ATI optimized driver comparison article (ngo,dna,dhzeropoint,omega)

dragonS · Mar 15, 2007, 06:14 PM

Hello DriverHeaven,

I just wrote an article that you guys may be interested in. It is a benchmark comparison between Catalyst 7.2, and the following drivers : NGO, [COLOR=#000080 ! important][COLOR=#000080 ! important]DNA[/color][/color], Omega, and DHZer0point.

Here is the link:

http://www.firingsquad.com/matrix/bl...DRIVER_ROUNDUP

I wrote this article out of curiosity but also because I'm in a contest to win a Firing Squad editor writing contract. Part of the reason why I posted here is because I want to generate some traffic to my article (thus improving my chance of winning this round of the contest), but I also support the 3rd party optimized driver community, and I am open to any feedback on my article. You can tell me it sucks or its great or you think my benchmarks are crap or whatever. I haven't written too many articles. Hopefully its alright.

Thanks and thanks to any people who may have worked on the above mentioned drivers.

Oh, and btw, DHzer0point came out on top in my benchmark comparisons

Is a new release coming out or what? As I said in my article, I couldn't find all that much info on the drivers.

Optimize-on....

Robert McClelland · Mar 15, 2007, 06:39 PM

said part there no DH ZP drivers anymore

dragonS · Mar 15, 2007, 08:11 PM

Doh! That sucks. I was hoping that wasn't the case. Its too bad that the one driver that I recommended in my article above the others is the only one that isn't being worked on anymore! ARg. Oh well. I guess theres not much to be done about it.

Dyre Straits · Mar 17, 2007, 06:46 AM

Greetings and Welcome to DriverHeaven, dragonS.

I took a look at the benchmarks you posted and there's something quite important you need to consider.

NONE of the ATI driver versions you are using in this is based on any of the other versions. You've got a hodge-podge of versions from 6.9 (DH), 6.12 (NGO), Official ATI 7.2, 7.1 (Omega), etc.

This is like comparing apples to oranges to tangerines. There really is NO FAIR comparison here. In order for this to be a very fair and quality benchmark report, ALL of the various drivers need to be based on the same official ATI drivers. It's the only way you'll get a balanced article.

I know a lot of hard work went into this, but, essentially, it's not a good comparison benchmark but rather a possible advisory on which driver versions may work best for various programs/games.

I don't mean to criticize the hard work you've done, but, it really isn't the kind of work that people should take very seriously due to the many different versions of drivers you've used.

Don't give up, though! Do something like this again but with all the same basic driver versions being used.

Good luck!

(BTW, it wouldn't hurt to consider video quality during the testing, too. )

dragonS · Mar 17, 2007, 06:54 PM

Thanks for your thoughts, Dyre Straights. I take no offense at all from your post. Actually, Regeneration from the NGO team said pretty much the same thing to me, concerning how the different catalyst versions can not be fairly compared.

One big error of mine I did not realize: I made a big mistake and thought the NgO drivers I had were based on 7.2. In hindsight, I think when I went to download the driver, I decided to go with 1.6.12 because I thought it might be a more stable release, but then when writing about the drivers, made a big mistake and referred to my notes which were based on the 7.2 release. AT least I think that is how it happened -- but I screwed it up somehow.

If I didn't drop the ball there, it would have been a comparison between 6.9(zeropoint), and then 7.1 and 7.2's, which I thought would have been fairly fair. If done again, I definetly would have asked for advice from the involved parties, including you guys, of course.

Ah well. I have not written many articles of this type, and I'm still learning. I will post my thoughts on the flaws of this article. Although my comparisons may have been unfair, I least hope that I generated some interest in optimized drivers with my article.

For everyone who has given time for the optimized driver projects, I'd like to say thanks for all the hard work.

Conlan · Mar 18, 2007, 08:20 AM

Very nice article Dragon, it valididates why i still run the 6.9 Driver set, although not the 0points. Hmmm, maybe i should.

I'm afraid i have to agree w/ Dyre Straits on the fairness aspect of the test, but it's still very useful information and your obvious hard work on the article is appreciated.

BTW, I linked it to the AT Forums Video section, hope you don't mind

EDIT...not to be picky, but i just noticed you used an X800XT for the tests, which could explain why the older driver set (6.9) performed better

clpdj · Mar 18, 2007, 07:40 PM

i tested all in my ati nd the best is the omega 7.1(for games) and warcat 7.2(bench)

Haos · Mar 29, 2007, 10:03 AM

I use Omega - mainly because of the 9700 Softmod... having 4 extra pipelines unlocked is a must have...

Dwarden · Mar 29, 2007, 02:48 PM

and for any next test of 3rd party drivers all based e.g. on 7.3 core
i suggest use X1950 (e.g. pro) card ...

thanks ...

austin2359 · Apr 19, 2008, 11:56 AM

Hello, thank you for the old thread here. These dhzerpoint drivers were the best drivers at the time of the x1950xt. Has anything defeated these drivers in benchmarks since then with that card, or are the newer drivers from other producers only optimized for 2*** and 3**** series, therefore dhzeropoint is still the best for the 1*** series?

The summarized question is whether these dzheropoint drivers are still the most effective drivers for the gecube x1950xt agp.

kn00tcn · May 5, 2008, 11:22 PM

no if newer drivers have fixes for things you need fixed

(& cat 7.10 massively improved opengl on x800)