AMD: Southern Islands (7*** series) Speculation/ Rumour Thread

[AlexV]

So, there's still a good margin to improve performance in BF3 (and other DX11 titles/engines)?

I wouldn't hold my breath for that being implemented in any meaningful way anytime soon (but I'd love it if AMD proved me wrong! )

 

[gongo]

Updated...first impression...CCC is wonky....blacks out when i moved to to video section..granted im running Trixx in the background...will do some testing later...heard about the new dot.net ruckus....but installation was fast....

 

[Kaotik]

I understand that it's a good means to do it to compare/contrast results. Although I don't agree that it matters if you can't see any differences. It's those visual differences that count.

Moving forward, that isn't what I was referring to though. It was written that they always disable Cat AI in testing. I still don't know how you disable Cat AI in that context. I certainly like to know how that is being done because we haven't been able to disable Cat AI in the last few years since the revamp of CCC.

Why go through the trouble disabling portion(s) of CCC (something not easily accessible to most users...unless you are willing to demonstrate how) when there is no visual benefit in doing so? Would that hamper performance using AA, specific optimizations for games and other fixes (which you already stated)?

And I again repeat - he just 99.99% surely meant disabling any IQ affecting optimizations, which anyone can do from CCC, not actually going to registry or something and disable Cat AI which would at the same time invalidate the reviews altogether

 

[ECH]

And I again repeat - he just 99.99% surely meant disabling any IQ affecting optimizations, which anyone can do from CCC, not actually going to registry or something and disable Cat AI which would at the same time invalidate the reviews altogether

It makes no sense regardless of how many times it's said. That's because there is no benefit in doing so, visually. Also, I still like to know in what manner are optimization(s) are being disabled from CCC? From my understanding reviewers simply install the drivers and provide results from that and the video card use. :smile:
Karlotta maybe right in what he says but I honestly don't know.

As for the results from Cat 12.11 so far it's proven to be very competitive. I've read no talk from other reviews that IQ optimizations needed to be disabled (even if it was I still like to know how).

 

[Kaotik]

It makes no sense regardless of how many times it's said. That's because there is no benefit in doing so, visually. Also, I still like to know in what manner are optimization(s) are being disabled from CCC? From my understanding reviewers simply install the drivers and provide results from that and the video card use. :smile:
Karlotta maybe right in what he says but I honestly don't know.

As for the results from Cat 12.11 so far it's proven to be very competitive. I've read no talk from other reviews that IQ optimizations needed to be disabled (even if it was I still like to know how).

What do you mean there's no benefit doing so visually? Of course there's benefit from setting highest quality settings.

And how to do it? Open CCC, Catalyst AI portion of 3D Application Settings, set Texture Filtering Quality to high quality and untick Enable Surface Format Optimization.
That's it - simple as that.
Oh, and check that tessellation is "application preference" rather than amd optimized.

 

[Gipsel]

Oh, and check that tessellation is "application preference" rather than amd optimized.

But that is just for the coherence of the settings. "AMD optimized" has still no function and works identical to application preference (or in other words: there are still no game profiles with an active tessellation limit).

 

[ECH]

What do you mean there's no benefit doing so visually? Of course there's benefit from setting highest quality settings.

And how to do it? Open CCC, Catalyst AI portion of 3D Application Settings, set Texture Filtering Quality to high quality and untick Enable Surface Format Optimization.
That's it - simple as that.
Oh, and check that tessellation is "application preference" rather than amd optimized.

He said there was no IQ differences. There is no Catalyst AI in current CCC because the option is just not available in the new revamp of CCC. Also, quality settings on Texture Filtering (instead of high quality) allows trilinear optimizations and anisotropic sample optimization on nvidia's control panel.

So again, it makes no sense as to how Catalyst AI is "disabled" when it was stated there is no visual difference in Cat 12.11 beta vs the previous driver.

 

[Kaotik]

He said there was no IQ differences. There is no Catalyst AI in current CCC because the option is just not available in the new revamp of CCC. Also, Nvidia's control panel's Texture Filtering uses quality instead of high quality which allows trilinear optimizations and anisotropic sample optimization.

Did you notice that the section with texture quality is called "Catalyst AI"?
It's called that because it controls what the old "Catalyst AI" used control, except that you can't disable fixes/cf/etc with it anymore, only texture related options.
So setting it to high quality is same as "disabled" except for the actual fixes and such.
He most likely uses high quality on nV, too.

So again, it makes no sense as to how Catalyst AI is "disabled" when it was stated there is no visual difference in Cat 12.11 beta vs the previous driver.

He obviously says there's no visual difference to answer someone who claimed such increases would be be (most likely) done at the expense of image quality - ie what could be called "cheating" - and to clear any doubts others who didn't open their mouth (yet) could have.

He says "cat ai is disabled" just like in all his reviews, to ensure that the testing methodology is the same as before, too, not claiming it was just specificly disabled for this particular one.

 

[ECH]

Did you notice that the section with texture quality is called "Catalyst AI"?
It's called that because it controls what the old "Catalyst AI" used control, except that you can't disable fixes/cf/etc with it anymore, only texture related options.
So setting it to high quality is same as "disabled" except for the actual fixes and such.
He most likely uses high quality on nV, too.

No, there was a time were one could disable catalyst AI (link shows older version of CCC). That option is no longer available. So I ask how is cat ai being disabled now? Suggesting that CCC is revamped (something I've already pointed out) is not equivalent to the ability to disable Cat AI from the older version of CCC. Nor do I take it to mean it's disabled because of change(s) in CCC. Look, even if one makes changes in CCC doesn't mean that Catalyst AI is fully enabled or disabled. That's the point.

He obviously says there's no visual difference to answer someone who claimed such increases would be be (most likely) done at the expense of image quality - ie what could be called "cheating" - and to clear any doubts others who didn't open their mouth (yet) could have.

Cat 12.11 beta offers similar/same IQ yet offer a higher frame rate. So there is no need to argue. Again, if there is no visual differences why is CCC being adjusted when similar settings are also found in nvidia control panel. It was indicated there was no IQ differences between drivers. It makes no sense to me.

He says "cat ai is disabled" just like in all his reviews, to ensure that the testing methodology is the same as before, too, not claiming it was just specificly disabled for this particular one.

As the link in this post demonstrates, there is no option to disable cat ai any more. So I have no idea what you are talking about. But we've come full circle.

 

[Ethatron]

No, there was a time were one could disable catalyst AI (link shows older version of CCC).

You basically ask how to disable shader-optimization then, because that is the one thing left A.I. did and which hasn't recieved a button. Stability fixes you couldn't disable with A.I. either AFAIK.

Just deinstall the CAPs, then you should have deinstalled the "A.I." optimizations which are game specific. You probably could also start renaming game-executables to confuse the system, but if they're smart they started using checksums, and/or other identifiers.

 

[Kaotik]

No, there was a time were one could disable catalyst AI (link shows older version of CCC). That option is no longer available. So I ask how is cat ai being disabled now? Suggesting that CCC is revamped (something I've already pointed out) is not equivalent to the ability to disable Cat AI from the older version of CCC. Nor do I take it to mean it's disabled because of change(s) in CCC. Look, even if one makes changes in CCC doesn't mean that Catalyst AI is fully enabled or disabled. That's the point.

I'm fully aware of what used to be there and what is there - what I've been trying to tell you over and over is what he means with "disabling cat ai"

Cat 12.11 beta offers similar/same IQ yet offer a higher frame rate. So there is no need to argue. Again, if there is no visual differences why is CCC being adjusted when similar settings are also found in nvidia control panel. It was indicated there was no IQ differences between drivers. It makes no sense to me.

Yes, but without anyone testing and confirming it, like he did, how would everyone know that? And again, it was answer to someone claiming it's probably done via reducing IQ, which was false claim but needed to be answered.

As the link in this post demonstrates, there is no option to disable cat ai any more. So I have no idea what you are talking about. But we've come full circle.

Yes, we've come full circle of you ignoring what I'm saying.
You are correct, you can't disable Cat AI - you can only do what disabling Cat AI used to do, excluding disabling the fixes it makes.
That however is irrelevant, the whole issue was you not understanding that he obviously meant disabling any IQ optimizations, like disabling Cat AI used to do, not actually disabling Cat AI like we could do earlier.

 

[I.S.T.]

I have to say I was completely surprised by just how much AMD's performance improved on BF3 in particular. Whatever it was that was holding back their performance, AMD has finally gotten a handle on it. They're completely competitive with NVIDIA now (at least in our BF3 benchmark).

The Starcraft 2 speed loss is bizarre.

 

[Alexko]

http://www.anandtech.com/show/6393/amds-holiday-plans-cat1211-new-bundle

Everything except Starcraft II sees at least a marginal improvement here, with Starcraft II being the lone exception due to the previous issues we’ve run into with the 1.5 patch.

I'm not quite sure what this means.

 

[Kaotik]

The Starcraft 2 speed loss is bizarre.

And not repeated at least at TPU - in fact at TPU it was getting notably better scores with 12.11's than older drivers

 

[Dave Baumann]

Our internal testing shows a perf improvment for SC2 as well.

 

[kalelovil]

http://www.anandtech.com/show/6393/amds-holiday-plans-cat1211-new-bundle



I'm not quite sure what this means.

I am guessing this: http://www.anandtech.com/show/6276/...-review-gk106-rounds-out-the-kepler-family/11
And possibly this: http://www.google.co.nz/search?q=starcraft+1.5+fps+loss

 

[Ryan Smith]

I am guessing this: http://www.anandtech.com/show/6276/...-review-gk106-rounds-out-the-kepler-family/11
And possibly this: http://www.google.co.nz/search?q=starcraft+1.5+fps+loss

Correct. Starcraft II 1.5 did something to our GCN cards that reduced performance by a bit.

 

[lanek]

well different maps / procedure for bench it surely .

For be honest i have stop watch the results in review of SC2, as they allways look to me really strange. but whatever is the card you have, i dont think you will have to worry.

 

[UniversalTruth]

Correct. Starcraft II 1.5 did something to our GCN cards that reduced performance by a bit.

Yup, should be something really under secret.
Honestly, may you contact and ask developers what exactly the cause is? it's very suspicious otherwise, don't know what to think...

For be honest i have stop watch the results in review of SC2, as they allways look to me really strange. but whatever is the card you have, i dont think you will have to worry.

Yup, according to this logic, it doesn't matter if you buy an 7770 or 7970. Well... sounds strange as well.

 

[psolord]

Don't forget the bundles!

http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/news/video/amd-offers-up-to-3-free-games-with-graphics-cards/

Will this offer be available in Europe as well?

I do not hear a peep on local Greek stores but not even in Amazon.co.uk.