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- Date:
- Wednesday, February 17, 2010
- Author:
- Brent Justice
- Google +1
AMD's ATI Catalyst 10.2 and 10.3 Preview
AMD’s ATI Catalyst 10.2 and Catalyst 10.3 are receiving many improvements that directly benefit the gameplay experience. CrossFireX profiling system has been completely re-worked, Bezel Compensation is in play, and several other features have been added. If you are an ATI Eyefinity gamer, Bezel Compensation will take the experience one step further.
Catalyst 10.3
3D Stereoscopic Support
AMD certainly isn’t done, and has new features planned for ATI Catalyst 10.3 as well. One new feature being added in Catalyst 10.3 is 3D Stereoscopic support for 3rd party middleware vendors. This may or may not be a big feature you are interested in, but with all the talk about 3D Stereoscopic gaming from NVIDIA, AMD is chiming in. AMD will support 3rd party vendors, and no one specific standard, but rather an open standard that middleware vendors will have access to.
ATI Eyefinity Bezel Compensation
Bezel Compensation is the big feature that gamers have been wanting since the introduction of ATI Eyefinity. Hey, Matrox did it, so why couldn’t AMD? Well, they can, and they have. Catalyst 10.3 will bring support for Bezel Compensation, and it will work both on the desktop and in your games. The great thing about this feature is that no special game support is needed, it just works. It is also an optional feature; no one will force you to use it if you don’t like it. There is an intuitive wizard that will guide you through Bezel Compensation setup.
There will also be an option to change color properties, brightness and contrast levels per-display. So, if one display is brighter or has more contrast than the other, you can individually set the properties on each display so that their color schemes match precisely. It certainly improves the gameplay experience when all your displays are rendering the same color tones!
Configuring Bezel Compensation
In the screenshots above we are working through the wizard in setting up Bezel Compensation. Setting up Bezel Compensation is easier to setup than it is to setup an ATI Eyefinity group, and that is already very easy to do.
First, start by creating your ATI Eyefinity group as you desire. Once you have done this, go to the Catalyst Control panel and click on Desktops and Displays and click the little triangle in the upper part of your ATI Eyefinity Group. Go down to Display Group and select Add Bezel Compensation.
What will pop up is a fullscreen rendering you see in the second screenshot. In the third photograph above we have taken a picture with our camera so you can see what this looks like with the Bezel in the picture. The arrows allow you to line up this triangle so that it the lines look even. After you get it where you want it, hit the icon that has two chasing arrows to the right of the big group of arrows, this shows you the triangle on both Bezels so you can fine tune adjustments. A pop up dialog box comes up and asks if you are finished setting up your Bezel Compensation, just say yes. That is all it takes, the screen flashes and it is setup, no reboot required. This means you now have Bezel Compensation enabled for the Desktop and 3D games.
Gaming with Bezel Compensation
One interesting thing worth noting is that you WILL have to change your in-game resolution if you are playing fullscreen in order to benefit from Bezel Compensation. The standard ATI Eyefinity size for our three 24" displays is 5760x1200. However, in order to benefit from Bezel Compensation we have to increase this (proportional to the aspect ratio) up to 6036x1200. We can of course use a lower resolution as well, but we won’t be rendering at the native Eyefinity resolution with Bezel Compensation.
Alternatively, you can run in Windowed mode and still run at the same resolution, in our case 5760x1200. Most gamers prefer fullscreen mode though, and thus a resolution change is required in order to benefit from Bezel Compensation. If you leave the resolution where it was, you won’t see the benefits of Bezel Compensation.
Here is a simple fullscreen screenshot we took in-game, so you can see that when taking screenshots, there aren’t any pixels missing or gaps in the image. It is in fact a fully rendered image with Bezel Compensation. With Bezel Compensation enabled we have to run at a higher resolution, and the added world view is apparent in the images if you look at the extra bit of screen space we have on the left side of the screenshots in comparison. The higher resolution adds a slightly wider view of the gaming world, further improving your gameplay experience.
Bezel Compensation Off vs. On Gameplay Benefits
In the set of photographs below we are comparing No Bezel Compensation with Bezel Compensation enabled. The image on the left is without Bezel Compensation, while the image on the right is with Bezel Compensation enabled in as close of a position as we could get to show you the differences.
In these photographs above in DiRT 2 the advantages of Bezel Compensation are quite clear. In the first set of photos, the announcer is clearly separated in two by the Bezel without Bezel Compensation. When we turn on Bezel Compensation the person is hidden behind the Bezel when the Bezel is in front of the person. In the second photo and third photo we have a road barrier that is cut in two by the Bezel without Bezel Compensation. With Bezel Compensation the road barrier follows a straight line through the Bezel.
In Left 4 Dead 2 these benefits are even more obvious. Without Bezel Compensation you can get into a situation such as you see in the first photograph. Our character here is cut in half, and looks quite silly between the Bezel. With Bezel Compensation the character is hidden behind the Bezel, and looks much more natural. In the second photograph we have a common problem with weapons appearing broken between the Bezel. With Bezel Compensation the weapon looks much better. In the third photograph we have one enemy character that without Bezel Compensation looks like there are two characters here, but there is not. With Bezel Compensation all characters, friend or foe, get hidden behind the Bezel and don’t get confused for multiple targets.
Bezel Compensation is also very useful in a desktop scenario. In the first photograph above we have My Computer opened, and you can see the Hard Drive icon is cut in two, and looks very stretched. In the second photograph with Bezel Compensation enabled what lies behind the Bezel gets hidden. The same goes for all Windows, such as in IE text gets separated by the Bezel. Turn on Bezel Compensation and what is behind the Bezel is hidden.
The only problem we had with Bezel Compensation in a desktop scenario was that we found our mouse cursor can get lost behind the Bezel. A quick shaking of the mouse will find it if you accidently lose it behind a Bezel.
Other ATI Eyefinity Improvements
Catalyst 10.3 also brings with it the ability to setup multiple ATI Eyefinity groups. You will be able to setup more than one ATI Eyefinity group, and simply switch between them as you wish. You will be able to easily switch between cloned and extended modes as well.
ATI Mobility Radeon Premium Graphics
AMD hasn’t forgotten about ATI Mobility users. AMD is committing to monthly ATI Catalyst releases under Windows 7 and Windows Vista for ATI Mobility Radeon HD 2000 series, Radeon HD 3000 series and Radeon HD 4000 series as well as future products.
AMD is making ATI Catalyst available for every notebook with these series, no matter who makes the notebook. If the OEM/ODM chooses to opt out of this, they have the ability to tell AMD, and AMD will switch the driver off for those notebooks and rely solely on the manufacturers drivers. The default configuration however is that from Catalyst 10.3 and on, it should just work and install on notebooks so notebook users can benefit from the latest Catalyst releases every month just like discrete video card gamers benefit from.
To summarize Catalyst 10.3 Feature Improvements, they are as follows:
- Catalyst Mobility
- ATI Eyefinity - Bezel Correction
- ATI Eyefinity - Per Display Controls
- ATI Eyefinity - Multiple Groups
- ATI Eyefinity - Display Configuration Switching