AMD Catalyst 8.95 17 January Benchmark

Earlier today a new 8.95 driver leaked, two weeks newer than the previous one. And what I and probably most of you noticed is the big OpenGL version incrementation. If I’m not mistaken this is the first driver with a 6.14.10.115xx OpenGL string. A lot of improvements (performance and bugs) done by AMD in the OpenGL department, probably trying to fix those many issues with RAGE.

Some of you already commented that OpenGL is working better with this driver than with the previous one. Unfortunately I don’t know what “works better” means, so if you have any issues with any AMD drivers simply post a comment on the article for the respective driver and tell me and others what kind of issues are you encountering (what & how & when), this way I can test if the issues are fixed in releases to come. When it comes to AMD driver I’m pretty lucky, never had major issues with them in the last year, except for a few ones that were fixed pretty quick by AMD.

Regarding OpenGL: the increase in version doesn’t really means that the driver will perform better in OpenGL games/apps than other drivers. I’ve seen lot of drivers with lower version numbers beat the hell out of drivers with much newer ones. I can’t say the same thing about bugs and/or compatibility; newer versions will not necessarily perform better but stability would be greater and bugs fewer. But even with the newest drivers you will always encounter bugs in some obscure games or even in triple A titles. It’s all about trial and error.

Enough chit-chat, let’s see what this 17 January 8.95 driver performs compared to 11.12 WHQL and what AMD recommends (not officially, don’t quote me on this) for non HD7900 owners and that would be 12.1 Preview or in our case: 12.1a Preview. If you ask me, 12.1a or non a is a pretty crappy driver. But who the hell uses 12.1 anyways?

Tested Drivers and Information

Prior to installing a driver, a sweep was done in safe-mode using Phyxion Driver Sweeper.

Catalyst Version	2D Driver	3D Driver	OpenGL Driver	Driver Packaging Version	CCC Version	CCC
11.12 WHQL	8.01.01.1215	7.14.10.0879	6.14.10.11318	8.92-111109a-129966C-ATI	2011.1109.2212.39826	11.12
12.1a Preview Driver	8.01.01.1223	7.14.10.0887	6.14.10.11414	8.93.10-120102a-131070E-ATI	2012.0102.2236.40378	12.1
8.95 17 January	8.01.01.1234	7.14.10.0893	6.14.10.11543	8.95-120117a-131901E-ATI	2012.0117.2009.36062	N/A

Tests and Settings

All 3 drivers are tested in 3 synthetic benchmarks and 6 games.

1. 3DMark06 1.02 Professional Edition - 1680×1050 – 2xAA – Anti Aliasing Quality = 0 – 4xAF – Shader Model 2.0 = Return to Proxycon + Firefly Forest – HDR/Shader Model 3.0 = Canyon Flight + Deep Freeze – 2 Runs.
2. Unigine – Heaven Benchmark 2.5 – 1680×1050 – High Shaders – Normal Tessellation(DirectX 11) – 2xAA – 4xAF – 2 Runs.
3. Cinebench 11.5 – 3 Runs.
4. Crysis 2 1.9 using Adrenaline Benchmark Tool – Extreme Preset – 1680×1050 – 4xAA – Hi-Res Textures – Central Park – 3 Runs.
5. Metro 2033 using Update 1.2 Benchmark Tool – Very High Settings – 1680×1050 – 16xAF – No AA for DirectX 9 and 4xMSAA for DirectX 10 and DirectX 11 – 3 Runs.
6. S.T.A.L.K.E.R. – Call of Pripyat – 1680×1050 – Extreme Preset (DirectX 9) – Ultra Preset (DirectX 10 & 11)
7. DiRT 3 – Ultra Preset – 1680×1050 – 8xMSAA – 3 Runs
8. Battlefield 3 – Ultra Preset – 1680×1050 – 4xMSAA – 16xAF – Multiplayer @ Strike at Karkand (32p map, Large Conquest), main street: US Deployment -> B Flag – 3 Runs x 60s.
9. Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim v1.3.10 – Ultra Preset – 1680×1050 – 8xAA – 16xAF – Tested in the area East of Rorikstead – 3 Runs x 60s.

All synthetic benchmarks were ran 2 times except Cinebench (3 runs), all games were ran 3 times.

Test System Specifications

Table of Contents:

Page 1 – Introduction
Page 2 – 3DMark06, Unigine and Cinebench
Page 3 – Crysis 2, Metro 2033 and Call of Pripyat
Page 4 – Battlefield 3, DiRT 3 and Skyrim
Page 5 – Image Quality
Page 6 – Conclusion

Page 2 – 3DMark06, Unigine and Cinebench