Omega vs ATI

[Jimmy 2004]

I was wondering what people's experiences of the Omega drivers are like compared to ATI's Catalyst drivers. When I tried the Omega drivers I had a lot of trouble with installing them and gave up and went back to ATI drivers. Does anyone know whether they do boast a noticable increase in performance, besides being able to overclock? benchmark scores and game performance would be useful.

 

[ADV4NCED]

I lost quite alot of performance when I used the Omega drivers, 3D Mark03 dropped from about 3900 (stock scores) to around 3400 if I remember correctly. I stick to normal ATI Drivers from now on

 

[tomslick]

I have tried them all DNA benchmark are the quickest for me.

 

[testemo]

Omega's aren't for benchmark braggin', they are for better quality game play.

 

[lordcory]

when i used the omega drivers i lost a lot of stabilty and windows was vry slow so i like ati better for now

 

[W1zzard]

for me any 3rd party drivers are not worth the trouble. i'm always using stock ati.

if there were some tricks that really made a difference, wouldnt you think ati would add them to their regular drivers?

 

[geeman74]

I lost quite alot of performance when I used the Omega drivers, 3D Mark03 dropped from about 3900 (stock scores) to around 3400 if I remember correctly. I stick to normal ATI Drivers from now on

they did the oposite for me my benchmarks scores went up got better fps and my games were more stable after overclocking the card

but they dont work with the x850s so using atis now

 

[Hellraiser1981]

I got the same results as geeman.
My performance increases, as did my stability.
Omegas aren't made for benchmark, they provide the best quality in games at a better framerate than stock ati drivers.
At least on my voltmodded, overheating, overclocked sapphire 9800 Pro 128M with powercolor bios at 4x AGP, and smartgart at 2x, the best settings for the card.
Yeah, it's a cobbled mess, but works really well with omegas.
UT2004: 1600x1200 graphics cranked at over 80fps
Doom3 : 1024x768 High quality at 50-60 fps
Halo; 1280x1024 graphics cranked at 60 fps
Way better than ATI drivers and only lost 100 3d03 marks 6600-6700 average.

 

[15th Warlock]

I got the same results as geeman.
My performance increases, as did my stability.
Omegas aren't made for benchmark, they provide the best quality in games at a better framerate than stock ati drivers.
At least on my voltmodded, overheating, overclocked sapphire 9800 Pro 128M with powercolor bios at 4x AGP, and smartgart at 2x, the best settings for the card.
Yeah, it's a cobbled mess, but works really well with omegas.
UT2004: 1600x1200 graphics cranked at over 80fps
Doom3 : 1024x768 High quality at 50-60 fps
Halo; 1280x1024 graphics cranked at 60 fps
Way better than ATI drivers and only lost 100 3d03 marks 6600-6700 average.

What proc are you using?

Btw, had lots of problems with Omega's installation everytime I tried them, so after trying with 3 releases, I lost my interest in them, besides in case no one else's noticed it, most of the time the Omegas are one or two versions behind Ati official drivers (latest Omega drivers are based on the 5.2 Catalysts, while Ati released 5.4 Cats a long time ago....) so, IMHO, it's better to stick to the Ati official drivers....

 

[testemo]

And what do you thing about the DNA drivers? it seems they are the fatest... now I'm using them and I my stability is ok, like the official ones.

 

[15th Warlock]

And what do you thing about the DNA drivers? it seems they are the fatest... now I'm using them and I my stability is ok, like the official ones.

I hear the DNA drivers will boost the performance in HL2 by a huge margin, and if they work with your system setup, then you should keep using them, in fact I think you should use whatever drivers suite works better with your system, as each and everyone of us have different PCs, no two systems are the same...
In my case, I haven't tried the DNA drivers myself, so I cannot give you any opinion about them, but I can give you a link to a nice comparison between DNA, Omega, and Official Ati drivers, enjoy:

http://hardware.gamespot.com/Story-ST-x-1474-x-x-x&body_pagenum=1

 

[Hellraiser1981]

What proc are you using?

Btw, had lots of problems with Omega's installation everytime I tried them, so after trying with 3 releases, I lost my interest in them, besides in case no one else's noticed it, most of the time the Omegas are one or two versions behind Ati official drivers (latest Omega drivers are based on the 5.2 Catalysts, while Ati released 5.4 Cats a long time ago....) so, IMHO, it's better to stick to the Ati official drivers....

LGA775 Prescott P4 2.8Ghz @ 3.5GHz

I never had a problem with the omega installation. Omegas are several versions behind the official Catalyst.

 

[geeman74]

i like the new cats i like the fact you can actually overclock using them
but the newest ones arent as good i lost over 200 3dmark05 points (still over 7k tho) and 2-10 fps in games

 

[geeman74]

are you uninstalling the old ati cats properly when you install the omega
try drivercleaner might be bits of ati cats causing the probs

 

[15th Warlock]

are you uninstalling the old ati cats properly when you install the omega
try drivercleaner might be bits of ati cats causing the probs

I always use driver cleaner, but the omega driver won't detect my video card if try to I install them on my brother's PC 9200SE (wtf?), and if I try using them in my own PC, the radlinker thing would start installing and unninstalling by itself... .

 

[Jimmy 2004]

What proc are you using?

Btw, had lots of problems with Omega's installation everytime I tried them, so after trying with 3 releases, I lost my interest in them, besides in case no one else's noticed it, most of the time the Omegas are one or two versions behind Ati official drivers (latest Omega drivers are based on the 5.2 Catalysts, while Ati released 5.4 Cats a long time ago....) so, IMHO, it's better to stick to the Ati official drivers....

I also had problems with installing depite unistalling the ATI drivers. One reason I decided on ATI rather than Omega was because I thought the performance boost wouldn't be nearly so good if the drivers are old.

 

[bim27142]

Omega's aren't for benchmark braggin', they are for better quality game play.

and better tweaking options....

 

[gR3iF]

i use omega and dna quite along time but there was no performance increaisng lost for me the only thing i really enjoy is clockspeed settings and radlinker (still atitool for fan speeds)
but no more i think the ati driver are sometimes just performance driver for 3d 03, 05 not more so it doesnt make sense to adjust now im using 5.4 oficial because of kotor part one level 2

 

[Hidavi]

I use Omega Drivers but not Radlinker. Radlinker is too complicated for my needs. I like AtiTool just fine.

 

[geeman74]

I use Omega Drivers but not Radlinker. Radlinker is too complicated for my needs. I like AtiTool just fine.

hows radlinker too complicated?
its just two sliders!
atitool is complicated if you go into ram timings and fan speeds etc

 

[Hidavi]

The graphics settings on Radlinker are a little to complicated for my comfort. I just uninstall it and use ATi Control Panels. I also need ATiTool to unlock the clocks on the bios of my Rosewill 9600. Got it going 460/520.

I used to do the ram timings, which used to give my card a performance boost. However, I noticed recently that it isn't helping. Wierd. So I stopped doing it and I was able to up my RAM from 510 to 520.

 

[Hidavi]

for me any 3rd party drivers are not worth the trouble. i'm always using stock ati.

if there were some tricks that really made a difference, wouldnt you think ati would add them to their regular drivers?

Makes sense. I mean, the guy that does the Omega drivers works for ATi. Sounds almost like ATi won't let him use certain settings maybe for safety/stability reasons...

 

[intel igent]

ive always used ATI drivers

 

[Quazi]

I never had any luck with the Omegas. Benchmark scores were always lower than using the Cats, but this makes sense seeing as the Omegas are tweaked for quality more so than performance.

 

[Quazi]

Here, try these: http://www.ngohq.com/ They have the latest 5.6's. Omega? DNA? How about NGO? I am going to give them a shot and bench with them. I will post results. From the reviews and test sites, they look to give better bench scores. In game IQ is another issue. I will see about that to. I never heard of these drivers. You learn something new every day.