AMD Releases Catalyst 13.1 GPU Drivers With Various Tweaks for Radeon HD 7000 Series
Subject: Graphics Cards | January 18, 2013 - 11:33 AM | Tim Verry
Tagged: Radeon HD 7000, gpu, drivers, catalyst 13.1, amd
AMD recently released a new set of Catalyst graphics card drivers with Catalyst 13.1. The new drivers are WHQL (Microsoft certified) and incorporate all of the fixes contained in the 12.11 beta 11 drivers. The Radeon HD 7000 series will see the majority of the performance and stability tweaks with 13.1. Additionally, the Catalyst 13.1 suite includes a new 3D settings interface in Catalyst Control Center that allows per-application profile management. The Linux version of the Catalyst 13.1 drivers now officially support Ubuntu 12.10 as well.
Some of the notable performance tweaks for the HD 7000 series include:
- CrossFire scaling performance in Call of Duty: Black Ops II improvements.
- Up to a 25% increase in Far Cry 3 when using 8X MSAA.
- An 8% performance increase in Sleeping Dogs and StarCraft II.
- A 5% improvement in Max Payne 3.
Beyond the performance increases, AMD has fixes several bugs with the latest drivers. Some of the noteworthy fixes include:
- Fixed a system hang on X58 and X79 chipset-based systems using HD 7000-series GPUs.
- Fixed an intermittent hang with HD 7000-series GPUs in CrossFireX and Eyefinity configurations.
- Resolved a system hang in Dishonored on 5000 and 6000 series graphics cards.
- Resolved a video issue with WMP Classic Home Cinema.
- Added Super Sample Anti-Aliasing support in the OpenGL driver.
AMD has also released a new standalone un-installation utility that will reportedly clean your system of AMD graphics card drivers to make way for newer versions. That utility can be downloaded here.
If you have a Radeon HD 7000-series card, it would be worth it to update your drivers ASAP. You can download the Catalyst 13.1 drivers on the AMD website.
You can find a full list of the performance tweaks and bug fixes in the Catalyst 13.1 release notes.
Another update
In our previous article and video, I introduced you to our upcoming testing methodology for evaluating graphics cards based not only frame rates but on frame smoothness and the efficiency of those frame rates. I showed off some of the new hardware we are using for this process and detailed how direct capture of graphics card output allows us to find interesting frame and animation anomalies using some Photoshop still frames.
Today we are taking that a step further and looking at a couple of captured videos that demonstrate a "stutter" and walking you through, frame by frame, how we can detect, visualize and even start to measure them.
This video takes a couple of examples of stutter in games, DiRT 3 and Dishonored to be exact, and shows what they look like in real time, at 25% speed and then finally in a much more detailed frame-by-frame analysis.
Obviously this is just a couple instances of what a stutter is and there are often times less apparent in-game stutters that are even harder to see in video playback. Not to worry - this capture method is capable of seeing those issues as well and we plan on diving into the "micro" level as well shortly.
We aren't going to start talking about whose card and what driver is being used yet and I know that there are still a lot of questions to be answered on this topic. You will be hearing more quite soon from us and I thank you all for your comments, critiques and support.
Let me know below what you thought of this video and any questions that you might have.
NVIDIA Employees Stole 100,000 Confidential Documents Claims AMD
Subject: General Tech, Graphics Cards | January 16, 2013 - 01:10 PM | Ryan Shrout
Tagged: stolen, nvidia, legal, Lawsuit, console, amd
Things might get interesting for a little while between AMD and NVIDIA again as a complaint has been filed by AMD accusing recently converted NVIDIA employee's of downloading and stealing 100,000 documents on the way out AMD's door.
The company alleges that Robert Feldstein, Manoo Desai, and Nicolas Kociuk collectively downloaded over 100,000 files onto external hard drives in the six months before leaving the company. All three and another manager, Richard Hagen, were accused of recruiting AMD employees after leaving for Nvidia.
The most senior of these employees is Robert Feldstein who was acting as the VP of Strategic Development at AMD before leaving for NVIDIA and was responsible for getting AMD inside the Nintendo Wii U as well as the upcoming Xbox and Playstation consoles due out this year. To say that "stealing" Feldstein was a big win for NVIDIA would seem like a bad pun now with the accusations on the table, but there, we said it.
After looking at the former employees computers AMD found that "Desai and Kociuk conspired with each other to misappropriate AMD's confidential, proprietary, and/or trade secret information; and/or to intentionally access AMD's protected computers, without authorization and/or in a way that exceeded their authorized access." And since Feldstein and Hagan were responsible for the recruitment of those former AMD employees, they were breaking the "no-solicitation of employees" agreement made before departure.
Obviously AMD hasn't come out with exactly what is in those 100,000 documents they accuse of being stolen, but the company is hoping that the US District Court in Massachusetts will help them recover the incriminating documents with a restraining order for all four current employees of NVIDIA forcing them to retain all current AMD-related documents.
The unfortunate part of this for AMD is that if the document leak is true, the damage has likely already been done and they will have to sue for damages down the road. NVIDA could be in for a world of hurt if the court finds that they were actively requesting those documents from the the four named in the complaint.
If you want to read all the legal source for this complaint, you can find it right here.
CES 2013: Intel Haswell HD Graphics Compared to GeForce GT 650M
Subject: Graphics Cards | January 12, 2013 - 12:02 PM | Ryan Shrout
Tagged: CES, ces 2013, Intel, haswell, hd graphics, 650m, geforce, nvidia, dirt 3
While wandering around the Intel booth we were offered a demo of the graphics performance of the upcoming Haswell processor, due out in the middle of 2013. One of the big changes on this architecture will be another jump up in graphics performance, even more than we saw going from Sandy Bridge to Ivy Bridge.
On the left is the Intel Haswell system and on the right is a mobile system powered by the NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M. For reference, that discrete GPU has 384 cores and a 128-bit memory bus so we aren't talking about flagship performance here. Haswell GT3 graphics is rumored to have double the performance of the GT2 found in Ivy Bridge based on talks at IDF this past September.
While I am not able to report the benchmark results, I can tell you what I "saw" in my viewing. First, the Haswell graphics loaded the game up more slowly than the NVIDIA card. That isn't a big deal really and could change with driver updates closer to launch, but it is was a lingering problem we have seen with Intel HD graphics over the years.
During the actual benchmark run, both looked great while running at 1080p and High quality presets. I did notice during part of the loading of the level, the Haswell system seemed to "stutter" a bit and was a little less fluid in the animation. I did NOT notice that during the actually benchmark gameplay though.
I also inquired with Intel's graphics team about how dedicated they were to providing updated graphics drivers for HD graphics users. They were defensive about their current output saying they have released quarterly drivers since the Sandy Bridge release but that perhaps they should be more vocal about it (I agree). While I tried to get some kind of formal commitment from them going forward to monthly releases with game support added within X number of days, they weren't willing to do that quite yet.
If AMD and NVIDIA discrete notebook (and low cost desktop) graphics divisions are to push an edge, game support and frequent updates are going to be the best place to start. Still, seeing Intel continue to push forward on the path of improved processor graphics is great if they can follow through for gamers!
PC Perspective's CES 2013 coverage is sponsored by AMD.
Follow all of our coverage of the show at http://pcper.com/ces!
CES 2013: Caustic, now part of Imagination, Shows Series2 Ray Tracing Accelerators
Subject: Graphics Cards, Shows and Expos | January 12, 2013 - 11:38 AM | Ryan Shrout
Tagged: CES, ces 2013, caustic, imagination, ray tracing, series2
We have talked with Caustic on several occassions over the past couple of years about their desire to build a ray tracing accelerator. Back in April of 2009 we first met with Caustic, learning who they were and what the goals of the company were; we saw early models of the CausticOne and CausticTwo and a demonstration of the capabilities of the hardware and software model.
While at CES this year we found the group at a new place - the Imagination Technologies booth - having been acquired since we last talked. Now named the Caustic Series2 OpenRL accelerator boards, we are looking at fully integrated ASICs rather than demonstration FPGAs.
This is the Caustic 2500 and it will retail for $1495 and includes a pair of the RT2 chips and 16GB of memory. One of the benefits of the Caustic technology is that while you need a lot of memory, you do not need expensive, fast memory like GDDR5 used in today's graphics cards. By utilizing DDR2 memory Imagination is able to put a whopping 16GB on the 2500 model.
A key benefit of the Caustic ray tracing accelerators comes with the simply software integration. You can see above that a AutoDesk Maya 2013 is utilizing the Caustic Visualizer as a simple viewport into the project just as you would use with any other RT or preview rendering technique. The viewport software is also available for 3ds max.
There is a lower cost version of the hardware, the Caustic 2100, that uses a single chip and has half the memory for a $795 price tag. They are shipping this month and we are interested to see how quickly, and how eager developers are, to utilize this technology.
PC Perspective's CES 2013 coverage is sponsored by AMD.
Follow all of our coverage of the show at http://pcper.com/ces!
ASUS doubles down the RAM on their latest GTX 670
Subject: Graphics Cards | January 11, 2013 - 01:20 PM | Jeremy Hellstrom
Tagged: nvidia, asus, GTX 670 DirectCU II 4GB
In addition to the custom cooler on the ASUS GTX 670 DirectCU II, there is also 4GB of RAM which is double the usual serving for a GTX 670 and should help its performance at high resolutions. The core and RAM remain at stock speeds, [H]ard|OCP tweaked the GPU up 185MHz and the RAM by 175MHz so there is some room for overclockers to play with this card. This time around [H] only tested single display performance and were disappointed with the performance when they compared it to the similarly priced HD 7970 but keep your eyes open as they will be testing SLI multi-monitor performance in the near future.
"Today we have an ASUS GeForce GTX 670 DC II 4GB video card up for review. Although there is no factory overclock, the video card supports 4GB of memory compared to the default 2GB. We will focus on single display performance in our revamped game lineup that includes Far Cry 3, Hitman: Absolution, and Sleeping Dogs."
Here are some more Graphics Card articles from around the web:
- MSI GeForce GTX 650 Ti Power Edition Review @ Neoseeker
- Desktop Graphics Card Comparison Guide @ TechARP
- HIS Radeon HD 7750 1GB IceQ X Turbo @ Tweaktown
- AMD Richland A10 6800k Vs Haswell GT3 – graphics performance analysed @ Kitguru
- PowerColor PCS+ HD 7870 Myst Edition Review @ OCC
- HIS Radeon HD 7970 6GB IceQ X2 @ Tweaktown
- HD7990 Quadfire tested: crash happy @ Kitguru
CES 2013 Video: Gigabyte Shows 4K Display Support and Thin Mini-ITX Boards
Subject: Graphics Cards, Motherboards, Displays, Systems | January 9, 2013 - 09:38 PM | Ryan Shrout
Tagged: video, thunderbolt, thin itx, mini ITX, ces 2013, CES, 4k
One of our final stops at CES this year was to visit with our friends at Gigabyte to see what they had to show off. Right off the bat we found an impressive 4K display configuration with four 1080p monitors. Running off of Gigabyte's GA-Z77X-UP5TH dual-Thunderbolt motherboard, each of the ports was split using a Lenovo adapter, each connecting to a pair of the monitors on the quad-display stand. The result is a stunning 3840x2160 display configuration running completely off of the Intel HD 4000 graphics and the Core i7 processor.
Colin also showed us Gigabyte's push into the world of DIY and OEM All-in-One designs with a couple of motherboards based on the thin mini-ITX standard. These boards are the same X/Y dimensions with a lower Z-height and very specific layout rules so that enclosures, cooling and components can be standardized.
PC Perspective's CES 2013 coverage is sponsored by AMD.
Follow all of our coverage of the show at http://pcper.com/ces!
CES 2013 Video: NVIDIA GRID Cloud Gaming Technology
Subject: Graphics Cards, Shows and Expos | January 9, 2013 - 11:46 AM | Ryan Shrout
Tagged: video, nvidia, grid, cloud gaming, ces 2013, CES
Despite all the excitement about the NVIDIA Shield handheld gaming device at CES, the company was also heavily promoting its GRID Cloud Gaming Technology, marking another company that is promosing "game everywhere on everything". NVIDIA's claims of lower latency thanks to rendering and encoding on the same GPU have really yet to be verified as the hands-on demos they had at the show were running on local servers (not exactly a real-world test...).
NVIDIA isn't planning on releasing a self-branded service to the public but instead wants to sell servers to ISPs and service providers to increase density (more games per server) and performance. There are no current cloud gaming companies using GRID technology so it looks like we'll have to wait a bit longer to see it's true capabilities.
PC Perspective's CES 2013 coverage is sponsored by AMD.
Follow all of our coverage of the show at http://pcper.com/ces!
CES 2013: The Verge Interviews Gave Newell for Steam Box. Valve's Director Hints Post-Kepler GPUs Can Be Virtualized!
Subject: Editorial, General Tech, Graphics Cards, Networking, Systems, Shows and Expos | January 8, 2013 - 11:11 PM | Scott Michaud
Tagged: valve, gaben, Gabe Newell, ces 2013, CES
So the internet has been in a roar about The Steam Box and it probably will eclipse Project Shield as topic of CES 2013. The Verge scored an interview to converse about the hardware future of the company and got more than he asked for.
Now if only he would have discussed potential launch titles.
Wow! That *is* a beautiful knife collection.
The point which stuck with me most throughout the entire interview was directed at Valve’s opinion of gaming on connected screens. Gabe Newell responded,
The Steam Box will also be a server. Any PC can serve multiple monitors, so over time, the next-generation (post-Kepler) you can have one GPU that’s serving up eight simulateneous [sic] game calls. So you could have one PC and eight televisions and eight controllers and everybody getting great performance out of it. We’re used to having one monitor, or two monitors -- now we’re saying lets expand that a little bit.
This is pretty much confirmation, assuming no transcription errors on the part of The Verge, that Maxwell will support the virtualization features of GK110 and bring it mainstream. This also makes NVIDIA Grid make much more sense in the long term. Perhaps NVIDIA will provide some flavor of a Grid server for households directly?
The concept gets me particularly excited. One of the biggest wastes of money the tech industry has is purchasing redundant hardware. Consoles are a perfect example: not only is the system redundant to your other computational device which is usually at worst a $200 GPU away from a completely better experience, you pay for software to be reliant on that redundant platform which will eventually disappear along with said software. In fact, many have multiple redundant consoles because the list of software they desire is not localized to just one system so they need redundant redundancies. Oy!
A gaming server should help make the redundancy argument more obvious. If you need extra interfaces then you should only need to purchase the extra interfaces. Share the number crunching and only keep it up to date.
Also check out the rest of the interview over at The Verge. I decided just to cover a small point with potentially big ramifications.
PC Perspective's CES 2013 coverage is sponsored by AMD.
Follow all of our coverage of the show at http://pcper.com/ces!
CES 2013 Video: ASUS RAIDR Express PCIe SSD and ARES II Dual HD 7970 Graphics Card
Subject: Graphics Cards, Storage, Shows and Expos | January 8, 2013 - 01:07 AM | Ryan Shrout
Tagged: raidr express, ces 2013, CES, ASUS ROG, asus, ARES II
No stop at the ASUS suite at CES is complete without talking to JJ and learning about what is new in the world of PC components. Not only did we talk with him about the upcoming ARES II limited edition dual Radeon HD 7970 graphics card (that Chris has already written about earlier in the day) but also we learned that ASUS plans to enter the PCIe solid state market with the ROG RAIDR Express.
Yeah, you read that right!
PC Perspective's CES 2013 coverage is sponsored by AMD.
Follow all of our coverage of the show at http://pcper.com/ces!
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