With our AMD HD3D technology, we’ve brought support for stereo 3D to our current generations of graphics solutions; ATI Radeon™ HD 5000, AMD Radeon™ HD 6000 Series and A-Series APUs. The quad buffer not only enables stereo 3D video playback, but can be used to add native support for stereo 3D in video games and supports DirectX ®9, 10 and 11. Eidos-Montreal has recently announced their implementation of native HD3D using this same quad buffer API, and now this is open to all developers so anyone can download on AMD Developer Central.

AMD’s approach to the stereo 3D ecosystem is simple; build the stereo 3D experience you want to have.  We don’t limit, hinder or block; we leverage multiple interoperable hardware and software partners to give you choice, flexibility and affordability.  Even with all of these choices, setting up HD3D is a lot easier than you think.  Take a look at these two videos on How to Set up HD3D in 60 seconds for stereo 3D gaming and Blu-ray 3D playback. As we continue to see the PC and entertainment industries embrace stereo 3D as a technology, there are more and more opportunities to experience this technology in the home, and with this public release we hope to add to this momentum.

Shane Parfitt is a Product Manager 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.

*IF you are having technical issues with the AMD Catalyst™ driver, or your graphics card please report your issues here.

As a note: this will be the last AMD Catalyst™ blog that I will write.  I will be handing the reigns over to Chris Bell here at AMD who will carry on and keep you up to date on our driver postings.   It has been a pleasure to keep you posted on all things AMD Catalyst™.  I thank you for your feedback and comments over the past year.

Here is what is new this month!

Highlights of the AMD Catalyst™ 11.2 Windows release include:

New Features:

• AMD Catalyst AI Texture Filtering updates

o    The Quality setting has now been improved to match the High Quality setting in all respects but one; it enables an optimization that limits tri-linear anisotropic filtering to areas surrounding texture mipmap level transitions, while doing bilinear anisotropic filtering elsewhere.

This optimization offers a way to improve filtering performance without visibly affecting image quality

o    The Performance setting has been updated to address the sharpness of the default Quality setting causing shimmering in certain cases.  It now provides a smoother filtering option that eliminates most shimmering while preserving the improved detail provided by anisotropic filtering.

• Tessellation Controls

o    Supported on the ATI Radeon™ HD 5000 Series and the AMD Radeon™ HD 6000 Series

o    New settings give users full control over the Tessellation levels used in applications.

o    The default selection “AMD Optimized” setting is intended to set the best level of Tessellation on a per application basis.   The “AMD Optimized” setting is designed to help users get the maximum visual benefit of Tessellation, while minimizing the performance impact associated with enabling the Tessellation feature. Currently no applications have been profiled.

o   The “Use Application Settings” option gives applications full control over the Tessellation level.

o   Users can also manually set the maximum tessellation level used by applications with the slider control

• Morphological Anti-Aliasing support for the ATI Radeon™ HD 5000 Series GPUs

o    AMD Catalyst now includes official support for Morphological Anti-Aliasing for the ATI Radeon™ HD 5000 Series GPUs

Support Video Quality settings during Blu-ray 3D playback

• Supported on the AMD Radeon™ HD 6000 Series GPUs
• Requires Blu-ray 3D player software, 3D supported display and 3D Stereoscopic glasses
• Users can now enable the Video Quality settings within the Catalyst Control Center when playing Blu-ray 3D content

For more information on AMD Catalyst™ 11.2 (for Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows XP, and Linux versions), including all of the resolved issues in this release, please see the AMD Catalyst™ 11.2 release notes.

To download the AMD Catalyst™ 11.2 driver, click here.

Regards,

Jay Marsden

Jay Marsden is a Product Marketing Manager 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 links sites and no endorsement is implied.

It’s that time again for the AMD Catalyst™ driver update!  We have been getting great comments and feedback from the community because of this blog site.  Please continue to send us your feedback as we do review them all*.

*IF you are having technical issues with the AMD Catalyst™ driver, or your graphics card please report your issues here.

Here is what is new this month!

Highlights of the AMD Catalyst™ 10.11 driver for Windows® release include:

Performance Highlights of the AMD Catalyst™ 10.11 release:

Here are examples of performance that we have noted in our labs.  Your results may vary depending on the model, screen resolution, anti-aliasing, and whether you are using AMD CrossfireX™ technology.

Battleforge™

• Performance increases up to 3% on ATI Radeon™ HD 5800 Series using single GPU and CrossFireX configurations with anti-aliasing disabled.

STALKER – Call of Pripyat™ benchmark:

• Performance increases up to 5% on ATI Radeon™ HD 5800 Series using single GPU and CrossFireX configurations.

Resolved issue highlights:

• Enabling AMD OverDrive^TM through the AMD Catalyst™ Control Center for single display systems no longer results in GPU clocks running at high levels in non-GPU intensive scenarios
• Mouse cursor no longer flickers and disappears in World of Warcraft when hardware cursor is enabled when playing in Stereo 3D mode
• Primary display no longer blanks out when playing World in Conflict Soviet Assault DX10 with Dual Monitor enabled in AMD CrossFireX™ mode
• AMD CrossFireX™ no longer becomes disabled in Battlefield Bad Company 2 after performing a task switch
• The “Contrast” value for the display is no longer set to zero after AMD CrossFireX™ is disabled for the first time
• Alien blood is now rendered properly in Aliens vs Predator with Anti-Aliasing enabled

Highlights of the AMD Catalyst™ driver for Linux^® release include:

Resolved issue highlights

• Invalid position values for specified size  with aticonfig are accepted and updated in xorg.conf
• Cursor unable to enter task bar area when certain rotations are applied
• Initial rotation results in Xserver crash during startup

Hotfix driver:

We’ve also recently posted the AMD Catalyst 10.10e hotfix driver (AMD Radeon™ HD 6800 series users should use this driver; AMD Catalyst 10.12 will add full support for the AMD Radeon HD 6800 series next month):

Note! This hotfix is provided as is and is not supported by AMD. It has not completed full AMD testing and is only a driver update.

Download AMD Catalyst 10.10e Here: http://support.amd.com/us/kbarticles/Pages/gpu88-catalyst-10-10e-hotfix.aspx

AMD Catalyst 10.10e Hotfix includes the following features and enhancements:

• The ATI Radeon™ HD 5000 Series GPU’s now support the new AMD Catalyst AI user interface that was previously only available on the AMD Radeon HD 6800 Series GPU’s

• The ATI Radeon™ HD 5000 Series GPU’s now support Morphological Anti-Aliasing

• Fixed cases where Morphological Anti-Aliasing was not being correctly applied to games (very intermittently)

• OpenGL 4.1 beta support

• Support for the new Morphological Anti-Aliasing feature

• Dead Rising 2 – Crossfire profile (Resolves negative scaling)

AMD CrossFire Performance Improvement for:

o   Metro 2033

o   F1 2011 – (DirectX^® 9 version)

o   Fallout New Vegas

Performance optimizations for systems with an AMD Radeon™ HD 6870 and AMD Radeon HD 6850 series of graphics products installed

o   Aliens versus Predator performance enhancements

o   Star Craft 2 performance enhancements

o   OpenGL performance enhancements – gains can be seen in Prey, Quake Wars: Enemy Territories, and Heaven v2

Support for additional Stereo 3D-capable displays:

o   Viewsonic V3D241wm-LED

o   3D Projectors

For more information on AMD Catalyst™ 10.11 (for Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows XP, and Linux versions), including all of the resolved issues in this release, please see the AMD Catalyst™ 10.11 release notes.

To download the AMD Catalyst™ 10.11 driver, click here.

Till Next Month,

Jay Marsden

Jay Marsden is a Product Marketing Manager 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 links sites and no endorsement is implied.

A piping hot AMD Catalyst™ driver update has just arrived from the labs!  Thanks to all of you who provided feedback to us on the last driver update.  Keep it coming! We have been reviewing it all.

If you are having technical issues with the AMD Catalyst driver, or your graphics card please report your issues to AMD Graphics Technical Support.

Highlights of the AMD Catalyst 10.10 driver for Windows® release:

New Features

Introducing the AMD Catalyst Accelerated Parallel Processing (APP) technology Edition

There will now be two variants of the AMD Catalyst driver package available:

1. AMD Catalyst (same driver package as in previous versions):
   • Includes the Direct3D, OpenGL, Display driver and AMD Catalyst Control Center components
2. AMD Catalyst Accelerated Parallel Processing (APP) technology Edition:
   • Includes the Direct3D, OpenGL, Display driver and AMD Catalyst Control Center – Plus the OpenCL driver component

Users can still download all of the individual AMD Catalyst components separately if you wish (which will also include the OpenCL driver)

Introduction of AMD HD3D Technology

Blu-ray 3D support

• This release of AMD Catalyst provides support for Blu-ray 3D playback
• Requires Blu-ray 3D player software, 3D supported display and 3D Stereoscopic glasses*
• Supported on the AMD Radeon™ HD 6800 Series GPUs

Stereo 3D gaming support

• This release of AMD Catalyst provides support for Stereo 3D gaming via 3^rd party middleware from Dynamic Digital Depth (DDD) and iZ3D
• Requires 3D supported display and 3D Stereoscopic glasses*
• Supported on the ATI Radeon HD 5000™ Series and AMD Radeon HD 6000 Series GPUs

*For more information on AMD HD3D Technology, including gaming middleware and a list of supported displays, visit www.amd.com/hd3d

Video acceleration for HD WMV video content

• This release of AMD Catalyst provides GPU acceleration support for WMV HD (Microsoft video codec) under Windows 7
• Supported on the ATI Radeon HD 5000 Series of products and higher.

Enhanced Dynamic Contrast video controls

• This release of AMD Catalyst enhances the Dynamic Contrast setting found in the Catalyst Control Center by adding support for histogram based detection

Highlights of the AMD Catalyst 10.10 driver for Linux release include:

New Features

Support for new Linux operating systems

• This release of AMD Catalyst driver for Linux introduces support for the following new operating systems:
  • openSUSE 11.3 support (production)
  • Ubuntu 10.10 support (early look)

For more information on AMD Catalyst 10.10 (for Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows XP, and Linux versions), including all of the resolved issues in this release, please see the AMD Catalyst 10.10 release notes.

Get the AMD Catalyst 10.10 driver now!

Till Next Month,

Jay Marsden

Jay Marsden is a Product Marketing Manager 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 links sites and no endorsement is implied.

RESOURCES

AMD Radeon HD 6800 Series Launch Press Release

AMD Radeon HD 6800 Series Product Page on AMD.com

AMD Worldwide Channel Blog on the launch of the AMD Radeon HD 6800 Series graphics cards

Partner quotes supporting the launch of the AMD Radeon HD 6800 Series

Learn more about AMD HD3D technology

Learn more about AMD Eyefinity technology

Learn more about AMD Eyespeed technology

IMAGES

View AMD Radeon™ HD 6800 Series board shots

View AMD Graphics partner logos

*IF you are having technical issues with the ATI Catalyst™ driver, or your graphics card please report your issues here.

Here is what is new this month!

Highlights of the ATI Catalyst™ 10.8 release for Microsoft Windows include:

OpenGL ES 2.0 support

• ATI Catalyst™ 10.8 provides full support for OpenGL ES 2.0 specification
• Enables 3D accelerated graphics within a web browser that supports OpenGL ES 2.0
• Supported on Windows XP, Windows Vista, and Windows 7

Performance enhancement for Quad ATI CrossFireX™ configurations using ATI Eyefinity technology

• Performance has been greatly improved for users running with ATI Eyefinity technology on a Quad ATI CrossFireX™ configuration

Anti-Aliasing support for StarCraft II

• ATI Catalyst Control Center™ now  enables Anti-Aliasing for StarCraft II

Performance highlights:

Far Cry 2:

• Performance increases 2-6% on ATI Radeon™ HD 5800 Series single and ATI CrossFireX™ configurations.
• Performance increases 2-4% on ATI Radeon™ HD 5700 Series single and ATI CrossFireX™ configurations.
• Performance increases 3-8% on ATI Radeon™ HD 4800 Series single and ATI CrossFireX™ configurations.

Left 4 Dead 2:

• Performance increases 3-5% on ATI CrossFireX™ configurations using the ATI Radeon™ HD 5800 series and ATI Radeon™ HD 5700 series.

Stormrise:

• Performance increases 5-10% on ATI Radeon™ HD 5600  series and ATI Radeon™ HD 5500 series configurations.

Highlights of the ATI Catalyst™ driver for Linux 10.8 release include:

Support for new Linux operating systems

• This release of ATI Catalyst™ driver for  Linux introduces support for the following new operating systems: 
  • SLED/SLES 11 SP1 production support

OpenGL ES 2.0 support

• ATI Catalyst™ 10.8 provides full support for OpenGL ES 2.0 specification
• Enables 3D accelerated graphics within a web browser that supports OpenGL ES 2.0
• Supported on Linux distributions

For more information on ATI Catalyst™ 10.8 (for Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows XP, and Linux versions), including all of the resolved issues in this release, please see the ATI Catalyst™ 10.8 release notes.

To download the driver, click here.

Till Next Month,

Jay Marsden

Jay Marsden is a Product Marketing Manager 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 links sites and no endorsement is implied.

*IF you are having technical issues with the ATI Catalyst™ driver, or your graphics card please report your issues here.

Here is what is new this month!

New Windows Features

Highlights of the ATI Catalyst™ 10.7 release for Microsoft Windows include:

ATI Eyefinity Technology – Enhancements for HydraVision™

• Maximizing a window across multiple displays will now take user defined bezel compensation into account
• Automatically adjusts window position when dragging and dropping windows to ensure title bar visibility
• Proper dialog box placement – dialogs do not cross displays, are not hidden behind bezels, and can be designated to be shown on the users “preferred” display

Enhanced Pull-down detection

• The Pull-down detection algorithm has been enhanced for higher visual quality on certain types of video content
• Supported on the ATI Radeon™ HD 5000 Series of GPUs

ATI CrossFireX™ technology – support for rotated displays

• This release of ATI Catalyst™ enables end users running supported ATI CrossFireX™ configurations to rotate their displays (single or ATI Eyefinity display configurations) and still enjoy the performance benefits of ATI CrossFireX™ technology

ATI Radeon™ GPU acceleration of VLC 1.1.1 Media Player

• Enables GPU acceleration of h.264 video content when using the VLC 1.1.1 Media Player – enabling a better user experience by consuming less system resources
• Supported on the ATI Radeon™ HD 5000 and ATI Radeon™ HD 4000 Series of GPU products
• Requires VLC version 1.1.1 and later

Highlights of the ATI Catalyst™ driver for Linux 10.7 release include:

Support for new Linux operating systems

• This release of ATI Catalyst™ driver for Linux introduces support for the following new operating systems: 
  • Ubuntu 10.04 production support

ATI Eyefinity support

• ATI Catalyst™ driver for Linux 10.7 provides support for ATI Eyefinity technology under all supported Linux distributions

For more information on ATI Catalyst™ 10.7 (for Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows XP, and Linux versions), including all of the resolved issues in this release, please see the ATI Catalyst™ 10.7 release notes.

To download the driver, click here.

Till Next Month,

Jay Marsden

Jay Marsden is a Product Marketing Manager 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 links sites and no endorsement is implied.

*IF you are having technical issues with the ATI Catalyst driver, or your graphics card please report your issues here.

Here is what is new this month!

New Windows Features

Support for 120 Hz displays for ATI Radeon™ HD 4000 Series and ATI Radeon™ HD 3000 Series GPUs

• ATI Catalyst™ driver now supports 120 Hz Displays for the ATI Radeon™ HD 4000 and ATI Radeon™ HD 3000 Series graphics cards

New Linux Features

Support for new Linux operating systems

• This release of ATI Catalyst™ driver for Linux introduces support for the following new operating systems: 
  • SLED/SLES 11 SP1  early look support

For more information on ATI Catalyst 10.5 (for Windows® 7, Windows Vista®, Windows® XP, and Linux® versions), including all of the resolved issues in this release, please see the ATI Catalyst 10.5 release notes.

To download the driver, click here.

Till Next Month,

Jay Marsden

Jay Marsden is a Product Marketing Manager 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 links sites and no endorsement is implied.

*IF you are having technical issues with the ATI Catalyst™ driver, or your graphics card please report your issues here.

Another great release of ATI Catalyst ™ drivers is upon us.    As you will see below, several key features and awesome improvements have been added to this month’s driver release.

Let’s take a look at what is new this month!

Highlights of the ATI Catalyst™ 10.3 release includes:

New Features

ATI Catalyst™ support for ATI Mobility Radeon™ Premium Graphics solutions

• This release of ATI Catalyst™ introduces support for the production version of Microsoft ® Windows® 7 and Windows Vista® for notebooks featuring the ATI Mobility Radeon™ HD 2000 Series, ATI Mobility Radeon ™  HD 3000 Series, and ATI Mobility Radeon™ HD 4000 Series, and planned support future ATI Mobility Radeon ™ products.  
• Supported by most major OEM and ODM notebook manufacturers 

ATI Catalyst™ Control Center – ATI Eyefinity technology enhancements¹

• Display Bezel Compensation
  • Easy-to-use wizard  shows users how to adjust their display layout to remove the pixels occupied by their display bezels²
• Per-Display Color Adjust
  • Individual Color, Brightness,  and Contrast controls
• Multiple ATI Eyefinity Technology Groups
  • Create more than one ATI Eyefinity group from multiple displays
• Improved Display Configuration switching
  • Support for ATI Eyefinity groups and the ATI Catalyst™ Control Center profile manager
  • Easy to toggle between cloned and extended desktop modes

ATI Catalyst™ support for 3D Stereoscopic glasses

• AMD has updated its Direct3D (Quad buffer support) driver to enable 3rd party middleware vendors such as iZ3D to output stereo L/R images at 120 Hz (60 Hz per eye)

For more information on ATI Catalyst™ 10.3 (for Windows® 7, Windows Vista®, Windows® XP, and Linux® versions), including all of the resolved issues in this release, please see the ATI Catalyst™ 10.3 release notes.

To download the driver, click here.

ATI Catalyst™ 10.3 driver is getting some great feedback from press!  I have included some links below that showcase some of positive press we have received so far with our preview of ATI Catalyst™ 10.3:

HardOCP: here

TweakTown: here

Legit Reviews: here

Till Next Month,

Jay Marsden

Jay Marsden is a Product Marketing Manager 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 links sites and no endorsement is implied.

1 ATI Eyefinity technology can support multiple displays using a single enabled ATI Radeon™ graphics card – the number of displays may vary by board design and you should confirm exact specifications with the applicable manufacturer before purchase. ATI Eyefinity technology works with games that support non-standard aspect ratios, which is required for panning across multiple displays. To enable more than two displays, additional panels with native DisplayPort™ connectors, and/or certified DisplayPort™ adapters to convert your monitor’s native input to your cards DisplayPort™ or Mini-DisplayPort™ connector, are required.

2 Bezel compensation is available only for sets of monitors that have pixel resolution and density within a 5% tolerance of each other

*IF you are having technical issues with the ATI Catalyst driver, or your graphics card please report your issues here.

We have some amazing new features and functions added to this month’s ATI Catalyst driver release!

This is just the “first wave” of updates to our driver suite and just goes to show how dedicated AMD is to bringing added value – and a great experience for all users.

Here are the highlights of what is new in ATI Catalyst 10.2 this month:

New Features

ATI Catalyst™ application profiles for configurations supporting ATI CrossFireX™ technology

• This release of ATI Catalyst™ delivers support for the latest ATI CrossFireX™ profiles in a separate executable file; ensuring users have access to the absolute latest set of profiles installed on their PC.
  • The ATI Catalyst™ 10.2 package Includes the fully qualified ATI Catalyst™ 10.2 application profile list  (which includes all ATI CrossFireX profiles) and is installed by default
  • The latest application profile list is posted on amd.com in a separate .exe file that users can install to get the absolute latest application profiles (that have not yet been added to the official ATI Catalyst release)

ATI Catalyst™ support for ATI PowerPlay™ on configurations supporting ATI CrossFireX™ technology

• Significant power saving benefits for users with ATI Radeon™ HD 5900 Series, ATI Radeon™ HD 5800 Series, and ATI Radeon™ HD 5700 Series setup in ATI CrossFireX™ configurations
  • Automatically enabled in the ATI Catalyst™ driver for Windows® 7 and Windows Vista
  • Sets secondary GPU(s) engine and memory clocks to low levels and reduces voltage when the GPU(s) are not in use

ATI Catalyst™ support for DisplayPort audio

• This release of ATI Catalyst™ provides support for DisplayPort audio for DisplayPort panels

Support for ATI Eyefinity technology on configurations supporting ATI CrossFireX™ technology

• The ATI Catalyst™ 9.12 hotfix release provides ATI CrossFireX™ support on ATI Eyefinity configurations, allowing users to take advantage of their additional GPUs for increased gaming performance when driving high resolution ATI Eyefinity display groups
• Supported on the ATI Radeon™ HD 5970 Series, ATI Radeon™ HD 5800 Series, ATI Radeon™ HD 5700 Series, and ATI Radeon™ HD 5600 Series

Highlights of the ATI Catalyst™ 10.2 release for Linux includes:

New Features

Support for new Linux operating systems

• This release of ATI Catalyst™ for Linux introduces support for the following new operating systems: 
  • openSUSE 11.2 production support

For more information on ATI Catalyst 10.2 (for Windows® 7, Windows® Vista, Windows® XP, and Linux versions), including all of the resolved issues in this release, please see the ATI Catalyst 10.2 release notes.

To download the driver, click here.

ATI Catalyst 10.2 is getting some great feedback from press!  I have included some links below with some of the positive press we have received so far:

HardOCP: here

TweakTown: here

Legit Reviews: here

PCPER.COM: here

Till Next Month,

Jay Marsden

Jay Marsden is a Product Marketing Manager 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 links sites and no endorsement is implied.