New to ATI, a few questions

[Schadenfroh]

I have been playing around with my new x1950Pro. This is my first non nvidia card since my voodoo5. My knowledge of ATI hardware is very dated.

[*]What happened to TruForm that was hyped back in the day? Does this card support it? Any new games use it?
[*]Catalyst AI from what I have read online is basically "optimizations." I take that it is best to disable it for IQ reasons, but several places online stated that even setting it to advanced does not hurt the IQ. Contradictions.....
[*]What exactly is the difference in high quality AF and standard? I take it that the high quality either disables optimizations or is trilinear rather than bilinear?
[*]The last free version of Driver Cleaner good enough to remove all of my ForceWare 9x drivers, or do you guys think that there is still more lingering possibly causing slowdowns?
[*]Any free alternative to drive cleaner that is updated compared to the last freeware version?
[*]Are there application specific settings that it can remember and override the global settings? That was a feature that I liked about the nvidia drivers.
[*]Do you guys suggest disabling VPU Recover?
[*]Adaptive FSAA, this some kind of realtime FSAA adjustment that throttles depending on framerate? If so, what is the the FPS limits of it's adjustment?
[*]I cant seem to find this, but does ATI have anything like nvidia digital vibrancy slider?

thanks

 

[SickBeast]

- truform never really took off, with only a few games ever supporting it. Your new card probably supports it, but the games that do are archaic (UT2004 uses it i think). The only card to natively support the feature in hardware was the R8500; the newer ones use your CPU to emulate it

- catalyst AI optimizes the driver on a per-game basis. AFAIK you don't lose any image quality but you gain performance. Leave it on the "normal" setting; agressive can actually lose you performance somehow (something about it using your CPU to figure stuff out, and if you have a weak CPU it kills your FPS)

- HQ AF looks nicer, and seeing as there is very little penalty in using AF, i would use it

- the free drivercleaner should be fine

- no alternatives that I'm aware of

- you can leave AA/AF to "application specific" which allows the game settings to control them

- leave VPU recover alone. It has never bothered me.

- "temporal" AA (adaptive is something else - see jim1976's post) requires 60FPS, at which point you double your AA level for "free". At less than 60FPS it doesn't work at all

- I don't think there's a digital vibrance thing, unless they recently added it

 

[jim1976]

Originally posted by: Schadenfroh
I have been playing around with my new x1950Pro. This is my first non nvidia card since my voodoo5. My knowledge of ATI hardware is very dated.

[*]What happened to TruForm that was hyped back in the day? Does this card support it? Any new games use it?
[*]Catalyst AI from what I have read online is basically "optimizations." I take that it is best to disable it for IQ reasons, but several places online stated that even setting it to advanced does not hurt the IQ. Contradictions.....
[*]What exactly is the difference in high quality AF and standard? I take it that the high quality either disables optimizations or is trilinear rather than bilinear?
[*]The last free version of Driver Cleaner good enough to remove all of my ForceWare 9x drivers, or do you guys think that there is still more lingering possibly causing slowdowns?
[*]Any free alternative to drive cleaner that is updated compared to the last freeware version?
[*]Are there application specific settings that it can remember and override the global settings? That was a feature that I liked about the nvidia drivers.
[*]Do you guys suggest disabling VPU Recover?
[*]Adaptive FSAA, this realtime FSAA adjustment that throttles depending on framerate? If so, what is the the FPS limits of it's adjustment?
[*]I cant seem to find this, but does ATI have anything like nvidia digital vibrancy slider?

thanks

Hello there Mr Elite

1. I haven't checked on this for a long time too.. I don't think any new games use it, they must have abandoned the idea, due to severe hit in performance sometimes.. The last game I remmber using it was Serious Sam..
2. I wouldn't disable it.. Set it to low if you want "standard/default" IQ because disabling it, disables games bug fixes as well.. The only difference between low and advanced is that advanced uses further filtering optimisations, but nothing that can be observed in a screenshot nevermind when you play. Unless you magnify the screenshot and you know what to look for, you won't be able to tell any difference IF it exists in an application. I use advanced because it provides further performance gains without "visible" loss in IQ..
3. Definately use HQ AF.. It's the angle dependant AF that provides better filtering methods and mipmap transitions..
4. It should probably suffice , but I wouldn't recommend it. Registry entries might leave driver remaints even with DC..
5. Sry can't help you with that
6. No you cannot use specific application settings through CCC. Use Ati Tools or Ati Tray Tools, or even Rivatuner..
7. It could cause problems, and it was rumoured that disabling it might help with the stuttering issues or with some specific game problems sometimes, because it can falsely call for a driver error. I have it to on w/o issues but it's up to you.. I don't think it's such a big deal anyway..
8. By itself it's useless imho..Use transparency adaptive AA only where alpha textures exist in a game.. It severely costs in performance and it should be used only when you have the "luxury" to do it..
9. Nope to my knowledge..

 

[TheRyuu]

ATI Tray Tools (great alternative to the CCC so you don't have to go in there as much)

Rivatuner (which you probably already knew of)

TurForm died I think

Leave the Cat AI to standard (so stuff like FSAA+HDR works)

If you can spare the performance to use HQAF then do so. HQAF Explination HQAF enables angle interdependent filtering (sp?) or something to that effect.

Free Driver Cleaner Pro is fine.
And may I recommend the XTreme-G Warcat Drivers (7.1)

Maybe ATI Tray Tools can remember the settings. Not sure on that.

VPU Recover, eh, doesn't really matter IMHO. Leave it enabled I guess unless you think having it disabled gives you better performance or less studdering.

I wasn't aware that AAA varied based on framerates.

I don't know about a digital Vibrancy setting.

 

[evolucion8]

The ATi's equivalent of nVidia's digital vibrancy is the control panel in the CCC which allows you to control the display color and other stuff, and is hardware accelerated. The AAA (Adaptive Anti Aliasing) has nothing to do with the variation of frame rates, it is just a combination of Super Sampling on Alpha textures and Multi Sampling on the rest of the scene. In May apparently the new AAA Mode will be incorporated so it will be like the nVidia's Transparency Multi Sampling. The Temporal Anti Aliasing is the one who is frame rate aware, since it consists of changing the Anti Aliasing sampling pattern in every frame, so the frame rate must be consistent and that's why you need to use V-Sync so it will adjust at the same speed as your monitor's refresh rate, if it runs slower than the monitor's refresh rate, artifacting will be seen on the edge of the polygons, the edges will looks like some kind of see saw spinning slowly. And the VPU recover is to try to reset the GPU when is no longer responding the driver command, so will computer would not freeze and can give you the chance to save your work or whatever you need, bear in mind that it works when it feels like to.

 

[dennilfloss]

You can also download drivers with the old-style Control Panel rather than the CCC.

http://www.ngohq.com/home.php?page=Files&go=cat&dwn_cat_id=18

 

[Schadenfroh]

Good info guys, I appreciate it.


Also, anyway to enable Triple Buffer in Direct3D?

 

[apoppin]

i have nothing to really add ... these guys are reliable

except ... i *feel* for you and i am going thru a similar process ...

learning nvidia's CP


frankly, i think i have the better deal

 

[BFG10K]

The control panels are junk from both vendors. Third party utilities are far better.

6. No you cannot use specific application settings through CCC

This is false; you can do it but it doesn't quite work like nVidia's because they require manual activation.

 

[Sc4freak]

ATI's version of Digital Vibrance is called "Avivo Color". Look for it in the CCC.

 

[Schadenfroh]

Originally posted by: Sc4freak
ATI's version of Digital Vibrance is called "Avivo Color". Look for it in the CCC.

Found it thanks:thumbsup:

Originally posted by: wizboy11
Leave the Cat AI to standard (so stuff like FSAA+HDR works)

I do not use FSAA (1600x1200 is not that bad in terms of aliasing). I also do not use HDR, for I do not care for the way it looks (at least in Oblivion). So, I should be good to go to switch it to aggressive (I do set AF to max)

anyway to disable "full screen glow effect" in the drivers? I know how to disable it in WoW via the video options, but I am playing fable and it annoys me and there appears to be no option to disable it, I presume it is "bloom" lighting?

Originally posted by: wizboy11
And may I recommend the XTreme-G Warcat Drivers (7.1)

What do those offer me over the WHQL official ATI drivers? Just pretweaked settings in the control panel?

 

[Zenoth]

Originally posted by: Schadenfroh

Originally posted by: Sc4freak
ATI's version of Digital Vibrance is called "Avivo Color". Look for it in the CCC.

Found it thanks:thumbsup:

Originally posted by: wizboy11
Leave the Cat AI to standard (so stuff like FSAA+HDR works)

I do not use FSAA (1600x1200 is not that bad in terms of aliasing). I also do not use HDR, for I do not care for the way it looks (at least in Oblivion). So, I should be good to go to switch it to aggressive (I do set AF to max)

anyway to disable "full screen glow effect" in the drivers? I know how to disable it in WoW via the video options, but I am playing fable and it annoys me and there appears to be no option to disable it, I presume it is "bloom" lighting?

Originally posted by: wizboy11
And may I recommend the XTreme-G Warcat Drivers (7.1)

What do those offer me over the WHQL official ATI drivers? Just pretweaked settings in the control panel?

Believe me, you don't want to set Catalyst A.I to High. It will literally consume your FPS away. Leave it to Standard. I will say it again here, "High" Cat A.I is just a gimmick, to make the technology look capable, better, but it's terribly un-optimized, and CPU's are suffering from its usage. If only I had the links to my personal tests I made long ago, between Catalyst A.I set at High and Standard, in games such as Source-based games (CS:S and H-L 2), Quake IV and AOE III, it simply showed that, overall you'll loose a minimum 5% up to 30% performance by setting it at High. It eats up CPU cycles for nothing. The Standard/Low setting is the optimized one, and the only one ATi had the time to work on properly, and it does indeed provide better performance without a single amount of IQ (Image Quality) loss.