New Catalyst 5.6 to give big boost to PC games

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http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=23594

By Fuad Abazovic not in Old Taipei: Tuesday 31 May 2005, 04:42
ATI'S CATALYST team managed to do a great job in the past few quarters.
These guys were working hard to improve software support and month by month
the team has managed to release a new Catalyst driver. It improves some
compatibility and other options with every single revision.
While most of ATI's driver updates are just bug fixes, this time ATI will
give you a much needed free performance increase, coming with the new
Catalyst 5.6 driver.

ATI will soon introduce its Catalyst 5.6 driver and we have the feeling that
this might happen on the seventh of June, we might be wrong about the date,
it's not yet specific but you never know.

Once you install this new driver you should see around ten per cent plus
performance increase in 3Dmark05, Aquamark 3 and Halo and Tomb Raider: AOD
games and benchmarks. ATI did this by using some Z optimisations, removing
unseen pixels before running through the pixel shaders. I guess that this is
an allowed method and Halo might be running even fifteen per cent faster.

The Chronicles of Riddick will work up to fifteen per cent faster than with
the old Catalyst 5.5 drivers and ATI did more efficient storage of vertex
data and gained some performance that way too.

Doom 3 will work almost twenty per cent faster than with Catalyst 5.5 as ATI
made more efficient use of memory.

Even games such as Call of Duty will benefit from this new driver as the
driver team managed to increase the game efficiency resulting in close to
ten per cent faster performance.

The game that will benefit the most is Lock on: Modern Air combat where you
will be able to see an incredible fifty per cent performance increase just
by installing a new 5.6 Catalyst driver.

ATI catalyst AI enables texture compression of the clouds resulting with no
visual impact and massive performance impact at the same time. Sounds good
to us if it works like described. We know that Nvidia test team will
definitely try to find any image quality flaws and problems and scream to
the rest of the world if it found any difference. We would do it too so
let's hope that all is correct here.

The new Catalyst comes in just a few days, it's free and I recommend you get
it, if you have an ATI card, and enjoy it. µ
 
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Mad Englishman wrote:
> http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=23594
>
> By Fuad Abazovic not in Old Taipei: Tuesday 31 May 2005, 04:42
> ATI'S CATALYST team managed to do a great job in the past few quarters.
> These guys were working hard to improve software support and month by month
> the team has managed to release a new Catalyst driver. It improves some
> compatibility and other options with every single revision.
> While most of ATI's driver updates are just bug fixes, this time ATI will
> give you a much needed free performance increase, coming with the new
> Catalyst 5.6 driver.
>
> ATI will soon introduce its Catalyst 5.6 driver and we have the feeling that
> this might happen on the seventh of June, we might be wrong about the date,
> it's not yet specific but you never know.
>
> Once you install this new driver you should see around ten per cent plus
> performance increase in 3Dmark05, Aquamark 3 and Halo and Tomb Raider: AOD
> games and benchmarks. ATI did this by using some Z optimisations, removing
> unseen pixels before running through the pixel shaders. I guess that this is
> an allowed method and Halo might be running even fifteen per cent faster.
>
> The Chronicles of Riddick will work up to fifteen per cent faster than with
> the old Catalyst 5.5 drivers and ATI did more efficient storage of vertex
> data and gained some performance that way too.
>
> Doom 3 will work almost twenty per cent faster than with Catalyst 5.5 as ATI
> made more efficient use of memory.
>
> Even games such as Call of Duty will benefit from this new driver as the
> driver team managed to increase the game efficiency resulting in close to
> ten per cent faster performance.
>
> The game that will benefit the most is Lock on: Modern Air combat where you
> will be able to see an incredible fifty per cent performance increase just
> by installing a new 5.6 Catalyst driver.
>
> ATI catalyst AI enables texture compression of the clouds resulting with no
> visual impact and massive performance impact at the same time. Sounds good
> to us if it works like described. We know that Nvidia test team will
> definitely try to find any image quality flaws and problems and scream to
> the rest of the world if it found any difference. We would do it too so
> let's hope that all is correct here.
>
> The new Catalyst comes in just a few days, it's free and I recommend you get
> it, if you have an ATI card, and enjoy it. µ
>
>

Thats great news - I hope that the optimisations apply across the board.
I am still back on 4.12 with my 9800 Pro as with each 5.x release of the
catalysts this year I have seen people complaining about problems. I'll
still give it a wide berth until others have reported on their
experiences with it but I am certainly excited that there will be a big
boost as I have a number of the games mentioned!
 
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"Mad Englishman" <madenglis@spam.bigpond.com> wrote in message
news:429ccff2$0$30670$afc38c87@news.optusnet.com.au...
> http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=23594
>
> By Fuad Abazovic not in Old Taipei: Tuesday 31 May 2005, 04:42
> ATI'S CATALYST team managed to do a great job in the past few quarters.
> These guys were working hard to improve software support and month by
month
> the team has managed to release a new Catalyst driver. It improves some
> compatibility and other options with every single revision.
> While most of ATI's driver updates are just bug fixes, this time ATI will
> give you a much needed free performance increase, coming with the new
> Catalyst 5.6 driver.
>
<snip>


Very good to hear & thanks for posting that. Although my video card is a
9800 Pro and is now a bit older, it would still be nice to see all of the
performance gains mentioned happen for it. I see in general that newer
drivers have come out for some of my hardware since my last OS install and
so maybe I'll hose everything and re-install with all of the new drivers
once the 5.6's come out. Looking forward to it. For now, I'll polish off
all the games I can so that I don't have as much to re-install.
 
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Probably blown way outta proportion. If the drivers are as good as promised,
ATi would be showing them to the media months before they become available
for download. :p

--
"War is the continuation of politics by other means.
It can therefore be said that politics is war without
bloodshed while war is politics with bloodshed."


"Mad Englishman" <madenglis@spam.bigpond.com> wrote in message
news:429ccff2$0$30670$afc38c87@news.optusnet.com.au...
> http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=23594
>
> By Fuad Abazovic not in Old Taipei: Tuesday 31 May 2005, 04:42
> ATI'S CATALYST team managed to do a great job in the past few quarters.
> These guys were working hard to improve software support and month by
> month the team has managed to release a new Catalyst driver. It improves
> some compatibility and other options with every single revision.
> While most of ATI's driver updates are just bug fixes, this time ATI will
> give you a much needed free performance increase, coming with the new
> Catalyst 5.6 driver.
>
> ATI will soon introduce its Catalyst 5.6 driver and we have the feeling
> that this might happen on the seventh of June, we might be wrong about the
> date, it's not yet specific but you never know.
>
> Once you install this new driver you should see around ten per cent plus
> performance increase in 3Dmark05, Aquamark 3 and Halo and Tomb Raider: AOD
> games and benchmarks. ATI did this by using some Z optimisations, removing
> unseen pixels before running through the pixel shaders. I guess that this
> is an allowed method and Halo might be running even fifteen per cent
> faster.
>
> The Chronicles of Riddick will work up to fifteen per cent faster than
> with the old Catalyst 5.5 drivers and ATI did more efficient storage of
> vertex data and gained some performance that way too.
>
> Doom 3 will work almost twenty per cent faster than with Catalyst 5.5 as
> ATI made more efficient use of memory.
>
> Even games such as Call of Duty will benefit from this new driver as the
> driver team managed to increase the game efficiency resulting in close to
> ten per cent faster performance.
>
> The game that will benefit the most is Lock on: Modern Air combat where
> you will be able to see an incredible fifty per cent performance increase
> just by installing a new 5.6 Catalyst driver.
>
> ATI catalyst AI enables texture compression of the clouds resulting with
> no visual impact and massive performance impact at the same time. Sounds
> good to us if it works like described. We know that Nvidia test team will
> definitely try to find any image quality flaws and problems and scream to
> the rest of the world if it found any difference. We would do it too so
> let's hope that all is correct here.
>
> The new Catalyst comes in just a few days, it's free and I recommend you
> get it, if you have an ATI card, and enjoy it. µ
>
>
 
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"Mad Englishman" <madenglis@spam.bigpond.com> wrote in message
news:429ccff2$0$30670$afc38c87@news.optusnet.com.au...
> http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=23594
>
> By Fuad Abazovic not in Old Taipei: Tuesday 31 May 2005, 04:42
> ATI'S CATALYST team managed to do a great job in the past few quarters.
> These guys were working hard to improve software support and month by
> month the team has managed to release a new Catalyst driver. It improves
> some compatibility and other options with every single revision.
> While most of ATI's driver updates are just bug fixes, this time ATI will
> give you a much needed free performance increase, coming with the new
> Catalyst 5.6 driver.
>
> ATI will soon introduce its Catalyst 5.6 driver and we have the feeling
> that this might happen on the seventh of June, we might be wrong about the
> date, it's not yet specific but you never know.
>
> Once you install this new driver you should see around ten per cent plus
> performance increase in 3Dmark05, Aquamark 3 and Halo and Tomb Raider: AOD
> games and benchmarks. ATI did this by using some Z optimisations, removing
> unseen pixels before running through the pixel shaders. I guess that this
> is an allowed method and Halo might be running even fifteen per cent
> faster.
>
> The Chronicles of Riddick will work up to fifteen per cent faster than
> with the old Catalyst 5.5 drivers and ATI did more efficient storage of
> vertex data and gained some performance that way too.
>
> Doom 3 will work almost twenty per cent faster than with Catalyst 5.5 as
> ATI made more efficient use of memory.
>
> Even games such as Call of Duty will benefit from this new driver as the
> driver team managed to increase the game efficiency resulting in close to
> ten per cent faster performance.
>
> The game that will benefit the most is Lock on: Modern Air combat where
> you will be able to see an incredible fifty per cent performance increase
> just by installing a new 5.6 Catalyst driver.
>
> ATI catalyst AI enables texture compression of the clouds resulting with
> no visual impact and massive performance impact at the same time. Sounds
> good to us if it works like described. We know that Nvidia test team will
> definitely try to find any image quality flaws and problems and scream to
> the rest of the world if it found any difference. We would do it too so
> let's hope that all is correct here.
>
> The new Catalyst comes in just a few days, it's free and I recommend you
> get it, if you have an ATI card, and enjoy it. µ
>
>

Wouldn't such a hugh update be brought out as CAT 6.0?
 
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"billyzoom" <bilyzoom@gte.net> wrote in message
news:JBane.10812$qJ3.2228@trnddc05...
>
> Wouldn't such a hugh update be brought out as CAT 6.0?
>


I think for most companies it would, but ATI has a numbering convention that
they want to maintain for their drivers.
 
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ofn01 wrote:
> Thats great news - I hope that the optimisations apply across the board.
> I am still back on 4.12 with my 9800 Pro as with each 5.x release of the
> catalysts this year I have seen people complaining about problems. I'll
> still give it a wide berth until others have reported on their
> experiences with it but I am certainly excited that there will be a big
> boost as I have a number of the games mentioned!

Too bad if these 5.6's are going to be same stuff as 5.3 and 5.4 (caused
strange texture corruptions on my rig), they are going to be equally
useless to me. Looking for NVidia-card next anyway, because I see ATI
decided to start pushing people to PCI-E.
 

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NightSky 421 wrote:
> "billyzoom" <bilyzoom@gte.net> wrote in message
> news:JBane.10812$qJ3.2228@trnddc05...
>
>>Wouldn't such a hugh update be brought out as CAT 6.0?
>>
>
>
>
> I think for most companies it would, but ATI has a numbering convention that
> they want to maintain for their drivers.
>
>

i.e. 5 = 2005. 6 = June.

--
It's a bit of a jump isn't it? I mean, er, chartered accountancy to lion
taming in one go.
You don't think it might be better if you worked your way toward lion
taming, say, via banking...
 
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Taking a moment's reflection, billyzoom mused:
|
| Wouldn't such a hugh update be brought out as CAT 6.0?

That number is reserved for the New Years Eve driver set release ...
;-)
 
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Or CAT 7.0 if they were Nullsoft...

--
"War is the continuation of politics by other means.
It can therefore be said that politics is war without
bloodshed while war is politics with bloodshed."


"billyzoom" <bilyzoom@gte.net> wrote in message
news:JBane.10812$qJ3.2228@trnddc05...
> Wouldn't such a hugh update be brought out as CAT 6.0?
>
 

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