Feature highlights of the AMD Catalyst™ 12.1 driver:

AMD HD3D technology support enhancement

• Enables support for AMD HD3D technology in conjunction with AMD CrossFireX configurations
• Delivers a new Stereo 3D mode over HDMI 1.4a connections – 1080p at 30Hz is now enabled on supported displays.

AMD Catalyst Control Center / Vision Engine Control Center enhancements – Application Profiles

• AMD Catalyst 12.1 Preview driver enables users to create per application profiles to individually control 3D and CrossFireX settings for Direct3D applications
• Please be sure to select the “Restore Factory Defaults” option under the Catalyst Control Center Preferences menu before using the new application profiles feature – this ensures there are no compatibility issues between previous drivers and the new AMD Catalyst 12.1 Preview driver with regards to application profiles

AMD Catalyst Control Center / Vision Engine Control Center enhancements – Video UI improvements

• AMD Catalyst 12.1 Preview driver includes user interface enhancements to simply adjustment of video color and video quality controls

This release of AMD Catalyst™ Linux introduces support for the following new operating systems

• SLED 11 SP2 early look support
• Ubuntu 11.10 production level support

Feature highlights of the AMD Catalyst™ 12.2 driver:

AMD Eyefinity 2.1 technology enhancements

• Additional resolution support: Users can now choose from a larger set of resolutions when running AMD Eyefinity
• Dynamic Configuration Changes: Switching between different display configurations will occur automatically when physically plugging/un-plugging displays
• HydraVision enhancements: The Windows Task bar can now be moved and resized based on users preference
• Profile Manager improvements: Increased support for Display Groups (including 5×1) and Extended configurations within the Profile Manager

Feature highlights of the AMD Catalyst™ 11.12 driver:

AMD OpenGL 4.2 production support

• AMD Catalyst 11.12 delivers official support for the OpenGL 4.2 specification

AMD Eyefinity technology enhancements

• Enables support for AMD HD3D technology when using a 3×1 Landscape Eyefinity display group, on supported DisplayPort 3D monitors.

AMD Vision Engine Control Center enhancements for Dual Graphics

• Improvements have been implemented to better facilitate the enabling and control of the Dual Graphics within the Vision Engine Control Center

Feature highlights of the AMD Catalyst™ 11.12 Linux driver:
This release of AMD Catalyst™ Linux introduces support for the following new operating systems

• RHEL 6.2 early look support

AMD’s driver for the Windows 8 Developer build is also now available on www.amd.com for download.   This is the same driver that was made available through Windows Update when the Windows 8 Preview Build was released in September 2011.  AMD plans to release new drivers for Windows 8 on www.amd.com the same day as all future Windows 8 milestone releases (Beta, RC, RTM) – just as AMD did for Windows Vista and Windows 7.

Feature highlights of the AMD Catalyst™ 12.1 driver:

AMD HD3D technology support enhancement

• Enables support for AMD HD3D technology in conjunction with AMD CrossFireX configurations
• Delivers a new Stereo 3D mode over HDMI 1.4a connections – 1080p at 30Hz is now enabled on supported displays.

AMD Catalyst Control Center / Vision Engine Control Center enhancements – Application Profiles

• AMD Catalyst 12.1 Preview driver enables users to create per application profiles to individually control 3D and CrossFireX settings for Direct3D applications
• Please be sure to select the “Restore Factory Defaults” option under the Catalyst Control Center Preferences menu before using the new application profiles feature – this ensures there are no compatibility issues between previous drivers and the new AMD Catalyst 12.1 Preview driver with regards to application profiles.

AMD Catalyst Control Center / Vision Engine Control Center enhancements – Video UI improvements

• AMD Catalyst 12.1 Preview driver includes user interface enhancements to simply adjustment of video color and video quality controls

Performance highlights of the AMD Catalyst™ 12.1 Preview driver (in addition to the AMD Catalyst 11.11c performance driver)

• Improves performance (10-15%) in Elder Scrolls: Skyrim when Multi-Sample Anti-Aliasing is enabled on the AMD Radeon™ HD 6900 Series for single GPU and AMD CrossFire configurations

David Doel is on the marketing team at AMD Gaming Evolved. 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.

• Elder Scrolls Skyrim
  • New in Catalyst 11.11b: Delivers AMD CrossFire performance scaling for AMD Radeon HD 6000 Series
    • AMD Radeon HD 5000 CrossFire support will be supported soon in an updated driver
  • Improves performance 2-7% on single GPU configurations
  • Resolve corruption seen when enabling Multi-Sample Anti-Aliasing on the AMD Radeon HD 6970 Series

• Assassin’s Creed: Revelations
  • New in Catalyst 11.11b: Delivers AMD CrossFire performance scaling

• Batman Arkham City
  • Improves DirectX 11 performance for single GPU configurations

• Rage
  • Delivers AMD CrossfireX performance scaling
  • Resolves a number of image / stability issues seen with the title:
    • Fix geometry corruption, sometimes seen in Bash TV entrance
    • Fix issues with Low-memory conditions on 32bit systems.
    • Fix issue with extreme corruption with missing textures on 32bit systems.
    • Fix memory leaks when deleting/reusing sync objects.
    • Fix hitching and pausing, especially noticeable on some Quad Core systems when doing races and Stanley Express runs.
    • Fix some missing shadows

• Battlefield 3
  • Resolves intermittent corruption seen when playing the game at specific camera angles

You can download this latest driver here.

David Doel is on the AMD Gaming Marketing team. 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.

• Batman Arkham City
  • Improves DirectX 11 performance for single GPU configurations

• Rage
  • Enables AMD CrossfireX performance scaling
  • Resolves a number of image / stability issues seen with the title:
    • Fix geometry corruption, sometimes seen in Bash TV entrance
    • Fix issues with Low-memory conditions on 32bit systems.
    • Fix issue with extreme corruption with missing textures on 32bit systems.
    • Fix memory leaks when deleting/reusing sync objects.
    • Fix hitching and pausing, especially noticeable on some Quad Core systems when doing races and Stanley Express runs.
    • Fix some missing shadows

• Elder Scrolls Skyrim
  • Improves performance 2-7% on single GPU configurations
  • Resolve corruption seen when enabling Multi-Sample Anti-Aliasing on the AMD Radeon HD 6970 Series
  • Disables CrossFireX (to resolve negative scaling and image quality issues seen when CrossFireX is enabled)
    • AMD is continuing to work on a CrossFireX solution for Skyrim – as soon as it’s ready we’ll make it publicly available

• Battlefield 3
  • Resolves intermittent corruption seen when playing the game at specific camera angles

You can download the latest drivers here.

David Doel is on the AMD Gaming Marketing team. 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.

For more details read below:

AMD Eyefinity technology enhancements

• Enables support for AMD Eyefinity 5×1 display (portrait and landscape) configurations
• Maximum supported resolution has been increased to 16000 x 16000 pixels on the AMD Radeon™ HD 6000 Series. (limited to DirectX^® 11 applications only)
• Bezel compensation is now possible when using sets of displays that have mismatched pixel densities

AMD Catalyst Control Center™ enhancements

• Improvements have been implemented to better facilitate the enabling and control of the following features within the AMD Catalyst Control Center™
  • AMD Overdrive technology for GPUs
  • Information Center (software and hardware)

Performance Highlights

• Improves performance in Battlefield 3 for both non-Anti-Aliasing, and application enabled Anti-Aliasing cases on the AMD Radeon™ HD 6000 and AMD Radeon™ HD 5000 Series graphics cards for single GPU configurations
• Improves performance in Battlefield 3 for both non-Anti-Aliasing, and application enabled Anti-Aliasing cases on AMD CrossFireX™ technology configurations using the AMD Radeon™ HD 6000 and AMD Radeon™ HD 5000 Series
• Improves performance in Rage on single GPU configurations using the AMD Radeon™ HD 6000, AMD Radeon™ HD 5000 Series and AMD Radeon™ HD 4000 Series

AMD Catalyst™ 11.10 Linux driver

This release of AMD Catalyst™ driver for Linux introduces support for the following new operating systems:

• RHEL 5.7 production support
• Ubuntu 11.10 early look support

You can download the latest drivers here.

David Doel is on the AMD Gaming Marketing team. 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.

Now let’s take a look at some of the performance gains you can expect to see this month.

• Improves performance up to 14% in Call of Duty: Black Ops at 1920×1080 resolution and 0x Anti-Aliasing and 0xAF on the AMD Radeon™ HD 6790 GPU
• Improves performance up to 10% in Crysis 2 at 1920×1200 resolution and 0x Anti-Aliasing and 0xAF on the AMD Radeon™ HD 6790 GPU
• Improves performance up to 19% in Left 4 Dead 2 at 1680×1050 resolution and 0x Anti-Aliasing and 0xAF on the AMD Radeon™ HD 6790 GPU
• Improves performance up to 28% in Lost Planet 2 at 1920×1200 resolution and 8x Anti-Aliasing and 16xAF on the AMD Radeon™ HD 6790 GPU
• Improves performance up to 44% in DiRT 2 at 2560×1600 resolution and 8x Anti-Aliasing and 16xAF on the AMD Radeon™ HD 6790 GPU
• Improves performance up to 45% in Metro 2033 at 1920×1200 resolution and 4x Anti-Aliasing and 16xAF on the AMD Radeon™ HD 6790 GPU



Last but not least, I want to thank everyone for the feedback and comments we have been receiving from the community.  Please continue to send us your feedback as we do review them all.**

*AMD’s product warranty does not cover damages caused by overclocking, even when overclocking is enabled via AMD software.

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

To download the AMD Catalyst™ 11.8 driver, click here.

Until Next Time,

Chris Bell

Chris Bell 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.

As many of you know, some months we focus on performance improvements much like you will see with the AMD Catalyst 11.8 Preview driver. Other months we focus on adding exciting features such as AMD Steady Video like you saw with the AMD Catalyst™ 11.6 driver.  However, this month we took a slightly different approach. Thanks to feedback from our community, we’ve focused on resolving some minor issues that have been reported.  We work tirelessly to continually improve our drivers, and here’s a look at the issues we’ve resolved in AMD Catalyst 11.7.

• Issues experienced with mouse cursor lag
• Log event (Event ID 62464) issues when playing video content
• System hangs seen in the AMD Catalyst™ 11.6 driver on specific HDMI and DP displays
• Blu-ray playback using PowerDVD 10 under High Performance mode no longer randomly displays a blank screen.
• Some Divx format files no longer display video corruption using WinDVD.
• AMD SteadyVideo is now applied to Home Video clips using WinDVD 10.
• Chequerboard corruption is no longer displayed intermittently when playing DirectX 10 titles in an AMD CrossFire™ technology configuration and AMD Eyefinity technology-enabled.
• Shogun II now renders the cinematics correctly when run in various Eyefinity configurations.
• Video playback now works correctly when Hardware acceleration is enabled with VLC Player version 1.1.9.
• AMD CrossFire technology now functions correctly when playing Hamilton’s Great Adventure.
• PowerDVD now correctly handles 3D Blu-ray content.

Now let’s talk about the AMD Catalyst™ 11.8 Preview Driver which most of you are probably excited to learn about.  With this preview of next month’s driver you are going to see some amazing performance improvements which are highlighted below.  You will also see how we are further enabling the 3D ecosystem by offering AMD HD3D technology support on some of the latest and greatest DisplayPort panels on the market.  

Here a few quick highlights of what you can expect to see with the AMD Catalyst™ 11.8 Preview driver.

• Enables AMD HD3D technology support on DisplayPort panels, such as Samsung 750 and 950 series 3D displays.
• Improves performance up to 13% in Crysis 2 DirectX 11 version  at 2560×1600 resolution and 4X Anti-Aliasing on the AMD Radeon™ HD 6870 GPU
• Improves performance up to 7% in Shotgun 2 – Total War at 2560×1600 resolution and 4X Anti-Aliasing on the AMD Radeon™ HD 6770 GPU
• Improves performance up to 13% in Call of Duty: Black Ops at 2560×1600 resolution and 4X Anti-Aliasing on the AMD Radeon™ HD 6770 GPU

Last but not least I want to thank everyone for the feedback and comments we have been receiving from the community.  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.

To download the AMD Catalyst™ 11.7 driver, click here.

The AMD Catalyst™ 11.8 Preview driver can be found here: http://support.amd.com/us/kbarticles/Pages/Catalyst118DriverPreview.aspx

Until Next Time,

Chris Bell

Chris Bell 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.

Below is a summary of the AMD Catalyst™ 11.6 driver:

AMD Steady Video Technology¹

• AMD Steady Video technology is currently an AMD exclusive feature based on AMD App Technology²
• By applying advanced algorithms behind the scenes, users do not have to deal with shaky or unstable video ever again!
• Capabilities scale with hardware and are end-user controlled
• Image Stabilization brought to your favorite social media video sites!
  • Enabled through the AMD Vision Engine Control Center: Video Settings tab:
• AMD Steady Video technology is supported on the following products:
  • AMD Radeon™ HD 6000 Series when used in combination with an AMD CPU
  • AMD E-450 and E-350 APUs
  • AMD A8, A6, and A4 series APUs

Supported in the following 3rd party players:  Adobe Flash player, Windows Media player, Cyberlink PowerDVD, Corel Win DVD, ArcSoft TotalMedia Theater.

Decode Acceleration of MPEG-4 Part 2 Content

• AMD has enabled decode acceleration of MPEG-4 part 2 content in Microsoft video player applications (through MFT support) for all AMD Radeon™ HD 6000 Series graphics cards.

We are also bringing you some noticeable performance improvements on the latest and greatest games.  Some of the performance highlights are:

• The AMD Radeon™ HD 6990 GPU will see the following performance gains:
  • 3DMark11 – gains of up to 25% with 4x Anti-Aliasing and 16x Anisotropic Filtering at 1920×1080 on single GPU configurations
  • Alien vs. Predator – gains of up to 7% with 4x Anti-Aliasing and 16x Anisotropic Filtering at 1920×1200 on single GPU configurations
  • Civilization V – gains of up to 7% with 8x Anti-Aliasing and 16x Anisotropic Filtering at 1920×1200 on single GPU configurations
  • Crysis Warhead – gains of up to 8% with 4x Anti-Aliasing and 8x Anisotropic Filtering at 2560×1600 on single GPU configurations
  • DiRT 2 – gains of up to 9% with 8x Anti-Aliasing and 16x Anisotropic Filtering at 2560×1600 on single GPU configurations
  • F1 2010 – gains of up to 9% with 8x Anti-Aliasing and 16x Anisotropic Filtering at 2560×1600 on single GPU configurations
  • Tom Clancy’s Hawx – gains of up to 7% with 4x Anti-Aliasing and 8x Anisotropic Filtering at 1920×1200 on single GPU configurations

Last but not least I want to thank everyone for the feedback and comments we have been receiving from the community.  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.

To download the AMD Catalyst™ 11.6 driver, click here.

Until Next Time,

Chris Bell

1.  AMD Steady Video is a technology designed to eliminate shakes and jitters during the playback of home video.  Users may turn on this  technology via the AMD Catalyst Control Center™ or the VISION Engine Control Center application. AMD Steady Video will work with content that can run on Adobe® Flash® Player 10.2 (and later versions) or on any player which has been programed to use AMD’s decode acceleration (DXVA) engine.    AMD Steady Video is not designed to (a) isolate overlays, logos 

or captions, or (b) improve the playback of letter boxed, premium/commercial, or interlaced content.  AMD Steady Video is only recommended for use with videos that contain unwanted shakes and jitters.

2. AMD App Acceleration is a set of technologies designed to improve video quality and enhance application performance. Full enablement of some features requires support for OpenCL™ or DirectCompute (including AMD’s Unified Video Decoder (UVD)). Not all products have all features and full enablement of some capabilities and may require complementary products.

Chris Bell 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.

Now for the latest AMD Catalyst driver news. We have released the AMD Catalyst™ 11.5 driver which focuses on HydraVision™ enhancements for configurations employing AMD Eyefinity technology.  HydraVision has been a key feature that has helped increase AMD Eyefinity adoption and consumer productivity with AMD Eyefinity display configurations.

The highlights of the AMD Catalyst 11.5 driver are:

• · HydraVision enhancements for AMD Eyefinity configurations
  • The HydraGrid feature found in HydraVision is now aware of user created Bezels
  • The HydraGrid feature found in HydraVision now also includes as “Automatic Grid” option that aligns to the user defined AMD Eyefinity display layout.

Not only have we released the AMD Catalyst™ 11.5 driver this month but we have worked double duty and also released the AMD Catalyst 11.5a hotfix driver.  The key features that are part of the hotfix driver are the latest performance optimizations for the much anticipated upcoming release of Brink™.

Last but not least I want to thank everyone for the feedback and comments we have been receiving from the community.  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.

To download the AMD Catalyst™ 11.5 driver, click here.

To download the AMD Catalyst™ 11.5a hotfix driver, click here.

Until Next Time,

Chris Bell

Chris Bell 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.

For those of you not as familiar with ancient mythology here is a short background on the history of Mjolnir. In ancient Norse mythology, Mjölnir was the hammer used by Thor, the god of storms.  This fearsome weapon was said to be capable of leveling mountains and pulverizing any obstacle just like we expect you to do to your gaming competition after you download this driver.

When we saw the incredible performance improvements of this driver we knew that this was not just any driver and that it was indeed special.  This driver had a secret ingredient that would make it the perfect complement to the world’s fastest graphics card, one that could take our AMD Radeon™ HD 6000 graphics series to the next level.

Now, if you take a look at the performance data below, you can see why we’re pretty excited about this driver release.  In just one short month we have been able to raise the performance of some of the top games such as Crysis Warhead by up to 37% when compared to our AMD Catalyst™ 11.3 driver.

• Up to 21% performance improvement in Batman: Arkham Asylum
• Up to 13% performance improvement in BattleForge
• Up to 13% performance improvement in Call of Duty: Black Ops
• Up to 37% performance improvement in Crysis Warhead
• Up to 20% performance improvement in Lost Planet 2
• Up to 10% performance improvement in Medal of Honor
• Up to 26% performance improvement in Civilization V

Mjölnir I not only improves performance but also enhances the user interface with the following features.

• New task based Display Management controls
  • Simplifies the configuration of displays and display settings
• New setup group for AMD Eyefinity technology
  • Setting up a group for AMD Eyefinity has never been easier
• AMD Catalyst ™ update notification (found within the Information Center)
  • This feature notifies users that new AMD Catalyst™ software packages are available

Mjölnir I demonstrates how a great driver can adapt and evolve over time.  We expect a few other versions of Mjolnir to be released throughout the year with more performance improvements so stay tuned!

So now the time has come for you to get in the action and download Mjolnir I right here!

Chris Bell 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 As of February 20, 2011, the AMD Radeon™ HD 6990 scores X3303 in 3DMark® 11, the highest single graphics card score achieved to date.