AMD Radeon HD 6000 Gallium3D Attempts To Compete With Catalyst

[Michael]

Why don't you do this instead? No, seriously, I have a bit mess right now, so ... hard. But I have urt installed and I'm pretty sure its 125 fps capped - 60-125 fps are selectable, the engine uses this cap for sync and physics. Quake3 WAS able to remove the cap for local-only gameplay. The problem is.. I wanted to remove it myself some time ago, just to get info where gtx260 gets stuck - and I was not able to find the path.
So yes, the cap *should be* there .. or I'm not getting something. The other thing that makes me suspect - is pretty same framerates on all cards... Don't ask how PTS managed to record 160 or 180 fps.. I don't know,.. yet.

If my memory serves me, it's upped via com_maxfps.

[RealNC]

It does nothing? It goes from 70?C to 45?C with my HD5870...
With the HD3870 it goes from 70?C to 55?C and even dynpm did work. Flawlessly.

As I said, with my HD4870 and "default", it idles at 85C. With "low", 83C. What you get seems pretty much made up :-/

Edit: AFAIK, dynpm is not supported with KMS.

[darkbasic]

When people told me dynpm doesn't work I didn't trust them initially, it just depend on the card. And on the vendor. And maybe even on the bios version. Usually the low profile does work, sometimes not. Usually dynpm does not (!) work, sometimes it does. We surely need more testing and we should report bugs upstream.

[darkbasic]

Edit: AFAIK, dynpm is not supported with KMS.

Trust me, it does work (if you're lucky enough) with kms. I did test it very well, ssh-ing while playing openarena, while idling in the desktop, with and without compositing, etc...

[crazycheese]

If my memory serves me, it's upped via com_maxfps.

Thanks, this is exactly what I was thinking about.
com_maxfps will unblock, but ultimately only for viewing recorded demos.
in online connection, it is ignored, because network sync is bound to it
in offline connection (starting local, non-dedicated server), it is ignored too, because urt sees this as client-server connection, even in local scope.

I have just tested gtx260sp216 at fullhd with com_maxfps set to 150 and then 180 - and in every single demo I have, on map of every complexity, it is always 131-132 fps, always. Vsync was off, fullhd 1920x1080, all settings to max.

But, this can't be correct, since
- I clearly remember fps going down sometimes when playing online (large maps, like sliema with 30 players)
- setting 150 and 180 did not make difference, maps were of different complexity themself (dressing room tutorial with two players, ridyah with ~12 players in one screen, rivalry with aimbot cheater and 7 players...)...
- (!!) I downclocked the 260gtx by setting it to max performance mode and then lowering the memory to 600 mhz from 999, and gpu to 400 from 585... No change in fps.
It is definately capping framerate, even with 125fps limit off.
I don't know to what? Very possibly it is CPU bottlenecking. I will try to downclock the athlon , lets see... That would actually mean correct thing, if true. In your test, Michael, all GPUs were roughtly having same performance in same driver group.

... this would ALSO mean, catalyst driver works MORE efficient in kernel-space than gallium, exactly by the difference between those two driver groups. If that was CPU bottleneck. Something gallium developers should know, if proven... And be able to patch, this giving a bit MORE performance to gallium (hopefully).

[pingufunkybeat]

Hey, you're not much better, pal Changing the power profile with the radeon driver is also idiotic; it doesn't do much. At most it goes from 85C to 83C, which is just laughable.

What are you talking about? The temperature drops like a rock when switching profiles.

It is certainly possible that it doesn't work correctly on some hardware, in which case you should file a bug.

I only called him names because he's been consistently and persistently spreading false information, even though he should know better because people have been correcting him on the same topics for years now. It's not the first time.

And yes, dynpm needs improvement. No, low profile will not fry your card, or eat your children, or help bin Laden.

[Drago]

Thanks, this is exactly what I was thinking about.
com_maxfps will unblock, but ultimately only for viewing recorded demos.
in online connection, it is ignored, because network sync is bound to it
in offline connection (starting local, non-dedicated server), it is ignored too, because urt sees this as client-server connection, even in local scope.

So what? Remember, this is graphics benchmark. We benchmark GPU capability, no matter demo,real gameplay, whatever. The point here is that Michael did things right.

[Drago]

What are you talking about? The temperature drops like a rock when switching profiles.

It is certainly possible that it doesn't work correctly on some hardware, in which case you should file a bug.

I only called him names because he's been consistently and persistently spreading false information, even though he should know better because people have been correcting him on the same topics for years now. It's not the first time.

And yes, dynpm needs improvement. No, low profile will not fry your card, or eat your children, or help bin Laden.

I think radeon profiles, are video BIOS configured profiles. If his card has broken BIOS, then PM will not work the way it should. IIRC, radeons, have some additional internal PM logic, which is not documented for FOSS, so only catalyst takes advantage of it.

[darkbasic]

I do agree, otherwise there is other explanation why does two 3870 from different vendors do behave differently...

[crazycheese]

So what? Remember, this is graphics benchmark. We benchmark GPU capability, no matter demo,real gameplay, whatever. The point here is that Michael did things right.

Dude, what the fck did you chew on? The framerate is PINNED - there is NO graphics benchmarking there. And according to the stuff I found it is PINNED to CPU even in rare case when fps *should* be unblocked. Im gonna test this now, but I did not build-in the powersave governor in kernel for the reason I though I ain't gonna need it. You can retest this yourself:

Get x64 urban terror client.
Launch game
Go to options->system and set gfx to max and resolution to native
Go to options->misc and set Show FPS to on

1)Type ^ (or AltGr+~ on german keyboard) to open console
/com_maxfps 200
/demo [Tab] type there any one, client 4.2 has several of them present
Note the fps
2) Go to any control center you use, or use profile to force card to lower performance level
Launch urt and repeat step 1) - I get SAME fps there, it is not bound to 125, BUT it is topping at SAME value, which means this is either CPU BENCHMARK or game still enforces this FPS somehow(may be it depends on framerate of machine that RECORDED the original demo).

It needs to be tested - I can already say that that ain't GPU benchmark for sure. The framerates currently do not scale with GPU performance.