LOL... ATI Texture Quality

[CaiNaM]

Throwing fud back and forth is not uncommon in this industry, many manufacturers do it to put their product in the spotlight and make it appear to do a lot better in terms of performance or features than the competition. ATI and NVIDIA have both been doing their fair share of fud throwing, but it usually is ATI that goes out of its way to find fault in new NVIDIA products shortly after launch. So we weren?t surprised to be notified by them of a texture filtering quality issue with NVIDIA?s top-of-the-line GeForce 7800 GT and 7800 GTX graphics cards.

Upon closer inspection there indeed was an issue with the texture filtering algorithm used in the 77.77 drivers of the GeForce 7800GT and 7800 GTX. This algorithm is said to up the performance, but lower the image quality as it causes for texture shimmering. Unfortunately it isn?t easy to reproduce this ?shimmering? as it appears to vary from game to game and system to system, with some games appearing fine and some clearly having issues. That being said NVIDIA was on the ball quickly and resolved the issue in the 78-series drivers that were launched last week.

So to our surprise we found out earlier this week, and as reported here, that ATI?s Catalyst 5.8 new drivers have the exact same problem. And unlike NVIDIA, that was on the ball immediately after reports of texture filtering issues with their newly bought GeForce 7800 GT or 7800 GTX, ATI doesn?t even list it in the release notes for their Catalyst drivers. Normally these new releases are accompanied by release notes that describe bugs that are still unresolved and are being worked upon, the texture filtering issue however isn?t mentioned. So did ATI code this in as a feature to up the performance? Was it simply a bug that got in somehow? Or is this a case of the pot calling the kettle black? We?re waiting for ATI?s reply on this, and whether they?ll be on the ball just as quickly to resolve it. Or will we have to wait another month for the next Catalyst release?

Sander Sassen.

Article

 

[VIAN]

The crappy filtering has always been there for the X800 series of ATI cards. This author sucks for not realizing that. In fact, everyone is pretty stupid to bench cards with these really crappy IQ settings. They suck, I thought we were suposed to bench best image quality as well.

 

[Ackmed]

1. Its old news.
2. Not the same issue. Its not near as much of an issue on the 5.8's, than one NV's drivers. Its one driver from ATi, several for NV.
3. Nice to see you havent changed.
4. Try searching for several threads, and thousands of posts about this very issue. Unless you are trying to start another useless thread, which seems to be the case.
5. NV didnt resolve the issue, its still very much a problem with the drivers set to "Quality".

 

[raildogg]

old news, however, i found this quite interesting:


linkaroo

 

[Dman877]

to condem? or condemn? that is the question

 

[CaiNaM]

Originally posted by: Dman877
to condem? or condemn? that is the question

lol.. quite correct

 

[imported_g33k]

Originally posted by: raildogg
unban blackinches.

blackinches.

Official member of the ? hmmm??



linkaroo

Black inches? That's the guy that kept talking in the third person right? "Black inches would say that you need to buy a better processor. Black inches tends to disagree..." what a nut job. Why was he banned?

 

[Blastman]

So to our surprise we found out earlier this week, and as reported here, that ATI?s Catalyst 5.8 new drivers have the exact same problem.

Sander Sassen ought t check the facts before he mouths off like that. That article comes across with a very anti ATI slant.

ATI does not have the same problem with texture aliasing as the NV 6800/7800 on Q mode.

In one game CS:S, there is a small spot on one road where there is a little texture aliasing. There is a thread about it at rage3d.

The problem is on both ATI and NV cards. The LOD is apparently set to -1, so in essence it?s the way the game and textures are set up that is causing the problems.

 

[n7]

Both ATi & nVidia's drivers suck.

Overall though, nVidia seems to have more major issues that they don't seem to care about fixing
E.g., it took them 2 months to get around to fixing the video overlay issue :roll:

ATi's CCC is a freakin' POS though :frown:

Bah, as i said, i hate them both...

 

[nitromullet]

Originally posted by: Ackmed
1. Its old news.
2. Not the same issue. Its not near as much of an issue on the 5.8's, than one NV's drivers. Its one driver from ATi, several for NV.
3. Nice to see you havent changed.
4. Try searching for several threads, and thousands of posts about this very issue. Unless you are trying to start another useless thread, which seems to be the case.
5. NV didnt resolve the issue, its still very much a problem with the drivers set to "Quality".

1. Agreed, but we should keep tabs on both companies' IQ. Funny how when the shimmering is an issue for NV cards, you'll take the time to read/post in a multi-page thread, but it's an issue with for ATI, it's becomes "old news" that shouldn't be discussed any further. If it's still a problem for either (or both), we should continue to bring it up over and over again. You personally should have a greater interest in this than I do, seeing as how you own a high end ATI card as well as a 7800GTX.

2. This would indicate that is is a bug with NV, since this just showed up in the G70 cards. Also, NV has improved the IQ. Hopefully more improvements will come. I think drivers for a new part get a bit of wiggle room for error. Don't get me wrong, I beleive that they were trying to optimize and didn't quite get it right, I just think they will fix the IQ. ATI's driver is a slightly different story... Why does the AF IQ suddenly drop on a year old part? Don't they know how to code drivers for it by now? Personally, I think they do.

3. I'll let CaiNaM respond as he sees fit... Kinda nice to see him show up again though. I really appreciated his even handed approach to the ATI AF issues last year, especially since he was one of the first to have an X800 Pro last summer.

4. see 1.

5. Agreed here as well. However, I don't mind the shimmering in "Quality" so much, but I am irritated by the fact that it still exists somewhat in "High Quality", although it is reduced. IMO, NV needs to give me a setting that completely eliminates the shimmer no matter what the performance hit. I'll be the judge on whether or not I think it's worth it. I do the same with v-sync, why not with AF? In games that tear badly, I'll use v-sync and take the greatly reduced framerates... In others, I won't... Either way, I should be able to control the IQ/performance ratio of my own $600 video card.

 

[kylebisme]

It is said to sew another one of these threads when I have been complaining about the reduction of filtering quality on both my x800xt-pe and my 6800gt since I got them when they first came out. If only we could have had some interest in the subject back when it happened instead there being so many people only interested in image quality when it serves their desire to bash whichever particular company.

 

[AnnoyedGrunt]

It is disappointing that in the day of faster and faster GPU's, the companies have reduced the quality of many of the features.

I wish NV would offer an X-Treme (they should spell it that way, too ) Quality AF that would go back to their method on the NF4 and earlier cards, where they performed full AF @ all angles, instead of only certain ones.

I wish both companies would allow you to turn off all optimizations.

I wish my ATI X800XL did not GPU Crash in WoW.

At least both companies seem to be back to supporting triple buffering.

Anyhow, I think in some respects the competition between the two has degenerated to such an extent (an all-out FPS attack, and to hell with quality), that in many ways the consumer has been hurt rather than helped.

It would be really nice to see Matrox able to get a high end card out again, just to bring some quality back to the table. I guess the rapid innovation of ATI and NV will make it very difficult for anyone else to offer a high-end card for a while.

Whatever happend to that company making the lower end cards, Volari was it? Weren't they going to take over the market? I haven't heard anything from them in a while. Maybe they'll step up to the plate?

-D'oh!

 

[Busithoth]

funny. Why you got to be a hater, Sassen?

If it made ATI act faster to develop a solution, I could see a reason.
As it is, I haven't had an nVidia card for too long to judge accurately, but I'm sure both companies could do better.

But that's just silly to blow smoke up the butt of one company for doing something it didn't do, while trashing another company for doing the same thing as it's competition. ATI shouldn't point to the nVidia shimmering as a reason not to buy their cards, though. At least until they fix it.

 

[ronnn]

Originally posted by: raildogg
old news, however, i found this quite interesting:


linkaroo

Still trying figure out what impluse I am trying to satisfy.

 

[nitromullet]

Whatever happend to that company making the lower end cards, Volari was it? Weren't they going to take over the market? I haven't heard anything from them in a while. Maybe they'll step up to the plate?

They actually tried to put a high end (dual GPU) card out there, but it's performance was dismal compared to what both NV and ATI had out at the time. IIRC their poor performance was only matched by their aweful IQ due to aggressive optimizations in their attempts to make their card competetive. Volari had my inerest for quite a while, and I don't think anyone expected them to be the best card out of the gate, but they really lost a lot of credibility in a short time with their overly optimized drivers.

 

[BenSkywalker]

It is said to sew another one of these threads when I have been complaining about the reduction of filtering quality on both my x800xt-pe and my 6800gt since I got them when they first came out. If only we could have had some interest in the subject back when it happened instead there being so many people only interested in image quality when it serves their desire to bash whichever particular company.

You need to go back to 2000 and the launch of the original Radeon for ATi and the launch of the GF FX5800 for nVidia- those timeframes are when it happened. For the record- I have been bashing them both for it since they started.

 

[kylebisme]

THe orignal Radeon was ATI's first attempt to provide AF, eh? I don't rightly see how you can bash them for lowering their quality when it was their first try.

 

[ArchAngel777]

Originally posted by: TheSnowman
THe orignal Radeon was ATI's first attempt to provide AF, eh? I don't rightly see how you can bash them for lowering their quality when it was their first try.

You should remember how he vindicates his position! The formula went something like the following If BFG10K1 does not find a flaw with what BenSkyWalker says, then there is no flaw in what he says

 

[kylebisme]

Heh. I prefer to stick to the issue at hand as long as the conversation can remain civil. But thanks for reminding me of that thread as I had said I would return to it after further investigation.

 

[BenSkywalker]

THe orignal Radeon was ATI's first attempt to provide AF, eh? I don't rightly see how you can bash them for lowering their quality when it was their first try.

It is akin to the box filter used on the Kyro. It gave psuedo trilinear filtering but resulted in some serious artifacts that some people didn't notice, some people did. It was their first try- but it had been done right by others and in PVR's defense you could force real trilinear on their boards(although with a sizeable performance hit). BTW- I know the Kyro wasn't PVR's first part but IIRC(which I'm not entirely sure of) it was their first part that supported trilinear filtering.

It was a step backwards to what had already been done- but it was much faster. That seems to be the direction they are all taking lately unfortunately.

 

[jiffylube1024]

Anybody got some asbestos?

 

[CaiNaM]

Originally posted by: Blastman

So to our surprise we found out earlier this week, and as reported here, that ATI?s Catalyst 5.8 new drivers have the exact same problem.

Sander Sassen ought t check the facts before he mouths off like that. That article comes across with a very anti ATI slant.

ATI does not have the same problem with texture aliasing as the NV 6800/7800 on Q mode.

In one game CS:S, there is a small spot on one road where there is a little texture aliasing. There is a thread about it at rage3d.

The problem is on both ATI and NV cards. The LOD is apparently set to -1, so in essence it?s the way the game and textures are set up that is causing the problems.

i don't thinks is so "anti ati"; i think his point is more of the hypocricy invovled in all the mudslinging. nv has been guilty of it as well, it's just the most recent was by ati, who should worry more about getting their product out on the market than spending time looking for problems in competitors.

making it even funnier is that ati themselves have the issue in at least 1 version of their driver, and from what you say it's not so much a problem of anyone's hardware/driver but rather the way LOD is implemented.

 

[CaiNaM]

Originally posted by: nitromullet
3. I'll let CaiNaM respond as he sees fit... Kinda nice to see him show up again though. I really appreciated his even handed approach to the ATI AF issues last year, especially since he was one of the first to have an X800 Pro last summer.

heh.. thanks nitro

been moving and stuff so I haven't kept us as I normally have.

as for a response, I don't think his comments deserve one. while there was a bit of sarcasm in my post (as far as ati condemning themselves), the post was meant for a serious dicussion, not a personal flamefest. as they say, "don't feed the trolls"

Originally posted by: TheSnowman
It is said to sew another one of these threads when I have been complaining about the reduction of filtering quality on both my x800xt-pe and my 6800gt since I got them when they first came out. If only we could have had some interest in the subject back when it happened instead there being so many people only interested in image quality when it serves their desire to bash whichever particular company.

texture quality took a dive back in the fx (gf4 was the last series i thought had very good filtering), and has never been very good in ati products.

one could argue ati has better filtering now, but the reality is the bar has been lowered since the gf4 days...

Originally posted by: TheSnowman
THe orignal Radeon was ATI's first attempt to provide AF, eh? I don't rightly see how you can bash them for lowering their quality when it was their first try.

it wasn't their "first try" at AF, however this was the beginning of "adaptive" AF - the result of which has basically been reduction of texture quality for speed. Ben made a good point as the r300 (despite all it's virtues) seems to have marked the beginning of the end of hi-quality texture filtering, as nv has gone the same route.