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Tomb Raider benchmarks - Nvidia driver optimisations

SoyCapitanSoyCapitan

SoyCapitanSoyCapitan

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Jul 4, 2015
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I had to see if Barefeats reports and benchmarks about improvements to Nvidia drivers was true. 50-60% improvement in just one incremental driver update didn't seem real. Maybe it is. Maybe it isn't. Maybe it was and it has disappeared. Maybe it's just for OpenCL and not OpenGL. Let's see.

http://barefeats.com/gtx980ti.html

I only have Tombraider and Metro Redux to test.

Barefeats tested web driver 346.02.02f02 against 346.01. In Tombraider they reported the game jumped from 53fps to 84fps running on GTX980. But curiously the GTX680 and GTX980Ti are in the same ballpark when they shouldn't be. In the older driver the difference was clear to see. In the new driver they were much closer together.

346.02.02f02 has been updated since because it had a nasty bug causing Safari to crash. So I'm testing with 346.02.02f03.

I tested Tombraider at 1920x1200 on the GTX980 installed in 12 core X5690, all highest settings (attached). If Barefeats was getting 84fps at 1440p I should beat that score at 1200p.

In Yosemite the Tombraider benchmark scored 58.3fps. That is perfectly in line with the scores in 346.01 and much slower than the score of 346.02.02f02! That either means 346.02.02f03 has taken a step backwards OR 346.02.02f02 was just a fluke (higher numbers but reduced quality?). More testing is needed to find out what happened here.

Furthermore I have tested El Capitan with the beta web driver 346.03.01b06. This is an even newer number. The Tombraider score was 57.3fps.

Edit. My attachment disappeared and image upload function is not working.
 
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You post this under El Capitan? It seems the upload function in Safari is broken in the latest public beta.
 
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^^^^I don't think it is. This is just an image I chose. My Geekbench score. Nothing special, but uploading a file and posting it works just fine with El Cap B4.

Lou

X5677 Geekbench copy.jpg
 
Beam sync (V-sync) limit your max FPS at 60, use quartz debug to disable Beam sync and try again, the result will be different.

I can get this result by disabling Beam sync on my 7950.

Screen Shot 2014-06-28 at 2.17.24.jpg Screen Shot 2014-06-28 at 2.17.28.jpg Screen Shot 2014-06-28 at 2.18.49.jpg
 
It's the Mac version, otherwise I have the option to use TressFX.

Anyway, you can manually select ultra in texture, but not the preset ultra setting.
 
h9826790 said:
It's the Mac version, otherwise I have the option to use TressFX.

Anyway, you can manually select ultra in texture, but not the preset ultra setting.
Click to expand...

Here's the benchmark again with Vsync off, default High settings (because that's what Barefeats used), 1200p, TressFX disabled in Windows, latest Nvidia drivers for El Cap, Yosemite, Win10.

El Cap : 70fps
Yosemite : 113fps
Windows 10 : 193fps

Either the Yosemite score is a crazy improvement over before or we were not testing the previous driver code properly. My new benchmark is proportionately higher than the score posted by Barefeats. However sadly it is so far behind Windows that I can't see how Metal will ever come close to DirectX 12.
 

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SoyCapitanSoyCapitan said:
Here's the benchmark again with Vsync off, default High settings (because that's what Barefeats used), 1200p, TressFX disabled in Windows, latest Nvidia drivers for El Cap, Yosemite, Win10.

El Cap : 70fps
Yosemite : 113fps
Windows 10 : 193fps

Either the Yosemite score is a crazy improvement over before or we were not testing the previous driver code properly. My new benchmark is proportionately higher than the score posted by Barefeats. However sadly it is so far behind Windows that I can't see how Metal will ever come close to DirectX 12.
Click to expand...

Why don't you compare 346.02.02 versus the previous version of the 10.10.4 web driver? Barefeats results showed that the new web driver was a massive improvement over the old one (and the El Cap beta release appears to be identical to the old one). Yes, it's not matching Win10 performance (yet), but that doesn't mean the new web drivers aren't a massive improvement over the old ones. Right? I think it's reasonable to expect these new faster web drivers will make an appearance for El Capitan as well, those b06 beta drivers just enable the Maxwell cards for El Cap as expected.
 
Asgorath said:
Why don't you compare 346.02.02 versus the previous version of the 10.10.4 web driver? Barefeats results showed that the new web driver was a massive improvement over the old one (and the El Cap beta release appears to be identical to the old one). Yes, it's not matching Win10 performance (yet), but that doesn't mean the new web drivers aren't a massive improvement over the old ones. Right? I think it's reasonable to expect these new faster web drivers will make an appearance for El Capitan as well, those b06 beta drivers just enable the Maxwell cards for El Cap as expected.
Click to expand...
Isn't it the same as the newest driver except it includes the web browser crash fix?
 
SoyCapitanSoyCapitan said:
Isn't it the same as the newest driver except it includes the web browser crash fix?
Click to expand...

I guess I'm not really sure what you're trying to show with your results. You've shown that the older El Cap beta doesn't contain the improvements that shipped with 346.02.02, which isn't really all that surprising. Assuming that the El Cap driver has similar perf to the older Yosemite driver, you're showing a 60% improvement, which is similar to what Barefeats had.
 
Asgorath said:
I guess I'm not really sure what you're trying to show with your results. You've shown that the older El Cap beta doesn't contain the improvements that shipped with 346.02.02, which isn't really all that surprising. Assuming that the El Cap driver has similar perf to the older Yosemite driver, you're showing a 60% improvement, which is similar to what Barefeats had.
Click to expand...
El Cap is there just for reference. I was specifically testing to see how the Yosemite driver improvements compare to Windows. The improvements to the driver are confirmed.
 
New beta Nvidia web driver for El Capitan PB5. Basically the same performance as before and the old driver code.
 

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Good news is that PB5 appears to make my cMP run cooler. I noticed that this morning and it is still doing so. I normally run my fans a little faster than default anyway but the temps in SMC fan control are reporting around 38-39c even with a Netflix movie streaming and about 15 minutes after I ran that Tomb Raider benchmark.
 
Same test on my Skylake PC with same graphics card : 203FPS. Or 10 FPS more than Bootcamp. Exactly what we should expect.
 

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Tomb Raider no longer works on El Capitan. It just crashes and fails to start up. I won't be able to test this on the 1080/1070 if the new cards are able to run at all.

Metro games still run.
 
SoyCapitanSoyCapitan said:
Tomb Raider no longer works on El Capitan. It just crashes and fails to start up. I won't be able to test this on the 1080/1070 if the new cards are able to run at all.

Metro games still run.
Click to expand...

Isn't it? I deleted my Mac version since I only play it on Windows or XB1 now. Can't test if it's El Capitan's problem or Nvidia driver's problem.
 
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