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Quake 4 Graphics Performance Compared

Posted by Zonk on from the lush-bloodsplosions dept.

Timmus writes "nVidia's huge lead in OpenGL performance is apparently gone. According to Firingsquad, ATI's latest hotfix driver brings major performance improvements to ATI's RADEON X1800 cards in OpenGL games like Doom 3 and Quake 4. The X1800 XT is now faster than GeForce 7800 GTX, while the X1800 XL is faster than the GeForce 7800 GT in most cases. The article also includes GeForce 6800 Ultra/GT scores, including both in SLI. It's a pretty interesting read if you like graphical benchmarks." From the article: "A little over a week ago, rumors began spreading that ATI was working on a new tool that delivered substantially improved performance to their recently launched X1000 cards in OpenGL titles such as DOOM 3, Quake 4, and many others. Some reports claimed ATIs performance improved by up to 35% in these titles in 4xAA mode. Then, posts on Beyond3Ds forums and sites like Guru3D confirmed these rumors. So how did ATI pull this off?"

7 of 71 comments (clear)

  1. How did ATI... by Bin_jammin · · Score: 4, Funny

    pull this off? Money, hard work, and development. Did you think it came from aliens?

    1. Re:How did ATI... by Enti · · Score: 4, Interesting

      ATI's drivers tend to be a bit shabby from the get-go (based on my personal experience over the past five-ish years). Assuming that the initial driver support for the X1000 series was horrible, such a large performance boost is understandable. It used to be that ATI cards were on par with Nvidia's and the poorly written drivers held them back. Can't say when exactly, but ATI started turning things around a bit before the 9800Pro was released.

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      In these days, bleeps and bloops mean something more
  2. So Close, Yet So Far Away.... by DeadBugs · · Score: 3, Informative

    Apparently it only works at 4XAA and only on the X1800XT. There are also performance differences when playing multi-player versus running time demos.

    This is a step in the right direction. However, this is not the OpenGL driver fix that everyone has been waiting for. It is a manipulation of ATI's new programmable memory controller.

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    http://www.kubuntu.org/
    1. Re:So Close, Yet So Far Away.... by Guspaz · · Score: 3, Informative

      Apparently you should RTFA.

      1) It does not only work at 4xAA, that is just where the gains are more impressive. With or without AA before they were behind, now they're ahead.

      2) It is not just the X1800XT. The review was a roundup of high-end cards, and as such only included the X1800 XT and X1800 XL (Not just the XT like you suggest). The optimizations should affect ATI's entire product line fom the X1300 on up.

      3) There are no other major games, to my knowledge, that still use OpenGL. As such, this can be considered a general fix for OpenGL performance. General in the sense that it fixes the problem (Poor OpenGL performance) as far as the vast majority of gamers are concerned.

  3. Yes but by Xarius · · Score: 3, Insightful

    does it run on linux?

    *ducks*

    Seriously, have they made the same improvements in the linux native drivers?

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    C17H21NO4
  4. great line from article by Surt · · Score: 3, Insightful
    As shown by our testing, with one simple driver update, ATI's gone from last to first place in Quake 4 performance. There's a wealth of data you can glean from these benchmarks.


    Of course it's a comparison between two companies, so they were either going from last to last or last to first, there wasn't any other possibility.
    --
    "Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
  5. Isn't the bigger question... by bconway · · Score: 3, Funny

    How did the ATi fare when running quack4.exe?

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    Interested in open source engine management for your Subaru?