Why Does ATI Get Beat Down on OGL

[trinibwoy]

That's an R520-specific memory controller optimisation for just a couple of games. It has little to do with ATI's overall work on their OpenGL drivers.

Oh thank you so much for this bit of clarity. It seems most everyone is glossing over this very likely possibility. If it was a general OpenGL optimization we would see gains across the board and not just on select hardware running specific AA modes.

 

[Mariner]

Oh thank you so much for this bit of clarity. It seems most everyone is glossing over this very likely possibility. If it was a general OpenGL optimization we would see gains across the board and not just on select hardware running specific AA modes.

Let's hope the much vaunted OpenGL rewrite will give another 30% performance improvement! :smile:



Hopefully similar memory controller adjustments can help performance of RV530 (and future chips based on the new architecture).

 

[trinibwoy]

Hopefully similar memory controller adjustments can help performance of RV530 (and future chips based on the new architecture).

It seems to me that there are a lot of parameters to tweak when it comes to optimizing the R5xx memory controller. Looks like there may be different settings based on resolution, AA level, API, SKU and maybe even per title as well. Catalyst AI is going to get crazy!

 

[swaaye]

I don't understand this rewrite notion. Isn't it a bit stupid to just throw away and start again? Reinvent the OpenGL driver wheel basically. I find that a bit hard to believe.... Isn't the driver modular so that parts of it can be rewritten, or are these usually some huge tangled mess that one can only hope works out in the end?

 

[Dio]

There is a certain inevitability that an OpenGL driver is a bit of a tangled mess, because the OpenGL API is itself pretty tangled nowadays - the insistence on everything working with everything else and 100% backwards compatibility virtually guarantees that.

A driver that has evolved along with the increasing complexity may be missing out on simplifications that can be applied by taking a bigger picture, and the evolution of GL's usage patterns may dictate different priorities.