New Neutral Drivers (based on CAT 4.1)

[TheGreatGrapeApe]

These Just came out. They are similar to Omegas and DNAs, and have gotten great coverage in Europe.

<A HREF="http://ati.hgn.it/newsread.php?newsid=16" target="_new">http://ati.hgn.it/newsread.php?newsid=16</A>

<A HREF="http://babelfish.altavista.com/babelfish/urltrurl?lp=it_en&url=http://ati.hgn.it/newsread.php?newsid=16" target="_new">translated link (from Italian)</A>

I will download them just to check features and report back. More thorough benching later. I will likely benchmark them this coming weekend (no more football :frown: ) once I have decided on whether to clean my whole system (leaning towards a completely fresh system. I think all the PrOn is clogging up my benchmarks!


- You need a licence to buy a gun, but they'll sell anyone a stamp <i>(or internet account)</i> ! - <font color=green>RED </font color=green> <font color=red> GREEN</font color=red> GA to SK

 

[TheGreatGrapeApe]

OK not much difference between the NEUTRAL drivers and the OMEGAS. They do ship with RadClocker, unlike the Omegas which were forced to be removed by request. They do play well with the Rage3Dtweak so I benched them as such. If anyone knows of anything that would cause conflicts lemme know, I had no issue (although from experience, CHOOSE which overclocking utility you want to use because it will ikely cause a SERIOUS F'ed up MEGA Crash the way it did for me using RadClocker from the Omegas, and Rage3Dtweak at the same time (I forgot that I had used the other to overclock).

Anywhoo onto the quick and dirty Benchies. I used Rage3D for both. Same setup, no system changes between installs. Used Driver Cleaner between installs (which actually come with the Neutral drivers for uninstall (neutral will NOT install overtop of other driver, even other Neutral drivers, just FYI). The only benchies I ran are the quick and common ones.
3Dmk01, 3Dmk03, and Aquamark 3, mainly so you could analyze the results yourselves. I will as usual post the major parts of the 3Dmk03 scores.

<font color=red>3Dmark2001</font color=red>:

<A HREF="http://service.futuremark.com/compare?2k1=7518279" target="_new">Omega + R3D - (9941)</A>
<A HREF="http://service.futuremark.com/compare?2k1=7518430" target="_new">Neutral + R3D - (9960)</A>


<font color=red>3Dmark2003</font color=red>:

Omegas: 3207 GT1: 106.1fps GT2: 20.9fps GT3: 19.1fps GT4: 19.6fps
Fill Rate Single: 896.4 mt/s Multi: 1537.2 mt/s ; VS: 10.5fps PS2.0: 29.3fps ; Ragtroll: 13.7fps


Neutral total: 3209 GT1: 106.3fps GT2: 20.9fps GT3: 19.2fps GT4: 19.6fps
Fill Rate Single: 896.4 mt/s Multi: 1537.8 mt/s ; VS: 10.5fps PS2.0: 29.2fps ; Ragtroll: 13.6fps


<font color=green>Aquamark 3:</font color=green>

<A HREF="http://arc.aquamark3.com/arc/arc_view.php?run=812095387" target="_new">Omega + R3D - (23871)</A>
<A HREF="http://arc.aquamark3.com/arc/arc_view.php?run=1952948758" target="_new">Neutral + R3D - (23818)</A>

And that's it.

Nothing shocking and no major issues. I'll let you guys know if there's any problems uninstalling them.

Expect to see more info the next time I update the Catalyst review.


- You need a licence to buy a gun, but they'll sell anyone a stamp <i>(or internet account)</i> ! - <font color=green>RED </font color=green> <font color=red> GREEN</font color=red> GA to SK

 

[BirdRobin]

I guess i'll stick with omegas for now. =D I have upgraded to omg 4.1s and one of the games that cant work (Chaos Legion PC edition) with the 3.4,5,6,7,8,9s is working now~~ woohoo~~

Athlon XP 1800+ 1.52ghz
Gigabyte GA-7VKML
Powercolour R9600pro Bravo @ 480/340
128+256 DDR266
Maxtor 20gb 7200rpm 2mb, WD 40gb 5400rpm 2mb
Creative SB Live! 5.1 Digital

 

[TheGreatGrapeApe]

Despite being able to run benchmarks fine. I have noticed a strange issue with the neutral driver. In 2D windows stuff (including surfing) I would get slow refreshing (scrolling) windows. Even toolbars would scroll down. I have removed the neutral drivers and returned to the standard catalysts (4.1) for the time being.

I have decided to wipe the HD and start a fresh set of benchies sometime soon, I'm just going to backup some stuff on DVD first, and then I'll cleanup and move on. I got a worm the other day and had to remove it in safe mode, but I'm little miffed so I'm gone go for a fresh start. Once I have a clean system I will try the neutrals again and see if it was a system setup issue I somehow screwed up, or if the drivers are having issues somewhere.

But I would hold off on the neutrals as the only major benifit I saw in them was being packaged with the Radclocker utility, and the nice easy uninstall setup that removes EVERYTHING (unlike Omegas which keep setup files on your system).

Anywhoo, just thought you guys should know.


- You need a licence to buy a gun, but they'll sell anyone a stamp <i>(or internet account)</i> ! - <font color=green>RED </font color=green> <font color=red> GREEN</font color=red> GA to SK

 

[agcheavin]

thanks for doing that, saves all of us the trouble of going through the process

....................
<font color=red>AMD 2700 XP<font color=red>
<font color=red>PC 9600XT<font color=red>
<font color=blue>ASUS A7N8X deluxe<font color=blue>
<font color=blue>1024 meg DC DDR 3200<font color=blue>
....................

 

[pauldh]

Yeah Grape, thanks for keeping us informed as always. Weird 2D issue there. Do you do this testing on your main everyday computer? Or do you have a spare? Spare harddrive and Norton Ghost at least? Man if you lived in my home town I'd lend you a system for this benchmarking. Well, thx again. I'll be sticking to the ATI Cat 4.1's unless they ever let me down or you post you have found a better one.


ABIT IS7, P4 2.6C, 512MB Corsair TwinX PC3200LL, Radeon 9800 Pro, Santa Cruz, TruePower 430watt

 

[TheGreatGrapeApe]

I have 2 main systems, and 2 laptops (looking for a new one), and a Tablet (at least that I still use, I also have a graveyard of old computers at the cottage). This allows me to be pretty cavalier about my fun.

I have my video/pic editing rig which barely sees the internet (except for updating/registering software), which I keep clean and stable. And then I have my gaming rig which I putz around with, and have no problem overclocking occasionally and messing with every setting for the sake of knowledge. I've been wanting to update the Catalyst review for a while (it's almost been a month [thus probably a new Catalyst on the Horizon]), but I have been EXTREMELY busy at work, a little busy at school (mid-term paper due next week), and then I've been 'backing-up' some DVDs that I haven't been able to watch, and I'm in the process of backing up all my junk in preparation for a wipe of the entire system. Once that's done I will bench under the new clean system and get a new reference point. And then if something F's up then a complete re-format wouldn't be such a big whup to fix any issues. The worm issue ticked me off considering I had just recently taken it off to add some programs and fiddle with the firewall. I don't bother with ghost, although I do have it. I would prefer just to create my own bootable backup, but I think I'm simply going to partition out XP and then wipe that more frequesntly.

I was hoping to add DroneZ to replace Vulpine in the review, but right now it's giving me problems (had to use CHKDSK to fix my system the other night due to DroneZ locking up the system (and still running multiple benchmarks in the background [weird]).

Anywhoo, for now the Catalyst 4.1 offer good stability and OK performance. Aditional performance can be had from some older catalyst versions, but relatively small diferences IMO. The OMEGA modified drivers offer some nice performance boosts, and they would be my current 'better than standard' recommendation.


- You need a licence to buy a gun, but they'll sell anyone a stamp <i>(or internet account)</i> ! - <font color=green>RED </font color=green> <font color=red> GREEN</font color=red> GA to SK