The Unofficial ATT Tweaks Thread

Haha, why don't we let Ray tell us what they do then?

All I know is just the EATM tweak and this stuff that I learned from a thread that I found in a google search:

"The ASBT setting is super-sampled AA on transparent Alpha blends."

Basically it increases performances by around like 40% or something when using AAA.

"I have tested only SAAOM. Its work, because I've got FPS drops, but what exactly its do I don't know. I am looking for some small 3D applications to check all of them because this is not good idea to run games as test."

Basically enable this if you want to drop your FPS? lol


I learned that stuff here:

http://www.rage3d.com/board/archive/index.php?t-33872557.html

As to the RNPP tweak:

"The EATM setting has been figured out for many but now the RNPP setting seems to be effecting certain aspects of 3d.


One of the things I noticed is-is the RNPP effected World of WarCraft's models.........why? Considering, I'm a simple minded gamer figured it may be shading of some sort. So, I disabled the SmoothShading setting in the in-game menu of World of WarCraft and the models looked more normal except for the wonderful shine that the smooth shading setting offers.


Here is World of WarCraft with no RNPP:
http://img243.imageshack.us/img243/9...6nornppch3.jpg

Here is World of WarCraft with RNPP:
http://img126.imageshack.us/img126/2...006rnppfp8.jpg

Here is World of WarCraft with RNP and near lighting sources:
http://img107.imageshack.us/img107/4...ightingej0.jpg

Here is Serious Sam 2 with no RNPP:
http://img126.imageshack.us/img126/4...2nornppvk3.jpg

Here is Serious Sam 2 wth RNPP:
http://img243.imageshack.us/img243/4624/sam2rnppyn5.jpg"

It appears that RNPP enables static light rendering or something like that.

I saw that here:

http://forum.beyond3d.com/showpost.php?p=887705&postcount=19

which in turn was a part of this thread:

http://forum.beyond3d.com/showthread.php?p=881354

 

New AA and AF Methods...

Today I have tested all the new AA and AF methods. I used Half-Life 2 and Oblivion when comparing each setting individually. By enabling EATM and ATMAlphaSharpenmode I believe there was some improvement for the trees and on their leaves in Oblivion, but it could be all in my head as I knew with results to expect. I am using latest stable drivers and that is Catalyst 7.6. I recall an major improvement on trees and other world objects in Half-Life 2. So now I wonder; has ATi decided to remove support for these "New AA and AF Methods" or are there no support for these functions in Windows Vista (x64)?

Edited: 07-13-2007; 12:52 (Forum Time)
I've read on some forums that these settings are not available on Windows Vista. Are these rumors... or the truth?

 

AA and AF in Windows Vista...

Please, I need an answer regarding this issue! Are there any "New AA and AF Methods" on Windows Vista x64 with Catalyst 7.6 installed?

 

Mate, relax, it's not the end of the world even if that is the case. The reason no-one's answered is probably because nobody knows. If it has been mentioned on other forums that Vista and the new AA + AF methods don't mix, so be it. Also, if EATM + Alpha Sharpening did work, you would definitely see a difference in alpha texture quality (trees in Source-engine based games, etc.), so if you're not sure whether you do see a difference or not, it's probably in your head. A fail-safe way to test it is by going very close to a tree branch and looking at its edges. If they are sharp black/dark brown as normal, EATM is not in effect. If they are a bit blurry even at close range, EATM is affecting them. Hold on while I take a screenshot to show you what I mean.

EDIT: Here are screenshots demonstrating what EATM + Alpha Sharpening look like applied to trees in Source-engine based games.

No EATM + Alpha Sharpening:


Yes EATM + Alpha Sharpening:


Notice the fuzzy edges in the second shot.

 

EATM and ATMAlphaSharpenmode did not look the same on my system (before Windows Vista) . If it is impossible to activate these functions in Windows Vista I am forced to use Adaptive Anti-aliasing instead of EATM and ATMAlphasharpenmode, but I would really like to try those other registry tweaks... but I can't do that now with Vista!

 

>>>
Disable Block Write: Having block writing enabled results in the graphics driver waiting until a certain amount of graphics information is collected into the video memory before being displayed. This decreases performance if the information is being queued and not written immediately, as seems to be the case most of the time. Because of this, it is recommended that this setting be left enabled (ticked).
<<<

If I turn this off (enabling block writes) my frame rates go up a noticeable amount! I assume it all depends on how much gain there is when information is transferred in blocks instead of small bits. I have an X850XT in an AGP 8X slot and it might just be different for a PCIe card.

I can also imagine that it works best with vsync enabled. It must have some use after all or they would not have put it in there. I can remember that in the past several mainboards had problems with AGP fast-writes and that enabling this option (disabling block writes) solved it for them, which is the reason why ATI leaves it off by default. Reading about it here in the guide is actually the first time that someone sees a performance improvement with it enabled.

Sven

 

Thanks for that info Sven. I edited the main post to coincide with your findings. Thank you again.

 

No, you got it wrong! Blocks are being transferred faster since they reduce the amount of how often the hardware needs to be addressed for a transfer. Addressing the hardware has likely become a lot faster with PCIe than what it is with AGP. So the gain today might be simply too small to justify for the waiting. If you have two 16x PCIe busses (instead of only one or a system with only an AGP slot) and a CPU with a builtin memory controller it will have little trouble in addressing the graphics card and at any time than other systems.
For people with older hardware or perhaps an Intel processor this information can be misleading. Block writes give a gain on AGP systems and I will see if I can give you some numbers from my box today.

Because of data travelling as blocks across the bus it naturally stresses the bus more than frequent small transfers do. => That has lead in the past to problems with bad motherboards and bad graphics cards. Owners of such parts had either to disable this feature or to go back to slower AGP modes. ATI then by default disabled block writes and also built in AGP speed testing into their driver to prevent people from getting these problems. But block writing is/was an improvement!

And the reason why I believe that block writes probably work best when vsync is enabled is because the GPU has to wait anyway. Therefore the driver can possibly gather much more data creating larger blocks. However one cannot use the framerate to measure this since it will be bound to the vsync. I'll see if I can get some numbers here, too.

One last note: Make sure that your guide does not leave those people behind, which have to look a lot more into tweaking than people with state-of-the-art hardware. Most if not all options of the driver have a purpose and therefore are very unlikely to be generally bad. The only exception with such a character is a debug option (and I have seen software, which could not run without debugging enabled ...).

Sven

EDIT:
I now tried to get some numbers together but unfortunately these are not as clear as they were in the past. 3DMark2003 shows a plus after 5 runs of only 100 points out of 12000 for having block writes enabled. This is meaningless.
It may have changed due to my move from a 9800XT to a faster X850XT as well as I am now using the newer Catalyst 7.8. It therefore is possible that this registry setting is no longer being recognized by the driver.

 

First I want to thank you for the thread! ATT is a excellent utility and it's great to know that people are trying to make it even better. Now my problem. Sorry if it's offtopic, but I don't know were else to turn: I have a X1950. Recently I switched from Vista 32 U to Vista 64 U. I installed latest driver - 7.12 and the latest ATT, and when I start the app it shows a message "Can not connect to low lever driver".I found a tweak to run CoreTemp on Vista64, so I guess there is one for this too.

 

sorry to ask some questions but iam new to all these and little confused from all the reading i have done

recently bought a asus 3870 for playing aoc(age of conan) but seems to had alot probs with it so i went back to eah1600xt card i had!i see all these tweeks here and wanna ask a few things!

1)is there any specific att i have to dl or i can dl the latest i find when i google it?
2)if i do all these tweeks i have to press yes when i start att with the msg saying if i want hotbar poller to be disabled or enabled?
3)i can make a certain profile for all these tweeks?so every time i click the profile and make my card run better when i want?
4)from what menu i can see how much % of my gpu is used?cause i try to find it from catalyst and dont see any option there...dont understund why tbh!i use ati catalyst 8.5 just to know!

thanks in advance for any answers and excuse my bad english!

 

Yes, you want the latest one, which can always be found here.

Doesn't matter.

Not all of them, only for a limited bunch.

I'm guessing you want a similar graph to that which displays CPU usage in Windows Task Manager? I don't think one exists in any program for GPUs, mainly because GPU activity would be nigh impossible to measure due to the different units involved, etc. Some programs allow you to measure Vram usage and such, but I doubt that a feature like the one you described exists.

If you need a decent tutorial for how to use ATT, look here.

 

i usually base this off the temperature of the GPU core. when its near the max temperature i can get out of it i assume the card is maxed out (game is GPU bound) and if it only gets 1/2 way to the max temperature i see i assume that 50% of the card is being used (game is CPU bound).

i know this isn't exact as a GPU isn't the same as a CPU and activity in one section of the card may be at 100% and bottlenecking what the rest of the card can do. but it gives a good ballpark of how much of the card is being used.

 

Monitoring graphs (or FlashOSD). Only for 3xxx video boards (and may be 2xxx too, I don't know about last one)

 

....

 

Updates? What is there that you think needs updating, if you don't mind me asking?

 

........

 

I've got a question:

Are the EATM tweaks still being used/needed on newer cards, say, the 4870? Or has it been replaced with MSAA?

 

To my understanding, the possibility of selecting MSAA to smooth alpha edges greatly decreases - perhaps even nullifies - the need for EATM. Of course, you can run some tests just to be sure...

I have a hunch that ATI took the concept of 'alpha sharpening' and used it as a base for their MS-3 mode, i.e. the "Sharp" mode for MSAAA, which would pretty much entail that the MS-3 mode of AAA is a superior version of EATM. Of course, this is only speculation.

 

is there a way to underclock your card then its mentioned in the bios because i cant get to do it atm using the latest beta

 

Bump(bumb) mapping adds a texturing effect that alows a flat surface to look bumpy say a brick wall without bump mapping it would look flat and not so real with bump mapping it look like a real brick wall with small defects and ridges and bumps