ATI Catalyst 7.6 released

[SinisterDexter]

Get it from the usual sources:

http://ati.amd.com/support/drivers

Wonder if it fixes (or breaks) anything in SHIV

[-Pv-]

It didn't surprise me this comes out so soon on the heals of 7.4 and 7.5 which were no improvement.
-Pv-

[flyingdane]

Hope they get this one right.

[bunkerratt]

no sun glare .but overdrive is working...and no green lines with aa engaged ...

[Capt. Shark Bait]

no sun glare .but overdrive is working...and no green lines with aa engaged ...

i've got sun glare with 7.5. seems to be a shader thing

[XanderF]

no sun glare .but overdrive is working...and no green lines with aa engaged ...

No green lines? You mean on the edge of the screen? You SURE? I thought that was a limitation of using the Adaptive AA? It's certainly been in every single game I can remember as far back as the feature has been present...

no sun glare .but overdrive is working...and no green lines with aa engaged ...

i've got sun glare with 7.5. seems to be a shader thing

Not like you should, no (http://www.rage3d.com/board/showpost.php?p=1334870654&postcount=5).

[Capt. Shark Bait]

nope, not like i should know:p. this is with a 2900XT, and not that nvidiot thing:roll:

sunset:sunny:
http://img509.imageshack.us/img509/1233/2900xtsunsetnw2.png

also, my green border liners are gone as well, unlike the pic here which isn't 7.6

[AVGWarhawk]

Hmmmmmm:hmm:. I will have to try this one! Right now all I have is a round disc:oops:

[Jace11]

The 7.6 seems to fix the new antialiasing techniques so that Narrow-tent and Wide-tent give softer effects whereas in 7.5 they gave very nasty white outlines around 3D objects in SH4 so I could only use the Box sampling setting. They introduced a reset after selecting crossfire mode. There is a bug with this - see the release notes - and a hotfix has been released already, but with my cards it seems to give very poor framerates in crossfire eg interior of sub 25fps in CF mode compared to one card running at 60fps (max due to V-synch)??? But as the drivers are slightly improved I will stick with this and use 7.6 and one card till 7.7 I guess.

[Capt. Shark Bait]

Warhawk, you'll likely have to get a 2900XT, if you don't already have one. on my 850XT with 7.5 i got the sun disc, so i doubt it's a driver thing as the 850 likely couldn't handle more advanced shader models

[Raus]

Meh, I'll take my 8800. :cool: "nVidiot" seems to get their drivers right.

[AVGWarhawk]

I loaded it up. Seems stable to me. I was able to turn up some AA and not lose FPS. Looks good to me:up:

[-Pv-]

I'm getting correct sun glare for the 1st time since playing this game on the 1950XT card using 7.6. I've always used the Temporal AA and never had the green border.
-Pv-

[Capt. Shark Bait]

:hmm: , maybe there's something in 7.6 that wasn't in .5p

[Swat]

To Capt. Shark Bait: Can you please describe me performance of your 2900XT in SH4?FPS when leaving/entering the port etc...?I'm considering the purchase.....Thanks a lot!

[Capt. Shark Bait]

well, i've got pretty much all grafix settings/sliders maxed out and the only slowdowns i get are up close and personal to ships. with my 850XT it would be a literal slideshow. not so anymore. IQ is as good as if not better than the other ppl that starts with nv and ends with idiot :D. and for what it costs, it's an overall better buy. the kicker is with ASUS you also get STALKER and when they're released the black box: HL2:EP2, Portal and team fortress2. also, the drivers can only get better over time. getting really close to enemy ships you can see more detail in the surfaces and water looks like it has some rippling between waves/swells. leaving port doesn't seem to show any slow down either. the Asus EAH2900XT it's definitely worth getting

[Swat]

Capt. Shark Bait - Thank you very much sir!

[Capt. Shark Bait]

Capt. Shark Bait - Thank you very much sir!

not a prob, sailor. if you do get one, make sure your PSU has 2, two, 6 pinPCIe pwr connectors, 1 6pin and 1 8pin to enable overdrive iffn you wanna overclock

[XanderF]

And make sure you have a power supply that can handle it.

The card consumes more than 160w (http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/video/display/r600-architecture_14.html#sect0) on its own. That's not overclocked or anything! Make sure your power supply can handle that - when ATI says the card needs a 550w PSU (http://ati.amd.com/products/Radeonhd2900/requirements.html), they aren't kidding. As many manufacturers exaggerate their specs, ATI even provides a list of 'certified' PSUs (http://ati.amd.com/online/certifiedpsu/index.html) for their parts. For the 2900XT, I'd make sure your power supply is on that list!

[BlackSpot]

Hmmm...I've installed the CAT 7.6 drivers but I'm still not getting any glare from my 1800XT. I have seen it but it fades back to the normal sun disk after a few seconds. Any ideas?

[MONOLITH]

I'm getting correct sun glare for the 1st time since playing this game on the 1950XT card using 7.6.


Good news.

X1950 Pro here.

Going to get the driver.....

[MONOLITH]

Hhmmm....still don't think I'm getting the same bloom/glare as the Nvidia guys.

Anyone else?

[XanderF]

I can confirm your findings.

Radeon X1950 Pro, 1280x1024.

I still get the green borders with 'adaptive AA' turned on, and I still get the 'sun disk' - no bloom around it.

On the upside, at least I can RUN with adaptive AA at native res, now. For some reason with the Cat 7.5s, running at 1280x1024 with adaptive AA would disable all AA entirely. Running at 1280x960, and all worked fine.

With the 7.6s, I can now run at 1280x1024 with 4xAA and 'adaptive AA' enabled, so...that's something. I suppose. If those green borders would go away... :damn:

[AVGWarhawk]

I do not have the green outline. All AA enabled. I have some bloom around the sun and moon but not rendered as well as the Nvidia cards.

[MONOLITH]

If those green borders would go away... :damn:

Have you tried at different resolutions? I seem to remember some people only having the green lines at certain resolutions.

[MONOLITH]

I have some bloom around the sun and moon but not rendered as well as the Nvidia cards.

I agree about the 'some' part. It looks like I have something more/different than I had before, but nothing real dramatic like on the Nvidia cards.

[BlackSpot]

I was playing around with the different settings in CCC. When I switched back to SH I had full bloom and glare but it faded back to the sun disk after a few seconds. Weird. It is there.

[Misfit138]

When I switched back to SH I had full bloom and glare but it faded back to the sun disk after a few seconds. Weird. It is there.

I have the same thing. Actually I had this with previous 7.5 Catalyst drivers also

Running with X1950XT. Has this glare worked properly with any previous drivers? Starts to feel like it was a mistake to buy ATI again...

[Ilpalazzo]

I can confirm your findings.

Radeon X1950 Pro, 1280x1024.

I still get the green borders with 'adaptive AA' turned on, and I still get the 'sun disk' - no bloom around it.

On the upside, at least I can RUN with adaptive AA at native res, now. For some reason with the Cat 7.5s, running at 1280x1024 with adaptive AA would disable all AA entirely. Running at 1280x960, and all worked fine.

With the 7.6s, I can now run at 1280x1024 with 4xAA and 'adaptive AA' enabled, so...that's something. I suppose. If those green borders would go away... :damn:
Yea some of you guys got me all excited for nothing. I still have the green boarder with adaptive AA.

Sunglare for me. This isn't normal is it?....
http://img405.imageshack.us/img405/4742/welcometofantasyislandoo7.th.jpg (http://img405.imageshack.us/my.php?image=welcometofantasyislandoo7.jpg)

http://img522.imageshack.us/img522/9122/deplanebosdeplaaaaanekf6.th.jpg (http://img522.imageshack.us/my.php?image=deplanebosdeplaaaaanekf6.jpg)

*I'm using an x1900xt



Running with X1950XT. Has this glare worked properly with any previous drivers? Starts to feel like it was a mistake to buy ATI again...
Next time I buy a vid card it is going to be Nvidia. Not for these particular problems though. I will because ATI Catalyst software does not scale small res 4:3 images (800x600, 1027x768, 1280x1024). It simply stretches them to fill my entire 21" widescreen. I cannot play any of my old games because of this as they look horrid.

Sorry to go off topic for a sec, but I am really pissed at ATI. That scaling is a known problem for years and they have done nothing about it. I recently contacted them about it. Had some emails back and forth (problem unresolved) and after a month it seems they don't care anymore.

[Capt. Shark Bait]

those without the sun glare, it seems to me that it's not a driver issue but rather hardware. the 2900 doesn't use shader models as previous card did, but it's an entirely different structure which could be why i have glare and X1k cards don't. also, with 7.6 the green border is gone

[Misfit138]

those without the sun glare, it seems to me that it's not a driver issue but rather hardware

Yeah, been reading about this and some people say it's hardware and some say it's the drivers. I think it's the drivers. I mean it seems like most of us actually has that sun glare but only for few seconds. If it would be something relating to hardware I guess there wouldn't be the whole glare thingy at all

[Capt. Shark Bait]

it would have to be hardware cuz of the way shaders are handled between diff generations of cards. hell, they're not even called shader models anymore. i can't test my 850XT cuz it's AGP and it'll be a pain in the @$$ to change out mobos

[Misfit138]

Hmm, I might as well try this with my old X600 Pro. Probable way too outdated to get any useful results...

Anyways, I'll report my findings here

[Zepheron]

those without the sun glare, it seems to me that it's not a driver issue but rather hardware. the 2900 doesn't use shader models as previous card did, but it's an entirely different structure which could be why i have glare and X1k cards don't. also, with 7.6 the green border is gone

I don't think it's hardware. as said above, when game first loads I get full bloom...then nothing. so it is possible with the hardware. plus no bloom problems in any other games played. So most likley game or driver related.

[XanderF]

those without the sun glare, it seems to me that it's not a driver issue but rather hardware. the 2900 doesn't use shader models as previous card did, but it's an entirely different structure which could be why i have glare and X1k cards don't. also, with 7.6 the green border is gone

I don't think it's hardware. as said above, when game first loads I get full bloom...then nothing. so it is possible with the hardware. plus no bloom problems in any other games played. So most likley game or driver related.

Almost certainly driver. That the HD 2900 has it all the time while the X1K-series don't doesn't really indicate otherwise...ATI just launched the Radeon HD-series, so basically the only thing their driver team has been working on this year is that card. That they did get it working in the Radeon HD is promising that we will eventually see a fix for the X1Ks. (As you say, it's obviously not a hardware limitation, as switching to chart, alt-tabbing out of the game and alt-tabbing back, then viewing an external view will ALWAYS enable it for a few seconds. Ergo, the card can clearly DO it, it's just not doing it all the time. Yet.)

[MONOLITH]

as switching to chart, alt-tabbing out of the game and alt-tabbing back, then viewing an external view will ALWAYS enable it for a few seconds.



Never knew this. I have to try it just to see what it looks like. :cool:

[RickC Sniper]

X1950XT Still have the green borders and no change in the way the sun looks. The green borders are on THIS game but no others.

I just jumped from the 7.3 to the 7.6 drivers.

1680x1050 resolution