AMD.ATI drivers 'cheat-optimize' rendering precision?

[Dwarden]

Well,
i would usually don't care about such stuff
but because of specific reasons (games development) and as owner of good eyes/monitor
it caught my interest as what see my eyes is important factor (even if i was just plain end user) ...

in article below are mentioned 'improper/cheat' tactic like
decrease of precision of render targets, textures, additional AF quality decrease and other AF angling tricks ...

http://www.extrahardware.cz/test-gef...vani-overclock
http://www.extrahardware.cz/maly-pru...adeonu-hd-5800
while it's in czech it links to some english sources ...

i find these informations quite disruptive if they true...
(hopefully it's all bugs, bogus and lies but after all history likes to repeat too often)

especially if Your game engine sets the texture format, render targets, backbuffers etc.
all depending on game settings by user to offer him best possible visuals (user decide what performance/quality is best for him).

so long story short

1. where is full documentation about these 'optimizations'
what, where , when , why, how ?

2. what controls/disables those (fully)?
to obtain results 'wanted' and equal to reference rasterizer
(e.g. those tweaks are enabled only with Catalyst Ai == High or so)

3. if these 'optimizations' are enabled are they detectable?
(values returned per request from drivers)

and what's true and untrue ...
so feel free to start bashing (and stoning me to oblivion )
if there is somewhere better discussion about this then post urls

p.s. i don't care about usual PR mumbo jumbo smoke cover ...

[NVIDIA256]

Originally Posted by Dwarden

Well,


p.s. i don't care about usual PR mumbo jumbo smoke cover ...

Nice find, keep us Posted with any updates on the situation.

Ok so since 90% of that article is is a foreign language, I have a question. Will disabling Catalyst AI avoid these Optimizations?

[caveman-jim]

Cat AI disables any optimzations, on standard there are some optimizations and advanced is most optimizations so you can get best performance. If you experience problems in games, adjusting AI can help resolve the issue.

Note that disabling Cat AI and then asking for driver profiles to improve performance is nonsensical.

[spyre]

AF not working in conjunction with bump mapping appears to be a driver bug, you can prove this by turning CATAI off or renaming the game and you get the same issue in the games so that isn't a driver cheat by any stretch of the imagination.

AA not working with SSAO In Emptire Total War and Napoleon Total War was sorted out recently which you can read in the driver release notes. The soldiers going missing in Crossfire is something I have already pointed out to the driver team a while ago.

Anything else seems like whining by Nvidia especially since you cannot disable their AF optimisations in their drivers fully like you can with the ATI ones.

[zulu-man]

Originally Posted by spyre

...
Anything else seems like whining by Nvidia especially since you cannpt disable their AF optimisations in their drivers fully like you can with the ATI ones.

With HQ you disable all filtering optimizations.
Even if: No one plays with AI off. And with AI off I never get a perfect filtering quality. So stop to blame Nvidia, when AMD's filtering quality hasn't the same AF level or just R520's level.

[Dwarden]

well this is bit tricky but how You disable optimizing for crossfire / dualGPU cards ?
w/o Catalyst AI enabled the CF profiles will not work ...

also what about the precision changes in backbuffer and render targets etc.?

if these NVIDIA claims are false, why AMD not reacts in public ?
gives more publicity , nothing to loose

[badsykes]

here we go again...

[VanDiT]

When do people start to realise that GTX 480 is crap? omg stop with moron acusations really...i hoppe that all nvidiots get one, want to see how long it last running at that temperatures...good luck.

[Sharkfood]

What is ironic is here we have people making accusations about something created and invented by NVidia, implemented by NVidia and something now routine because of NVidia. In fact, NVidia is the sole reason why application (or more accurate 'benchmark application') specific 'optimizations' came to be and are now basically required by all IHV's in order to compete "fairly" with website benchmarks.

At least with ATI, you have a way to disable these through Cat AI. With an NVidia, you have no way to disable them. The only unfortunate thing is that Cat AI also takes away Crossfire profile optimizations so performance loss by disabling Cat AI in Crossfire needs to be compared with single-card in order to better scale & isolate what difference is attributed to a different Crossfire profile vs. other optimizations.

[Mystik]

actually, he bring up something that's been bothering me.

since a recent driver release, i've been seeing those mipmap lines considerably
clearly than before. it really bothers me to see that since i thought we got
away from that kind of "optimization" a long while ago (at least, it was to a
point where there weren't hard transitions).

[zulu-man]

Originally Posted by Dwarden

well this is bit tricky but how You disable optimizing for crossfire / dualGPU cards ?
w/o Catalyst AI enabled the CF profiles will not work ...

also what about the precision changes in backbuffer and render targets etc.?

if these NVIDIA claims are false, why AMD not reacts in public ?
gives more publicity , nothing to loose

Some fun with Google translator:
http://translate.google.de/translate...14&sl=de&tl=en

During the preparations for the launch of the GeForce GTX 480/470 Nvidia shared with us that they found in the Catalyst drivers from AMD irregularities in the following games: Dawn of War 2, Empire Total War, Far Cry, Need for Speed: Shift , TES IV: Oblivion and Serious Sam 2nd. In other words that AMD's driver using the "Catalyst AI" in these games replaces FP16 render targets against such in R11G11B10 format and thus potentially increase the power at the expense of image quality. Thus, the Nvidia: it gave you an unfair advantage in competition. This view we can understand the issue thoroughly and have therefore pursued.

Once in our benchmark parcours Need For Speed: Shift was affected, we looked at screenshots of the scene, both with active and disabled, "Catalyst AI". The differences here are marginal. After we contacted AMD about this issue, Antal Tungler, Technical PR for Germany and John Story of AMD's driver team gave us any public about it: Yes, it is true that we apply in these titles (and only there!) This optimization to increase the performance. AMD says its chips could be through modification of a 64-bit-save on a 32-bit format is very much power, without the customer would stab a change in image quality in the eye. Moreover, the story continues John, had Radeon users continue to choose yes, this optimization by disabling Catalyst AI to avoid. We have decided in these DX9 titles on this measure, because the power-saving format developers under the old API still was available.

Originally Posted by VanDiT

When do people start to realise that GTX 480 is crap? omg stop with moron acusations really...i hoppe that all nvidiots get one, want to see how long it last running at that temperatures...good luck.

It's a funny discussion: The topic is, that there are strange optimizations with AI standard. But eg spyre's answer was "Anything else seems like whining by Nvidia especially since you cannot disable their AF optimisations in their drivers fully like you can with the ATI ones."
Who cares about, what Nvidia does? What has GTX400 lost in this topic?
I blame DAAMIT for ugly filtering "optimizations": The most games look like sh§t with my HD4850.

[NVIDIA256]

Originally Posted by Sharkfood

What is ironic is here we have people making accusations about something created and invented by NVidia, implemented by NVidia and something now routine because of NVidia. In fact, NVidia is the sole reason why application (or more accurate 'benchmark application') specific 'optimizations' came to be and are now basically required by all IHV's in order to compete "fairly" with website benchmarks.

+1

I remember as I was very much into the whole scene at that time. ATI slowly began dipping there feet into the driver optimizations being conservative at first when they introduced the first set unbeknownst to the general public in one of there Catalyst drivers.

Originally Posted by VanDiT

When do people start to realise that GTX 480 is crap?

Other then Tempatures, I would gladly take a 480 over the 5870. My main beef with the GTX480 is it's ridiculous price tag costing $150 more than a 5870. If Money was not an issue the 480 is the better card. Hardly what i would consider crap, plus your getting a more robust set of drivers with Nvidia.

[theshadowcult]

Just so you all know, you disable auto clock throttling when you disable Cat AI, so you will be stuck in 2D mode unless you use a third party program to set game profiles.

There are to many other things automatically place in with the Cat AI option :/

Same as crossfire and other things.

[mbd2884]

Originally Posted by NVIDIA256

Other then Tempatures, I would gladly take a 480 over the 5870. My main beef with the GTX480 is it's ridiculous price tag costing $150 more than a 5870. If Money was not an issue the 480 is the better card. Hardly what i would consider crap, plus your getting a more robust set of drivers with Nvidia.

This I don't understand. It's not just $150 more. You have to pay more signficantly every month on your electric bill. Sure it's something most would not think about it, but you have to add that to the cost of the GTX 480, because if you didn't have it, your electric bill would be lower. And yes, apparently it does make a difference, normal use 10-15 more per month. For year that's another $120 and if you use it like a lot of gamers, I suspect over $200.

Also there was a funny interview with a manager from nVidia who said for extra performance, higher electric bill was worth it and when they release the 512 core version, 15-20% more power for it is acceptable. No plans to make these more energy efficient it seems.

I don't know about others, but I don't just care about the electric bill, but I consciously try to use energy efficient appliances.

[NVIDIA256]

I don't deny that Fermi is a power hungry monster, and I agree ATI has built a high performance Power efficient GPU 6 months ahead of Nvidia. Functionality and raw performance is better on NVIDIA and I am willing to deal with the extra power just for that. But $150 more when I already have a 5870 no thanks. Maybe I might bite when they release the 512 core, then again these
Sh|tty highly unoptimized/sloppy Console ports create little desire to buy anything better Performance wise.

[VanDiT]

So when do ATi release the next generation of cards? you do realise that nvidia is half year behind...must i say more? think not...gg! http://vr-zone.com/forums/597605/nex...-the-year.html

[Qualitier]

Originally Posted by theshadowcult

Just so you all know, you disable auto clock throttling when you disable Cat AI, so you will be stuck in 2D mode unless you use a third party program to set game profiles.

This is not correct . Neither Catalyst AI nor AA nor AF etc have to do with PowerPlay. An ATi vcard will run at 3d clocks unless there's a Catalyst loaded and no 3d apps are running. For example, the card runs at 3d clocks in the system BIOS setup, under DOS or even under Windows before you install a Catalyst driver.

I use to set Cat AI off. I have no reasons to monitor my GPU clocks, but my 2d low temperatures and silence are impossible with 3d clocks, and my 3d performance is impossible with 2d clocks .

[Dwarden]

erm why are some here discussing new GPUs from NVIDIA or specualating in this thread ...

for that is different section of this forum ...

this topic was about 'questionable optimizing' non-optional/semi-optional features in drivers

[friskyolive]

It's aparent to me that drivers and optimization with profiles go hand in hand with games-and/or GPU driver creation-I dunno.

[theshadowcult]

Originally Posted by Qualitier

This is not correct . Neither Catalyst AI nor AA nor AF etc have to do with PowerPlay. An ATi vcard will run at 3d clocks unless there's a Catalyst loaded and no 3d apps are running. For example, the card runs at 3d clocks in the system BIOS setup, under DOS or even under Windows before you install a Catalyst driver.

I use to set Cat AI off. I have no reasons to monitor my GPU clocks, but my 2d low temperatures and silence are impossible with 3d clocks, and my 3d performance is impossible with 2d clocks .

Maybe they fixed it in the 4000 series, but my 3850 disables powerplay when CAT AI is off, and stay in 2D clocks 24/7.

[spyre]

CATAI has NEVER controlled 3D / 2D or any other type of clock on ATI cards.

[theshadowcult]

Then why the hell does it do it?

[Ristogod]

Why does everyone assume that if there are optimizations that when there is a perceived image quality difference that it's a compromise on quality to improve performance? Why can't it simply be a bug that needs to be fixed, the same as any other bug?

[Hapatingjaky]

Originally Posted by Ristogod

Why does everyone assume that if there are optimizations that when there is a perceived image quality difference that it's a compromise on quality to improve performance? Why can't it simply be a bug that needs to be fixed, the same as any other bug?

Agreed, driver bug that will be fixed in a future driver.

Everyone always jumps to the conclusion that its a cheat, problem is when something like this happen the fanboys from each camp start taking pot shots at each other and its gets out of control.

And yes you can disable optimizations on Nvidia hardware through the CP, Sharkfood, your just adding fuel to the fire by making stupid claims such as this....

[Skinner]

Originally Posted by Hapatingjaky

Agreed, driver bug that will be fixed in a future driver.

Everyone always jumps to the conclusion that its a cheat, problem is when something like this happen the fanboys from each camp start taking pot shots at each other and its gets out of control.

And yes you can disable optimizations on Nvidia hardware through the CP, Sharkfood, your just adding fuel to the fire by making stupid claims such as this....

Well to behonest, I saw those optimizations for too when I had my HD5970, and they irritated me.
I wonder why such a beast needs such optimisations anyway, to win benchmarks?
Esp. the little undersampling and mip map borders on certain texture stages.
It looks like brilinear in stead of trilinear, like the old nVidia 6800

I have switched to a GTX 480 now and the trilinear AF is (much) better, but ATI's sparsed grid super sampling AA mode remains king in this department.
So both vendors have their way of optimize and the few examples pointed out by nVidia is not the way too discover them fully on both.

It's defenetly not a cheat, or a bug IHO, just an (sometimes a bit to agressive) way to gain perf but I think men can espect better filtering from HD5xxx hardware.

[nycdarkness]

Bah all just more bickering in my eyes. I recall couple years ago it was the same **** about cheating at this and that. And all the people aruging about 480 vs 5870 its just silly. Lemme point out something for people who say the 480 is oped. 2gig 5870 = 480 price exactly the same right now. Now yes that's 464mb vram then the 480 but at the same time the 480 is faster. SO if you really think about it it's price point really isn't that off. To all the people who bitch about the temps everyone who owns a fermi knows the temps aren't that outrageous. From what I see people idle and have underload sounds just like my old 8800gtx temps. Nvidia cards have ran hot for quite some time whats the surprise. For the people who complain about the power consumption if you have 500 dollars to spend on a VIDEO CARD TO PLAY GAMES THAT YOU SPEND MORE MONEY ON and your bitching about 5 extra dollars a month on your electric bill seriously shoot yourself. In fact post on rage3d less saves you save money with your comp turned off too.

[becco]

Originally Posted by badsykes

here we go again...

[badsykes]

Thx becco for posting something new around here..Is getting dull again in this thread too.

[theshadowcult]

Less of a segway, but it's a better Whitesnake song