4870 crossfire - best Catalyst driver?

[komatta]

Hi all,

I recently bought a second 4870 off craigslist (1gb) to tide me over for a later video card upgrade.

I was wondering what the best Catalyst drivers are to use. I am on 10.11 right now. I tried some earlier ones and performance seemed to vary, and I see people post different things (10.5? 10.4? etc).

If you could recommend me that would be much appreciated.

Thanks.

 

[solofly]

Use the latest that will work for you, that's all you can do. Start with 10.12 followed by 10.11 e,d,c,b,a, 10.10 and so on. Crossfire drivers are like playing Russian roulette...

 

[GotNoRice]

One of the really cool things about having the Crossfire Application Profiles separate from the driver is that updating the driver is not nearly as big of a deal anymore.

Unless you're having problems that are specifically addressed by a new driver release, I'd just stick with whatever you are using.

But always update to the latest CAP as it is released.

 

[komatta]

One of the really cool things about having the Crossfire Application Profiles separate from the driver is that updating the driver is not nearly as big of a deal anymore.

Unless you're having problems that are specifically addressed by a new driver release, I'd just stick with whatever you are using.

But always update to the latest CAP as it is released.

Thanks. Do I have to do anything to set up the profiles? Or will the CCC know when I launch that particular game?

 

[hawtdawg]

I used 10.5a for several months. None of the drivers since then perform like they should in BFBC2. The only reason i dropped 10.5a was to go with 10.10e because 10.5a had some performance issues with SC2. 10.10e had some weird issue where protoss pylon fields wouldn't show on the ground unless i had AI turned off, but that disables xfire. 10.12 fixed that issue, so right now I'm pretty happy with 10.12. I haven't tried BFBC2 with them yet, but I don't imagine anything has changed, but since i play SC2 a lot lately, i went ahead and moved on from 10.5a. It's on a game to game basis though as far as which drivers are best. You'll probably find that no one single driver will work best for all of the games you play, so you gotta just kinda try them all out and see which one works best for you.

The CAT profiles do help for performance in some cases, but they definitely don't address all issues with specific games.

 

[busydude]

BF:BC2 works fine on my setup using 10.12 drivers.

 

[hawtdawg]

BF:BC2 works fine on my setup using 10.12 drivers.

I think it might be an issue with 4xxx series, maybe not all of them either. In my case (and a lot of other cases i've read) performance is just not up to par post 10.5a. I get better performance on 1 video card. If I force DX9 mode it generally runs ok though. ATI denies the problem exists, but it definitely exists.

here's a youtube video i made just to give you an idea. It's not gameplay, but the way the framerate and scrolling text stutters is how the game itself behaves (on top of framerates not being where they should).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_9E3BFq6t-A

 

[busydude]

In my case (and a lot of other cases i've read) performance is just not up to par with 10.5a. I get better performance on 1 video card.

I also jumped from 10.5 to 10.12.. and I have seen performance of DiRT 2 drop from 60 FPS to 55 FPS.. not much difference during game play but significant none the less.. OTOH F1 2010 remained the same.. but feels smoother. I know its all subjective, but worth sharing.

All other games(10+) performed the same.

 

[hawtdawg]

I also jumped from 10.5 to 10.12.. and I have seen performance of DiRT 2 drop from 60 FPS to 55 FPS.. not much difference during game play but significant none the less.. OTOH F1 2010 remained the same.. but feels smoother. I know its all subjective, but worth sharing.

All other games(10+) performed the same.

Well i mean specifically with BFBC2, i haven't seen the same type of issue with other games.

 

[busydude]

here's a youtube video i made just to give you an idea. It's not gameplay, but the way the framerate and scrolling text stutters is how the game itself behaves (on top of framerates not being where they should). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_9E3BFq6t-A

Ahh.. I see. Ill get back home and report if I see the same.