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"Shoot Em Up" Catalyst drivers promise big performance gains for gamers

ATI notified DailyTech of the availability of a new beta driver for Windows Vista intended to improve the performance of ATI cards in single and CrossFire modes. The new driver is being called the Catalyst 7.10 “Shoot Em Up” driver by ATI.

The “Shoot Em Up” driver makes big promises of a 5-23% performance gain in Battlefield 2142 in Crossfire running ATI Radeon HD 2600, ATI Radeon HD 2400 and ATI Radeon X1300/X1550 series graphics cards.

ATI goes on to promise the drivers will improve performance in Call of Duty 2 up to 6.7% with single and dual HD 2600 and HD 2400 graphics cards, Call of Juarez DirectX 10 performance is said to improve up to 42% in Crossfire and there will be up to a 34% improvement in single card performance on all HD 2000 series products.

Enemy Territory: Quake Wars Crossfire performance is claimed to improve by as much as 23% on all Radeon 1000 products, HD 2000 and HD 1000 series products. ATI promises to increase performance in FEAR with Crossfire on the X1950 XTX, X1650 XT, HD 2400, and X1300/X1350 video cards by 16%.

Finally, ATI says Supreme Commander performance in Crossfire mode improves by 30% on all HD 2000 and Radeon 1000 cards. Supreme Commander with the X1650, X1300, and X1550 video cards using the “Shoot Em Up” drivers promises to increase performance up to a whopping 82%. The Vista driver download file is called 7-10-NO-WHQL_Vista32-64_53254.exe and is a 66MB file. ATI declined to comment on when the drivers would be publicly available.

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If their claims prove to be true
By Chaser on 10/11/2007 7:49:44 AM , Rating: 2
That would definitely shake up the performance comparison charts. I've always felt the HD2000 series in particular the 2900XT had a lot of driver headroom for growth. We'll see.




RE: If their claims prove to be true
By FITCamaro on 10/11/2007 8:10:30 AM , Rating: 2
The only place the HD 2000 series suffers is where AA is turned on. Hopefully that will eventually be rectified. Of course I rarely turn it on anyway. Once you start to get to 1600x1200 resolution, the need for it (to me) just isn't really necessary.


RE: If their claims prove to be true
By overzealot on 10/11/2007 9:44:55 AM , Rating: 2
I'm glad someone agrees with me about AA.
If the OpenGL performance is close to 8800 with this release I might trade in my GTS 320...


By FITCamaro on 10/11/2007 10:51:51 AM , Rating: 1
Well I don't have a 2000 series card. I just look at the benchmarks and see the gigantic performance hit the cards take. With it turned off the 2900 series is as fast or faster than a 8800GTS/640. Just when you turn it on the frames seem to crawl. I'll probably upgrade with the next series of cards as I have a 1680x1050 monitor and need a card that can drive it with details on in the latest games. My X1950XTX is doing ok but newer games are starting to get lower framerates. I had the Crysis MP beta and with a 3GHz E6600, 2GB of RAM, and dual Raptors in RAID0, I still had to turn down the details from High a little bit to get a reasonable framerate. Of course they might do a little more optimizing before release and raise performance. And this new ATI driver might help too.

Kind of reminds me of the issues with the FX5x00 cards that did full precision calculations whereas the 9x00 series weren't because it wasn't needed and made the cards ungodly slow. I had a 128MB 5900 Ultra and then quickly sold it and traded to a 128MB 9800 Pro. Got better framerates but also I remember in Halo for PC, with the 5900 people who were invisible were completely invisible. But with the 9800, the invisibility effect was properly drawn and just showed a distorted, see through figure.


By 3kliksphilip on 10/12/2007 11:33:54 AM , Rating: 2
I don't know about that. I'd say that both cards are good enough to play the latest games, and if you really want to upgrade your GPU you might as well wait until the Geforce 9's (Or equivilent, but I've always prefered the Geforce's naming strategy) so that you actually get a noticable speed boost. No card available is capable of running DX 10 cards at acceptable frame rates at the moment any way. (ie, above 30 fps average at high resolutions, which I assume is why you have a high end card in the first place).

Well, it's your money.


By Blight AC on 10/12/2007 2:51:45 PM , Rating: 2
Meh, I run at 1920x1200 and those Jaggies are pretty evident. Course, this is on a 24" monitor, but I also run the same resolution on my 17" monitor on my Laptop.

The resolution helps things appear spectacular, but the problem is the edge of objects. I still see those jaggies. Right now I'm playing EVE Online, and the edges of the asteroids are horribly jaggie. The texture of the asteroid itself looks fantastic, but the edges just ruin it.

Course.. this is probably not as noticeable on a CRT, but I do see it quite clearly on an LCD monitor.


RE: If their claims prove to be true
By jazkat on 10/11/2007 2:25:45 PM , Rating: 3
drivers may improve the aa problem a little, but dont think they will ever solve them fully because the stream processors only run half of the speed to the ones found in the 8800GTX and i dont think the radeon would cope with that extra heat from doubling the speed of the processors,so extracting as much parallelism as possible from the r600 core will be the goal of ATI's drivers in the future.

2900XT stream processors @ 750MHZ
8800gtx stream processors are @ 1.35GHZ

please correct me if im wrong.


RE: If their claims prove to be true
By FITCamaro on 10/11/2007 3:57:58 PM , Rating: 2
Just because they're running at half the speed doesn't mean they're half as fast though.


By mikeyD95125 on 10/11/2007 7:17:14 PM , Rating: 2
I thought the AA performance hit on the 2900XT was due to the where the piece of hardware that does AA was located and how many units it had on it. I remember Anandtech saying how that could be a problem for the 2900XT.


RE: If their claims prove to be true
By Spoelie on 10/11/2007 9:49:06 PM , Rating: 3
You are wrong. It is not the speed of the shaders that's the problem, but the fact that ATi has to use the shaders to make AA work. There's something broken (like physically broken) in their render backend, where the MSAA units are located. Instead of doing another silicon spin on the 6 months late r600, they decided to go ahead with this revision and fix the flaw in software. Pixels, after being finished (shaders -> render backend), have to take a trip back from the render backend to the shaders to apply the AA effect. End result: more flexibility but a lot slower.

Nvidia's (and ATi's previous carde's) render back end works properly, so it has dedicated AA units which make the process a whole lot faster


By mikeyD95125 on 10/12/2007 7:17:43 PM , Rating: 2
Yeah thats what I was referring to.


AGP
By Schadenfroh on 10/11/2007 8:26:10 AM , Rating: 2
I just hope that my x1950 Pro AGP card will boot with these drivers (unlike the last two ATI released).




RE: AGP
By FeralMisanthrope on 10/11/2007 10:49:06 AM , Rating: 2
Ditto. I'm starting to wonder if they'll ever fix this problem. My three and a half year old computer with an upgraded video card is more than adequate for playing current games. I'm tired of being treated like a second class customer just because I don't want build a new computer every two years.


RE: AGP
By Davelo on 10/11/2007 1:09:21 PM , Rating: 2
My old 9600XT would not even start to play any Valve Source games with the latest ATI driver version 7.9. Let's hope ATI does a little better with their next. I know what some may be thinking that the 9600XT is too old so I should be screwed. Well if that's the case they can forget customer loyalty.


RE: AGP
By splint on 10/11/2007 1:52:29 PM , Rating: 2
This affects me as well, and I really think in the case of the 1950 Pro it’s rather unfair. The 1950 came out at the same time for PCI-E and AGP. ATI made the choice to support both products and now they have swept the AGP users under the carpet.

It’s like crapping on the Linux users because their version of the video card has a smaller install base. Oh, wait…


RE: AGP
By iceburger on 10/11/2007 10:47:43 PM , Rating: 2
I have 1950pro 512MB AGP. 7.9 would crash with BSOD or just plain blank screen. I searched and found a fix for the problem w/ 7.9 driver by changing the aperture size to 256MB- I know it 's not going to use it, so it must be compatibility fix. Hope it helps.


RE: AGP
By picklebill on 10/12/2007 9:36:35 AM , Rating: 2
Loaded the 7.10 drivers and my x1950Pro AGP card kicks butt again. Gave it a slight overclock and it runs stable. Played Splintercell CT and the 3.0 shaders load so much faster it's unreal. Way to go ATI!


RE: AGP
By johnsonx on 10/13/2007 10:31:43 PM , Rating: 2
I've haven't had a problem like that with my X1950Pro AGP (got it open box for $110 from NewEgg, stunningly good deal). I've only had it a few weeks and have been using the 7.9's I already had installed for my previous X1600Pro. I sure hope upgrading to the 7.10's doesn't add any trouble; I'm downloading them now, will report.


RE: AGP
By johnsonx on 10/14/2007 12:27:33 AM , Rating: 2
Loaded the 7.10's, so far so good. Slight 3dmark06 improvement, but nothing certain (less than 1%). There seems to be improvement in UT3 Demo, but I can't say for sure. Certainly nothing bad from the 7.10 cats for my X1950Pro AGP.


Drivers
By perrywilson78 on 10/11/2007 7:45:27 AM , Rating: 2
Lets hope its not reduced picture quality for better frame rates, like they have done before.




RE: Drivers
By StevoLincolnite on 10/11/2007 8:27:14 AM , Rating: 3
You make it sound like, only ATI has made driver cheats before.
Well this is false, nVidia did the same in the Geforce FX days. (They had to, they got pounded left right and center by ATI).

ATI, actually still have they're driver "Cheats" in the form of Catalyst A.I, so it gives you the option to turn it off or not.


RE: Drivers
By DigitalFreak on 10/11/07, Rating: -1
RE: Drivers
By Griswold on 10/11/2007 10:14:18 AM , Rating: 2
And so does nvidia. On my 7800GT I still have to set "High Quality" to get rid of the infamous texture shimmering - at the cost of FPS.

Both are still trying the same tricks but at least both dont try to hide it any longer.


When can a change happen
By AlphaVirus on 10/11/2007 11:05:40 AM , Rating: 1
I love both ATI and Nvidia, they make great products and make groundbreaking changes. The thing I can not stand is, why dont they make updates to drivers for the older cards?

I know alot of people still running on an X800 or equal and I am sure they would appreciate having a performance boost. Just because they are not buying the latest and greatest whenever it becomes available does not mean they should be treated any different.

Now I do understand not all graphics cards can achieve that great of a performance boost but I know I feel better knowing my card gets updates every now-and-then.

ATI/Nvidia need to have a team to help the people who have not upgraded yet, this will make them happier gamers/consumers.

-I currently have an ATI X1950 Pro PCI-E, Nvidia7600GT AGP, Geforce 5200FX AGP.




RE: When can a change happen
By Makaveli on 10/11/2007 11:42:28 AM , Rating: 5
I always see people complaining about this. What kinda of performance boost are you expecting from a 2 year old videocard that hasn't already been done.

I can understand driver fixes and bugs, however I think most of you are daydreaming if you expect any decent kinda fps boost from older hardware.


Well whaddaya know
By Polynikes on 10/11/2007 7:47:36 AM , Rating: 2
It's nice to see them making improvements for Crossfire owners. I must say, sometimes it feels like having two video cards was an utter and complete waste of money, due to the lack of games that really take advantage of them. But whenever I play a Source engine game I smile.




RE: Well whaddaya know
By imaheadcase on 10/11/2007 7:53:19 AM , Rating: 2
To bad playing a source engine game is nothing to sneeze at for your 2 cards anyways. It would be different if it was a night and day difference, but its source engine, its not like its super graphics intensive.


RE: Well whaddaya know
By darkpaw on 10/11/2007 9:33:08 AM , Rating: 2
If I had actually had to pay for my second video card myself I'd also be extermely disappointed. Thankfully it was a gift, but I know I'll never be using either dual video solution again.


RE: Well whaddaya know
By GlassHouse69 on 10/11/07, Rating: -1
ATi driver updates have been more frequent
By alexsch8 on 10/11/2007 8:43:19 AM , Rating: 1
I guess the recent publication of Linux driver specs and how the cards work has increased contributions to the driver core. I think that was a clever move on ATi/AMD's behalf.

Let's hope nVidia follows suit.




By gerf on 10/11/2007 9:42:30 AM , Rating: 2
I thought they were talking about performance improvements Ubuntu 7.10 coming out. Apparantly not. :/

I've got to stop scanning these articles so fast.


By smitty3268 on 10/11/2007 1:59:43 PM , Rating: 2
The open source driver is still trying to get 2D mode working well, and AMD hasn't released 3D specs yet. And they certainly aren't allowing anyone to modify their closed source drivers.

As great as that news was, it really doesn't have anything to do with this announcement.


In case they don't perform
By SavagePotato on 10/11/2007 10:46:08 AM , Rating: 2
"Shoot em up" could turn out to be a bad name for these drivers, if they don't perform they might start calling them the Shoot your mouth series.

Kinda like the original catalyst / cataclysm jokes.

Hope they really pull it off though, the 2xxx series cards could use a boost like this.




RE: In case they don't perform
By Hawkido on 10/11/2007 3:30:12 PM , Rating: 3
LOL! Shoot'em Foot!


It would be better if they were more conservative
By Hulk on 10/11/2007 11:40:57 AM , Rating: 3
In this age of superlatives I think it would be a refreshing change for a manufacturer to be a little conservative in thier claims and actually surpass them for once. Perhaps they just should have said they expect "significant" performance improvements with this next driver release.

I guess I'd just like a dose of reality back in the computing hardware/software world.




By crystal clear on 10/13/2007 3:05:39 AM , Rating: 2
quote:
I guess I'd just like a dose of reality back in the computing hardware/software world.


Well said-worth making it a quote.


Verify those claims
By crystal clear on 10/11/2007 10:25:32 AM , Rating: 4

"Shoot Em Up" Catalyst drivers promise big performance gains for gamers



I would say- put them to test & verify these claims.

Thats exactly what this site did-

The Company of Heroes improvements are not insignificant, but they're a far cry from the promised "up to 31%." Those percentages are often best-case scenarios, with just the right combination of settings and resolution to achieve optimal results. More impressive is the performance jump in Call of Juarez. With AA enabled it's almost 19% at 1920x1200, and with AA turned off it's 13%. Still not "up to 34%" as promised, but further testing with different resolutions and configurations might show higher gains. A 13-19% speed boost from a driver update is impressive.



http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1697,2193657...




No one's playing these games.
By GhandiInstinct on 10/11/2007 2:14:09 PM , Rating: 2
I'd rather see Half-life episode 2, team fortress 2, portal, WoW, BioShock, Crysis.




RE: No one's playing these games.
By paulpod on 10/11/2007 2:46:46 PM , Rating: 2
I'd like to see BioShock work at all. There is a DX10 benchmark on one site where the bar-chart says "crashed" for every HD2600XT entry.

The "Hotfix" driver did not fix this and there is no mention whether 7.10 will fix BioShock or even whether it contains the (not-so-)Hotfix code.


F.E.A.R. on a Radeon X1300 ?
By thesafetyisoff on 10/11/2007 12:12:22 PM , Rating: 2
Will that even run?

And will any of these gains make the cards competitive with nvidia cards at the same price points?




Working good for me.
By NullSubroutine on 10/11/2007 4:09:15 PM , Rating: 2
I use 7.10 RC4 Beta and it was pretty speedy for me on the 2900 XT, however I cant wait for the day they fix the FSAA so it runs at a decent speed.

Oh, and I run XP-64bit.




Driver review...
By shabby on 10/11/2007 5:16:55 PM , Rating: 2
Looks like the only performance increase is for crossfire users, single card score barely budge.

http://pcper.com/article.php?aid=463&type=expert&p...




RE: Driver review...
By GlassHouse69 on 10/11/07, Rating: -1
By Targon on 10/11/2007 9:40:39 AM , Rating: 5
The power draw of a 2900XT really isn't that horrible. A 530 watt power supply is enough to handle one. Crossfire mode is another story of course, but dual video cards will do that.

With the report that AMD/ATI are moving to a 55nm process for their new mid-range cards that will be released in the near future, that is a good sign for the next generation high-end parts.

One thing that many people don't mention very often is that AMD is clearly working toward getting a 45nm process working. That experience on the CPU front will extend to help GPU fab process improvements as well, which should help quite a bit. The thing you may find annoying is that the power savings(and heat savings) will just mean higher speed cards that take as much power as previous products, yet will be faster. You can choose to go with a mid-range card if power usage is your concern.


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