AMD Overdrive VS Application Settings (Bug?)

My Rig: Phenom x4 965 O.C. @ 3.8, Formula IV Mobo, Radeon 5770 Stock, Corsair Dominator CL9 1333Mhz 4 Gig Ram

Settings: 1080p Resolution on 22.5" Monitor (Windowed)
General Drawing Highest (10), Background Standard(3). Shadows Standard.
Texture Quality High
Texture Filtering High
No DOF, NO AO

All my other Graphical Settings are set through AMD Overdrive.
Gaming Performance
Standard 3D Settings (Custom)
Mipmapping (Quality)

Image Quality
Anti-Aliasing - Morphological Filtering 8X Wide-Tent Samples 16X
Anti-Aliasing Mode - Super-Sample AA
Anisotropic Filtering 16X

With this I have smooth Gameplay 45-50 FPS

Since I was having such good luck using these settings playing FFXIV with great visual effects/FPS etc, I decided I would run the benchmark to see what kind of scores I was getting. Oh high I was getting 1500ish as a score. On Low I was getting 3000ish. Which was pretty confusing to me as you will see in a second.

AMD Overdrive. Setting "Use Application Settings"
Benchmark Low 4400, Benchmark High 3000

You might be saying, well then just keep it at "Use Application Settings"
Well for actual gameplay, I have better and smoother graphics using higher settings using AMD Overdrive, despite my Benchmark Score being cut in Half.

(Side Note) Using AMD Overdrive Graphical settings I am able to run Depth of Field and Ambient Occlusion through the FFXIV Config. Although I can only pull 20ish FPS on high settings. This is far betting than using "Application Settings" plus DOF and AO in which I only run 10FPS and find that the game is comletely unplayable.

In conclusion. Running AMD Overdrive over FFXIV Config settings gives a great Performance boost playing FFXIV despite the Benchmark score showing otherwise.

If anyone else running an AMD product Video Card would care to list their findings as well that would be great.

Going to run some tests over next hour or so. Really wish I could change my graphics settings in-game.

I have an HD6950 and always wondered what if I should play with those settings in Overdrive. So what settings do I turn off in FFXIV config and what settings do I turn on in Overdrive? I always figured it might work better due to bad optimisation of the game.

Doh, can't use AMD Overdrive with my CPU.

Regardless, I tried those settings from the Catalyst control and the only visually appealing change was changing Texture Filtering from Quality to High Quality. This also dropped my frames in Uld from 45-60 to 25-35.

Also noticed that changing AA settings made the game look blurry (odd) and the font look like an emulator when you set it to Super Eagle.

For the FFXIV settings I run:
General Drawing Highest (10), (I have this set to Standard now that I have 2 monitors running today)
Background Standard(3).
Shadows Standard.
Texture Quality High
Texture Filtering High
No DOF, NO AO
For AA select None.

http://lodestone.finalfantasyxiv.com...cicuid=5109544 (PICS)

Morphological antialiasing is similar to what super eagle does, it operates on the final rendered 2d frame so it can't distinguish between polygon edges and font edges.

I am confused with the OPs use of "amd overdrive", the settings he mentions are in the driver control panel.

As for why it would kill the benchmark performance, since a few driver releases ago you can't force antialiasing (not sure if it cover morpho) on the game anymore (it's in the driver release notes) so it might be the case that the game is ignoring the extended settings but the benchmark isn't.

I just noticed that actually. I was coming on to correct myself. Since probably a couple updates ago it isn't AMD Overdrive. It went to Catalyst Control Center, and is now called AMD VISION Engine Control Center. Sorry for the confusion, as I am used to just saying AMD Overdrive. You receive the new program with the lastest AMD patch for 11.4.

odd, I still have Catalyst and I am running 11.4 and I updated Apr 28th. from http://sites.amd.com/us/game/downloa...win7-64.aspx#1

Apparently the name changes if you are running a full AMD hardware setup, where I have an Intel CPU so it sticks by the old name.