Haggs
AI Team Member Joined: 05 May 2004 Posts: 2723 Location: Minneapolis, Minnesota	Posted: Sat Oct 02, 2004 3:01 pm    Post subject: ATI Catalyst 4.8 & 4.9, Omega, DNA Driver Benchmarks   Introduction: Absolute Insight has once again put the Catalyst, Omega, and DNA drivers in the gladiator arena to duke it out for the championship title. Will ATI's latest Catalyst 4.9 reign supreme, or will it be another stalemate? ATI claims to have dramatically improved performance in both Doom 3 and UT2004 with their 4.9 release. The following is quoted from ATI's Catalyst 4.9 driver release notes: "Doom3 performance improves 10-15% on ATI RADEON™ X800 XT products when anti-aliasing is enabled. UT2004 performance improves considerably on the ATI RADEON™ 9500 PRO, RADEON™ 9700 PRO RADEON™ 9800 PRO and RADEON™ 9800 XT products. The benefit can be 25% or more in some circumstances, particularly at extreme graphics settings such as 6xAA + 16xAF." ATI doesn't mention anything about improvements for the Radeon 9800 Non-Pro card, but we'll see! Test System Specs (same as first ATI driver test): Processor: AMD XP2700+ cooled with Thermaltake Volcano 11+ Memory: 512M DDR PC2700 Motherboard: MSI KT4V with onboard 10/100LAN + AC ’97 Audio Sound Card: Creative Labs Audigy 2 ZS Power Supply: Antec 400 Watts “SL400” Primary Monitor: Dell UltraSharp 1800FP 18” LCD Secondary Monitor: Mag Innovision 986FS 19” CRT (disabled for these tests) Speakers: Logitech 400Watt 4.1 Video Card: 128MB ATI Radeon 9800 AGP 8x by Sapphire Tech (Directx9.0c) Hard Drive 1: Maxtor 60 GB w/2MB Cache (for Windows only) Hard Drive 2: Seagate 160 GB w/8MB Cache (for everything else) DVD-ROM: 16x CD-RW: 52x24x52x Operating System: Updated Windows XP Professional w/SP2 Method We created a system restore point (visit http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/pro/using/howto/gethelp/systemrestore.asp for more information on system restore points). Next we installed our first driver and ran the five benchmarks: 3DMark03, AquaMark3, Gun Metal Benchmark 2, and Doom 3 respectively. Then we reverted back to our system restore point and benchmarked the next driver. The drivers were tested in the following order: DNA 2.6.4.8 (based on the Catalyst 4.8 driver), and Omega 2.5.67 (based on the Catalyst 4.8 driver), ATI Catalyst 4.8, ATI Catalyst 4.9 BETA, ATI Catalyst 4.9. [page] Benchmark Information: 3DMark03 (build 340) http://www.futuremark.com Settings All 4 Game Tests 2 of 2 CPU Tests 5 of 5 Feature Tests 3 of 3 Sound Tests 1024x768x32 bit color No Pixel Processing Optimal Texture Filtering 4 Max Anisotropy Optimal Vertex Shaders No Repeated Tests No Fixed Framerates AquaMark3 http://www.aquamark3.com Settings 1024x768x32 bit color No FSAA 4x Anisotropy Very High Detail Gun Metal BenchMark 2 (version 1.20s) http://www.yetistudios.com Settings Benchmark 1 Doom 3 Timedemo1: The Doom 3 Timedemo1 benchmark was run twice in a row, and the score from the second run was recorded into the data set. Settings 1024x768 resolution Medium Quality Graphics No AA Published Driver Information: ATI Catalyst Version 4.8 Release Notes http://www2.ati.com/drivers/Catalyst_48_Release_Notes.html ATI Catalyst Version 4.9 Release Notes http://www2.ati.com/drivers/Catalyst_49_Release_Notes.html DNA 2.6.4.8 (based on Catalyst 4.8 drivers) http://www.dna-drivers.nl/viewtopic.php?t=2393 Omega 2.5.67 (based on Catalyst 4.8 drivers) http://www.omegadrivers.net [page] 3DMark03 Screenshots: ATI Catalyst 4.8 ATI Catalyst 4.9 BETA ATI Catalyst 4.9 DNA 2.6.4.8 (based on Catalyst 4.8 drivers) Omega 2.5.67 (based on Catalyst 4.8 drivers) Aquamark3 Screenshots: ATI Catalyst 4.8 ATI Catalyst 4.9 BETA ATI Catalyst 4.9 DNA 2.6.4.8 (based on Catalyst 4.8 drivers) Omega 2.5.67 (based on Catalyst 4.8 drivers) [page] Gun Metal BenchMark 2 Screenshots: ATI Catalyst 4.8 ATI Catalyst 4.9 BETA ATI Catalyst 4.9 DNA 2.6.4.8 (based on Catalyst 4.8 drivers) Omega 2.5.67 (based on Catalyst 4.8 drivers) Doom 3 Benchmark Screenshots: ATI Catalyst 4.8 ATI Catalyst 4.9 BETA ATI Catalyst 4.9 DNA 2.6.4.8 (based on Catalyst 4.8 drivers) Omega 2.5.67 (based on Catalyst 4.8 drivers) [page] Results: Graphs: 3DMark03 Aquamark3 Gun Metal BenchMark 2 Doom 3 Benchmark Conclusions: The drivers showed little noticeable difference in all of the benchmarks tested except for the Doom 3 Time Demo in which the DNA 2.6.4.8 took first place with the Catalyst 4.9 final release and the Omega 2.5.67 in a neck and neck race for second place. If you're a stickler for the official ATI drivers, then the Catalyst 4.9 release wouldn't be a bad choice this time around, but if you have to have the absolute optimal frame rate for Doom 3, then the DNA 2.6.4.8 is the obvious choice. I regret that I did not have a chance to test out the third party drivers' special Doom 3 installation, but I thought that the normal installation would be best across the board as far as compatibility and overall performance. Also, with the recent release of 3D Mark 05 from Futuremark, you can expect to see it in our next driver benchmark set. Links: ATI Catalyst 4.9 download Omega 2.5.67 download DNA 2.6.4.8 download ATI Catalyst 4.9 BETA download.
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