Catalyst drivers v02.2 up to 50% faster in Serious Sam...

[Nagorak]

Re: Catalyst drivers v02.2 up to 50% faster in Serious Sam.

How do you know that there wasn't some driver problem that was hurting performance? If the quality of the rendering isn't harmed, then what is your problem? Did ATi state a 50% improvement across-the-board? No. Maybe some hardware feature wasn't being used properly. There are a lot of possible explanations.

Bugs happen. It's a fact that software contains bugs. Even your simpliest "Hello World" program can have bugs because you are linking in libraries to make it link and the libraries may be buggy even if your simple program is not.

Not everything is a conspiracy.

Generally, I tend to agree with you that "not everything is a conspiracy." But as this was ATI and I recalled a previous case in which the company admitted to such a conspiracy, and the poster asked if any other company had ever claimed a 50% performance improvement through a driver upgrade before, I felt it was prudent to answer him as I did.

Most of the time bug fixes are labeled as bug fixes--not performance enhancements. Indeed, as reported here by others who've tested the drivers and seen no improvements in the other games--certainly not the "up to 35%" and so forth the driver propaganda relates, it seems to sort of rule out any bug fixing because if that was the case we'd expect to see actual performance improvements we aren't seeing. Right now, it would appear that the performance numbers ATI is boasting for these drivers are only repeatable and obtainable by ATI. I don't know about you, but that kind of sets off my warning circuits....

But to answer your question more directly: the sort of behavior I relate isn't new to ATI. If it was I'd be inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt, certainly. As it is, it only seems like more of the "same old, same old" when they release drivers they trumpet and ascribe all sorts of fantastic performance increases to them that almost no one else can independently verify.

Damn, I bet you're one of the people who still hate German and Japanese people since we fought them in WWII? Or maybe the Southern States (or Northern, depending on your location) still get you hot and bothered because they were on the other side of the civil war?

For that matter, damn those Brits, right? They tried to stifle American independence!

Come on, man, what you're talking about is so far in the past, it's just ridiculous to still be holding a grudge over it.

 

[elimc]

Interesting. And I guess you forgot to mention nvidia's "miraculous" anisotropic filtering performance improvements? You want me to go into detail about that? I mean, I'm fully armed.

I would. Can you provide a general summary that a retarded layman could understand? (like me)

 

[WaltC]

Re: Catalyst drivers v02.2 up to 50% faster in Serious Sam.

Damn, I bet you're one of the people who still hate German and Japanese people since we fought them in WWII? Or maybe the Southern States (or Northern, depending on your location) still get you hot and bothered because they were on the other side of the civil war?

For that matter, damn those Brits, right? They tried to stifle American independence!

Huh?.....

Come on, man, what you're talking about is so far in the past, it's just ridiculous to still be holding a grudge over it.

I hardly think "grudge" is appropriate, but it was a wiser man than me who said:

"Those who forget the mistakes of the past are doomed to repeat them."

Ancient history or no--it's still the same company. And as it's the same topic exactly, it sure doesn't seem strange or out of place to me.

 

[Clashman]

"Those who forget the mistakes of the past are doomed to repeat them."

Wasn't that on a plaque at Jonestown?

 

[WaltC]

Re: Catalyst drivers v02.2 up to 50% faster in Serious Sam.

Interesting. And I guess you forgot to mention nvidia's "miraculous" anisotropic filtering performance improvements? You want me to go into detail about that? I mean, I'm fully armed.

First, I'm glad to hear you have both of your arms as that makes it easier to operate the computer. Second, other than my mention in my original post of nVidia quoting similar and similarly unverifiable performance increases when it released its first Detonator drivers, I'm not sure how nVidia fits in here. The present comments were made by ATI, right?

But just because something isn't across the board, doesn't mean it's not working as intended. For example, one application might use a feature another does not.

Good hypothetical case. How does it apply here?

And, I would call it a performance improvement if I found that something that was hurting performance but not visual quality. There are lots of ways that could happen.

If you can manage to get beyond "would" and "could" and "if" you might make some progress with your argument. As it is now, I can't see what that is, exactly.

Mine is pretty simple: ATI is advertising 35%-50% performance increases in specific 3D games, and the people who've responded within this forum who have some of the games and the newer drivers cannot verify ATI's claims. No amount of hypotheticals can do so. The alleged performance increases are either there or they aren't.

I see. So you're going to hold the "Turbo" driver thing against ATi for eternity? Dude, that was the Rage PRO. And have you tried to verify the performance improvements? Many people on Rage 3D are getting better results.

I wasn't holding anything against anybody, I was merely answering the original poster's question as to whether or not such driver-related claims had been made before. It's possible to have clear recollections of the past without holding grudges against anyone. I quoted one piece of sage advice to someone else, but this one seems appropriate here:

Once bitten, shame on the dog;
Twice bitten, shame on Me

....