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Psychanalysis05%

Psychanalysis05%

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Well damn, I just updated my Catalyst drivers and call me a banker, the performance increase has been phenomenal in HL2! I used to get nasty stutteries pretty often, but now that's all gone in place of a supremely smooth experience, with stuttering only happening whenever I've started a new area and there's an explosion or something - but only once.

My own fault for not updating since 4.9 but eh, what can you do.

On a side note, the real time shadows in Silent Hill 4 are no longer all borked for me either.
 
giant384 said:
cool kinda off the hl2 topic but cool
Click to expand...


No, its still on topic a little...He's commenting on how much better HL2 looks with the newest drivers.
 
Most people would have kinda clicked that if they were having problems with their ATI cards and HL2, then it's time for a driver update....

It's most definately on topic... Since we're generally discussing HL2 graphics in the HL2 general discussion forums ;)

And yeah, I just upgraded from a p4 1.6ghz system, 128mb geforce 4 ti4800Se with 512mb DDR RAM to a p4 3.0ghz hyperthreaded system with a 256mb Radeon 9600 PRo and 1024mb DDR RAM, and OMG the difference is amazing! It was really really worth the money I forked out. Just the ability to run in dx9 alone makes an amazing difference. You really don't notice just how much of a difference water effects and character model detail make until you actually see the difference modes running in realtime one after the other...
 
I totally agree. I was being slack an hadn't updated since the 4.8's, and the update to the 4.12's was amazing.

Much smoother gameplay.
 
I must be one of the unlucky ones, the 4.12's borked everything. Installed them no apps would respond properly, would get some error 'remote procedure call error', and another error, 'application window station failed'. Programs wouldn't launch or would sit for ages before loading, couldn't shutdown because another error 'application window already shutdown', had to hard reset or hard switch off. Loading a game would reboot my PC. Took me ages to remove the drivers, as i coudn't access the add-remove panel (just crashed). Couldn't install my original drivers over the top because the installer failed to launch. System restore wouldn't load. Ended up having to boot off my windows XP cd and had to remove each file manually with the console, so windows would be forced to use generic vga drivers. Back on the 4.11's which are working fine.
 
4.12 are fine for me, ATI control panel bluescreens my system but I can life with that; all the config I need is ingame. You've gotta make some sacrafices for using beta drivers.
 
are these non-beta drivers we are talking about?
 
Phirax I had similar problems... Powerstrip wouldn't load, kept crashing... and then HL2 wouldn't load because it said it couldn't init the shader system =\

I'll wait for any hotfix, or the 4.13/5.00's :)

*edit* cyberpitz yes
 
Do you have service pack 2 installed?

A few days ago I ignored ati's recommendation on having sp2 before installing 4.11 or 4.12. HL2 wouldnt load and I was forced to upgrade.
 
Yeah SP2 is installed. I've uninstalled HL2/Steam anyway so its not as if I need the 4.12's.
 
The new drivers vastly improved my card, everything ingame runs damn nice and alot more smoothly. That and i actually defragged this sucker :naughty: havent done that for awhile ;)
 
woha ATI users you need to download this driver !
its pretty good
makes the game much smoother
 
Tried it with service pack 1 and it won't run, seems to be SP2 specific only.
 
Some amazing reports there. Should I even bother trying this? I have Radeon 9700 Pro...
 
Heavy P said:
Some amazing reports there. Should I even bother trying this? I have Radeon 9700 Pro...
Click to expand...
yes
i got Radeon 9700 pro too
 
Well, after two days of using these, the difference has been astounding. I've noticed fps in the 100+ area throughout a lot of Route Kanal, only dropping to 25fps in the moxt extreme gunfights (tons of metrocops and flaming barrels everywhere). So yeah, I'd recommend it to anyone. And yeah, I'm using sp2.
Sorry to hear about you guys having issues =/
 
The latest drivers let me run my Radeon 9800 on High settings with 16x AF. Before if I had my texture detail set to High it would generate loads of artifacts and generally ruin the graphics for me.

Now with this latest patch I can run everything in full and even still get an average framerate with a bit of AA too :D

I'm incredibly happy :)
 
Does anyone who has tried these new drivers know if they reduce/eliminate some of the stuttering for those who have this problem?
 
I have 9800 pro everything is starred (recommended by valve for my PC) and it runs HORRIBLY after this driver. I tried the mat_forcetexture.... command on 1 and on 0 neither works. Everytime I turn around it studders so bad and the whole game just runs like complete crap.

I have it set to 1600x1200 everything on high, no AA and the game runs like just complete and utter garbage I've never seen a game studder so bad before.
 
Zeus said:
I have 9800 pro everything is starred (recommended by valve for my PC) and it runs HORRIBLY after this driver. I tried the mat_forcetexture.... command on 1 and on 0 neither works. Everytime I turn around it studders so bad and the whole game just runs like complete crap.

I have it set to 1600x1200 everything on high, no AA and the game runs like just complete and utter garbage I've never seen a game studder so bad before.
Click to expand...

Just out of curiousity Zeus, what driver were you using before you went to the new one? I wonder because if it was an Omega driver or some other "3rd party optimized driver" then possibly the driver was better than the new one. Also, did you use drivercleaner to uninstall the old one, or did you just use add/remove programs?
 
Check the cl_smooth command.

It generally runs better when set to 0 (oddly enough)
 
I think I'll wait 'til Chrimbo before I install the new drivers - my new 9800 Pro (256MB) is wrapped and under the tree.

Is there any way, when uninstalling old drivers, to stop damn windows finding and installing new ones as soon as I boot up? I've tried safe mode and also restarting in diagnostic start-up but still Windows insists on finding it's own drivers and installing them! Anyway to stop it?
 
half alive said:
I got sp2 via a windows update... you probably did too.
Click to expand...

nope i have refused install of sp2, but all other updates i have.
sorry for bad english.
 
corkscru74 said:
I think I'll wait 'til Chrimbo before I install the new drivers - my new 9800 Pro (256MB) is wrapped and under the tree.

Is there any way, when uninstalling old drivers, to stop damn windows finding and installing new ones as soon as I boot up? I've tried safe mode and also restarting in diagnostic start-up but still Windows insists on finding it's own drivers and installing them! Anyway to stop it?
Click to expand...
What version of Windows?
 
corkscru74 said:
I think I'll wait 'til Chrimbo before I install the new drivers - my new 9800 Pro (256MB) is wrapped and under the tree.

Is there any way, when uninstalling old drivers, to stop damn windows finding and installing new ones as soon as I boot up? I've tried safe mode and also restarting in diagnostic start-up but still Windows insists on finding it's own drivers and installing them! Anyway to stop it?
Click to expand...

You SHOULD be able to hit Cancel when the new driver window opens up. I have not had one video card that didn't give the option to Cancel out of the driver install. You should then be able to go and run the installer for the driver of your choice. I will assume though that this is NOT your problem, since you know enough to get into safe mode. What version of Windows are you running? What kind of Graphics card are you using? What drivers are you trying to uninstall, and what are you installing in thier place? If you can let us know these, we can probably help more.
 
I have a 9700 Pro and I got an 11 fps gain with 4.12. Someone on another forum said their futuremark scores were actually higher with the released 4.12 catalyst drivers than the omega drivers based off the beta 4.12 catalyst drivers.

Oh, and I don't have SP2, as far as I know it's bloat.
 
Win XP with SP2. Radeon 9600 Pro Atlantis. It happens everytime I try to install the latest Catalyst drivers. I'm going into the Device Manager and uninstalling the current drivers (of which there are 2 for some reason, one with '- Secondary' after it). Restarting and before anything else has loaded it automatically installs the standard driver. I'm pretty sure there isn't an option to cancel, windows just blunders through with:

-New Hardware Found
-Windows has Driver for it
-Your new hardware is installed, with the crappy standard driver, now give windows a cookie for being so clever!

I read yesterday that instead I could uninstall the 'ATI Software Uninstall Utility'. Is this where I'm going wrong, uninstalling the driver?
 
corkscru74 said:
I'm going into the Device Manager and uninstalling the current drivers (of which there are 2 for some reason, one with '- Secondary' after it).
Click to expand...
The reason that you see 2 is most likely because your card has 2 outputs -- primary would be VGA output, and secondary would be DVI, or other type (S-Video, etc).

corkscru74 said:
Restarting and before anything else has loaded it automatically installs the standard driver. I'm pretty sure there isn't an option to cancel, windows just blunders through with:

-New Hardware Found
-Windows has Driver for it
-Your new hardware is installed, with the crappy standard driver, now give windows a cookie for being so clever!
Click to expand...
Yeah, I HATE it when my computer thinks it knows what I want better than I do -- if you have uninstalled ALL ATI software from Add/remove programs (NOT device manager), then it SHOULD give you the option to cancel.

corkscru74 said:
I'm going into the Device Manager and uninstalling the current drivers
Click to expand...

I just realized what the issue is (based on what you wrote above). If you remove the card from DEVICE manager, then it WILL auto-install the drivers. Do this instead: Go to start, Control Panel, Add/Remove programs (it is critical that you do it from here, and not from somewhere else). Then uninstall ANYTHING from ATI (there may be several things from ATI in here) -- do NOT let it reboot until they are all gone. When you reboot, it should let you cancel the install new hardware screen that comes up. The reason you cannot get the cancel is that when using DEVICE MGR, you uninstall the CARD, but not the drivers. So as soon as it gets back, windows identifies the card, then realizes it HAS the drivers already, and proceeds to install them (and gets a cookie). Do it with add/rem programs, and you should be Gold.
 
MajorPayne said:
Just out of curiousity Zeus, what driver were you using before you went to the new one? I wonder because if it was an Omega driver or some other "3rd party optimized driver" then possibly the driver was better than the new one. Also, did you use drivercleaner to uninstall the old one, or did you just use add/remove programs?
Click to expand...

I was using the latest catalyst drivers before 4.12 came out and I add/removed them before installing 4.12
 
Zeus said:
I was using the latest catalyst drivers before 4.12 came out and I add/removed them before installing 4.12
Click to expand...

I will be doing the same tonight (going from the beta Cats 4.12 to the release versions). I will try using driver cleaner and see if that helps -- if it all works better for me, I will let you know.
 
Eh, I have tried 4.10, 4.11, Omega and now 4.12 drivers... my graphics in all source games including HL2, are completely "£$£$"ED still. It's really starting to get on my nerves.

The "psycadellic" textures thing is something I am suffering from, so I downloaded these drivers eagerly, alas, bugger all has changed.
 
Ddan said:
Eh, I have tried 4.10, 4.11, Omega and now 4.12 drivers... my graphics in all source games including HL2, are completely "£$£$"ED still. It's really starting to get on my nerves.

The "psycadellic" textures thing is something I am suffering from, so I downloaded these drivers eagerly, alas, bugger all has changed.
Click to expand...

Ddan, I had something similar at launch of HL2 -- my textures in all SOURCE games were f-d, but other steam downloaded games (HL1, Opfor) were fine). The only way I fixed it was to uninstall steam, delete the ENTIRE VALVe folder from the program files directory, and then delete the VALVe key in the registry (it is either HKLM\Software\Valve, or HKCU\Software\Valve, I cannot remember which). I then re-downloaded everything from scratch -- it worked perfectly after that. If you have not already done this, give it a try -- it is a pain in teh ass, but it worked for me.
 
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