New Catalysts, Official Beta

[Al Capwn]

Originally Posted by Volksieg

Thank you Al Capwn!

Just gave Black Death a quick run through with everything set to Medium apart from Buildings Amount (High) and Building Detail (Low). I had Grass and Roads on..... I got an average fps of 35!!! VERY playable. (System specs below.)

There was, of course, the dip in fps when the radio first kicks in but, for the first time ever, it didn't go below 20. The huge explosion was still a fps killer but, when playing, I hope to be causing explosions like that rather than being in the middle of them

To say I am impressed would be an understatement!

Now all I need is the performance patch to turn up and allow me to turn the shadows on..... or I am seriously throwing my dummy out of the pram. LOL

I'll give it a more thorough play through when the screaming rugrat is in the other room safely shut up...*cough* I mean tucked up.

No problem at all, I'm glad if I can offer any help, especially if it helps players get greater performance/visual quality for free!

Are those performance numbers from running the game with MLAA enforced from the CCC? If that is with no MLAA that's awesome you're seeing a boost with your 6770! I didn't notice any performance boost without MLAA with 12.4 vs. 12.2 in CloD; do you know roughly what you were getting previously? Also, what drivers are you upgrading from?

If you haven't tried out the new MLAA yet I think you'll be very pleased with the results, although make sure the in game AA is disabled, it only seems to work up to 2x anyways and has a fairly large determent to performance. Also, just in case anyone reading this hasn't used MLAA before, when enabling MLAA you only have to select the check box; leave the mode in 'use application settings' and I would also save it to a profile instead of just leaving it as always on. I noticed it may cause issues in certain programs such as WMC.

Previously I have been using the SMAA package that was posted here on the forum (I absolutely can't stand FXAA's amount of blurring and would rather use no AA than FXAA) and I'm getting better performance with MLAA 2.0 and I'm overall more impressed with the visual quality as well (MLAA still blurs more than SMAA). I find it especially noticeable during Black Death, the lines on the farmland below don't appear to be 'shifting' or aliased as much with MLAA 2.0 compared to 1.0 or even SMAA.

I'm not sure if this happens to everyone, but at least for me I notice whenever the mission loads up there's usually a ~5 second time before all the textures are loaded and in that time it runs very slow/choppy. So I usually open up the console, and I have 'fps START SHOW' typed in, and I wait for the textures to pop in, then I hit enter and close the console. I find that gives me the most consistent results for comparative purposes.

I also can't wait for that performance patch, from what little we know about it, it sounds like you'll most certainly be able to enable shadows (even if the patch is only a 50% increase compared to the 100% they mentioned, that's more of a gain than the hit I was seeing from having shadows enabled compared to disabled).

Sorry about the lengthy post and good luck with the rugrat, though I don't know of any fixes for that!

[Volksieg]

That was without the MLAA... just did another quick run of Black Death with the MLAA enabled and...... wow. This time it was with an average of 45fps and the effect on the graphics was rather wonderful too. I nearly forgot I was playing at 1280x720.

I really can't recommend this driver enough for people on similar systems to mine.

As for the rugrat.... the sound problems have ceased now, though he is still in the beta-testing stage at the moment. He should be sleeping through the night more effectively...... in two weeks.

[Al Capwn]

I'm glad you're enjoying the new MLAA Although I have a little bit of bad news.

I've found that apparently when using programs such as Sapphire Trixx or MSI Afterburner, the card will stay in 3D clocks/voltage at all times. Also, it appears that 2 important .dll files for 'unofficial overclocking' are no longer included in 12.4 (possibly 12.3 as well? I didn't discover this until doing an uninstall/driver sweep/12.4 reinstall and then seeing Sapphire Trixx no longer could see what version of CCC I was running nor would it allow me to overclock). You can download the .dll's and you'll regain OC functionality but you'll find you'll be stuck in 3D mode.

two .dll's found here: http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?p=4270324

If you're not overclocking or just using CCC to overclock there doesn't appear to be any issues in this regard, it's just a little annoying since 840 core limit is a little low for me.

[Volksieg]

Luckily for me, I'm one of those nervous types who break out into a cold sweat at the mere mention of overclocking.

Just really amazed at the performance boost this has given me!

[Flanker35M]

S!

I tested those 8.96(12.4 beta) ones and they seem to work very nicely too.

[Al Capwn]

Well after some more extensive testing, it appears that the 12.4 beta drivers seem to have issues with powerplay overall, even when not doing 'unofficial' overclocking (oc'ing above CCC limits) the card may bounce between 3D/2D clocks when it should stay in 2D and it may stay in 3D mode for extended periods of time. This is more an inconvenience than anything, but I figure I should report my findings here.

Edit: It appears that even though I had Sapphire Trixx set to not apply clock settings anymore, just having it running seemed to be causing my powerplay issues. It must be related to the fact that those 2 .dlls are no longer included in the 12.4 library and they must be what the overclocking software is using to interface with the card and with the changes in powerplay it must be causing a conflict.

Edit #2: Well after some more testing, it appears that once you enter a 3D application and leave, powerplay will kind of work, sometimes it's a little slow in downclocking, although mine doesn't appear to lower voltage if you're using 'unofficial overclocking'.