Adapting to Parallelism: Catalyst 5.12 More Dual Core Friendly?
by Derek Wilson on December 4, 2005 10:45 AM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
Performance Comparison: Cat 5.11 vs. Cat 5.12
The first thing we wanted to look at is the difference in scaling between driver versions. The following tables will show percent performance improvement of the beta 5.12 driver over that of the 5.11 driver. We will show performance improvements for both single and dual core configurations when moving to the beta driver.
While these numbers are, in fact, what users of single or dual core systems will experience when upgrading to newer drivers, there are other useful bits of information we can extract from them. We will be keeping an eye out for cases where the 5.12 driver performs worse than the 5.11 driver (these will be negative percentages in our tables). If, for instance, one tests shows the 5.12 driver doing worse in a single core platform and better in a dual core platform, we can discount some of the "value" of the dual core performance improvement as it's just making up for the performance hit on the single core side.
And as we can see from our Battlefield 2 test, The 5.11 driver performs as good as the 5.12 driver with no AA in 3 out of 6 tests. In the 8x6 case, the 5.11 driver handily bests the 5.12 beta. Enabling dual core allows the 5.12 driver to make up more than the ground it looses in single core performance, but the trade off just doesn't look good from this test.
And if you didn't think things could get worse, then just glance at the next table. The 5.12 driver tanks across the board on 4xAA performance under BF2. There isn't much more to say about this one.
Without AA, playing DoD:S, the 5.12 driver performs almost identically to the 5.11 driver on single core systems. Flipping the switch gives us an instant boost at 8x6 and 10x12, and even a little nudge in the right direction at 1600x1200.
Enabling 4xAA doesn't seem to change much. We see a little more benefit (percentage wise) when using 5.12 under dual core in 800x600 and 1600x1200, but the gain over 5.11 at 1024x768 drops a little. Either way, Day of Defeat Source seems to show that theres definitely a little benefit to be had by upgrading dual core systems to 5.12 from 5.11 drivers.
There are a few cases where the 5.12 driver improves performance in FarCry over the 5.11 even without the aide of dual core. Even though we see high percentage improvement with 5.12 under dual core, some of this could be general improvements to the way ATI handles the game.
Again, even with 4xAA FarCry benefits from the 5.12 drivers in 4 out of 6 tests (with both of those tests being much more GPU limited at 1600x1200).
There isn't much to say other than there isn't any improvement under Quake 4 when upgrading to the 5.12 drivers.
Which brings us to the test with the least change of all: Quake 4 with 4xAA.
Now let's take a look at performance improvement from a different perspective: improvement of a dual core system over a single core system.
The first thing we wanted to look at is the difference in scaling between driver versions. The following tables will show percent performance improvement of the beta 5.12 driver over that of the 5.11 driver. We will show performance improvements for both single and dual core configurations when moving to the beta driver.
While these numbers are, in fact, what users of single or dual core systems will experience when upgrading to newer drivers, there are other useful bits of information we can extract from them. We will be keeping an eye out for cases where the 5.12 driver performs worse than the 5.11 driver (these will be negative percentages in our tables). If, for instance, one tests shows the 5.12 driver doing worse in a single core platform and better in a dual core platform, we can discount some of the "value" of the dual core performance improvement as it's just making up for the performance hit on the single core side.
And as we can see from our Battlefield 2 test, The 5.11 driver performs as good as the 5.12 driver with no AA in 3 out of 6 tests. In the 8x6 case, the 5.11 driver handily bests the 5.12 beta. Enabling dual core allows the 5.12 driver to make up more than the ground it looses in single core performance, but the trade off just doesn't look good from this test.
| Battlefield 2 Percent Increase (Cat 5.11 to 5.12) | |||
| 800x600 | 1024x768 | 1600x1200 | |
| Single Core | -9.19 | -0.41 | 0.84 |
| Dual Core | 10.63 | 2.67 | -0.21 |
And if you didn't think things could get worse, then just glance at the next table. The 5.12 driver tanks across the board on 4xAA performance under BF2. There isn't much more to say about this one.
| Battlefield 2 4xAA Percent Increase (Cat 5.11 to 5.12) | |||
| 800x600 | 1024x768 | 1600x1200 | |
| Single Core | -5.05 | -2.87 | -0.89 |
| Dual Core | -4.42 | -0.15 | -1.17 |
Without AA, playing DoD:S, the 5.12 driver performs almost identically to the 5.11 driver on single core systems. Flipping the switch gives us an instant boost at 8x6 and 10x12, and even a little nudge in the right direction at 1600x1200.
| Day of Defeat Percent Increase (Cat 5.11 to 5.12) | |||
| 800x600 | 1024x768 | 1600x1200 | |
| Single Core | 0.19 | 0.19 | 0.66 |
| Dual Core | 6.31 | 6.34 | 1.97 |
Enabling 4xAA doesn't seem to change much. We see a little more benefit (percentage wise) when using 5.12 under dual core in 800x600 and 1600x1200, but the gain over 5.11 at 1024x768 drops a little. Either way, Day of Defeat Source seems to show that theres definitely a little benefit to be had by upgrading dual core systems to 5.12 from 5.11 drivers.
| Day of Defeat 4xAA Percent Increase (Cat 5.11 to 5.12) | |||
| 800x600 | 1024x768 | 1600x1200 | |
| Single Core | 0.37 | 0.19 | -0.27 |
| Dual Core | 6.69 | 4.31 | 2.66 |
There are a few cases where the 5.12 driver improves performance in FarCry over the 5.11 even without the aide of dual core. Even though we see high percentage improvement with 5.12 under dual core, some of this could be general improvements to the way ATI handles the game.
| FarCry Percent Increase (Cat 5.11 to 5.12) | |||
| 800x600 | 1024x768 | 1600x1200 | |
| Single Core | 0.11 | 3 | -0.15 |
| Dual Core | 7.58 | 6.59 | 3.07 |
Again, even with 4xAA FarCry benefits from the 5.12 drivers in 4 out of 6 tests (with both of those tests being much more GPU limited at 1600x1200).
| FarCry 4xAA Percent Increase (Cat 5.11 to 5.12) | |||
| 800x600 | 1024x768 | 1600x1200 | |
| Single Core | 2.8 | 1.51 | -1.5 |
| Dual Core | 7.26 | 4.92 | -0.75 |
There isn't much to say other than there isn't any improvement under Quake 4 when upgrading to the 5.12 drivers.
| Quake 4 Percent Increase (Cat 5.11 to 5.12) | |||
| 800x600 | 1024x768 | 1600x1200 | |
| Single Core | 0.27 | 0.36 | 0 |
| Dual Core | 0.27 | 0.36 | 0.31 |
Which brings us to the test with the least change of all: Quake 4 with 4xAA.
| Quake 4 4xAA Percent Increase (Cat 5.11 to 5.12) | |||
| 800x600 | 1024x768 | 1600x1200 | |
| Single Core | 0.21 | 0.17 | 0 |
| Dual Core | -0.21 | 0 | 0 |
Now let's take a look at performance improvement from a different perspective: improvement of a dual core system over a single core system.
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mbhame - Sunday, December 4, 2005 - link
Who wrote this article?stephenbrooks - Monday, December 5, 2005 - link
Derek WilsonPrinceGaz - Sunday, December 4, 2005 - link
I have an X2 4400+ and like many other people have been forced to revert to the 7x.xx Forceware drivers because the new dual-core drivers cause certain well known OpenGL applications (3DS Max and PaintShop Pro for instance) to hang when trying to start them. If you haven't heard of this problem, just try googling and you'll get plenty of hits.I'd rather have nVidia fix bugs before adding new performance enhancing features, but sadly it is all about getting a few extra pecent over ATI in the latest games it seems.
hondaman - Monday, December 5, 2005 - link
Nvidia claims that their drivers have DC optimisations, although i havent seen any review that shows one way or the other if it really does.I personally found this "review" to be quite interesting, and hope anandtech does the same for nvidia and their newest drivers.
mmp121 - Sunday, December 4, 2005 - link
Derek,Do the drivers show any improvement while using a single core CPU w/HT enabled? Is it supposed to? How does it affect previous generation hardware? Are the tweaks only good for the X1000 hardware? You asked for suggestions, I gave some. Hope to see some of em answered.
stephenbrooks - Monday, December 5, 2005 - link
^^^ above are good questionsjohnsonx - Sunday, December 4, 2005 - link
Seems to me ATI had best get to the bottom of the single-core performance deficit in these 5.12 drivers before they come out of beta. All the fanbois would get their panties in a wad if the new driver hurts performance in the top-end FX-57 gaming rigs. If nothing else, they could include regular and DC-optimized versions of the key driver files and install them based on detecting 1 or 2(+) cores.Actually, what might be even better from a marketing point of view is if they have a 'regular' driver that works fine for all systems, and a separate 'dual-core optimized' driver. Nothing gives users the warm fuzzies like being told 'oh, for YOU we have a special, better driver. Later on, once dual-core is almost universal in new systems, they could just unify the driver again.
wien - Sunday, December 4, 2005 - link
Though a good idea, I fear the changes they have made to the driver to "parallellize" it can't be plugged in and out that easily. And if they can't, ATI would have to keep two separate code-trees (single and dual core) for their drivers, and update them both every time they come up with an improvement. What would probably end up happening is that the single core version would be more of less stagnant in terms of development (but with version numbers increasing of course), and the DC version getting the actual improvements. (Or the other way around... for now at least.)Pannenkoek - Sunday, December 4, 2005 - link
The effort to optimize their dual core drivers to mitigate the single core performance loss is far less than keeping two parallel branches of their drivers in development. This is beta software, it's not as tuned as it can be. We won't know how the performance will be when the driver gets actually released.mlittl3 - Sunday, December 4, 2005 - link
That's a good idead.