{"id":758,"date":"2008-10-26T18:00:12","date_gmt":"2008-10-26T18:00:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.alienbabeltech.com\/?p=890"},"modified":"2013-04-26T06:38:30","modified_gmt":"2013-04-26T05:38:30","slug":"farcry2s-broken-ati-hotfix-drivers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/farcry2s-broken-ati-hotfix-drivers\/","title":{"rendered":"FarCry2’s Broken ATi HotFix Drivers!"},"content":{"rendered":"


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<\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a>Nvidia Focus Group member Rollo brought\u00a0FarCry2’s<\/em>ATI hotfix driver issues\u00a0to our attention and we decided to explore them with\u00a0these new drivers\u00a0that apparently included\u00a0diminished IQ and yet increased performance.\u00a0 To be fair,\u00a0AMD has\u00a0posted a serious disclaimer on their site regarding these\u00a0beta drivers\u00a0and we would now\u00a0have to suggest that you would have to be desperate to\u00a0use them\u00a0instead of the regular Catalyst 8-10 drivers:<\/span><\/p>\n

“Note: This driver is provided as is and is not supported by AMD. It has not completed full AMD testing, and is only recommended for users experiencing the particular issue described above.”<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Let’s jump right into it.\u00a0 First of all, our test system\u00a0uses identical setups of completely updated Vista32 that are\u00a0installed on identical HDs\u00a0– and except for the video cards –\u00a0both\u00a0set-ups are completely identical.\u00a0\u00a0Three sets\u00a0of the very latest drivers are compared, as posted in our table:<\/span><\/p>\n


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First we maxed out all FarCry2<\/em>\u00a0DX10\u00a0in-game settings – “ultra” –\u00a0and when we used AF, we forced it in the respective\u00a0control panels, although we\u00a0later learned it\u00a0controlled only by in-game settings.\u00a0 We used the short Ranch run<\/em> from the FarCry2<\/em>built-in demo and each setting ran at least 3 times – taking care to make sure all 3 runs were very close – and then the results were averaged.\u00a0 We can clearly see that the 280GTX outperforms the HD4870-1GB when the regular Cat 8-10 is used.\u00a0 However, when compared to the Hotfix performance numbers, the gap narrows considerably – especially at higher MSAA, where the Radeon starts to pull ahead.<\/span><\/p>\n


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From these results, we can see that 16AF is basically “free” and also that the 280GTX takes a harder performance hit with\u00a0increasingly higher levels of AA applied than the HD4870 does until at 8xAA the performance gap narrows with the regular 8-10 drivers.\u00a0 However, with the hotfix drivers, the HD4870 catches up to the 280GTX at 2XAA.\u00a0 But does this\u00a0performance increase\u00a0come\u00a0with a penalty?\u00a0 Oh yes, read on!<\/span><\/p>\n

EDIT: We have learned that anisotropic filtering is set as part of overall render quality. Setting control panel anisotropic filtering will not affect image quality or performance; the in-game options controls AF.\u00a0 <\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

So\u00a0let’s look at the same screen shot – first rendered by GTX280 with progressively higher filtering applied – noAA\/AF, then noAA\/16xAF,\u00a0further 2xAA\/16xAF and on to 4x AA\/16xAF and finally at 8xAA\/16xAF; and then we compared IQ with the 4870\u00a01GB Radeon using the same settings with regular Cat 8.10. \u00a0Even though the scene slightly varies from image to image as the gun barrel moves up-and-down while the plants gently sway from side-to-side, we can see the filtering is evidently\u00a0applied correctly.<\/span><\/p>\n


\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0GTX280 (178.24)\u00a0IQ compared with HD4870 (Cat. 8-10)<\/strong><\/p>\n


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\u00a0GTX280 – No AA, No AF\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 HD4870 – No AA, No AA<\/p>\n

\"\"\"\"<\/a>
\u00a0GTX280 – No AA, 16xAF\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 HD 4870 – No AA, 16x AF<\/p>\n

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\u00a0GTX280 –\u00a02x AA, 16xAF\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 HD 4870 –\u00a02x AA, 16x AF<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a>
\u00a0GTX280 –\u00a04x AA, 16xAF\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 HD 4870 –\u00a04x AA, 16x AF<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a>
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\u00a0GTX280 –\u00a08x AA, 16xAF\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 HD 4870 –\u00a08x AA, 16x AF\u00a0<\/p>\n


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<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/a>\u00a0<\/span><\/strong><\/div>\n
The Hotfix Radeon Drivers are missing Textures!\u00a0<\/span><\/strong><\/div>\n
<\/strong>\u00a0<\/div>\n
<\/strong>Following image is with the 8.10 hotfix drivers\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/div>\n
<\/strong>\"\"<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

HD 4870 – 8xAA, 16xAF<\/p>\n


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There\u00a0you have it.\u00a0 Check out the clearly missing and sometimes transparent rocks and missing textures – and this shot is with maximum filtering!\u00a0The proof is in the pictures, as they say.\u00a0 Clearly the hot fix drivers – while improving\u00a0raw frame rates\u00a0– may well be sacrifice texturing and IQ.\u00a0 And these textures are missing across all levels of filtering<\/em>.\u00a0 So, AMD needs to know about this.\u00a0 Clearly it\u00a0appears to be\u00a0a driver bug that we hope does not make it into Cat 8-11, next month.\u00a0 \u00a0Finally, we would like to say that the benchmarks chart’s figures\u00a0do not accurately\u00a0represent real game play for the 4870\/1GB.\u00a0 Unlike its bigger brother, HD4870x2 which plays FarCry2<\/em>and its short Ranch demo run smoothly, 4870\/1GB is not at all smooth as it hitches and lurches in many instances, from frame-to-frame – even when its minimum is well above 30 FPS.\u00a0\u00a0 Geforce 280GTX users will also find their FarCry2<\/em>game play far more smooth than HD4870\/1GB.\u00a0 One possible solution for Radeon owners that has been suggested is\u00a0to cap the frame rates to 25 or\u00a030 as is done in UT3 games to smooth\u00a0its frame rate when it is uneven.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0You could open the console and type: gfx_maxfps 25<\/span><\/p>\n

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<\/span><\/p>\n

We will continue to update this article, especially as new drivers are released from AMD for 4870 series.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Mark Poppin<\/p>\n

ABT editor<\/p>\n

UPDATE: http:\/\/www.alienbabeltech.com\/?p=995<\/a><\/p>\n


<\/p>\n

<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Nvidia Focus Group member Rollo brought\u00a0FarCry2’sATI hotfix driver issues\u00a0to our attention and we decided to explore them with\u00a0these new drivers\u00a0that apparently included\u00a0diminished IQ and yet increased performance.\u00a0 To be fair,\u00a0AMD has\u00a0posted a serious disclaimer...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-758","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/758","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=758"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/758\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=758"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=758"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=758"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}