ATI Catalyst 9.3 Drivers Everything you want to know

  • Ian McNaughton
  • Graphics

 Do you regularly update your graphics drivers? 

             As I thought of new and exciting topics for this blog, it dawned on me last week (while I was chatting with Terry Makedon – the “father” of the ATI CatalystTM software suite) that we don’t say enough about all the great features and benefits of our monthly driver update. So starting in March and every month after I intend to write a blog outlining all the great performance improvements and features that come with the monthly driver release.

 

Marketing sound bite: ATI CatalystTM 9.3 driver - the industries first Unified graphics driver for Windows 7 and Windows Vista

I like it when it’s easy and for you gamers that means you now have a single ATI Catalyst driver for both Microsoft Vista and Windows 7.  This driver allows you to swap back and forth between OSs with the same driver set; it makes for an easy, clean Windows 7 experience – without the hassle of multiple drivers, versions, etc.

 Another exciting part about a unified driver is that moving forward our ATI software gurus plan to continue to deliver a single unified driver for Windows Vista and Windows 7. Great news for all!

 Also, ATI Catalyst delivers full WDDM (Windows Display Driver Model) 1.1 support under Windows 7 for all ATI RadeonTM HD 4000, HD 3000 and HD 2000 series of graphics cards. So, in benefit speak, this new WDDM 1.1 support utilizes DirectX 10 rather than DirectX 9 and can cut down your GPU memory usage by half when opening up multiple windows thereby enabling increased performance.

 

Marketing sound bite: ATI Catalyst 9.3 Folding@Home performance enhancements *

Here is a very noble cause improvement, Folding@Home.  You’ll experience outstanding Folding@Home scores when running ATI Catalyst 9.3 and the most recent F@H client.  We utilize ATI Stream technology which means you must have an ATI RadeonTM HD 4000, HD 3000 or HD 2000 series GPU to take full advantage of these enhancements.

 

And last but surely not least, my favorite community: Linux ATI Catalyst 9.3

We have support for new operating systems:

  • RedFlag DT 6.0 sp2 production support
  • RedFlag DT 7.0 support (early look)
  • SLED and SLES 11 support (early look)

So, what does this all really mean, to you, the gamer?  It is a continued commitment from us to deliver monthly updates for your ATI Radeon based GPUs.  It means that you will have ease of driver management during the introduction of Windows 7 and it means an improved experience with Windows 7 and of course, if you are a Linux user, a broader set of platform support.

 

See you next month!

 

Cheers!

Ian “Cabrtosr” McNaughton

twitter1

ian_mcnaughton Ian McNaughton is senior manager of advanced marketing at AMD. His postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites are provided for convenience and unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such linked sites and no endorsement is implied. 

 

 

*Download the appropriate client

  1. For CPU http://folding.stanford.edu/English/Download
  2. For GPU http://folding.stanford.edu/English/DownloadWinOther
  3. For Playstation 3 its in your system menu already

Join team 51394 after you install and run the client for the first time.

80 Responses

  1. Stony

    MMACEPrev.exe is not responding.
    That is what I get when I open CCC.
    I have to reboot to close CCC.
    I cannot open it at all now.
    Nothing but trouble with this software.
    Error code after error code.
    Second Life will not run at all.
    Video quality sucks.
    I use an AMD Phenom quad core with 8 gig ram and an ATI 3870 graphics card and Vista 64.
    I seems I made the wrong choices here.
    They tell me to swap the card?
    Does that mean I have to buy another one and maybe end with two junk video cards?
    Nvidia will be my swap if this thing can’t be corrected without buying another card!

  2. JD

    I have to say that the 9.3 driver for linux changes the game in linux graphics. All the troubles I have been having went out the window, even using an old x850 to do dual-monitors at 1080 each. Great work guys and thank you for putting the same dedication into a linux drivers as you do for windows.

  3. Firi

    Hi Ian, there is a problem with Catalyst drivers running Autodesk Maya. The problem is that the rotate tool in Maya doesn’t work well using newer drivers. Basically, I can’t select a particular axis from any view in Maya using rotate tool.

    These guys: http://forums.3dtotal.com/showthread.php?t=65487 are running Maya 2009 with Catalyst 9.2 and have a same issue.

    I have an HIS Radeon HD4850 IceQ running Maya 2008 and installed the new Catalyst 9.3 from clean Windows Vista installation, and still have the same problem. I know that Maya doesn’t support gamer cards and recommending only pro video cards like FireGL. But there are a lot of people, including me, who can’t afford that much money to spend on pro video cards.

    And since the solution for this problem so far is by downgrading the Catalyst to version 8.12, I believe that this is just a matter of the driver. Not the type of the card.

    No matter what the OS I use (WinXP, Vista X86, Vista X64), it’s still happen even on the newest Catalyst 9.3. Please take this into ATi consideration and I hope this will be fixed in the next driver. Thank you…

  4. Jane

    Ian does this also not work with pre-2000 generation cards (I mean X1900 etc, not year 2000!), like 9.2? I had 9.1 and mobility modded it for my laptop (X1900 M), worked fine. 9.2 didnt do anything, and I remember seeing they removed support for pre-2000 cards, COMPLETELY. If so, why not include the latest driver as well! Even selecting X1900 in the ATI site still points me to the 9.2 release.

  5. amongoo

    HI ALL
    I use the driver 9.3 in my 3D SOFTWARE SKETCHUP 7
    BUT i CAN’T use the OPENGL 3.0, why?
    IS this driver didn’t support the GOOGLE SKETCHUP7 JUST ONLY FOR GAME USEing?

  6. dave

    hallow

    i have notebook
    asus x51rl
    with ati radeon xpress 1100

    everytime i download new catalyst start in number 8 version doesnt want detect my hardware n said its not compatible with chips vdeo inside my notebook

    wats goin on here?
    plz let me know if im failed to install or something else

    i really like 2 update my catalyst
    i dont want spent my times download new n new one again catalyst if it can be use for x1100

    thnx u

    (my catalyst running now is still old one come from my asus cd driver)

    thnx agaiin

    • Ian McNaughton

      @Dave – it is recommended that you use the ASUS mobility drivers for updates

    • PJ

      @dave,

      I have the same ASUS X51RL. I recently update my drivers Catalyst 9.3 from .inf file using ‘Have Disk…’ option in Windows Device Manager Update Driver dialog. Browse to C:\ATI\Support\Display\Driver\??_INF\, and select one of two .inf (I don’t remember, which one of them really needed), then find in Product List ATI RADEON XPRESS 1100 Series and select it. The driver will be installed. Previous versions of Catalyst doesn’t work for me by this way and I needed to use drivers from ASUS site.

  7. dave

    correcting > i dont want install new catalyst if cannot be use for x 1100

  8. dave

    plus info: im running in window xp SP3

    thnx u

  9. FM

    Why isnt it possible for ATI to fix the OpenGL bugs? Since i have my HD4870 the performance is not just bad and this in ALL!! OpenGl applications who use OpenGl. And dont tell me again its my power supply… Just to show how bad it is, my old Nvidia 7800gt was or better is still faster in OpenGL then my HD4870 … whats worng with you guys? Cant be so impossible to fix this. Oh and btw i was testing all drivers who are possible for this card in XP and Vista. I am sure there are much more out there who have this problem so please just fix this performance problem with your drivers. Thank you.

  10. Snowblower

    Mr. Ian, I have an issue with HDMI sound output from ATI 4850.

    Every sound at the first several second will always disappears such as when I am playing mp3, I will hear the music start at 1 or 2 second not start at first sound of the song.

    another issue is it seems like vsync option in CCC does not working.
    When I select always on this option, the picture in some games that have no own vsync option still occur tearing. So I have to use 3rd party software to override d3d vsync then tearing will disappear.

    Please solve these issues espectially the 1st one,
    Thx
    Snowblower