X1950 AGP Cat Drivers 3DMark05 & FRAPS

[Reece]

Hi, some interesting results doing a test with 4 catalyst "driver only" versions using 3DMark05, the tests were done with exactly the same setup & sequence excluding the initial version.

My Specs:
Video Card is an AGP HIS ATI X1950 Pro Turbo IceQ 512mb.
2 Gig DDR400 PC3200 Ram
AMD Athlon 64 3700+
Asus A8V Deluxe motherboard

The steps:
1) Uninstall current driver then reboot.
2) Install via setup a selected Catalyst driver then reboot.
3) Setup Screen size, monitor freq (1152x864 75hz) then reboot.
4) run ATI Tray Tools with set profile.
5) Run 3DMark05 bench test.

The results:
Cat 6.9 - Came with card - 9617
Cat 6.12 - file size 11.9mb - 9597
Cat 7.1 - file size 12.2mb - 9553
Cat 7.3 - file size 10.3mb - 9592
Cat 7.7 - file size 14.4mb - 9512
Cat 7.8 - file size 14.6mb - 6191
Cat 7.10 - filesize 15.6mb - 9576
Omega 3.8.413 (7.09.1) - 9556 with fast write enabled 9575

Interesting that all steps were exactly the same only the driver was changed, I won't be using Cat 7.8 thats for sure!

NOTE: While the setup is the same, if anyone requests it, I can do a bench on other Cat versions.

[danlisa]

Reece, I'd be interested in a comparitive test using the Omega Drivers. As they are designed to be a slimmed/optimised replacement for CAT, I wonder if there will be any marked improvement.

[Chock]

I've just put the latest Cat driver and control Center on, and I'm not impressed with it either, for two reasons.

First it seems to be far more choppy even with all the whistles and bells turned off, second, when I download it from ATI, and installed it, it also installed the dreaded Steam without my say so (which I subsequently immediately removed). I found that so annoying that I decided I'm not going to get another ATI card when I upgrade (which I'll be doing shortly).

Chock

[Reece]

I have heard that the 7.9 & latest 7.10 are bad but I haven't tried them, will do if I get a request.
@ Dan, I haven't tried these at all, I could give them a go but not sure which ones to test here, could do some tests, but I'll wait first to see if anymore tests are requested for other Cat drivers, the reason being that it may change registry etc effecting the results from that point on.

[SUBMAN1]

I'm running 7.10 and have no issues. Not sure what people are talking about. 7.10 clears up some bugs.

-S

[AVGWarhawk]

I attempted to install 7.10 and when I went to fire up SH4 it said the 3D engine would not start. -shrug-

[FIREWALL]

Can anyone tell me the comparative nvidia card to the x1950.