ATI Drivers

Discussion in 'Technical Archives' started by taufikp, Feb 21, 2012.

  1. PLAYLIFE

    PLAYLIFE Registered

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    Likewise same card, I'd appreciate if you could let me know if there is any improvement :eek:
     
  2. SimonV6

    SimonV6 Registered

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    btw the way I am running two HD6950 2Gb DDR5 in crossfireX on win 7 64 bit at 1920x1200x32 with all CCC set to use application settings.
     
  3. Christian Rosén

    Christian Rosén Registered

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    Wow! Hell yeah, that driver did some magic with the fps! I had over 150 fps in the garage and saw fps around 250 on track, never seen those numbers before in this sim, lol! No kidding!

    But the --- ---- dreadful annoying --- ---- micro stuttering are still there for me!
    How is this possible, sigh. :-(

    I started to think it has something todo with my projector....but at the same time there are no problems like this in any other games except iR...(Speaking of the lifeless boring iR, i guess i should try this driver on that too..)
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Feb 29, 2012
  4. joker68

    joker68 Registered

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    Using a single 5850 here. Gained around 10fps in rF2 right away after installation, compared with Catalyst 12.1. Running 1920x1080 single monitor. Must check if it is ok with other games, too.
     
  5. taufikp

    taufikp Registered

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    Here we go...

    Installed AMD Catalyst 8.96 package driver and I noticed there is one component included that wasn't available in previous drivers: AMD North Bridge Filter.

    Installation went smoothly. FYI, I didn't uninstall previous driver. I just ran install, and that was all.

    edit: don't forget to restart your Windows after successful installation

    Opening rFactor 2.

    Oh, here's my game and system setting:
    - ATI HD5770 1GB, 3D mode clock: 890MHz and 1320MHz, 2D mode clock: 157MHz and 300MHz.
    - Full screen 1280x720 @60Hz
    - Driver AA set to application, AF set to application.
    - All graphic details at HIGH, 16xAF, All Reflections ON, Wind OFF, HDR ON, AA Level 1 with FXAA.
    - FRAPS is on

    The first thing I noticed is the FPS at menu screen. With driver v12.3 pre WHQL, the FPS was always at ~960, now with this 8.96 package, the FPS jumped to ~1200!

    Opening my "benchmark" replay (F3 1960s, in Sepang, 19 AI, 20 visible vehicles, ), and I got this:
    FPS min 22, FPS max 60, FPS at start 22 (at the back of the grid!)

    And that's with HDR On and ALL Reflections On! With 12.3 pre WHQL and rF2 Beta 60, HDR On still gave performance hit, although not as much as rFactor Beta 49. But now with AMD 8.96 package, the HDR shader seems to play along nicely.

    In my system micro stutter still happen but very short and it happened just after the start finish line! Usually in my system it happened at turn one and in the first lap only. Now there's no stutter in turn one in the first lap. Great.

    So yes, this AMD 8.96 driver package is definitely a god-send for my system.

    Probably because of the new AMD North Bridge Filter. But maybe also because of the 'minor' modification they did to Direct3D and OpenGL component.

    All the negative points on the list, doesn't apply here. :D

    But still, your mileage may vary. :rolleyes:

    rFactor 2 Beta 60 + AMD Catalyst 8.96 package = my happy face! :)
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Feb 29, 2012
  6. Christian Rosén

    Christian Rosén Registered

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    Tryed iR with the 8.96 package and it didnt do any wonders at all for framerate, but what it did do was to remove the microstuttering! But sadly that doesnt even make me the slightest happy, since rF2beta made it even more impossible to like iR (or any other sim for that matter).
    As taufikp said, i havent either noticed anything of the negative points.
    With this driver i regain my hope that microstutter will be possible to remove in rF2beta also. I shall now fiddle with my gfx settings and try it with my monitor instead to see what happens (incase hdmi has anything todo with it)
     
  7. SimonV6

    SimonV6 Registered

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    have you tried vsync for getting rid of stutters as v sync video seems very smooth if needed?
     
  8. taufikp

    taufikp Registered

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    @Christian I'm using monitor with HDMI connection. The only difference my eyes get/perceive is the color. HDMI seems more richer in color than usual VGA. But of course this is a very subjective matter. I get no difference in FPS whenever I switch from HDMI to VGA and vice-versa. I also get no difference in FPS when I use DVI connector by the way. But with today's advance technology in modern monitors, who knows, maybe the connector type does play some role in this performance scene.
     
  9. Christian Rosén

    Christian Rosén Registered

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    Phew, ok, now i have done my share of beta testing for today:

    Tryed with all settings for gfx on lowest or off got fps over 500, didn't help, the stuttering got even more notable the higher the fps!
    Runned the sim on my puny monitor which is using a DVI instead of HDMI that my projector uses (tryed this since hdmi can in some circumstances make videos stutter).
    I even enabled the wheel and arms animations (since i already have my own arms holding a wheel, those animations just confuse me).
    Also tried the different refresh rate settings and the lowest resolution and some in between, HDR FXAA on/off and the 3 different sync settings.
    Next step, made exceptions in my antivirus and anti spyware programs for the 2 rFactor2 folders, and also closed them.
    Closed the Logitech profile icon and all other stuff running there on taskbar.
    I have also closed many unnecessary processes running from Task Manager.
    Now i am out of ideas, next step would be BIOS settings??
     
  10. taufikp

    taufikp Registered

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    While you're adventuring into BIOS, try to change the PCI Latency setting first. Mine is set to the lowest value. Maybe it can help.

    If not, using ATI Tray Tools, try to enable/check/tick the 'Disable Block Write' option. Mine is ticked/checked.

    With ATI Tray Tools you can optimize your GPU further since it offers wide array of options than ATI CCC. I use ATI Tray Tools to set some settings just once, after that I stop ATT, and I won't run ATT again until I need to tweak/change the GPU setting again. If I needed to change only the AA or AF setting, I won't use ATI Tray Tools, CCC is more than enough to do the job.
     
  11. Christian Rosén

    Christian Rosén Registered

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    Just installed ATI Tray Tools, ouch that's alot of settings, thx for the tip taufikp! (i must check your nickname like 3 times before i can spell it right, what kind of nickname is that? Does it mean anything at all? hehe) Finally found 'Disable Block Write' to bad it was already checked though :-/
    Feel free to give me more suggestions on settings to check in ATT if you have any :)
    Now im gonna dive into my BIOS and check my PCI latency settings, brb.
     
  12. RCRacing

    RCRacing Registered

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    I have an HD 4860 and the beta drivers up'd my frames also yeahhh
     
  13. BasJon

    BasJon Registered

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    No offence taken as I own both games, and sorry to p*** on your parade but rf2 blows away iracing, anyway not to diverge
    from the original post I too updated to the new 12.3 driver a few days ago things are better my fps around 3 to 5 increase
    but I can confirm it has not stopped the small stutters in the game.
     
  14. mel1c

    mel1c Registered

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    There has to be one in every crowd I guess - and this time it is me. Installed the new 8.96 beta driver (over 12.2, 8.94). I cannot detect any performance difference. I still find the best settings for me are AA and AF in CCC and no AA or FXAA in game. Not complaining, but was hoping it was going to help.
     
  15. fideco

    fideco Registered

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    Same here (ATI 6970), no fps gain...
     
  16. Christian Rosén

    Christian Rosén Registered

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    Oh, sorry all for the language before, just noted Tim has edited an earlier post of mine in this thread. I cant even remember what words i used that caused my reputation to go down though! Lol, i just want to make it clear im not pissed or anything like that, im just frustrated that i cant fully enjoy this wonderful product yet! I see so much potential in this :-D

    Btw i checked my BIOS settings and ofcourse i had the lowest PCI latency also...
     
  17. taufikp

    taufikp Registered

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    @Christian then your micro stutter might be related to non GPU hardware issues. For example, it is known that the Replay system in rFactor could cause stuttering as well (mine is set to use minimum fidelity). Windows Index (Search in Windows 7) and all disk based activity could cause micro stuttering in any games. I once write a plugin for rFactor that essentially write any events that happened in a race to an XML file, after few laps this plugin caused stutters, and the XML file was over 100MB! :D
     
  18. Christian Rosén

    Christian Rosén Registered

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    Thx taufikp for not giving up on me! But im sorry to say i did set the replay system on lowest settings from start. And about indexing and stuff that access my gaming/os-disk (velociraptor 10.000 rpm) all things like that are turned off from the beginning when i installed the OS win7 64bit. The thing is i have even turned of the swapfile since i have 12GB 1600MHz DDR3 memories. And i must say that my pretty new i7 with its 4 cores and 8 threads does a really good job otherwise when i run other small apps in the background when gaming, i rarely see the (combined) CPU usage over 25% in games, and never seen even 1 or 2 cores max out in any game.

    Btw, tryed LA Noire with 8.96 beta driver and finally i could play that extremely bad optimized game in fullhd too. So smth is done more right in this driver since many versions back, considering CrossFireX that is. (LA Noire crashed once for the first time though, but i can live with that).
     
  19. taufikp

    taufikp Registered

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    @christian no problem! :)

    Anyway, how about this: ATT is capable to use the experimental feature in ATI cards, such as multi threading. This feature might be working but unfortunately mostly not. In my card, HD5770 (single card/GPU), the multi threading is working. I notice increased in FPS although minimal, only ~5 FPS. This option is available via Advanced Tweaks->Multi-Thread Support. Tick the check box and enter 0 as minimum, and for maximum, you may enter up to the number of total core available in your system.

    After you're doing any tweaking with ATT and you're also still using ATI CCC (like me), then don't forget to always check CCC's Overdrive page, because ATT sometimes will reset the Overdrive clock back to standard/2D clock.
     
  20. SimonV6

    SimonV6 Registered

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    having done some more testing on these drivers it would seem to help single cases just as much as crossfire. Infact crossfire is badly implemented in rf2 anyway. With crossfire off the gpu load is 90% with crossfire on both gpus are only running at 50% each and therefore fps is almost the same? Other games i have the difference is almost double fps with crossfire?
     

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