With the Sam460ex recently going on sale and including the RadeonHD driver, the driver has inevitably been tested on a wider range of hardware. While most hardware is working just fine, two people with a Sapphire Radeon HD 4350 reported (see here and here) that it didn't work with their cards. Most of their screens were filled with garbage. This surprised me as all Radeon HD 4350s tested previously worked just fine. So, suppressing my desire to grumble about people ignoring my recommendations (hey, it wouldn't have happened if you had got a Radeon HD 4650/4670 like I suggested ;-) ), I got to work tracking down the problem.

Many people have been asking me for advice as to which Radeon HD graphics card they should buy for their Amiga. So, here are my recommendations. For the lazy, there is a quick summary at the end of the page. But first, a quick disclaimer:

Welcome to yet another development log. This post marks the first release of the GfxBench2D benchmark tool, and the corresponding web application (web-app). The benchmark tool tests the performance of graphics cards for a range of different operations, and (optionally) uploads the results to this website for display. While it is still a work-in-progress (isn't most software?), it has reached a point at which it is useful.

I am please to announce that the Windows version of GfxBench2D is now available. Windows XP or higher is required. The website code has also been updated in order to accommodate multiple Operating Systems (OSes).

Both the AmigaOS and Windows versions of GfxBench2D have been updated, and are available for download. Some bugs were found in the Windows version over the last few days, resulting in version 2.2. At this stage the Windows version is still considered to be beta. The AmigaOS version is now at 2.1. It incorporates some bug-fixes and changes that were primarily the result of developing the Windows version.

Welcome to the GfxBench2D results database. GfxBench2D is a benchmark test tool that measures the 2D performance of graphics cards. Download the GfxBench2D software to test your own graphics card(s). Visit the Forum to discuss benchmarks, make suggestions, etc.

GfxBench2D for Windows is now at version 2.4. It is available at the usual place, i.e., the download page. This version fixes a few bugs, the most important of which is a bug that prevented certain multi-core machines from running the tests. If you find any bugs, please contact me via email, or post to the GfxBench2D forum.

The Windows version of GfxBench2D has received another update. This version includes a workaround for an issue with buggy graphics drivers. On a small number of computers it would hang at the WritePixelArray test. This was due to a driver bug affecting the CopySubresource() function. It would allow the source-buffer to be locked for writing before copying of data from that buffer to the graphics card had completed, potentially enabling the old data to be overwritten before it had been used. Fortunately, there was a different method to wait until the operation was done, which waits for the GPU to be idle. This same method is used prior to each test to ensure the most accurate results.

It's been a while since I have posted anything to this blog, mainly because I have been busy with other things. I have, however, still kept an eye on it, deleting spam when necessary, and monitoring how the advertising programs are performing. Today I made the decision to dump Adbrite.