Does “Catalyst AI” in Catalyst 10.3 lower the in-game visual quality?

[frank19741]

Does “Catalyst AI” in Catalyst 10.3 lower the in-game visual quality?​

ATI has just announced their final Catalyst 10.3 graphics driver. It is said that the most important feature of this driver is the ability to enable graphics performance increase in games. There is a new feature called “Catalyst AI” in Catalyst 10.3 driver. It is enabled in the default setting. The performance increase in games owes to this feature.

It seems that Catalyst AI is an interesting capability. The image quality in games seems to have some changes after enabling Catalyst AI.

I have compared the difference in some mainstream games when enabling Catalyst AI and disabling it.

The screenshots are as follows:

Call of Duty 6
Enabled

Disabled

Look at the change in the grass.

Left for Dead
Enabled

http://public.blu.livefilestore.com...1KQcynIWmA/2on hl2 2010-04-02 20-48-45-12.jpg

Disabled

I don't think there is any difference between the two screenshots…


DiRT 2
Enabled

http://public.blu.livefilestore.com...X-LHP_1w/1on dirt2 2010-04-02 21-20-45-03.jpg

Disabled

Look at the shadow on the stone and massif.


Far Cry 2
Enabled

Disabled

Look at the changes of the stone’s shadow on the upper left.


As you can see in the above screenshots, Catalyst AI does lower the visual quality somewhat in some games. Of course, not all of the games are affected by Catalyst AI. We can see that Catalyst AI generally has some impacts on the shadows and lightings in the game environment. Additionally, the grass scene is also affected more or less in Call of Duty 6.

Although the addition of Catalyst AI in Catalyst 10.3 speeds up games, it does lower the image quality in games. Perhaps you will not agree with that.

Locked on account of being fishy.

-ViRGE

 

[viivo]

What screenshots?

 

[hans030390]

Catalyst AI has been in the drivers for a long while now...

 

[dguy6789]

Catalyst AI improves performance through driver optimizations for specific games. None of the articles covering it have found it to reduce image quality. Your screen shot links aren't working

 

[MrK6]

Catalyst AI improves performance through driver optimizations for specific games. None of the articles covering it have found it to reduce image quality. Your screen shot links aren't working

Same, I've never heard of anything like this, and I'd like to see the screenshots. If this is true, they'll catch hell (despite it making sense).

 

[MarcVenice]

Same, I've never heard of anything like this, and I'd like to see the screenshots. If this is true, they'll catch hell (despite it making sense).

Why? AMD never claimed they'd do anything ELSE then reduce IQ in favor of more performance. In my reviews, I have it at Standard all the time ... Yet I saw a lot of improvements going from 10.2 to 10.3a.

 

[apoppin]

Why? AMD never claimed they'd do anything ELSE then reduce IQ in favor of more performance. In my reviews, I have it at Standard all the time ... Yet I saw a lot of improvements going from 10.2 to 10.3a.

Unless i am mistaken, Nvidia would prefer us to benchmark with AI off.
- there are definite optimizations but the IQ differences are *so slight* that i also bench with Cat AI "standard" also.

This could be revisited in an IQ review again.

 

[Zstream]

This is the same stuff that Nvidia "leaks" out to people to post on forums. Pretty pathetic if you ask me.

 

[NoQuarter]

It does the same thing as the Trilinear optimization, Anisotropic mip filter optimization, etc settings in Nvidia control panel. It also disables crossfire if you disable AI. Just some small optimizations that are all but imperceivable but increase fps.

If I remember right they started adding these options in after both companies got in trouble for using them as cheats in benchmarks without making people aware they were doing 'brilinear filtering' and such instead of the full process.

Anyway the standard setting doesn't effect IQ afaik, advanced may have the slightest effect but should be near impossible to notice. So I wouldn't bench with it off, myself I'd rather have advanced optimization benches (from both parties).

 

[MrK6]

Why? AMD never claimed they'd do anything ELSE then reduce IQ in favor of more performance. In my reviews, I have it at Standard all the time ... Yet I saw a lot of improvements going from 10.2 to 10.3a.

Sorry, I should have said "noticeable image quality reduction." Those screenshots just loaded for me an I can't see a bit of difference, even when looking at the areas mentioned.

 

[SSChevy2001]

Looking over the screenshots I see nothing wrong with Catalyst AI. In fact the CoD screenshot looks better with it on.

CoD6 - Grass looks less jagged with AI on / IQ is better
L4D - no difference / IQ same
Dirt2 - time of day is different / IQ same
Farcry2 - time of day is different / IQ same

 

[RussianSensation]

​

As you can see in the above screenshots, Catalyst AI does lower the visual quality somewhat in some games.

Thanks for the comparison. However, I can honestly say I am using a 37 inch monitor and I englarged your shots and I didn't notice a single difference in any of the screenshots you took. All the shadows look identical. Not only that, these are stills, so there is no way to notice it in game. But I just don't see any differences at all.

 

[crazylegs]

I cant notice any difference... Is this meant to be a veiled dig at ATI?

 

[NoQuarter]

Looking over the screenshots I see nothing wrong with Catalyst AI. In fact the CoD screenshot looks better with it on.

CoD6 - Grass looks less jagged with AI on / IQ is better
L4D - no difference / IQ same
Dirt2 - time of day is different / IQ same
Farcry2 - time of day is different / IQ same

I actually agree.. when I first looked at the thread I thought he was saying the Catalyst AI made it look better because the grass looked slightly better in CoD6 to me.

I couldn't see any difference in the other shots except maybe a slight difference in the shadow on the rock he pointed out in Farcry 2 but neither looked 'better' they were just slightly different.

 

[lavaheadache]

I enlarged them and concluded PEBKAC, lol

 

[mhouck]

I'm glad to see others posting that they don't see the difference either. I thought my eyes were going bad or something.

a bad late april fools?

 

[HurleyBird]

Yeah, in the first set of pics grass looks better with AI on (did you mix up the pictures?). I can see some shadow differences, but neither looks better or worse and the time of day explanation makes sense.

 

[TheRyuu]

*.jpg?

 

[Fox5]

Cat AI enhanced sometimes broke a few games for me, but I never had any problems with standard.

Besides, I'm willing to deal with imperceptible image quality loss. The brilinear filter that cards still use (fast trilinear) is a much bigger loss in quality, but that's enabled by default.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Catalyst AI improves performance through driver optimizations for specific games. None of the articles covering it have found it to reduce image quality. Your screen shot links aren't working

I had always thought that it was a tradeoff, that they indeed slightly reduced visual settings, for increased performance. Performance doesn't come for free, you know.

This is independent of any particular speedups noted in the driver release readme, those are true optimizations, and should be independent of any visual quality settings.

Edit: I cannot really tell the difference between many of those screenshots. Seems pretty imperceptible to me.

 

[ronnn]

Catalyst AI improves performance through driver optimizations for specific games. None of the articles covering it have found it to reduce image quality. Your screen shot links aren't working

Actually ai improves quality on some games (or so I have read).

 

[Sylvanas]

What is the purpose of this thread?

Taken from http://www.tweakguides.com/ATICAT_7.html

Catalyst A.I: Catalyst A.I. allows users to determine the level of 'optimizations' the drivers enable in graphics applications. These optimizations are graphics 'short cuts' which the Catalyst A.I. calculates to attempt to improve the performance of 3D games without any noticeable reduction in image quality. In the past there has been a great deal of controversy about 'hidden optimizations', where both Nvidia and ATI were accused of cutting corners, reducing image quality in subtle ways by reducing image precision for example, simply to get higher scores in synthetic benchmarks like 3DMark. In response to this, both ATI and Nvidia have made the process transparent to a great extent. You can select whether you want to enable or disable Catalyst A.I. for a further potential performance boost in return for possibly a slight reduction in image quality in some cases. If Catalyst AI is enabled, you can also choose the aggressiveness of such optimizations, either Standard or Advanced on the slider. The Advanced setting ensures maximum performance, and usually results in no problems or any noticeable image quality reduction. If on the other hand you want to always ensure the highest possible image quality at all costs, disable Catalyst A.I. (tick the 'Disable Catalyst A.I.' box). I recommend leaving Catalyst A.I enabled unless you experience problems. ATI have made it clear that many application-specific optimizations for recent games such as Oblivion are dependent on Catalyst AI being enabled.

Pretty clear what Catalyst AI does....it's been around for many years. Troll thread.

 

[Attic]

Well i've always kept it at standard, but after looking at those pics (can't tell one iota of difference TBH), i'm going to set it to Advanced.

I'll take a bit of a performance boost for zero image degradation to my eyes.

 

[Sylvanas]

Well i've always kept it at standard, but after looking at those pics (can't tell one iota of difference TBH), i'm going to set it to Advanced.

I'll take a bit of a performance boost for zero image degradation to my eyes.

Yep. I always keep it at Advanced, may as well have some free performance!

 

[BFG10K]

This is quite an interesting post. A guy registers for the sole purpose of “uncovering” Catalyst AI (which has been around for years), then is nowhere to be seen when multiple people point out there’s no difference in the images.

Now, I’m not saying Cat AI has never caused problems in the history of its existence, but you have to wonder what suddenly motivated this thread to be created.

Also the font in the OP looks like it was copied and pasted from Word, which makes me wonder if it came from a prepared document.