Help needed with game slowdown since ATI driver upgrade

[NCIceman]

Hello, I was wondering if anyone else has seen this problem. I've pretty much had to abandon all of the ATI driver updates after 4.5, because they cause framerates in TS to slow to a crawl; it's like watching a slide show. Downgrading back to the Catalyst 4.5 drivers restores normal game functionality for me.

I am running an ATI 9700 Pro All in Wonder card, only running the driver software and control panel, none of the other fancy stuff.

Has anyone else run into this issue? Did you find a workaround that lets you use the latest ATI drivers? I'd really like to load 4.8 for the OpenGL fixes in other games....

Thanks for any tips/help.

[GlasW0lf]

Don't know if it will help, but you could try a full uninstall and clean of the Catalyst files before trying an updated driver. There's a cleaner utility available here.

Remember also that 4.5, 4.6 and 4.7 versions all exhibit flashing texture/lighting problems in T3 which were finally fixed in 4.8.

[NCIceman]

I do do the full uninstall. Reverting to 4.5 restores the normal functionality of the game. Any version after that (4.6 through 4.8) results in really slow, choppy, frames. This is not the flashing texture issue, which frankly I don't recall ever seeing. I just tried the 4.8 drivers today and they too slow the game down to a crawl.

I am thinking it has to do with the fact that I am using an older ATI card, so I am curious to hear from anyone else running a 9700 Pro. I am waiting to get a x800 XT as soon as someone stocks one of the darned things.

My system is pretty normal, Asus P4G8X motherboard with 1 gig of ram, Audigy 2 sound card, P4 3.06 Hyperthreading cpu. So I can't think of what the conflict might be. The only thing I haven't tried is reinstalling DirectX 9.0b after the new drivers, but normally you reload drivers after directx updates. And this is the only game with this issue.

[NCIceman]

Shut my mouth, I got the latest version of DriverCleaner and reloaded the 4.8 drivers and viola, issue resolved! Thanks for the tip! Whatever it cleaned up made the difference!

[NCIceman]

Blah, spoke too soon, the moment I turned anti-aliasing back from Application Control to fixed at 4x, it dogged out again, so that's the setting that's doing this. But I swear, with earlier versions of the driver 4.5 and before it had no issues running 4x AA on my system.

[Clumsyorchid]

do you have bloom enabled in game with 4xAA enabled in your vid card drivers? Try using the Multisampling in Thief, which is the equivelant to the AA settings in your vid card properties. Bloom and AA have issues when enabled together, so that may be the issue.

[NCIceman]

When I turn bloom off it does help a lot, but does not restore the frame rates I was getting..it is still a tad too slow to be playable. I will probably just have to end up turning AA off for this game and go with the internal multisampling setting. Boy, turning 4xAA back on for this test showed me how much better it looks with it on, though. I am hoping the internal multisampling setting can do something comparable.

[Mr. Perfect]

Try using Direct X 9.0c, it's posible that the newer drivers(especialy 4.8) are designed with 9.0c in mind.

[NCIceman]

I did not know 9.0c was available for use, I have not been prompted to download it via Windows Update that I am aware of, and I don't mess with beta stuff much any more. I have considered reloading 9.0b after the drivers though to see what happens.

Still, doesn't explain why the 4.5 drivers do just fine with bloom+4xAA and all and later version do not....I really don't think they started coding 4.6 and later for 9.0c when it's not been publicly released yet.

[Quillan]

9.0c is available, but I haven't seen the webinstall for it yet. I had to download the redistributable (30 megs or so) and install it that way. As I understand it, 9.0c is intended for use with SP2, which is now available through the Windows update. In fact, I installed SP2 last night, and am not having any problems .

[Edit] I posted too soon. I just went to Microsoft, and the 9.0c end user runtime is now available.
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/d...displaylang=en

[Mr. Perfect]

It's been offically released as a full version for about a month. Aparently it just has to be downloaded manually. I always grab the redistributable, so I don't know what's up with Windows Update.

[Clumsyorchid]

Originally posted by NCIceman
I am hoping the internal multisampling setting can do something comparable.

In game multisampling is AA, just has a different name.

[NCIceman]

I will try these suggestions, thank you.

Any ideas why with the later versions of the ATI driver that the ATI AA would cause such slowdowns, though? Though I can play the game ok now, it still sucks having to change my driver settings just for Thief...but I guess something along those lines is going to be necessary.

[NCIceman]

My ultimate resolution is at hand, my new ATI x800 XT is due to arrive Sept 10. Hopefully the new card, for which the new drivers were really written for, will resolve the issue once and for all.

[NCIceman]

Don't know what the issue was, new x800 XT arrived today and resolved the issue, am able to run both bloom and Catalyst 4.8 anti-aliasing without slowdowns. Now this could be due to the great increase in horsepower between the cards, or that the issue was confined to something with the 9700 Pro.

The game was never snappy on the 9700 anyway, a good enough excuse to upgrade

Walked around a bit with the new card and latest drivers, not noticing any texture issue, maybe a little bit of an odd shimmer in the Overlook tunnels from torches when I first loaded, otherwise looks great!

[Clumsyorchid]

Gotta slap a disclaimer on here. The Bloom options and AA (when used together) usually produce some graphical problems and you may experience them while both options are enabled in game. If they don't pop up, then great- no problems. But if they do, I would recomend turning on of the two off.

[Mr. Perfect]

Preferably Bloom, since it just makes things look blurry. It's like a consolation prize for people who can't use AA .

[NCIceman]

Multiple people have commented that, but I get a much more realistic lighting with bloom on...it gives candles and torches a warmer effect to them. Every once in a while I used to get an unnatural flicker, like the light source cuts off, but I haven't seen that with the new card yet. It looks great, but it should for the clams I shilled out for it, sheesh.

I just finished the overlook mansion mission with nary a glitch, and the lightning was a spectacular addition. So I'm a happy thief now.

Edit: but while I was waiting for the new card my only option for decent frame rates was to turn AA off in the drivers. Even the in-game multisampling caused low frame rates. At that point I left bloom on. So unless someone on these forums speaks to the contrary and it was wierdly specific to my system I can only conclude ATI did something with their 4.6 and later Catalyst drivers that Thief 3 and the 9700 Pro AA does not like.

[NCIceman]

Old thread I know, and I've long since moved on from this issue, but from reading the notes on the 4.10 drivers, it sounds like they've addressed some issues with the 9700....they may help with this issue.

I do recall someone saying they also had this same issue with a 9800 though.