**NEW AMD Radeon Driver, EXTREME boost for game.

[Meier]

AMD Recently launched their new driver for next gen. 14.1 BETA which includes there mantle package. Right now as it stands for a newly built next gen driver, it is very nice. IT fixes a lot of DirectX stuff that was direly needed from previous beta builds.

http://support.amd.com/en-us/kb-arti...dows-beta.aspx

As far as FFXIV goes, it is really worth the download, it is a significant boost for graphics performance. Stay tuned to www.guru3d.com for testing results. Keep inmind that the mainfocus of the drivers is for bf4 support with 8000 and 290 series cards, but backend fixes are present for old cards via support list.

[Ryios]

Soooo, maybe my CrossFire 6800's might outperform my 760 gt now?

[Lexia]

thanks will have to check it out

[ReiszRie]

It alleviates some of the graphical corruption faced by 280X cards but not entirely.

FFXIV Benchmark with and without 14.1 drivers shows little to no improvement

Mantle only works for games coded to utilize Mantle, at this moment, FFXIV isn't Mantle compatible.

[Meier]

Soooo, maybe my CrossFire 6800's might outperform my 760 gt now?

Lol we can only hope, but I highly doubt it, maybe when game goes live for PS4 square will be force to optimize for AMD. But as of right now, it is a huge boost for the game, we are not sure if it benches to be like the NVidia cards, but it is definitely progress and a boost that is well needed. Who know maybe performance will finally equal an NVidia card like it is suppose to be.

[Ryios]

Well, AMD is way behind Nvidia imo, nvidia is the gpu version of intel .... Can't even really say Nvidia's are much more expensive either, jkust like intels have come down.

The reason I say AMD is behind is because of GeForce Experience and ShadowPlay with built in twitch integration....

[ReiszRie]

Lol we can only hope, but I highly doubt it, maybe when game goes live for PS4 square will be force to optimize for AMD. But as of right now, it is a huge boost for the game, we are not sure if it benches to be like the NVidia cards, but it is definitely progress and a boost that is well needed. Who know maybe performance will finally equal an NVidia card like it is suppose to be.

Mantle works by easing the load on the CPU thus removing CPU bottlenecks, performance improvements are most noticeable on low to mid range CPUs, basically, the better your CPU, the less improvements you'll get.

[Meier]

Mantle works be easing the load on the CPU thus removing CPU bottlenecks, performance improvements are most noticeable on low to mid range CPUs, basically, the better your CPU, the less improvements you'll get.

indeed. Most people will definitly see a boost if they poses an older generation card such as 6000 series and a newer CPU. And yes the main boost is for games that are built with mantle.

[ReiszRie]

Well, AMD is way behind Nvidia imo, nvidia is the gpu version of intel .... Can't even really say Nvidia's are much more expensive either, jkust like intels have come down.

The reason I say AMD is behind is because of GeForce Experience and ShadowPlay with built in twitch integration....

GeForce GPU are generally slower than Radeon counterparts and Radeon cards have better options for overclocking without voltage locks, Radeon GPU at this moment offers the best bang for bucks, a 280X with minor overclocking can easily rival or even surpass (in some tests) at around $70 lower in costs. 3GB graphics memory also proves to be beneficial as games starts having larger and higher resolution textures

With all said, nVidia generally has better and more stable drivers over Radeon cards, it takes a few driver releases for Radeon cards to be stabilized and optimized

[Ryios]

Yeah, I guess my issue is my CPU isn't a bottle neck, it's at 4.8ghz with SSD's in raid Zero (Sata III, I get 950mbps on reads).... with 16gb of 1600mhz memory. When I run load tests it's always, always my gpu that is bottlenecking, sitting at 100% load, with me playing with the overclock on it to try to get it to go a little faster.

Sad thing is that it's an i5-2500k I bought in 2011 and is like 4+ years old tech and imo it's still the best, overclocks 4.8 stable, stays cool on a 50$ closed radiator cooler.

But mostly becasue atm, FFXIV is coded to use Physx, and that takes a BIG load off the CPU in FFXIV. Based on my tests it would appear FFXIV isn't using AMD's Physics stuff on the AMD cards and is instead doing a CPU Emulation, e.g. they made a wrapper for Physx and if you ahve it it uses it and if you don't it falls back to CPU.

It would probably be better if I had 2 nice amd cards (250$ range) in crossfire, but.... At the time this game launch I had a 760gt and some decent amd cards, And the 760 nvidia was smoking my crossfire setup so I stuck with the 760. But that was before the frame pacing driver fix and now this driver is out, so I don't know.

Really though AMD has let me down a lot lately. I used to be an AMD guy always rooting for them and buying their stuff. Then it became obvious how much farther ahead intel was when sandy bridge came out (and is still out performing amd's latest 32nm (e.g. Zambeni/Bulldozer, etc). Then I had a 7000 series amd card a while back I paid decent money for and was always blue screening and having driver fits. Went Intel and Nvidia and haven't looked back or had a single issue.

In fact I have a Phenom II 1090T sitting next to me I don't even use because the motherboard's Virtualization Support doesn't work when the onboard video is enabled.... But that's more EVGA's Fault... But my point there is that in all the intel rigs I've built, I have 100% stability with no feature/bug issues. I just feel like Nvidia and intel stuff get's better quality vendor made stuff.