5800 Series getting faster with new drivers

[Tempered81]

hardOCP and Legitreviews are reviewing Shift using the 9.12 Betas that are to be the first official 5970 Drivers. Combined with patch 1, and patch 2 they are getting amazing increases in performance from the 5870. With the original game version and 9.10 whql, the 5870 is almost 25% slower than when using 9.12 beta.

Perhaps the rumors of increased performance with 9.12 driver are true?

http://www.legitreviews.com/article/1130/3/
http://www.hardocp.com/article/2009/11/10/need_for_speed_shift_gameplay_performance_iq/7

 

[dflynchimp]

good to see ATI's driver team making a difference.

Now if they'd only fix the DX10 AA issue with RE5...

 

[bigriggg]

nice, i just got a 5850 yesterday, having issues with higher AA, hope they keep improving

 

[nitromullet]

It looks more like the Alpha Patch is what is making the difference. The difference between Cat9.10/Patch v1.1 and Cat9.10/Alpha is huge, but the difference between Cat9.10/Alpha and Cat beta/Alpha not so much...

It's good either way and the performance of the 5870 is impressive, but to me it looks like more a case of the developer improving the game than it is ATI improving the driver.

edit: whoops. I thought the bars were max/min, and not dual/single. It actually looks like beta cats are doing quite a bit, but it looks like the EA patch did wonders for dual 5870 setups.

 

[tviceman]

Although performance increases via updated drivers are always welcome, these kinds of huge speed increases are usually game specific, and typically not that big across the spectrum of many games. I can safely say this kind of performance bump with the new drivers will likely be only for a small handful of games. Other games will likely experience very slight increases, or none at all.

 

[nitromullet]

dp

 

[akugami]

I always felt when looking at the results of the 5870 reviews all over the place that drivers were the limiting factor in some of the performance increases. The results of the 5870 seemed a bit low for a piece of hardware that is in many ways a doubling of a 4870. Yet we see the 4870x2's performing better than the 5870 in almost every case. I was expecting the 5870 to be roughly a 4870x2 while giving some, taking some, but mostly minor percentage shifts.

I would take the high performance increase with a grain of salt. Keep in mind that EA's new patch for the game also increased performance for ATI's cards. I really would have liked a test showing the old Shift v1.1 patch along with the new 9.12 drivers to see how much that increases performance alone. It would give an idea of how much of the performance is due to new Catalyst drivers and how much due to optimizations in the game for ATI cards.

 

[Number1]

Would it make any difference in the 5700 series cards?

 

[FrgMstr]

I would take the high performance increase with a grain of salt. Keep in mind that EA's new patch for the game also increased performance for ATI's cards. I really would have liked a test showing the old Shift v1.1 patch along with the new 9.12 drivers to see how much that increases performance alone. It would give an idea of how much of the performance is due to new Catalyst drivers and how much due to optimizations in the game for ATI cards.

We did exactly that on the page linked in the OP. Original patch was faster....

 

[Grinja]

Now if they'd only fix the DX10 AA issue with RE5...

Yeah that one has me too ...

 

[MarcVenice]

'bout frigging time EA released a patch for Shift ... Perhaps now I can use it in my benchmarksuite ... Nice test btw, always liked those graphs

 

[error8]

Yeah that one has me too ...

What is that? I don't have it.

 

[SunnyD]

We did exactly that on the page linked in the OP. Original patch was faster....

Anyone find it funny that Kyle is actually actively posting here?

 

[akugami]

Must've missed it Kyle cause I did go to the HardOCP article. In my defense I was looking at it while at work.

 

[Keysplayr]

Anyone find it funny that Kyle is actually actively posting here?

I wouldn't exactly call 16 posts in almost 10 years, active.

 

[AzN]

Although performance increases via updated drivers are always welcome, these kinds of huge speed increases are usually game specific, and typically not that big across the spectrum of many games. I can safely say this kind of performance bump with the new drivers will likely be only for a small handful of games. Other games will likely experience very slight increases, or none at all.

exactly!

 

[jvroig]

Until a fresh review (or is it a "re-review") of the 5xxx with new drivers show performance increases across the board (or at least, mostly across the board) in a test suite such as AnandTech's, then one game showing increased FPS really isn't that big of a deal, as it might just be the game made a little more optimized for the card, instead of the card just making everything faster.

I second the question of a poster before me: does the speed increases also include the 57xx series, or was the 58xx the only series tested?

 

[nemesismk2]

Would it make any difference in the 5700 series cards?

I can't see why not even if the performance difference isn't as great as with the 5870.

 

[BFG10K]

Until a fresh review (or is it a "re-review") of the 5xxx with new drivers show performance increases across the board (or at least, mostly across the board) in a test suite such as AnandTech's, then one game showing increased FPS really isn't that big of a deal, as it might just be the game made a little more optimized for the card, instead of the card just making everything faster.

I predict this game is just the beginning, and I plan to do a big retest once enough optimizations have been rolled into the drivers.

 

[jvroig]

I predict this game is just the beginning, and I plan to do a big retest once enough optimizations have been rolled into the drivers.

I was going to mention you (again) in my post, but I thought "Nah, BFG's gonna be here soon enough anyway" and here you are

While I am not as optimistic as you (since I'm no GPU expert and have conducted no benchmarks), I am just as hopeful! I personally hope the next few months' worth of driver updates will make the 5xxx series even more awesome.

Looking forward to your retests by the time Fermi rolls out

 

[Elias824]

Ive been expecting this since the 5870 launch. I really though the drivers were holding the cards back quite a bit. I hope this performance increase is across the board, though Id probably expect smaller numbers with most other games.

 

[FrgMstr]

Anyone find it funny that Kyle is actually actively posting here?

I have been checking out how the forum upgrade was going. Beating on the search server some. Anand has done a much better job at getting rolling with vBulletin than we ever did. <knock on wood>No outages or errors for a couple months now though.</knock on wood> I think HardForum finally turned the corner.

 

[evolucion8]

Hey Kyle, it's nice to see you posting here, after all, you can give a nice aportation to the threads and debates with your knowledge. I also post in hardforums, guru3d and NGOHQ.

 

[at80eighty]

I have been checking out how the forum upgrade was going. Beating on the search server some. Anand has done a much better job at getting rolling with vBulletin than we ever did. <knock on wood>No outages or errors for a couple months now though.</knock on wood> I think HardForum finally turned the corner.

hey Kyle, maybe you wont check back but the review you did on the Eyefinity was top notch work

 

[MrBorsa]

very nice card but Nvidia is the best


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