xS. 8xS has a pretty big impact on performance though. There are alot of other nVidia legacy AA modes you can use with RivaTuner.