Catalyst 5.6 Is Here! - Page 2

Well I get 2870 in 3dmark05 with sames specs without the corsair.

Same here: 5.5 - 2737; 5.6 - 2855; only the 2nd test (GT2 - Firefly Forest) now run 1.1 fps faster.

3343 looks quite high for stock-clocked 9800. But I remember when I had MR9700, at some point I started getting 1600+ points instead commonly usual 1300+ points...

I wasn't overclocked to quite 420 before, here is my best overclock score at 425.25/425.25

3DMark03 = 9394

3DMark05 = 4343

That is with ATI 5.6 drivers, most settings set to High Performance.

Mixed Results...

I have resently started documenting my results from benchmarks and different driver sets running most a few times to get an average result.

I used the following settings:

Fans Set On: 40 40 40
Video Card Settings:
Default Clock Speed (351/297)
DirectX:
AF & AA: AP
TP: HQ
MMDL: HQ
ZBD: 16
VS: Always Off
OpenGL:
AF & AA: AP
TP: HQ
MMDL: HQ
ZBD: Normal
VS: Always Off

Game Settings:
Open GL
1680*1050
AA * 6
AF * 16
High Everything
Reflect All

To get these results:

TESTS:
11:26 PM 28/5/05
Omega Driver's (v2.6.25a)
FPS: 36.07, 36.14, 36.32

1:51 PM 11/6/05
Modified Cat. Drivers (5.6)
FPS: 32.81, 32.46, 32.45

As you can see, CS: S has lost an entire 3-4 frames for no reason...

This however is contrasted with 3DMark 05 in which the score rises with the SAME settings...

Tests:
8:34 AM 29/05/05
Default Clock Speed (351/297)
Omega Drivers v2.6.25a
3DMark Default Run
SCORES: 2736, 2778

2:02 PM 11/06/05
Default Clock Speed (351/297)
Modified Radeon Drivers 5.6
3DMark Default Run
SCORES: 2889, 2880

And this gives the 100 point increase everyone is talking about, yet my cs:s is running worse...

I tried to run CS:S to get a comparison to your results Sphnx. I am using CCC for my settings so I am not sure my settings are all the same as yours.
I used the following settings:

Fans Set On: Auto
Video Card Settings:
Default Clock Speed (351/297)
3D:
AF & AA: AP
CATALYST AI: Advanced
TruForm: Always Off
Wait for vertical refresh: Always Off

Game Settings:
1680*1050
AA * 6
AF * 16
High Everything
Reflect All

To get these results:

TESTS (All with ATI 5.6's Drivers) at default clock speeds:
11/6/05
Modified Cat. Drivers (5.6)
CS: S FPS: ~44

I did not benchmark CS: S at these same settings before so I don't have a direct comparison.

3DMark 05 score with same settings:

11/06/05
3DMark Default Run
SCORE: 3437

Interesting thing is that my 3DMark05 score at high quality (3437) is actually higher than my score at low quality (3343)

Man I think I need to get a copy of 3dmark05 and try it out meself...just too lazy to do it.

3dmark cant be considered a real benchmark anymore what with peoples REAL benchmarks or REAL games..... can it? sure its nice to see a score as high as possible.. but when new drivers see 100 marks in 3dmark and minus whatnot in games.....

McJebus raelcun!

How did you get 3437 on stock!? I have a simalar system to you, except for the RAM (just dell generic crap), and can only get near that if i overclock quite a bit. That could account for a bit, but, thats rather nice.

I got to try out the CCC, i normally just use standard instead, i will compare those with what i got before.

i'm not into the benchmark apps. and the only game i play is Americas Army. i have a 9100 with the mr9800 and have gotten 15 more fps with the cat 5.6 and the game play is MUCH smoother than before. these drivers are worth it for me! only probplem i have is i have no control panel, cant find it at all....... i was running latest omegas before i installed the cat 5.6 driver. i have to use radlinker or ati tray tools to be able to adjust any video settings, any ideas??

I am assuming that you only installed the driver after you modified it. You can run the master setup file (in the main directory of your drivers) and it should allow you to install the control panel. Alternativly, go into your ati driver directory and find the control panel folder (i think it is \CP) and run the setup in that folder. Hope that helps.

The RAM really makes no real difference. The scores I am getting seem way out there compared to what others are getting. I have been playing around with my video bios but am currently running the standard Dell bios. I did do a hard mod on the video card to enable the 8 pipes that were laser cut. I had been using AtiTool to detect if I had enabled more than the standard 8 pipelines but I noticed a thread that says that AtiTool only detects 8 pipelines even on the mobility x800 which has 12 pipes. I set my card to mobility x800 speeds, 398 core and 351 mem, and match that cards 3Dmark scores almost exactly. I still haven't found any benchmarks for mobility x800's with the 5.6 cat's though. I am very curious to see what they are scoring now...

Thanks Shpynx! Great advice! works perfect now... anything else you think i should install that doesnt get installed automaticaly?

Control Panel was unzipped into C:\ATI\SUPPORT\5-6_xp-2k_dd_cp_wdm_23864\CPanel\ but not installed automatically for me. I had to run setup.exe malually.

Oops, too late, you've already done it on page 3...

I can't find a folder like this. There were 2 downloads in the download page, a bigger on and a smaller one. Which of these did you guys get?

If you get the bigger download I think it includes the pos but required CCC for all the additional features. The smaller is just the driverset. Thats why I like omegas...dont need the crappy bloated hoggy CCC for accessing all the features of the driverset.

I'll just use ccc until omegas are released. I hope they are not slower than catalysts. I grew accustomed to my new increase in speed.

Yeah I agree but usually there are sites that put all the driversets together and there you can check out the performance figures but yeah...I would be disappointed if the Omegas were not as fast..

From what i have obserbed between the CCC and normal radeon drivers is not much. CCC really is a POS program, but it works. Using ~similar~ settings (not the same because of catalyst AI) i gained only a few frames in my CS:S results, but a gained another 100 3dmark05 points over the 5.6 normal version.

Interesting thing i found however with the CCC. The "factory settings" are different from the "default" settings.
If using the "factory settings" I recieved 55 frames in CS:S and was unable to run 3dMark05.
Using "default" settings, i only recieved 36 frames in CS:S and was able to run 3DMark05 with around 2900 result.

What i discovered was with the factory settings, a setting is disabled, "Support for DXT (or DTX, not sure)" under 3d settings... and the last option... is disabled. With this disabled, it is not possible to run 3dMark05 (says something about not having the required hardware), but does give a hefty frame increase to other games.

I don't know what DXT (or DTX) but it must be essential to support DX9 or Pixel Shader 2.0 (as these are two hardware requirements for 3Dmark05) but if disabled, it can give a resonable increase in frames without much effect on graphics (with games that function without it, basically i think everything).

Anyone has problem with shutting down your computer after installing these drivers? It takes like 2 minutes now. I uninstalled them and when I restarted my computer and tried to shut down again without installing any drivers it shut down immediately.

my shut down times didn't change (sorry, haven't felt the need to time it...)