Looking Back: ATI's Catalyst Drivers Exposed
by Ryan Smith on December 11, 2005 3:22 PM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
Unreal Tournament 2004
As UT2003 and UT2004 are near-perfect substitutes for each other, we went with Epic's latest version of their best-selling multi-player FPS in order to put the 9700 Pro up against 2004's more refined engine. UT2004 is a good example of a near-modern game, utilizing some SM 1.x features, along with being the engine of choice for many more games, including America's Army. With the number of games built on the Unreal Engine 2.x, UT2004 represents an important engine to optimize for, given the era.
Other than improving AA/AF performance, it seems that ATI had little need to optimize for UT2004. Without a performance or IQ difference, there is little to say about the 9700 Pro with regards to UT2004.
As UT2003 and UT2004 are near-perfect substitutes for each other, we went with Epic's latest version of their best-selling multi-player FPS in order to put the 9700 Pro up against 2004's more refined engine. UT2004 is a good example of a near-modern game, utilizing some SM 1.x features, along with being the engine of choice for many more games, including America's Army. With the number of games built on the Unreal Engine 2.x, UT2004 represents an important engine to optimize for, given the era.
Catalyst 5.11 versus 3.00 (mouse over to see 3.00)
Other than improving AA/AF performance, it seems that ATI had little need to optimize for UT2004. Without a performance or IQ difference, there is little to say about the 9700 Pro with regards to UT2004.
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Ryan Smith - Sunday, December 11, 2005 - link
You should see the cooler attached, it sure sounds like a 757.Anyhow, good catch, thanks.
ss284 - Sunday, December 11, 2005 - link
I think this article might have been a bit more meaningful if some newer generation games were tested, like half life 2 and far cry.ElJefe - Sunday, December 11, 2005 - link
lol yes I thought the same.I was like eh? bf2 and half-life2 and doom3. Or quake 4 maybe. ( even though most gamers are not on that bandwagon yet, bf2 for first person is kinda king still)
Cygni - Tuesday, December 13, 2005 - link
Older drivers are going to have issues with newer games. Thats whats talked about in the article. If you are running Cat 1.0's with FEAR, its going to go ape shit... FEAR wasnt even around when those drivers came out. By using older games, they can limit this factor and make it a pure perforamnce comparison.ksherman - Sunday, December 11, 2005 - link
:(vshah - Sunday, December 11, 2005 - link
Mouseover makes the first image dissapear for me in firefox and ie.Will there be an nvidia version of this?
kerynitian - Monday, December 12, 2005 - link
I would definitely be interested in seeing how nvidida and their driver improvements in the nv40 line related to the marks put up by ati in this article...coldpower27 - Sunday, December 11, 2005 - link
Yes it might be interesting to do one with a 6800 GT/Ultra, to see if there have been improvements of extracting performance out of NV40 technology over the past now 18 months of life.I think we were in the early 61.xx when NV40 came out?
nts - Monday, December 12, 2005 - link
With this article testing on the R300 they would probably test NVIDIA NV30 (FX) cards.coldpower27 - Sunday, December 11, 2005 - link
Actually I beleive that is ~ 20 months instead of 18.