Thursday, December 15, 2005

ATI Catalyst 5.12 Dual-Core Optimizations Examined and Explained. Games Get a Speed Boost from Dual-Core CPUs

10:23 pm | Yaroslav Lyssenko

Last week ATI released a new version of its Catalyst software. The latest ATI Catalyst 5.12 graphics card driver along with usual performance enhancements and bug fixes sports optimizations that take advantage of dual-core and multi-threaded processors. DriverHeaven.net has investigated performance impact of the optimizations in several popular game titles, namely Battlefield 2, FarCry and Half-life 2.

“In order to see the theoretical increases possible with the dual core driver we need to test at some very specific settings so that it is our CPU that causes a bottleneck in our test system. The settings we are going to use today are 1024x768 with no AA or AF. When you pair that with our test system its pretty easy to see that the GFX card wont cause any bottleneck at all,” indicated the author.

With interesting benchmarking results at their hands, DriverHeaven.net asked Phil Rogers,
ATI senior software architect and the man responsible for ATI’s performance enhancements and dual-core work, to comment.

“The D3D driver interface delivers work to the driver in large batches, encoded in an execute buffer. It is the driver’s job to parse this execute buffer, translate it to a form that our hardware can process and deliver it to the hardware. With the dual core optimizations, we move the bulk of this driver processing to a worker thread that runs on the second core,” explained Phil Rogers.

• DriverHeaven.net: Catalyst 5.12 Dual Core CPU Optimizations.

Additional Features in Source Engine Unveiled. Cinematic Effects in Valve’s Gaming Engine

10:22 pm | Yaroslav Lyssenko

Half-Life 2 the game became almost legendary long before its final release. Being based on the innovative Source engine, the new episode of the Gordon Freeman saga brought a lot of features that made gaming experience more realistic than before. However, even the Half-Life 2 could have been better with some more advanced graphics effects.

In addition to the HL2, Valve also released Source-based Counter-Strike and Day of Defeat games. While with the switch to the Source engine the games acquired new looks, Valve has been for a while demonstrating certain new features aimed at enhancing the feeling of real-life experience inside the game. Bit-tech.net has managed to take a look at a range of new cinematic effects in the Source engine, such as depth of field, motion blur, film grain, dust, and color correction.

“Opinion on these new cinematic effects is split. On the one hand, there is no doubting that they’re pretty “cool” and in terms of making games more cinematic, they are definitely bringing movies and games closer together. However, there will be a significant number of hardcore gamers that will not welcome these changes, just as the resisted HDR. This vocal minority oppose any eye-candy that might get in the way of holding a competitive edge,” writes bit-tech.net.

• Bit-tech.net: Cinematic Effects in Source.

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