Catalyst 8.8 released

StevenG · 22 Aug 2008 at 12:56

just installed the 8.8's here and there excellent

i cant believe i was thinking of leaving ATI.

what cards are people running on these? i still have the 3870x2 and its still a really good card for me?

StevenG

Vince · 22 Aug 2008 at 12:59

StevenG said:
just installed the 8.8's here and there excellent i cant believe i was thinking of leaving ATI.

what cards are people running on these? i still have the 3870x2 and its still a really good card for me?

StevenG

Agree that these are very good drivers for the 3870

better, smoother performance across the board here.

StevenG · 22 Aug 2008 at 13:00

VinceB1 said:
Agree that these are very good drivers for the 3870 better, smoother performance across the board here.

i wouldnt mind seeing some new game results with these drivers, i mean i wonder if the crossfireX peformance has also been improved. might be something to think about if it has with the cards being so cheap 2nd hand now.

StevenG

Vince · 22 Aug 2008 at 13:02

Have found a new 3870 at a competitor for £56. Think that will be my next purchase.

Firegod · 22 Aug 2008 at 13:31

spookywillow said:
firegod what psu do you have?

i tested grid a bit more last night and in single player im getting major slowdowns regardless of settings, its locked at 60fps for a while (vsync on) and then it just bombs down to about 8 fps and stays like it till i restart the game. multi player is fine and can play for some time but i will eventually get a grid.exe stopped responding error

i checked with my multimeter and when the fps drop the voltages are going back up, when my fps are good the voltage on the pci-e plug is around 11.96v and the cards core voltage is around 1.16v but when the fps drop the voltages go up to 12.3v on the pci-e plug and 1.21 on the cards core.

only this game gives me problems

Mate, sounds exactly like my issue as well. Are the menu's slow also for you when this happens. It's well bizzare. My PSU is an OCZ GameXStream 700w jobby. Surely this should be ok?

I've just reset my BIOS to stock settings so I'm off to test the game now.... back in a mo!

Firegod · 22 Aug 2008 at 13:32

J.D said:
It sucks when you have problems and some don't. I really hope you get it all sorted and can enjoy your gaming .

I know. The joys of PC's I guess.

layte · 22 Aug 2008 at 13:36

Is anyone else with a 4870x2 getting massive corruption in Vantage using 8.8's?

Sparkling lines, popup polygons and giant blobs of colour all over the shop on the first test. Other apps seem fine from limited testing, but some of the stuff I am seeing in Vantage usually means something hardware wise is about to go pop.

Firegod · 22 Aug 2008 at 13:42

**Read Me**

Ok guys. GRID still bombs out with stock settings with these 8.8 drivers for me.

However, I think I may have resolved the slowness in the menu's, etc. It seems to be all to do with AA.

I have it set in CCC to be "application-controlled" with "Edge-Detect" in the box, which I have read only takes aprt when having AA set at x4 or higher.

In the game I had x4MSAA set in the options. When I set x2MSAA however the problem goes away and it's super-smooth. Set it back to x4MSAA and the menu's crawl again. V.strange!!

@KaneStatton, I wonder if you could try altering these settings and seeing if it's the same for you please?

**EDIT: UPDATE**

I've changed the AA type from Edge-Detect to "Box" and went back into GRID. I then changed the AA from x2MSAA to x4MSAA and the problem did not reappear with the menus! YEY!

So it definately looks like Edge-Detect messes with GRID.

Would appreciate if someone else can test and see what happens also, but so far "Box" seems to be fine. I did not used the Tent mode as they are rubbish and end up blurring most textures.

CraigN · 22 Aug 2008 at 13:51

these have allowed me to control fan speed through the CCC profiles which i couldnt do before.

My 4870 X2 seems to be stable at 800/1000 now

gonna try run a few benches.

spookywillow · 22 Aug 2008 at 14:25

firegod i just tested with another psu and my problem remains, yes it does it in the menus too so i end up alt-F4 it instead as its faster.

4x AA on box still makes me lag but im reinstalling it now without any ultra mods but tbh it should run it with ease as im only at 1280x1024 res and rybo runs at the same settings but higher res with 8xAA and that runs fine with an 8800GTS 512mb (he posted some nice grid pics in the high res screenshot thread)

Firegod · 22 Aug 2008 at 14:37

spookywillow said:
firegod i just tested with another psu and my problem remains, yes it does it in the menus too so i end up alt-F4 it instead as its faster.

4x AA on box still makes me lag but im reinstalling it now without any ultra mods but tbh it should run it with ease as im only at 1280x1024 res and rybo runs at the same settings but higher res with 8xAA and that runs fine with an 8800GTS 512mb (he posted some nice grid pics in the high res screenshot thread)

Let me know how you get on, I've sent ATi a support ticket so we'll see what they say.

EDIT: Just to say, I've managed to play through a whole race in GRID when set to "Box" mode..... It looks like "Edge-Detect" may have been the reason for the crashing!

Holwill · 22 Aug 2008 at 14:55

8.8 are fine for me apart from the menus in Grid which are still choppy as they were with 8.6/8.7, I did try changing AA from 8-4-2 then 2-4 and it made no differance :confused:

. I do not have a lot to moan about other than that.

w00dy85 · 22 Aug 2008 at 14:57

StevenG said:
what cards are people running on these? i still have the 3870x2 and its still a really good card for me?

StevenG

I totally agree, I can not see the point in changing my card. I'm go to wait for the next range (5870)??.

VinceB1 said:
Agree that these are very good drivers for the 3870 better, smoother performance across the board here.

Good to hear they run ok, I was not sure to switch to the 8.8 drivers or stick with the 8.7. Currently running XP, will be getting Vista 64bit in a few weeks.

eyetrip · 22 Aug 2008 at 15:06

Actually I might stick the 4850's back in my machien tonight, because I think I only tried them with forced 4xAA and Edge Detect....

Will give them a go with everything on default settings. Though I am getting rather tired of swapping cards around, playing with bios's, settings, etc, etc

spookywillow · 22 Aug 2008 at 15:44

nah even using 2x AA and it slows down to 8fps until i restart the game

this card should run this game perfect, was just about to order a monitor too but not now by the looks of it

spookywillow · 22 Aug 2008 at 16:02

does 45-80fps sound about right for cod4 on max settings with 4xaa @ 1920x1080?

starting to think its just grid tbh if thos fps sound right.

Stimpy_7 · 22 Aug 2008 at 16:05

Sounds about right to me mate...

spookywillow · 22 Aug 2008 at 16:14

yeah i just checked a few sites and it does seem right, grid on the other hand at that res is a slideshow :confused:

has anyone got the PT Boats Knights of the sea benchmark? if so can you run it at 1280x1024 all high with 2x AA and post your score?

34 average
44 highest
24 lowest

eyetrip · 22 Aug 2008 at 16:38

Why doesn't ATi offer some kind of simple fan control solution in CCC? Just two little boxes - 2D fan speed, and 3D fan speed.

It's really quiter bothersome that such a simple thing requires third party apps or bios updates, or some stupid irritating method of editing an xml file, which you then manually have to enable....

Firegod · 22 Aug 2008 at 16:44

Holwill said:
8.8 are fine for me apart from the menus in Grid which are still choppy as they were with 8.6/8.7, I did try changing AA from 8-4-2 then 2-4 and it made no differance. I do not have a lot to moan about other than that.

Did you change the drop down box for the type of AA within the CCC panel?