ATI Catalyst 8.4 Analysis - XP

[Comment Bot]

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[technogiant]

when I read that 8.4 was going to improve games which use the unreal 3 engine I was hopeful I'd get better results with my 3870X2 playing Frontlines Fuel Of War.... but sadly still can't turn on shadows with out them flickering...really ruins the look of the game...guess I'll have to wait for 8.5 or game patch 1.03 hopefully one of those will help

[BJL]

I have a question regarding ATI Catalyst drivers in general. My son's computer has an overclocked DFI NFII Ultra Infinity MOBO with an AMD Athlon XP2500+ CPU. He has found that the newer drivers have created problems for his computer. We are installing a new hard drive on his computer and are wondering what would be the ideal Catalyst version for his MOBO. Any suggestions would be appreciated. I forgot to mention that he has a Radeon 9600XT 128MB.

[apelsinen]

Interesting.
Speaking of driver performance. From Catalyst 5.5 to 6.4 I had a change of points in 3DMark05 like this (For my Radeon Power Color 9800 Pro 256MB)

Catalyst 5.5 - 2701 p
Catalyst 6.4 - 2890 p
and now
Catalyst 8.4 - 2847 p
(edit: Catalyst 8.3 tested and gave 2860p)

So even with the old cards the performance and points go up and down. I mean I would expect ATI/AMD to release drivers that not necessarily improve performance but leave it as it is if no changes are announced. Dropped performance is not what one would expect to see over time :o .

[BJL]

With so many changes, how is one to choose the right version for each application?