(Test) Incredible Performance Boost in OpenGL Tessellation With Recent Catalyst Drivers

TessMark - OpenGL tessellation

I took the advantage of the release of the new Catalyst 11.6 to re-bench my SAPPHIRE Radeon HD 6970.

And I was suprised, almost shocked by the boost in OpenGL tessellation performance brought by latest Catalyst 11.5 and 11.6. There’s a huge gap in tessellation perf between 11.4 and 11.5/11.6 and no word from AMD about this incredible performance improvement… maybe not enough newsworthy 😉

To make the story short, gains in performance are just awesome in TessMark 0.3.0: up to 100% (tessellation level of 16). In Unigine Heaven 2.1, gains are around 10% (like mentioned in Cat 11.6 release notes).

For this quick test, I compared Cat 11.4 vs Cat 11.6 (Cat11.5 and Cat11.6 give the same kind of scores). Here are the results:

TessMark test

TessMark - OpenGL tessellation

TessMark settings: map set 1, 1920×1080 fullscreen, 60 seconds, no AA, no postfx:

– tess level: moderate (X8) – Gain: +72%

Cat11.6: 44090 points, 735 FPS – SAPPHIRE Radeon HD 6970
Cat11.4: 25510 points, 425 FPS – SAPPHIRE Radeon HD 6970

– tess level: normal (X16) – Gain: 103%!!!

Cat11.6: 19398 points, 323 FPS – SAPPHIRE Radeon HD 6970
Cat11.4: 9527 points, 159 FPS – SAPPHIRE Radeon HD 6970

– tess level: extreme (X32) – Gain: +51%

Cat11.6: 3397 points, 57 FPS – SAPPHIRE Radeon HD 6970
Cat11.4: 2236 points, 37 FPS – SAPPHIRE Radeon HD 6970

– tess level: insane (X64) – Gain: +7%

Cat11.6: 594 points, 10 FPS – SAPPHIRE Radeon HD 6970
Cat11.4: 555 points, 10 FPS – SAPPHIRE Radeon HD 6970

Unigine Heaven 2.1 test

Unigine Heaven

In Unigine Heaven 2.1, the gain is 9%.

Heaven 2.1 settings: 1920×1080 fullscreen, OpenGL 4 rendering, tessellation: normal, shaders: high, AA: 4X, 16X anisotropic filtering.

Cat 11.6: 28.0 FPS, Scores: 704 – SAPPHIRE Radeon HD 6970
Cat 11.4: 25.6 FPS, Scores: 644 – SAPPHIRE Radeon HD 6970

Related posts:

  1. (Test) AMD Catalyst 8.921.2 RC11 for Radeon HD 7900, Big Performance Boost in OpenGL Tessellation (*** Updated ***)
  2. [Tested] Catalyst 11.1a Hotfix (Jan26): Gains up to 18% in OpenGL Tessellation (TessMark)
  3. (Tested) AMD Catalyst 11.1a: OpenGL Tessellation Support is Slightly… Broken
  4. Catalyst 11.1a Hotfix Updated: OpenGL Tessellation Bug Fixed and Gains in TessMark
  5. Intel Ivy Bridge HD Graphics 4000 GPU: OpenGL 4 Tessellation Tested

14 thoughts on “(Test) Incredible Performance Boost in OpenGL Tessellation With Recent Catalyst Drivers”

  4. MFA

    GTX 460 @950MHz
    same settings
    x8 = 583 fps
    x16 = 356 fps
    x32 = 143 fps
    x64 = 42 fps

  5. Pet_BB

    Radeon HD5850@775/1125
    map set 1, 1920×1080 fullscreen, 60 seconds, no AA, no postfx, Cat 11.6:
    x8 = 511 fps
    x16 = 273 fps
    x32 = 56 fps
    x64 = 11 fps

  6. mg

    While I appreciate that your calculations are done on time, please depict milliseconds rather than fps as well 🙂

  7. mg

    Oh, skip that, you are doing calculations on time-values. E.g. your first testresults should be:

    (1/425-1/735)/(1/425) = 0.42 = 42% gain (not 72%)

    FPS are exponential, you need to use time, otherwise you’ll miss it when the driver-guys make true magic 🙂

    (oh, and thanks for all the testing, this is a great site and I highly enjoy it!)

  8. fraamo

    hi,
    mg you are wrong, the correct gain is 72,9% in that case. You done reverse calculation. 425 is 42% less than 725 🙂
    bye

    sorry for my bad english

  9. Promilus

    Guess the second geometry engine of Cayman now works as it should in OpenGL4

  10. RB

    Thanks for the test & info.

    I just tried and updated my driver to 11.6 for my HD6950 @ 2560×1600 resolution.
    Tessmark results:

    8x normal old avg = 100; new avg = 169
    8x insane old avg = 8; new avg = 9

    –> 69 percent better fps in “normal setting”

  11. jK

    @fraamo
    425FPS -> 2.35ms per frame
    735FPS -> 1.36ms per frame

    1.36ms / 2.35ms = 0.58 -> it renders 42% faster

  13. FearTec

    TYPO EDIT (above should be 11. not 10.)
    Well here are my results for my 5870 and i7 2600

    11.4 Tessmark (default benchmark) = 144fps

    11.6 Tessmark (default benchmark) = 391fps

    But I get terrible funy lines that travel down my second monitor when I type or when webpages load. View flicker here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=osEZFddznG0

  14. fraamo

    @jk

    sorry you are in wrong too. In your opinion , in normal level (x16) , it renders faster only

    323 fps = 3.09 ms
    159 fps = 6.29 ms

    3.09 ms / 6.29 ms = 0.49 –> 51% faster

    but fps are more than double… explain me please why it should be only 51% increase and not 103% 🙂

    sorry for my bad english again

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