Looking Back Pt. 3: The 6800 Ultra, ForceWare, and the Future
by Ryan Smith on May 11, 2006 4:00 AM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
Half-Life 2
Here is another game where NVIDIA has at least started out with a performance disadvantage, as we noted in our Half-Life 2 GPU Roundup back in 2004. With the immense popularity of Half-Life 2 and the Source engine being licensed out for use in other games, this is another game where there is a good deal of pressure on NVIDIA to find a way to improve performance.
As you can see here, there is a pattern forming with the 60.72 drivers. We've had to once again had to drop the 60.72 results due to some rendering errors. The image is far too bright with the initial drivers, and there are other problems as well.
ForceWare 60.72 versus 84.21
Mouse over for 84.21
Throwing the 60.72 drivers out, we can see NVIDIA worked in one significant performance boost, a much needed 20% under HQ settings. NVIDIA further adds around another 5% over the rest of the life of the ForceWare drivers, but nothing nearly as significant as with the initial performance boost.
ForceWare 61.76 versus 84.21
Mouse over for 84.21
The 6800 Ultra once again comes up clean in the image quality comparisons. With blowing fog, these two screenshots are not perfectly alike, but looking at the other parts of the screenshot shows them to be essentially identical.
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LoneWolf15 - Thursday, May 11, 2006 - link
Currently they are, yes. But some years back, they sucked.That's true. However, "some years back" is around the time of the Radeon 8500, far before the 9xxx line or the X800 line. This issue is no longer relevant, and yet people who haven't used ATI cards in years flog this dead horse over and over again.
ATI isn't perfect; their multimedia cards (i.e. TV tuners) still need work in the software department. However, it's been a long time since ATI has had serious driver issues, and many who haven't had an ATI card since Rage128/Radeon/Radeon 8500 days talk as if things haven't changed.
Powermoloch - Thursday, May 11, 2006 - link
I've been using Ati's drivers for quite sometime, and I noticed a gradual increase of performance from my experience. Especially on the 3dmark scores lol.MrKaz - Thursday, May 11, 2006 - link
What’s the problem with Control Panel?I like it a lot. Ati drop it in 5.11, I keep it installed with driver 6.4 and have no problems.
poohbear - Thursday, May 11, 2006 - link
have u even owned an ATI card? i'm currently running a 6800gt, but my experience w/ the 9800pro was great and i dont know what u're talking about w/ your driver instability comment. maybe u should read the article again, it praises ati's driver team quite a bit.