ATI's Upcoming New Dual Core Driver

[Unkno]

ATI is working on its new driver that will boost performance in dual core systems. Sources close to ATI claimed some ten to twenty per cent performance increase with dual core CPUs

Source

Our conclusion after these brief tests is that the new driver is a good first step in the right direction, but that the benefit to end users is minimal at best at this stage. The real benefit will come in when game developers start working on parallelizing their code as much as possible.

Anandtech's Review



Since a lot of people are asking for reviews of Nvidia's multi-threaded drivers to compare it to ATI: Here's a Link

 

[SickBeast]

There's an article about it on the main page. It looks like a 5% boost or something, which is disappointing considering what nVidia managed to do with their dual core driver.

 

[lifeguard1999]

Originally posted by: SickBeast
There's an article about it on the main page. It looks like a 5% boost or something, which is disappointing considering what nVidia managed to do with their dual core driver.

So why didn't NVidia get an AT article on their driver?

 

[SickBeast]

Originally posted by: lifeguard1999

Originally posted by: SickBeast
There's an article about it on the main page. It looks like a 5% boost or something, which is disappointing considering what nVidia managed to do with their dual core driver.

So why didn't NVidia get an AT article on their driver?

I think they did, maybe 3-4 months ago when it came out. I don't remember.

 

[w00t]

Just another reason for me to go dual core

 

[Ackmed]

Except it does next to nothing for high resolutions. Making it useless for people like me.

Originally posted by: SickBeast
There's an article about it on the main page. It looks like a 5% boost or something, which is disappointing considering what nVidia managed to do with their dual core driver.

And what did NV do that was so much better? I dont recall the NV article.

 

[sandorski]

Woot. There's only so much a Driver can take advantage of Dual Cores, though I suspect more than 5% could be acheived. However, any improvement is welcomed, I just hope it helps my aging 9800Pro.

 

[SickBeast]

Originally posted by: Ackmed
Except it does next to nothing for high resolutions. Making it useless for people like me.

Originally posted by: SickBeast
There's an article about it on the main page. It looks like a 5% boost or something, which is disappointing considering what nVidia managed to do with their dual core driver.

And what did NV do that was so much better? I dont recall the NV article.

Hmm...I guess AT didn't do an NV article. In any event, IIRC, the NV driver had a more substantial effect, up to 20% in some cases, and usually at least a 10% boost. Someone mentionned that nVidia's driver will actually make your 2nd CPU core act as a vertex shader, but I'm not sure that that has been confirmed as being fact.

 

[fierydemise]

I remember seeing something about an nVidia dualcore driver but I don't remember much else besides the fact that one exists

 

[Ackmed]

Was it in real games, at a real resolution? Or some 3dmark crap at 1024x768?

 

[SickBeast]

Originally posted by: Ackmed
Was it in real games, at a real resolution? Or some 3dmark crap at 1024x768?

Yes real games, and from what I remember, it even had a nice boost at 1600x1200. Maybe someone who has a dual cored nVidia rig can run some benchmarks for us.

 

[jiffylube1024]

ATI doesn't have a good track record when it comes to promised performance improvements in the past few months. They predicted something like a 20-40% boost for their improved memory drivers (around 20% at very high resolution with AA/AF in certain games was the absolute best I ever saw).

I'll wait and see, but a performance boost would definitely be nice . At least 5-10% sounds a lot more credible...

 

[Zenoth]

Any improvement % is welcome to me.

I'll get an X2 in one or two months, so I'll take advantage of that.

nVidia had the time to optimize the Dual-Core drivers since the 81.xx series isn't the first to feature Dual-Core support.

ATi, on the other hand, will release the very first version to support it. And then, they'll have the time to re-do things and optimize like nVidia.

 

[Pete]

Originally posted by: Ackmed
Was it in real games, at a real resolution? Or some 3dmark crap at 1024x768?

Real gains in real games and at a real res, if you trust compbase.

Edit: Link to AT's article. Not as big or consistent an improvement from ATI's dual-core drivers, but then Wesley tested at different resolutions and used a CPU that's probably stronger to begin with (the P-D 820 probably stands to gain the most among dual-core CPUs).

 

[w00t]

Originally posted by: sandorski
Woot. There's only so much a Driver can take advantage of Dual Cores, though I suspect more than 5% could be acheived. However, any improvement is welcomed, I just hope it helps my aging 9800Pro.

I know i was just using it as an excuse to get dual core

 

[Ackmed]

Originally posted by: jiffylube1024
ATI doesn't have a good track record when it comes to promised performance improvements in the past few months. They predicted something like a 20-40% boost for their improved memory drivers (around 20% at very high resolution with AA/AF in certain games was the absolute best I ever saw).

I'll wait and see, but a performance boost would definitely be nice . At least 5-10% sounds a lot more credible...

They met their claimed numbers.

Originally posted by: Pete

Originally posted by: Ackmed
Was it in real games, at a real resolution? Or some 3dmark crap at 1024x768?

Real gains in real games and at a real res, if you trust compbase.

Edit: Link to AT's article. Not as big or consistent an improvement from ATI's dual-core drivers, but then Wesley tested at different resolutions and used a CPU that's probably stronger to begin with (the P-D 820 probably stands to gain the most among dual-core CPUs).

That link doesnt work.

Why has nobody tested NV's dual core drivers?

 

[Unkno]

Updated: Added links to Anandtech's review of ATI and a review for nvidia's dual core driver

 

[Wreckage]

ATI needs to start innovating a bit more. They are about a year behind NVIDIA.

SLI - year later - Crossfire
SM3.0 - year later - SM3.0 (missing VTF)
Purevideo - year later - AVIVO
Dual Core Driver - year later - Dual Core Driver

Hopefully in a year ATI will have a hard launches

 

[Pete]

Originally posted by: Ackmed
That link doesnt work.

Why has nobody tested NV's dual core drivers?

I guess their website is having problems. They tested NV's dualcore drivers with the P-D 820, and it showed some nice gains in quite a few games at 12x10.

Edit: Tweaktown's article (see OP) shows similar gains on an A64-X2.

 

[Unkno]

The performance gains in ATI and/or Nvidia's card isn't an "IF it would gain any performance", it's more like WHEN. It's just a matter of time (probably next release) until we see more performance from ATI, it seems that this dual core driver isn't really the "complete" dual core driver since it's missing performance gains from opengl and a fair amount from directX games.

 

[Ackmed]

Originally posted by: Wreckage
ATI needs to start innovating a bit more. They are about a year behind NVIDIA.

SLI - year later - Crossfire
SM3.0 - year later - SM3.0 (missing VTF)
Purevideo - year later - AVIVO
Dual Core Driver - year later - Dual Core Driver

Hopefully in a year ATI will have a hard launches

Ahh, ignorance is bliss. ATi already has hard launches.

 

[Griswold]

Most gain I've ever noticed with nvidias dual core optimized drivers compared to 78.01 were around 10% tops. Thats at 1280x1024.

Cant really compare the non-public beta drivers from ATI to released drivers from nvidia that have been out for 2 months.

 

[otispunkmeyer]

i cant wait to get an X2 next year......hopefully NV and ATI will be able to extract more performance from 2cores

 

[Genx87]

Got a lot more work to do.

 

[Munky]

Originally posted by: Wreckage
ATI needs to start innovating a bit more. They are about a year behind NVIDIA.

That depends on how you look at it.

SLI - year later - Crossfire

OK

SM3.0 - year later - SM3.0 (missing VTF)

Pathetic dynamic branching performance on the gf6 and 7 series? Hardly worth bragging about

Purevideo - year later - AVIVO

I dont consider a broken purevideo processor as a feature on the 6 series

Dual Core Driver - year later - Dual Core Driver

We havent even had dual core CPU's for a year, WTF are you smoking?

Hopefully in a year ATI will have a hard launches

They are getting close...