Posts tagged with AMD Fusion for Gaming Utility
Wolfenstein and Quakecon 2009
Posted by Ian McNaughton in 2:00 PM
(14 votes, average: 3.93 out of 5)
Loading ...The game that started the FPS phenomenon!
Back in the early nineties, there was a game that truly defined all video games that followed, do you remember? Well, for those readers who were not born yet, the game was called Wolfenstein 3D and its introduction was a defining moment. Some believe that Wolfenstein 3D defined the FPS as we know it. I would have to completely agree!
If you were a Doom player then you can thank Wolf 3D for blazing the trail for what was, is, and continues to be an amazing gaming franchise. Fast forward to August 2009 and transport yourself to Dallas, Texas and you can relive those original Wolf 3D experiences with AMD at Quakecon 2009.
id Software has teamed up with Raven Studios to develop a new game called “Wolfenstein”. In the new game you play the original character William B.J Blazkowicz who just happens to be a super metalled out member of the Office of Secret Actions (OSA). Come on, how cool would that business card be?
Ian McNaughton
AMD
Office of Secret Actions
Will need to print some of those up for Quakecon!
The new Wolfenstein looks fantastic, I was able to score an early copy to hone my skillz in preparation for this weekend’s festivities and the game is awesome so far…
AMD will be showcasing Wolfenstein on our booth as well as in #area64.
We will also be providing live updates via Twitter and vlogs via blogs.amd.com.
#Area64 will be exclusive access only, meaning, you can try to find it, but its hidden and being kept secret. AMD will be showcasing what we lovingly refer to as “The Future”, if you want to see the future, follow me as well as @AMD_Unprocessed , @Catalystmaker, @caseygotcher and @Tweetoe for ways to get invited.
Strap in and hold on, Quakecon 2009 is about to begin!
Cheers!
Ian “Cabrtosr” McNaughton
Ian McNaughton is senior manager of advanced marketing at AMD. His postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites are provided for convenience and unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such linked sites and no endorsement is implied.
ATI Catalyst™ 9.4 Driver – Everything you want to know
Posted by Ian McNaughton in 2:04 PM
Do you regularly update your graphics drivers?
Hot on the heels of the ATI Radeon™ HD 4890 launch complete with astounding reception from journalists, customers, gamers and winning over 40 awards to date, Terry Makedon and his team have a Catalyst update to launch as well! The ATI Catalyst™ 9.3 driver was only released 22 days ago, so don’t expect a lot of optimizations, but the driver team has built in a few goodies for ATI Catalyst 9.4 that are worth the update.
[NOTE: Some readers took advantage of my last blog to raise some driver support issues - I wanted to remind readers that this blog is not meant as a driver support page, and ALL driver support issues should be communicated through the proper channels so we can capture them correctly and fix the issues. So please report all driver related issues here. I am happy to read and comment on some of them that you feel are relevant to this blog, but no support will be given via this blog, sadly I am not a driver engineer!]
Marketing sound bite: ATI Catalyst™ 9.4 - New ATI OverDrive™ auto-tuning application*
ATI Catalyst 9.4 includes a new ATI Overdrive™ auto-tune application finds over-clocked engine and memory values for ATI Overdrive supported ATI Radeon™ Graphics accelerators. This new added support is designed for the ATI Radeon™ HD 4000 Series of GPUs.
We work hard to deliver the best platform solutions that consist of CPU and GPU. As the only company in the industry that can deliver both we have the unique opportunity to develop free software to optimize performance across AMD-based platforms.
I don’t think we say enough about our gaming software, here are links to download all of our recent applications:
- AMD Fusion for Gaming Utility*
- AMD Overdrive Software*
- ATI Catalyst™9.4 Drivers with ATI OverDrive™ auto-tuning application*
Some of the other notable highlights in ATI Catalyst 9.4 are that this driver is optimized for the upcoming highly anticipated game The Chronicles of Riddick – Assault on Dark Athena. Catalyst 9.4 also supports the new ATI Radeon™ HD 4890 as well as fixes a load of bugs; please check out the release notes for full details.
And last but surely not least, my favorite community: ATI Catalyst™ 9.4 for Linux
We will have support (once the driver is available on or about April 17th) for new operating systems:
- RHEL 5.3 production support
- Ubuntu 9.04 early look support
So, what does this all really mean to you, the gamer? It is further commitment to the enthusiast community that overclock or want the ability to tweak their systems.* That is, you own an AMD processor and an ATI Radeon GPU, you will be enabled to have a superior PC experience with our gaming software products, and of course, if you are a Linux user, a broader set of platform support.
See you next month!
Cheers!
Ian “Cabrtosr” McNaughton
*AMD product warranty does not cover damage caused by performance tuning, even when enabled using AMD software.
Ian McNaughton is senior manager of advanced marketing at AMD. His postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites are provided for convenience and unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such linked sites and no endorsement is implied.
An Enthusiasts Dream Machine
Posted by Ian McNaughton in 3:29 PM
Simply blissful gaming!
Twist my arm, unreleased GPU meets, unreleased CPU meets unreleased Microsoft OS! When I was asked to build out a totally “unreleased product” PC and experience/blog on the tremendous gaming capabilities of such a system, I was all over it!
First things first, collect all the necessary components; as you can imagine this is a very easy task at AMD.
Components – CHECK
Chassis – Antec Skeleton (as this is easy to do quick uninstalls and reinstalls)
Birthplace – yes, we are human, even though we work and live in grey cubes
Lifting the veil!
Motherboard – Gigabyte MA790FXT-UD5P (AM3)
Memory – 8G Corsair XMS3 DHX DDR3 1333
CPU – Unreleased AMD Phenom™ II Quad Core (3.2Ghz)
GPU – ATI Radeon™ HD 4890 OC (unreleased at the time, available today)
OS – A super secret version of Windows 7
CPU is an AMD Phenom II X4 quad core running at a stock frequency of 3.2Ghz, this CPU is scheduled to be available sometime in Q2.
The GPU is a third generation DirectX10.1 graphics card that is powered by the most powerful gaming GPU under $2601.. Availability of this GPU is April 2nd worldwide (today) and I was excited to test it early!
Some of the specs to the GPU are:
Compute Power – 1.36 TFLOPS
Core Clock Speed – 900 Mhz
Memory – GDDR5
Frame Buffer – 1G
Memory Bandwidth – 124.8 GB/s
Transistors – 959 million
Stream Processors – 800
On to the gaming experience.
Home office and test area – Yes, that is Tweetdeck open, yes that is an HP dv2 on the left and yes that is an Optimun Prime helmet beside my Master Chief helmet! Me=Geek
Just for clarity, I installed a really mature version of Windows 7 as the OS to go with the ATI Catalyst™ 9.3 software driver that we just released. This excluded me from using AMD Overdrive™ for overclocking2 or Fusion Gaming Utility3 as I did not have time to fully test these apps on Win7 (rest assured we’ll get to those in other blogs). Not to mention, I really wanted to give you a sense of the coolest gaming PC build possible!!!
If you have read any of my previous posts, you will quickly come to realize that I love Call of Duty 4: World at War, Left 4 Dead and F.E.A.R.2. These were my games of choice. As you can clearly see above, I hooked them up to one of my 30” DELL monitors and cranked all the game settings to the max. It was simply beautiful, truly cinematic HD gaming.
L4D, killing zombies on a 22” screen is boring, killing zombies while rendering with an HD4890 on a 30” screen was scary!! I have never been so stressed out while gaming (minus my first time playing DOOM).
Did I mention the system was almost silent, it was cool and quiet!
F.E.A.R. 2, can’t say I’m tired of playing the first few levels of this game, especially on such a massive screen with so much horsepower!Between the CPU and GPU, F.E.A.R 2 purred along at 2560×1600 without a hitch, flicker or anomaly! It was the way the game was meant to be played! (no pun intended here)
Did I mention the system was almost silent, it was cool and quiet!
The experience of CoD4 WaW was awe-inspiring! Nothing like running into a fox hole – gun a’blazin’ (or in this case, flame thrower a’flamin’) without the distraction of load times or annoying interruptions from hitches and flickers!
Did I mention the system was almost silent, it was cool and quiet!
If you are a hard core gamer looking for the best GPU value in the market – and when I say value I do not mean cheap or thrifty, I mean hardnosed best product for the money – the ATI Radeon HD 4890 needs to be a consideration! Market leading performance, exceptional price AND actual availability on launch day! No PR gimmicks here folks, no paper launches, no “ball and cup” games, just innovative product, with industry leading features built by gamers for gamers!
Don’t take my word for it; here are some very reputable 3rd party review sites to verify my experience!
“Editor’s choice Enthusiast Gold Award”
Mark Warner, Brent Justice, HardOCP
“Bon” Award (performance 4/5, features 4/5)
“It is hardly known if the GTX 275 will be available in volume or at the price promised”
Clubic.com (France)
“It is not a completely new design, but the Radeon HD 4890 is an exciting product nonetheless. To put it simply, the Radeon HD 4890 is the fastest, single-GPU powered graphics card AMD has ever produced. And its competitive pricing and overclocking headroom should further its appeal amongst enthusiasts.”
“HotHardware Recommended Award”
Marco Chiappetta, HotHardware.com
Now, I need to get back to gaming on this beautiful piece of engineering…until next blog!
(BTW: I respond to most all comments personally, catch me here or on Twitter)
Cheers!
Ian “Cabrtosr” McNaughton
1 Internal calculations show that the ATI Radeon HD 4890 delivers 1.36 TFLOPs of raw compute power. Third-party testing shows that the fastest competing GPU, the GeForce GTX 280 graphics processor, delivers 1.06 TFLOPs of raw compute power. http://www.gpureview.com/GeForce-GTX-285-card-605.html.
2 AMD product warranty does not cover damage caused by performance tuning, even when enabled using AMD software.
3 THIS UTILITY MAY DISABLE SECURITY / ANTIVIRUS SOFTWARE, OR ADVERSELY AFFECT YOUR SYSTEM. REVIEW ACCOMPANYING DOCUMENTATION CAREFULLY BEFORE INSTALLING
Ian McNaughton is senior manager of advanced marketing at AMD. His postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites are provided for convenience and unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such linked sites and no endorsement is implied.
The PC Enthusiast’s $145 “Tri-fecta”…
Posted by Ian McNaughton in 4:34 AM
Test driving the new AM3-compatible AMD Phenom™ II Triple-core Processor One of the perks of my job is I get to use PC hardware long before it’s ever launched (yes I know, some might be jealous of such a perk). With the launch of our AM3 parts, it was no exception. One of our faithful PR spinners dropped off a triplecore, specifically the AMD Phenom™ II X3 720 Black Edition (2.8GHz) to my desk, the idea was that I would build a system from scratch and then write a blog on the experience. Being a team player and loving the idea of a whole day in thermal grease up to my elbows, I had to accept the task…here we go: The system I chose to build was:
- AMD Phenom™ II X3 720 Black Edition (2.8GHz)
- Gigabyte GA-MA790GP-DS4H (AMD 790GX-based mobo)
- ATI Radeon™ HD 4870 X2 (single card without ATI CrossFireX™ technology enabled)
- 4G Corsair Memory DDR2
- 150G WD HDD
- Windows Vista Ultimate 32bit
The test system
WEI and 3DMark System Specs
After the install and boot up was complete, I did what ALL gamers should do (on a monthly basis) and updated my ATI CatalystTM GPU software drivers… The idea of triple core was a novel approach for CPUs, normally, or better, historically we (the industry) went from 1…2…4… etc, always in multiples of 2x. AMD broke this trend as we had the world’s first native quad-core processor for desktop PCs which allowed us to offer the market a triple-core processor. The significance of this is that now consumers had more choice, OEMs and the channel had more differentiation and AMD offered a product that its competitor could not replicate. But I digress, moving on to gameplay. The FarCry 2 play test:
DELL 30" monitor displaying FC2
I loaded a fresh copy of FarCy 2 and proceeded to crank the settings: 2560×1600, AA 4x, DirectX10 (would have elected DirectX10.1 if available) all other settings were on High or Ultra High. The load time was quick; the game play was smooth, no hitches, no visible issues, a solid great experience. The GPU did not have ATI CrossfireXTM technology enabled as I wanted to play the game with the equivalent of a performance mainstream card such as the ATI Radeon HD 4870. The picture above does not do the experience justice but it looked beautiful, 30 inches of monitor in all its splendor powered by a $145 CPU, unbelievable. But, it’s not a magic trick; I played a few more games to make sure this experience was not an anomaly.
Crysis - Advanced settings on HIGH, 1600x1200 AA 4x - picture taken right before I died
The AMD Phenom II X3 720 Black Edition was a champ, the game experiences were awesome, and why is that you ask? The answer is quite simple, the system I built was a balanced system, I invested more in graphics, which allowed me to have the ultimate gaming experience while not having to invest in a $1000 CPU. Oh, did I mention that these processors are DDR3 AND DDR2 capable, meaning you can use them in your existing AM2+ socket motherboard as an upgrade OR in our new AM3 DDR3 socket motherboards. One of the things I give AMD huge credit for is their continued support of past generation infrastructure, this means cheaper alternatives for consumers and gives YOU the gamer the choice when you want to upgrade.
Enemy Territory-Quake Wars, All settings on HIGH, Shader Lvl Ultra and AA 8x
The old school belief was that to get the best PC experience, one must invest as much as possible in the CPU; this is now a myth, tales of long ago, fallacy, make believe! Don’t believe the Blue hype in the market, you can have a brilliant multi-core gaming experience with overclockability for less than $145. This little triple-core processor is proof of that!1 The GPU and the chipset have become vital decisions when building a PC, the old adage of “a chain is only as strong as its weakest link” holds true in PCs today. I was thoroughly impressed with this product, especially when you take into account its price point, its headroom and the market leading chipsets it gets slotted into. Harness a system like this with the AMD Fusion for Gaming utility2 and the AMD OverDrive software and you have the makings of a fantastic mainstream gaming system. Check out these 3rd party reviews to see for yourself: Bjorn 3D: “Phenom 2 X4 940 BE, X4 810 & X3 720 BE
”
- AWARD: “Seal of Approval”
HardOCP: “Phenom II Gets Affordable with DDR3 & AM3 ”
- AWARD: “Editors Choice Gold Award”
Firing Squad: AMD’s AM3 CPUs: Phenom II X4 810 and Phenom II X3 720 Black Edition Hot Hardware: AMD Phenom II X4 810 and X3 720 BE Processors Also check out this video and these photos.
1AMD warranty does not cover damage caused by overclocking, even when using AMD OverDrive™ software.
2 THIS UTILITY MAY DISABLE SECURITY / ANTIVIRUS SOFTWARE, OR ADVERSELY AFFECT YOUR SYSTEM. REVIEW ACCOMPANYING DOCUMENTATION CAREFULLY BEFORE INSTALLING Cheers!
Ian “Cabrtosr” McNaughton
Ian McNaughton is senior manager of advanced marketing at AMD. His postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites are provided for convenience and unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such linked sites and no endorsement is implied.