ATI Catalyst 4.12 beta

[Nxs]

This (http://www.ati.com/support/infobase/4701.html) should fix the problems with hangs associatied with punkbuster :D

[GM™]

Nice one monkey-man! :thumbup:

[SprigganX]

im gonna try these see if some of the 10second hanging would go away in mohpa.

[KamisoriX]

4.12 O_o

soon we're getting a new driver every day...then every hour....
people are gonna be like: hey, I just installed Cat 12.34...

What? 12.34? cat 23.22 got released two minutes ago....and they gonna release 23.23 in 46 minutes....

[Ranzy]

This is just a beta driver, won't be released for another month.

[SprigganX]

finally fixed the damn thing.

[GM™]

I wouldn't be surprised if this BETA driver doesn't have specific optimisations for Half-Life 2. I haven't seen any official benchmarks, but my cs: source seems to run an awful lot better at 1280x1024 with AA and AF on.

Sepht... you got any info/benchies for us?

[Silent Archer]

Hell, if it helps out HL2.... I wouldn't mind downloading it.. im gona need all the FPS i can get... ;)

[Sepht]

Originally posted by GamesMaster@Nov 14 2004, 06:36 PM
I wouldn't be surprised if this BETA driver doesn't have specific optimisations for Half-Life 2. I haven't seen any official benchmarks, but my cs: source seems to run an awful lot better at 1280x1024 with AA and AF on.

Sepht... you got any info/benchies for us?
Couldn't find anything from a credable site. Checked out some Driver-based forums and found this much.
Seems to be along the lines of Kinda like the Aquamark and 3DMark05 boost in 4.11( http://rage3d.de/catalyst_vergleich_eng_p3.php http://rage3d.de/catalyst_vergleich_eng_p4.php ), or the doom boost since the 4.6.

Anyway:
(NGO Crew)
Counter-Strike Source benchmarks (HL2 engine)
highest quality - no AA/AF - R9800XT - DX9c
4.11beta tweaked as hell:93fps
4.12beta without any modification:98fps
4.12beta with secondary adapter disabled and tweaks:108fps

(SuperBORG)
4.11
VST
1600 0af 0aa 111fps
1600 16af 6aa 87fps

4.12b
VST
1600 0af 0aa 121fps
1600 16af 6aa 93fps

(Evil-a!pha)
Valve Stress Test every thing is on max quality, max af, max aa, reflect all
4.11 = 84.68
4.12 = 96.38

3dmark05
4.11 = 4282
4.12 = 4564

(another-user)
i ran the stress test at 1024x768, 6xaa/16xaf, highest quality, reflect all
8.07 betas - 89.42fps
4.12 betas - 103.35fps
14fps increase, i can definatly live with that.

(footsteps)
HL2 stress test jumped by 10fps (relative to 8.07 betas) at 1280x1204 with 8xAF no AA, all settings high. And the specular bug is goooooooooooone!

A lot of people seem to feel noticable improvements. So its probably decent. My guess would be in the range of up to 10-25%(or FPS, either way, at around 100 FPS theres not much difference between % and FPS)

Some people are reporting some bug fixs, however (a few selective few) have said the issues aren't fixed and that they have worse performance in things such as Aquamark3(no note on HL2 though). Seems to be an upgrade.. but there have been a few issues with flashing in HL2 on X800 Pros w/ the 4.12b. So try them.. see if your fine(should notice better performance) but they are betas so keep that at the back of your mind.

All i could find. You can expect Rage3D.de to update that article once they can benchmark it. So keep your eye on
http://rage3d.de/catalyst_vergleich_eng_p1.php

In general: People are calling it the best release ever.. some have some issues, but since its a beta driver that can be expected. Noticable(not just benchmarkable, but actually in-game noticable) performance increase in HL2 and 3DMark05. AquaMark might do lower, but im not sure. Again, there are no official-ish benchmarks that I could find.. but these forum posts seem pretty consistant.

I don't have anything on 4.12b myself. But I can tell u that these 4.11s are very nice.. fixed the CoD issue in 4.10, performance in AQM3 and 3DMark05 surged about 3,000 and 300 points respetivally. and the 256meg allocation bug was fixed (to 46K(from 43K) and from 2116 to 2454)
And you can't forget the surges brought on by 4.10(cat AI and just normal improvments)
4.10 seemed to be the innovate release
4.11 the stablize release
4.12b push scores even higher. Fix minor bugs. STill a beta driver though.

(sorry ive been gone.. my internet died Thursday Night and I didn't get it back until this today.)

[BIOS]

sepht bottom line! should i install 4.12 beta or just keep my 4.11 on?my system should have no problem handling HL2 so i don't know.....

[Sepht]

Originally posted by BIOS@Nov 16 2004, 05:22 AM
sepht bottom line! should i install 4.12 beta or just keep my 4.11 on?my system should have no problem handling HL2 so i don't know.....
You should try it. It is a beta driver so quality isn't secured. But I'd try it anyway. It takes what, 5-15 min to set it up? benchmark, download install, reboot, benchmark, compare, decide, reinstall or keep.
Check for some specular issues and obvious flashing.(the 2 reported issues so far)

if it is so bad it doesn't even reboot.. safe mode boot. ATi keeps all their old drivers in C:\ATI\SUPPORT (sometimes just C:\ATI ) So its easy to re-install. (8-071 is 4.11)

Get a benchmark for these settings, install new ones. Get a benchmark for those, and check for gfx issues. IF there are none, then your set. IF there are some, u have to decide wether the performance gain is worth it. and if not.
If not:
C:\ATI\SUPPORT\wxp-w2k-catalyst-8-07.......
or
C:\ATI\SUPPORT\wxp-w2k-CCC-8-07......
just reinstall the old.

Also it depends wether your a beta person or not. I am. So when I get HL2 ill probably try these 4.12bs. I think i can spare 10-15min.

EDIT: I love them damn betas...
Linux Kernel Version: 2.6.10-rc1-mm3
Anyone that knows what the 10-rc1 is knows what I mean. Anyone that knows -mm knows how much I love betas.

[GM™]

Thanks buddy! :thumbup:

[GM™]

Any experiencing any missing gfx and corrupt textures in Countrstrike Source? My HL2 is ok, but not cs.... WTF?