News Cat 7.5 released: F@H, Linux & OpenGL

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/2007/06/02/catalyst_75_folding_linux_ogl/1

ATI Catalyst gives a much needed performance improvement in OpenGL and also includes Catalyst Control Center: Linux Edition Version 1.0.

 

Seems to be no discussion link.

Anyways.

Sweet, actual real time improvement

 

Great, so now not only can we ramp up our leccy bills by having our CPUs working at full load 24/7, we can do it with our gas guzzling graphics cards too!

Well, for those of us less environmentally/money conscious it a nice addition, and good to hear they've been improving their OpenGL department. I think I'll be sticking with nVidia for the time being though.

 

you replied in between me publishing and adding a discussion link

 

Ha, perfect timing!

 

now ATI release the mid range X2 graphic cards ASAP

 

Weirdly the auto update manager didn't pick it up (it used to!)

 

nice to see they have updated the Linux drivers, although it doesn't sound like the actual driver has been improved, instead they've just added their crummy CCC bloatware

 

it seems like they already did......

 

Ouch.

 

Note to news poster AMD/ATI don't allow you to direct link to content on their website.

 

just because I see a lot of this in other forums, I figure I ought to post a note:

if you go to the folding@home stats page (http://fah-web.stanford.edu/cgi-bin/main.py?qtype=osstats), you may *think* you see two things:

1) you might think you can divide "current TFlops" by "Active CPU's" to get an accurate measure of the performance of a given processor type.

2) you might think that by doing the calculation in (1), you prove that ATI GPU >> PS3 >> CPU forever great woo!!!!111one


So, before any devout ATI fans declare that ATI's GPU's are the savior of Folding@home, and before any XBox 360 fans declare that their system and its ATI GPU could do way better than the PS3 in Folding if given a chance, please read the various folding FAQ pages. If you do so, you'll realize 2 things:

1) because of the way "current TFlops" and "Active CPU's" are calculated, simple division is not the way to evaluate relative performance.

2) While it is true that in basic calculation speed ATI GPU > PS3 > CPU, you must also realize that in terms of flexibility, CPU > PS3 > ATI GPU -- in other words, when it comes to Folding, a CPU can do everything slowly, a PS3 can do a few things quickly, and a GPU can do very few things very quickly. So, if you're going to compare apples to oranges, realize that they should be compared in terms of calculation speed *and* flexibility.

The FAQ pages make this all very clear...and also point out that while the PS3 and GPU are making HUGE contributions to the calculations, the CPU's are still needed to complete all the operations that need to be done.

 

Sweet my X1600PRO meets the minimum requirements to Fold! I'm still not in the Stone Age!