Catalyst 10.8 Performance Analysis
As part of an ongoing feature for AlienBabelTech, this editor will be comparing the performance of 22 benchmarks with the current monthly Catalyst driver release versus the one from the previous month. Catalyst 10-8 was released last week and we naturally ask ourselves if there are any performance improvements for the Radeon 5870 series in games. Beside testing with a single HD 5870, we are also going to compare HD 5870 CrossFire performance with the latest Catalyst drivers. Our last performance analysis of 10.7 was published here and we used an overclocked Core i7-920. This time we are using a stock-clocked AMD Phenom II X4 as our platform for something a little different. The percentage of change from upgrading the Catalyst drivers should remain about the same for any capable CPU platform.
We are going to test Catalyst 10.8 against Catalyst 10.7 using our current benchmark suite of 20 games plus two synthetic benchmarks, Heaven 2.0 and Vantage. We also added Mafia II demo benchmark as it has been released last month; soon we will use the full game’s benchmark. Our testing platform is Windows 7 64-bit using Phenom II 955 X4 at 3.20 GHz, 4 GB DD3, and our video cards are a pair of HD 5870s. All of our games are tested at 2560×1600, 1920×1200 and 1680×1050 resolutions and with maxed-out in-game settings plus 4xAA or 8xAA/16xAF and we use DX11/10/10.1 whenever possible.
Let’s get right to the test configuration and the tests.
Test Configuration & Driver Release Notes
- AMD Phenom II 955 X4 reference 3.20 GHz; NB and HT are each at 2000 MHz.
- ECS A890GXM-A (AMD 890 GMA chipset, latest BIOS, PCIe 2.0 specification; CrossFire 8x+8x).
- 4 GB DDR3 PC 1800 Kingston RAM (4×2 GB, at PC 1600 speeds; supplied by Kingston)
- ATi Radeon HD 5870 PCS+ by PowerColor underclocked to reference clocks, 850/1200 MHz; supplied by AMD
- ATi Radeon HD 5870 by Diamond at reference clocks, 850/1200 MHz
- Onboard Realtek Audio
- 250 GB Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 hard drive
- Thermaltake ToughPowerXT 775 watt power supply and Element G case supplied by Thermaltake
- HP LP 3065 2560×1600 30 inch LCD
Test Configuration – Software
- ATi Catalyst 10-7 and 10-8 (WHQL); highest quality mip-mapping set in the driver, Catalyst AI set to “Standard”
- Windows 7 64-bit Home Premium; very latest updates
- DirectX June 2010.
- All games are patched to their latest versions.
- vsync is off in the control panel and is never set in-game.
- 8xAA enabled in all games (unless specified as 4xAA, or lower) and “forced” in Catalyst Control Center for UT3 and Batman AA; all in-game settings at “maximum” or “ultra” with 16xAF always applied
- All results show average, minimum and maximum frame rates except as noted.
- Highest quality sound (stereo) used in all games.
- Windows 7, all DX10 titles were run under DX10 render paths; DX11 titles under DX11 render paths and DX9c, etc.
The Benchmarks
- Far Cry 2
- Crysis
- F.E.A.R.
- Unreal Tournament 3
- Just Cause 2
- World in Conflict
- Call of Juarez
- Batman: Arkham Asylum
- Left4Dead
- Lost Planet
- Call of Duty 4
- X3:Terran Conflict
- Mafia II Demo
- Serious Sam Second Encounter HD (2010)
- H.A.W.X.
- Battleforge
- Dirt 2
- S.T.A.L.K.E.R., Call of Pripyat
- Resident Evil 5
- Alien versus Predator
- Heaven (Unigine) 2.0
Lets look at some of the release notes from AMD’s .pdf regarding Catalyst 10-8.
Release Notes for Catalyst 10-8
New Features
This section provides information on new features found in this release of the ATI
Radeon™ Display Driver. These include the following:
- OpenGL ES 2.0 support
- Video Quality default options
- Performance enhancement for Eyefinity Quad ATI CrossFireX™ configurations
- Anti-Aliasing support for StarCraft II
OpenGL ES 2.0 support
- ATI Catalyst™ 10.8 delivers full support for OpenGL ES 2.0 specification
- Enables 3D accelerated graphics within a web browser that supports OpenGL ES 2.0
- Supported on Windows XP, Windows Vista, and Windows 7
Video Quality default options
The Default video options for ATI Catalyst™ have been greatly enhanced to deliver
the best quality video viewing experience. Users can also choose to apply these
settings to Internet Video via a new checkbox control within the ATI Catalyst™
Control Center
In the “Advanced Color” section, the following defaults are now enabled:
- Color vibrance (default = 40)
- Flesh tone correction (default = 50)
- Brighter Whites
In the “Advanced Quality” section, the following defaults are now enabled:
- Edge-enhancement (default = 25)
- De-noise (default = 64)
- Mosquito Noise Reduction (default = 50)
- De-blocking (default = 50)
Note: Video Quality option settings can be accessed by launching the
Catalyst™ Control Center and clicking on “Graphics”, then “Video”
and “All Settings”.
ATI Catalyst™ Release Note Version 10.8 6
Performance enhancement for Eyefinity Quad ATI CrossFireX™
configurations
- Performance has been greatly improved for users running with ATI Eyefinity on a Quad ATI CrossFireX™ configuration
- Anti-Aliasing support for StarCraft II
- ATI Catalyst™ Control Center enabled Anti-Aliasing is now available for StarCraft II
Catalyst™ Application Profiles
The following application profiles are available with this release of Catalyst™ 10.8:
- Singularity – CrossFire™ profile updateMafia 2 – CrossFire™ profile update
- Final Fantasy XIV Benchmark – new CrossFire™ profile
- Lord of the Rings Online – new CrossFire™ profile
- Aliens Vs. Predator – CrossFire™ profile update
Performance Improvements
The following performance gains are noticed with this release of Catalyst™ 10.8:
Far Cry 2
- Performance increases 2-6% on ATI Radeon™ HD 5800 Series single and CrossFire™ configurations
- Performance increases 2-4% on ATI Radeon™ HD 5700 Series single and CrossFire™ configurations
- Performance increases 3-8% on ATI Radeon™ HD 4800 Series single andCrossFire™ configurations
Left 4 Dead 2
Performance increases 3-5% on CrossFire™ ATI Radeon™ HD 5800 series and CrossFire™ ATI Radeon™ HD 5700 series configurations
Stormrise
- Performance increases 5-10% on ATI Radeon™ HD 5600 series and ATI Radeon™ HD 5500 series configurations
Resolved Issues for All Windows Operating Systems
This section provides information on resolved issues in this release of the ATI Catalyst™
Software Suite for Windows. These include:
- HDMI default refresh rate now appears properly as 60 Hz under HDTV in Catalyst™ Control Center
- Basic wizard pane or resolution combo box in “Display Setting for Desktop Viewing” page no longer turns blank in basic view for component video mode
- “FSAA” is a selectable option in City of Heroes / City of Heroes Going Rogue™
We see great new features with video and some nicely resolved issues including Borderlands is no longer crashing at random as it did with Catalyst 10-7.Unfortunately we haven’t noted a lot of performance improvement for a few months and we are still rather disappointed with CrossFire scaling. If you run CrossFire, make absolutely certain that you download the latest application profiles as it can make a real performance difference. Let’s head right for the results of our performance testing of Catalyst 10-8 versus 10-7.
Benchmarks & Conclusion
Here are our results of twenty-one benchmarks – twenty games and two synthetics – compared between Catalyst 10-8 and 10-7. As an added “bonus”, Vantage is back.
“Wins” are in bold; if there is a tie, both results will be in bold type.
We note some slight performance improvement over Catalyst 10-7 with Catalyst 10-8 in some games but very little real change. Far Cry 2 didn’t show us a consistent increase in performance with Catalyst 10-8 and the Left4Dead engine was updated by Steam so we will have to get a new timedemo for it as our old one is now outdated.
To sum it up, we would recommend upgrading to Catalyst 10-8 because there is no real disadvantage and whatever slight pluses that we found outweigh any slight negatives and it makes reasonable sense to use the latest WHQL drivers. Of course, if you have a 5870 series Radeon, it would be wise to upgrade just for the new features of Catalyst 10-8. We are continuing to be a little disappointed not to see the promised improvements in CrossFire scaling.
We will be back next month to compare performance of Catalyst 10-9 versus 10-8 and perhaps we can also cover the new GeForce WHQLs when they are (probably) released late on this month. Happy gaming!
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