OpenGL perf. on AMD/ATi gpu's: WIP fix.

[lowenz]

It may be worth trying to rename TheDarkMod.exe to whatever the executable for Amnesia is named too.

No change with "Amnesia", maybe my improvements are related to a recent Amnesia DD patch!

 

With "DarkAthena": from 36 to 40 FPS (+11%) here, in the combat training basement (really heavy zone):

[nbohr1more]

Yeah, this proves that AMD is still doing a better job of profiling Chronicles of Riddick: Dark Athena than TDM...

I wonder if they just targeted Doom 3.exe rather than TheDarkMod.exe?

[lowenz]

Yeah, this proves that AMD is still doing a better job of profiling Chronicles of Riddick: Dark Athena than TDM...

I wonder if they just targeted Doom 3.exe rather than TheDarkMod.exe?

With "Doom3" the game can't even start.....freeze@loading the FM save.

Edited April 1, 2015 by lowenz

[motorsep]

Does anyone here, with AMD R7/R9, have Doom 3 BFG ? Can you test it please with RBDoom 3 BFG and see if it performs at stable 60 fps ?

[lowenz]

If you accept an old 7850=R7 265.....can you link me the binaries of RBDoom3?

[motorsep]

If you accept an old 7850=R7 265.....can you link me the binaries of RBDoom3?

 

Thanks! https://github.com/RobertBeckebans/RBDOOM-3-BFG/releases

[lowenz]

No 64-bit version?

Edited April 1, 2015 by lowenz

[lowenz]

RBDoom3BFG 1.03 on a Radeon 7850 (R7 265):

1920x1080 - AA 4x - No V-Sync (Cap @120 FPS) - No Soft Shadows -> 115 FPS

1920x1080 - AA 4x - No V-Sync (Cap @120 FPS) - Soft Shadows -> 41 FPS

 

Soft Shadows/New Lighting Model are perforrmance killers

Edit: there's some strange light source-related artifact over that man and a LOT of minor shadows are missing....WTF? Is it intended?

Edited April 1, 2015 by lowenz

[lowenz]

And the same scene/save with the same settings, on the twin machine but with Win8.1 and RBDoom3BFG 1.03 on a GeForce 750 Ti:

1920x1080 - AA 4x - No V-Sync (Cap @120 FPS) - Soft Shadows -> 67 FPS

 

 

Yes, the 750 Ti is a little beast and beats the bigger Radeon 7850 BUT there's some problem with AA in certain corners (take a look to the glasses and the door zone).

Radeon's scene is much more morbid and de-aliased.

Edited April 1, 2015 by lowenz

[motorsep]

Interesting results. I had performance issues on NV with shadow maps in my engine (RBDoom 3 has really screwed up shadow map, performance wise), but Nvidia fixed the driver and performance is smooth now. However, one of my team mates has exactly the same AMD GPU as you do, on Windows 8.1 64bit, and he gets like 18 fps with or without shadowmaps, where I get stable 60fps :/

 

Thanks for testing.

[MoroseTroll]

Guys, I think AMD will never improve its OpenGL driver as nVidia does it. The reason is simple: AMD has no resources for it, and never had. Also, the support of the new APIs (Mantle, D3D12, Vulkan) do also consume some AMD resources, so the only conclusion I can see is to migrate to D3D9/11.

[motorsep]

Ok, does anyone want to hear a crazy story? (Not an April fools' joke).

 

I just got an e-mail from my buddy with AMD 7850. I asked him to drop atioglxx.dll from 13.1 Win8.1 32bit driver next to our game's .exe and run the test.

 

His GPU timing was 21.1ms in the test case. With 13.1 atioglxx.dll being dropped next to .exe brought GPU timing to 7ms !!!!! o.O WTF AMD?!?!?!

 

So now we'd need to figure out why rendering backend chokes driver, and perhaps that would be a solution for Win7/8 users (or maybe even Win10).

 

You might want to try this with TDM.

Edited April 1, 2015 by motorsep

[lowenz]

It's the same fix for some old games....

[Bikerdude]

dropping a .dll from an older driver is an old trick, that may point you in the right direction.

[lowenz]

LOL, it's working!

 

I got a +11% and the other 11% with the "DarkAthena" renaming.....from 36 to 44 FPS

Edited April 1, 2015 by lowenz

[Bikerdude]

So let me get this straight, renaming the main executable to "darkathena.exe" and dropping the "atioglxx.dll" from the 13.01 driver into the games root folder brought the perf closer to a comparable nVidia card (which would be a GTX660 non-ti)..?

[lowenz]

Let me share the TDM folder with the other PC and I'll tell you!

[motorsep]

This is insane o.O

[lowenz]

On my GeForce 750 Ti (it's a better VGA than the 660 non-TI, despite the 128 bit memory bus) TDM runs @50-51 FPS (above combat basement scene).

So still better than the Radeon 7850 43-44 FPS (with tricks)

Edited April 1, 2015 by lowenz

[lowenz]

Bow training scene: 60 FPS with the 750Ti, still 42-43 with the 7850 (no trick can give a lift/do magic there).

Edited April 1, 2015 by lowenz

[lowenz]

Please, take a look to the RivaTuner Statistics Server FPS number (up&left) and welcome to the Dark Optimization world!

 

"DarkAthena.exe"+2013 DLL:

 

No tricks:

Edited April 1, 2015 by lowenz

[lowenz]

2013 DLL does something (but I think it's only about some shader-compiling optimization), but the big boost is Dark Athena profile related.

[HMart]

None of this tricks worked for me?!

 

With no tricks 40 fps, shooting range - training mission

 

with atiogl.dll from 13.1 driver TDM wouldn't even start for me.

 

And with DarkAtena rename performance was even worse, 33fps ?!

 

AMD R9 280 OC

 

Windows 7

 

RAM 8GB

 

CPU i7 2.8Ghz

 

Drivers 15.3 beta

[motorsep]

None of this tricks worked for me?!

 

With no tricks 40 fps, shooting range - training mission

 

with atiogl.dll from 13.1 driver TDM wouldn't even start for me.

 

And with DarkAtena rename performance was even worse, 33fps ?!

 

AMD R9 280 OC

 

Windows 7

 

RAM 8GB

 

CPU i7 2.8Ghz

 

Drivers 15.3 beta

 

It only works for pre-R9 GPUs

[nbohr1more]

It's DarkAthena.exe not DarkAtena...