ATI Radeon X800XL 512MB & Catalyst 5.6 Driver Update

Name: ATI Radeon X800XL 512MB & Catalyst 5.6 Driver Update - Page 4
Brand: ATI

by Marco Chiappetta — Thursday, June 09, 2005, 08:30 AM EDT

Benchmarks With Halo

Halo - All Patched & Ready To Go!

Halo

For many gamers, the release of Halo marked the end of a long wait because it was originally released as an Xbox exclusive a few years back. No additional patches or tweaks are needed to benchmark with Halo, as Gearbox has included all of the necessary information in its Readme file. The Halo benchmark runs through four of the cut-scenes from the game, after which the average frame rate is recorded. We patched the game using the v1.06 patch and ran this benchmark twice, once at 1,024 x 768 and then again at 1,600 x 1,200. Antialiasing doesn't work properly with Halo, so all of the tests below were run with antialiasing disabled.

Surprisingly, even with an older title like Halo, the 512MB Radeon X800XL outperformed its 256MB counterpart by a couple of frames per second at both resolutions. And when we re-ran the Halo tests with the new Catalyst v5.6 drivers, performance increased even further. The Catalyst v5.6 drivers increased performance by about 5% at both resolutions in Halo, placing the card within striking distance of a GeForce 6800 Ultra.

Tags: ATI, Radeon, Update, Date, PDA, drive, Catalyst, driver, ATI Radeon, Ive, TAL, X8

Marco Chiappetta

Marco's interest in computing and technology dates all the way back to his early childhood. Even before being exposed to the Commodore P.E.T. and later the Commodore 64 in the early ‘80s, he was interested in electricity and electronics, and he still has the modded AFX cars and shop-worn soldering irons to prove it. Once he got his hands on his own Commodore 64, however, computing became Marco's passion. Throughout his academic and professional lives, Marco has worked with virtually every major platform from the TRS-80 and Amiga, to today's high end, multi-core servers. Over the years, he has worked in many fields related to technology and computing, including system design, assembly and sales, professional quality assurance testing, and technical writing. In addition to being the Managing Editor here at HotHardware for close to 15 years, Marco is also a freelance writer whose work has been published in a number of PC and technology related print publications and he is a regular fixture on HotHardware’s own Two and a Half Geeks webcast. - Contact: marco(at)hothardware(dot)com