ATI Catalyst 4.4 driver faster than Omega driver?

[welst10]

I ran 3dmark03 under both drivers. Omega 2.5.36 (latest one) got a score of 5820 and Catalyst got 5900! How could that be?? This was from a non-ocerclocked 9800 pro.

 

[charloscarlies]

Same thing happened to me when using the 4.3's when they came out. Maybe the Cats are just better?

 

[jdogg707]

I think there are fixes in the Omega drivers that improve image quality while sacrificing just a bit of performance to do so, maybe going back and seeing if you can tell a difference from an image quality stand point would prove why one or the other was higher.

 

[JustAnAverageGuy]

margin of error?

Whoever said the benchmark was completely consistent 100% of the time?

 

[RanDum72]

An 80-point difference is well within the margin of error. No difference at all, IMO.

 

[Auric]

Oh noes a 1% difference!

Omega et alli do not have the ability to write drivers, they just edit the setup script to change the default options. Sometimes they will package mismatched versions as well.

If you want to have more control than the Control Panel gives you then avoid such junk and get a good tweaker instead. Better yet, don't mess with unsupported settings other than o'erclocking.

 

[Desipher]

lol 3dmarks is so unbelievable innacurate at benchmarking, I cant beleive people still use it

 

[Cerb]

Originally posted by: RanDum72
An 80-point difference is well within the margin of error. No difference at all, IMO.

Actually, if I run it a few times in a row, I can get the same score over and over, typically by the 3rd run.
Not that you'd notice a 80-point difference, but...

 

[Dman877]

Originally posted by: Desipher
lol 3dmarks is so unbelievable innacurate at benchmarking, I cant beleive people still use it

It's good at detecting small differences in your setup, I do notice a dif in 3dmark if I change a few ram timings. That is what a benchmark is supposed to do, differentiate computers/settings. If I oc my video card, even a small amount, my 3dmark score goes up, showing the improvement. I don't understand where your comment is coming from.

EDIT: and the margin of error I have experienced in 3dmark is usually 20 - 30 points, not 80. I do see my score change when I change the quality settings (the performance/quality slider thing) in the control panel too. Since the Omega drivers are quality optimized, it makes sense they would be slower.

 

[ForceCalibur]

Uh, its pretty well known that any Catalyst Version will get a slightly higher 3Dmarks score than the same Omega Revision. This is because Omega is all about image quality + performance, and the slight hit is well worth the better IQ.

 

[welst10]

80 points is definitely NOT margin of error. I ran it 3 times under Catalyst 4.4.
1st score: 5902
2nd: 5898
3rd: 5896

Margin of error is more like 6 points.

 

[RanDum72]

OK, so maybe 80 points to you is not within the margin of error (which at between 1-2% difference definitely is). What is so shocking about it then? Damn, its lower by 80 points in 3Dmark?! Are you going to commit suicide then?
My point is the difference is so insignificant, its not even worth the trouble to THINK about it. Why don't you go ahead and PLAY something with it? But maybe if you do, then you'll come back and split hairs again, like 'the Omega drivers did 80 fps in this game while the Catalyst drivers did 82fps. Why is it faster with the Catalyst?'

 

[Dman877]

IMO, it'll take about a 1000 point dif in 3dmark (any version) before you'll notice it in games. Basically I agree with randum.

 

[Oyeve]

I wouldnt trust any futuremark benchmarks. on my P4 3.06 chip with 1.5 gig of ram at 2700 and an ATI 9800pro I get 5400 on 3dmark2003, and thats with the 3D display settings set to performance. If I change the open GL or direct3d settings to balanced I get like 2500 marks on my system. Very flaky untrustworthy benmark if you ask me. All my games run smooth so that is my bench mark.

 

[AIWGuru]

I wouldnt trust any futuremark benchmarks. on my P4 3.06 chip with 1.5 gig of ram at 2700 and an ATI 9800pro I get 5400 on 3dmark2003

That's because of the speed of your HDD.

 

[Oyeve]

Originally posted by: AIWGuru

I wouldnt trust any futuremark benchmarks. on my P4 3.06 chip with 1.5 gig of ram at 2700 and an ATI 9800pro I get 5400 on 3dmark2003

That's because of the speed of your HDD.

All my HDs are ata/133. I should go back to my 16 U160 scsi drives but if it wasnt for the damned noise! I only get low scores when I futz with display settings in properties. I thought 3dmarkXXX overrides that and uses its own settings.

 

[txxxx]

Some of you really need to get out more!

Wow, roughly 1% improvement!
That means 1% more frags.....whatever