CATALYST 4.3 Driver Review - Firing Squad

[klah]

http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/catalyst_4.3/default.asp

ATI claimed to offer performance improvements in DX9 titles like Halo and Tomb Raider with CATALYST 4.3, and based on what we saw we can definitely corroborate this. In Halo, performance improvements of more than 10% weren?t uncommon across all DX9 cards, while Tomb Raider saw increases of around 3-5%.
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Based on all this, if you?ve got a DX9 RADEON card, you should seriously consider giving CATALYST 4.3 a serious look. In fact, we?d rate CATALYST 4.3 as ATI?s most exciting release of the year. The added DX9 performance comes just in time for new titles such as Far Cry, a game which can be very demanding on even the latest cutting edge system. This is arguably the best driver we?ve seen since CATALYST 3.10 last December.

 

[Elcs]

Originally posted by: klah[/b In fact, we?d rate CATALYST 4.3 as ATI?s most exciting release of the year.Q]

So they dont think the R420 is exciting?

I like the Cat 4.3's but I cant tell whether its faster or slower on NFSU... I sometimes I notice slowing and sometimes I dont, depends on how interested I am in racing.

 

[niggles]

Apparantly the new Game Battle Field Vietnam, one of the most anticipated games to comeout this month has serious issues with the new Cat 4.3. Word is that it's stuttering all over the place and that the Nvidia cards are fine.

 

[McArra]

my 3dMark03 increased 95marks to 5905(stock). I'm quite pleased with Farcry also... I like this drivers.

 

[Excelsior]

Yeah..I definitely don't like the drivers. None of the drivers have done anything for me since 3.7s.

 

[futuristicmonkey]

I like these new drivers. I didnt have too much time to test them but i played a little Halo and did a little more benching in 3dMark03. In 3M03, my pixel shader 2.0 performance rose by nearly 50% from average of 20 fps,in cat 4.2, to average of 30 fps. Im using a Sapphire 9600 Pro.

 

[jasonja]

Originally posted by: niggles
Apparantly the new Game Battle Field Vietnam, one of the most anticipated games to comeout this month has serious issues with the new Cat 4.3. Word is that it's stuttering all over the place and that the Nvidia cards are fine.

I'm not having any issues with these drivers on my 9700. There is a problem with forcing on AF on ATI cards but I don't have that forced on and it's easy to work around for those who had it on. I've seen many people with nVidia cards complaining about various issues too. It's a new game, it's expected to have a few kinks to work out and I'm sure nVidia and ATI will address any vendor specific bugs pretty quick.

 

[dguy6789]

My friend used them on his 9600 Pro, and the game had slowdown in splinter cell at highest settings and a few shadowing problems, we then installed the latest omega drivers and performance sky rocketed and so did IQ.