Related Articles

Introduction

In 2008, Catalyst driver releases have come more regularly, and on a more predictable schedule, than in 2007. Each update has brought a performance increase -- sometimes for many games, sometimes for only a few. But anyone using an ATI video card could expect an average of one new WHQL driver release every month; and with each new release, there is the chance that CrossFire performance has been improved.

Earlier this week, Catalyst 8.7 went live on the AMD server, so we thought we would check it out, and report on 8.7's performance. This Catalyst release was fairly major as it was the first to support ATI's newest HD 4000 series video cards. For this brief article, we had two main goals: first off, to see how much, if any, performance gains were made for a HD 3870 going from Catalyst 8.6 to 8.7; and second, to see what levels of performance CrossFireX setups using multiple HD 4000 could offer.

Judging from the release notes for the new drivers, the answer to the first question was 'probably not much.' Significant performance enhancements have only been applied to the 3DMark Vantage, Company of Heroes DX10, Lost Planet DX10, Call of Duty 4 DX9, and Crossfire scaling in Lost Planet DX9. Nonetheless, sometimes the ATI driver team can be modest, so we decided to see if there were any performance difference in the five programs we benched, with a HD 3870 video card.

The answer to the second question above is, unfortunately, 'we are not sure.' Unfortunately, we had tremendous difficulties getting CrossFireX working in Vista (32 bit version, with SP1 installed.) We had no luck getting a HD 4870 + HD 4870 + HD 4850 system going (as you are probably aware, with CrossFireX, in theory you can mix and match up to four HD 3000 or HD 4000 series cards.) We also had no luck getting a HD 4870 paired with a HD 3870 working either. A couple other combinations didn't pan out either. The Catalyst Control Center has been improved with 8.7's release by the adding of an additional hardware information screen, as well as some fancy new graphics, but we would have traded both improvements in for a bit more luck with CrossFireX -- the CCC did not give us the option for turning CrossFire on with both of those configuration just described. 

Of course, we did not have hopes of getting very good CrossFireX performance -- our Asus P5Q Deluxe has three PCIE slots but only has 16 lanes, so that limits things fairly severely for three cards. But we did think that we would at least be able to activate CrossFireX, and wanted to see how it would perform, irregardless of the limiting amount of lanes. But no such luck. 

A pair of HD 4870's worked together though, and we were successful getting a HD 4850 working with a HD 4870 as well.

More troubles in performance paradise

Through the course of this article, an inordinate and exorbitant amount of time was spent dealing with mysterious errors that we still have not found solutions to -- unless, of course, restoring from a system restore point can be labeled a solution.

Please note: for the troubles described above and below, the fault may be our own. There may be something deep and insidious within our registry file that is throwing a virtual monkey wrench into the unimaginable gearbox that is Windows Vista 32-bit. We always re-clone our master testing drive for new series of benchmarks, but maybe some old Vista birthing pains are to blame. We can only report on our own experiences -- though at least more than a handful of people out on the Internets have suffered similar trials and mysterious errors, as can be shown by some simple Google queries.

If you ever see the error message "Could not load file or assembly 'CLI.Implementation' or one of its dependencies" or the '"Could not load file or assembly 'MOM.Implementation, Version=2.0.2783.40314, Culture=neutral, Publickeytoken= 90ba9c70f84672e''" error you might want to unplug your computer and find a reliable brick wall to bash your head against, repeatedly. This will save you a great deal of frustration and annoyance because you will not be in any position at all to try to figure out exactly what this error means, or heaven forbid, what kind of software aerobics you might be able to do to fix it. If either error pops up for you, there is a good chance you will not be able to successfully re-install any Catalyst drivers at all.

Once again: this is not a problem found that will be found for everyone who downloads the Catalyst 8.7 drivers. Actually the CLI.Implementation problem and MOM.Implementation problem has been around for a while (at least Catalyst 7.8), and as far as I know, there is no sure-fire way to fix it. It seems to be the luck of the draw, as to who this bug smites. Some people have been able to get the Catalyst drivers working again using registry cleaners and re-installing programs, but many have not been able to recover from this error.

I don't want to seem too hard on the ATI driver team here -- honestly, getting video card drivers working on the PC must be one of the most intellectually demanding occupations conceivable; comparable challenges perhaps could be found possibly in the fields of neurosurgery, copyright law, or quantum physics. The amount of variance in PC hardware and software no doubt makes smooth sailing more of an ideal to strive for, than an attainable goal.

Hyperboles aside, hours were spent trying to get any Catalyst driver working after finding this problem. Arcane suggestions found throughout obscure forums were applied to no avail. The problem is somehow related to the Microsoft Visual C++ 2005 Redistributable software package. From hours wasted trying to fix this problem (from using many software packages like Driver Cleaner, manually going through the Windows registry, and utilizing multiple releases of the Microsoft .NET framework installations) please take this advice, if you use Vista: if you ever uninstall your Catalyst drivers, after, also uninstall the Microsoft Visual C++ 2005 Redistributable package. This move could save you some brain cells.

But enough harping on this problem. On to another one: one thing we also didn't enjoy about the Catalyst 8.7 release is another 'feature' it brings to the table. This driver package also installs a free ten day trial to World of Warcraft. If I was a more sarcastic person, I would call this unnecessary WoW advertisement a fantastic, thoughtful and helpful thing to include in a driver package. A few releases ago the Catalyst drivers installed Steam -- but this no longer the case. Now you get WoW -- great. Fortunately, if you choose the 'custom' install option, you can axe the WoW-ware from your installation.