Posts tagged with Display Drivers
ATI Catalyst™ 9.11 Driver – What’s New?
Posted by Jay Marsden in 1:45 PM
(18 votes, average: 3.50 out of 5)
Loading ...It’s that time again for the ATI 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 ATI Catalyst™ driver, or your graphics card please report your issues here.
Here is what is new in ATI Catalyst™ 9.11:
New Features
GPU Acceleration of H.264 video content using Adobe Flash Player 10.1 Beta
- This release of ATI Catalyst™ supports the new Hardware Acceleration features of Adobe Flash Player 10.1 Beta for video encoded in the H.264 format.
- Adobe Flash Player 10.1 Beta introduces hardware-based H.264 video decoding to deliver smooth video playback, reduced system resource utilization, and to help preserve battery life.
- Adobe Flash Player 10.1 Beta is expected to be available for download from Adobe Labs (labs.adobe.com) before the end of the year. This feature is supported on the ATI Radeon™ HD 5800, ATI Radeon™ HD 5700 and ATI Radeon HD™ 4000 Series of products.
High Quality downscaling for Video Transcoding MSE
- This release of ATI Catalyst™ includes an enhancement for the ATI Video converter for users Transcoding high quality interlaced content (1920×1080i @60i videos) down to small resolution progressive content (320×240 @30p – iPod videos as an example), by maintaining high visual quality when down-scaling by a significant amount and converting interlaced video content to progressive.
Highlights of the Linux ATI Catalyst™ 9.11 release include:
New Features
Support for new Linux operating systems
- This release of ATI Catalyst™ Linux introduces support for the following new operating systems:
- RHEL 5.4 support
- openSUSE 11.2 early look support
To download the driver, click here.
Till Next Month,
Jay Marsden
Jay Marsden is a Public Relations 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.
ATI Catalyst™ 9.10 Driver – What’s New?
Posted by Jay Marsden in 8:32 AM
I would like to thank Ian McNaughton for doing such a FANTASTIC job at informing and building the following that he has on AMD at Play. Ian has handed the reins of the blog covering our ATI Catalyst software suite over to me as he is focusing on adding more diverse content to AMD at Play blogs. Ian will still be monitoring this blog and will be engaging with the community where he can.
A little about me: I have been working in the GPU industry for approx 16 years, with most of that time at ATI Technologies doing many different jobs, from working in a lab testing for Hardware Qualification on ATI GPUS, to Product Marketing for ATI’s motherboard chipsets, to my current role as Public Relations Manager for AMD supporting reviews of our ATI GPUs and ATI Catalyst drivers.
The ATI Catalyst driver blogs have been gaining momentum, and interest is growing each and every month. The ATI Catalyst team is dedicated to keeping users informed about any and all updates on our drivers.
Between Windows 7, DirectX 11, and the new ATI Radeon GPUs, we are taking your visual experience to the next level with DirectX 11 support and new features like ATI Eyefinity technology. ATI Catalyst drivers are at the center of this innovation, driving new features and functions, while focusing on compatibility, and stability for all.
It is the ultimate tool for your GPU!
I have made you wait long enough – on to the ATI Catalyst 9.10 driver release!
New Features:
- Official ATI Catalyst WHQL release supporting ATI Radeon HD 5800 series GPUs. ATI Catalyst 9.10 now includes full GPU support for the award winning ATI HD Radeon 5800 series GPUs!
- Super Sample Anti-Aliasing for the ATI Radeon HD 5800 Series. ATI Catalyst 9.10 provides support for a new Anti-Aliasing method on the ATI Radeon HD 5800 Series. Users can now experience the high level of anti-aliasing image quality using Super Sampling anti-aliasing while maintaining good performance levels.
Highlights of the ATI Catalyst 9.10 release for Linux includes:
- This release of ATI Catalyst driver for Linux introduces support for the following new operating systems: Ubuntu 9.10 early look support
Highlights of resolved issues
- Ghostbusters video game no longer flickers between desktop and game play when anti-aliasing is set to 8X and game resolution set to 2560×1600
- Enabling Screen Space Ambient Occlusion option in “Riddick 2 Dark Athena” no longer causes the game to fail under Multi-GPU configurations
- Severe flickering no longer observed while running 3D games/samples on specific HDMI displays with configurations using ATI CrossFireX™ technology in tri and quad modes
- Desktop flashing no longer observed after driver installation and reboot with systems configured with Radeon ASIC in the primary PCIe slot and ATI Fire Stream™ ASIC in the secondary PCIe slot
- “Combat Mission Shock Force” no longer fails after a duration of game play
- Underscan/Overscan settings for TV can now be applied from the ATI Catalyst Control Center – TV Properties Adjustments page
- Changes to the “All Settings” and “Basic Quality” pages in ATI Catalyst Control Center - Avivo™ Video will now be retained after reboot
To download the driver, click here.
Discuss Catalyst 9.10 in our Forums.
See you Next Month!
Jay Marsden
Jay Marsden is a Public Relations 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.
ATI Catalyst 9.9 Driver – Everything you want to know and why you should care
Posted by Ian McNaughton in 1:34 PM
Loading ...Game Optimizations: ATI CatalystTM9.9 Driver
With last month’s release of the ATI CatalystTM 9.8 driver, we saw huge game performance increases, given that, this month the driver team focused on other applications and optimizations.
ATI CatalystTM 9.9 Driver has no new features but does have the following resolved issues:
Anti-Aliasing support for Ghostbusters
ATI CrossFireXTM support for Resident Evil 5
Graphics corruption fix for Sims 3
ATI CatalystTM Control Center – Basic mode now responds appropriately after exiting Quick Adjust Video Settings
Edge enhancement and de-noise sliders in ATI Catalyst Control Center no longer lags or appears out of sync with mouse movement
Launching Hotkeys Manager in ATI Catalyst Control Center no longer causes an unhandled exception error
The “Desktop Rotation” page in ATI Catalyst Control Center no longer shows additional information for the second display when the secondary adapter is connected
HDMI is now detected properly as DTV (HDMI) instead of DTV (DVI) when the HDMI display is hotplugged for the first time
ATI Catalyst Control Center no longer displays error message when specific HDMI displays are hot unplugged and hotplugged back
Intermittent failures no longer occur with Cyberlink MediaShow Espresso once a transcoding process has been completed
And last but surely not least, my favorite community: ATI CatalystTM 9.9 driver for Linux!
Support for new Linux operating systems
This release of ATI Catalyst driver for Linux introduces support for the following new operating systems:
• openSUSE 11.1 production support
• SLED and SLES 10 SP3 early look support
To download the full release notes, click here.
See you next month!
Ian “Cabrtosr” 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.
ATI Catalyst™ 9.8 Driver – Everything you want to know and why you should care
Posted by Ian McNaughton in 1:24 PM
Loading ...Game Optimizations: ATI CatalystTM 9.8 Driver
Our test system configuration is:
| AMD Phenom II 940 (3.0GHz) processor |
| Asus M3A79-T(790) motherboard |
| 4GB DDR2-800 5-5-5-18 memory |
| Windows VISTA Ultimate SP1 64bit |
This month we are seeing a massive performance increase with a whole host of games as compared to the ATI Catalyst 9.7 driver. Detailed release notes are available for most of the game optimizations; here are the highlights:
- Battleforge DirectX 10/DirectX 10.1 performance improves of up to 50% with the largest gains in configurations using ATI CrossFireXTM technology.
- Company of Heroes DirectX 10 performance improves of up to 77%.
- Crysis DirectX 10 performance of ATI CrossFireX technology in dual mode improves of up to 10% and quad mode performance improves of up to 34%.
- Crysis Warhead DirectX 10 performance of ATI CrossFireX technology in dual mode improves of up to 7% and quad mode performance improves of up to 69%.
- Far Cry 2 DirectX 10 performance of ATI CrossFireX technology in dual mode improves of up to 50% and quad mode performance improves of up to 88%.
- Tom Clancy’s H.A.W.X. DirectX 10/DirectX 10.1 performance of ATI CrossFireX technology in dual mode improves of up to 40% and with quad mode performance improving of up to 60%.
- UnigineTropics OpenGL performance improvements of up to 20%.
- UnigineTropics DirectX 10 performance of ATI CrossFireX technology in quad mode improvements of up to 20%.
- World in Conflict DirectX 10 performance improvements of up to by 10%.
Marketing sound bite: ATI Catalyst 9.8 – Open GLTM 3.1 Support
It’s fitting that last weekend AMD was in attendance at Quakecon 2009 in Dallas,Texas where the world’s most prolific OpenGLsupporters gathered for 4 days of ‘peace, love and rockets,’ that we are announcing support for OpenGL 3.1 and the following details:
This release of the ATI Catalyst driver provides OpenGL 3.1 extension support. The following is a list of OpenGL 3.1 features and extensions added in ATI Catalyst 9.8:
- Support for OpenGL Shading Language 1.30 and 1.40.
- Instanced rendering with a per-instance counter accessible to vertex shaders (GL ARB draw instanced).
- Data copying between buffer objects (GL EXT copy buffer).
- Primitive restart (NV primitive restart). Because client enable/disable no longer exists in OpenGL 3.1, the PRIMITIVE RESTART state has become server state, unlike the Nvidia extension where it is client state. As a result, the numeric values assigned to PRIMITIVE RESTART and PRIMITIVE RESTART INDEX differ from the NV versions of those tokens.
- At least 16 texture image units must be accessible to vertex shaders, in addition to the 16 already guaranteed to be accessible to fragment shaders.
- Texture buffer objects (GL ARB texture buffer object).
- Rectangular textures (GL ARB texture rectangle).
- Uniform buffer objects (GL ARB uniform buffer object).
- SNORM texture component formats.
And last but surely not least, my favorite community: ATI CatalystTM 9.8 driver for Linux!
Support for new Linux operating systems
This release of ATI Catalyst driver for Linux introduces support for the following new operating systems:
- RHEL 4.8 production support
- Ubuntu 9.04 production support
ATI CatalystTM Control Center – Linux Edition support for RandR 1.2
This release of the ATI Catalyst driver for Linux introduces ATI Catalyst Control Center – Linux Edition support for the RandR 1.2 extension API. The following new features are now available in the ATI Catalyst Control Center – Linux Edition Display Manager:
- Display rotation
- Multiple display arrangement and desktop sizing
To download the full release notes here.
Please report all technical support issues here.
See you next month!
Cheers!
Ian “Cabrtosr” 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.
What’s a good title for a Quakecon blog?
Posted by Ian McNaughton in 1:39 PM
It has to be about the “Future”…
“Last night, Darth Vader came down from planet Vulcan and told me that if I didn’t take Lorraine out that he’d melt my brain”. – George McFly
PMS Clan and a future gaming superstar on our Quakecon booth
Well, its day 2 at Quakecon 2009 and my brain hasn’t melted, but I have seen a Darth Vader or two… In thinking about the ‘right’ title for my blog, “The Future” was an obvious choice seeing as how we have packed up #Area64 and transported it all the way to Dallas.
What is #Area64 you ask, well, it’s the secret place in Austin where AMD has all of its unreleased products, engineering secrets and where we keep the flux capacitor. As one can imagine, we need to keep such a place heavily guarded and hard to find, so, what do a bunch of AMD gamers do, we packed it up and rebuilt it in the Gaylord Hotel for Quakecon. I am currently writing this blog from the heart of our mobile #area64, the sounds of next generation technology humming away behind me!
Pete and Chris from AMD showcasing our Quakecon shirts...
Wait a minute, Doc. Ah… Are you telling me that you built a time machine… out of a DeLorean? – Marty McFly
No, we didn’t bring our time machine but I am not going to comment on if AMD has built a time machine, that’s a completely different blog. But, we did bring what we expect will revolutionize the way you play games on PC’s in the future.
How does one gain access into #area64 and who gets access, great questions, here is what you have to do:
AMD will be limiting access to #Area64 to 100 almost random gamers, meaning anyone and everyone has a fair shot at “Seeing the Future”, just follow these AMD’ers on Twitter;
@IanMcNaughton – @Tweetoe – @Catalystmaker - @AMD_Unprocessed & @Caseygotcher
We will be tweeting hints and actions during Quakecon, it could be as simple as “The first 5 gamers who meet us at XX, gain access” or “Make a short video about Why you need or should have access to #Area64 and post to Youtube, gain access”.
Or, you could simply track us down and ask for an “on the spot action for access”.
Here are the shirts we are giving away, they are unique and numbered from 1-100, if you see anyone wearing them in the halls or BYOC, you know they have “SEEN THE FUTURE”!
The Future is Awesome!
As a special treat to all the readers of my blog, via this blog, you will be the first to download the latest ATI Catalyst 9.8 driver here:
XP
Vista and Win7
[Update: Official ATI Catalyst 9.8 Drivers are available here]
Enjoy!
Cheers!
Ian “Cabrtosr” 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.
Wolfenstein and Quakecon 2009
Posted by Ian McNaughton in 2:00 PM
The game that started the FPS phenomenon!
Back in the early nineties, there was a game that truly defined all video games that followed, do you remember? Well, for those readers who were not born yet, the game was called Wolfenstein 3D and its introduction was a defining moment. Some believe that Wolfenstein 3D defined the FPS as we know it. I would have to completely agree!
If you were a Doom player then you can thank Wolf 3D for blazing the trail for what was, is, and continues to be an amazing gaming franchise. Fast forward to August 2009 and transport yourself to Dallas, Texas and you can relive those original Wolf 3D experiences with AMD at Quakecon 2009.
id Software has teamed up with Raven Studios to develop a new game called “Wolfenstein”. In the new game you play the original character William B.J Blazkowicz who just happens to be a super metalled out member of the Office of Secret Actions (OSA). Come on, how cool would that business card be?
Ian McNaughton
AMD
Office of Secret Actions
Will need to print some of those up for Quakecon!
The new Wolfenstein looks fantastic, I was able to score an early copy to hone my skillz in preparation for this weekend’s festivities and the game is awesome so far…
AMD will be showcasing Wolfenstein on our booth as well as in #area64.
We will also be providing live updates via Twitter and vlogs via blogs.amd.com.
#Area64 will be exclusive access only, meaning, you can try to find it, but its hidden and being kept secret. AMD will be showcasing what we lovingly refer to as “The Future”, if you want to see the future, follow me as well as @AMD_Unprocessed , @Catalystmaker, @caseygotcher and @Tweetoe for ways to get invited.
Strap in and hold on, Quakecon 2009 is about to begin!
Cheers!
Ian “Cabrtosr” 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.
ATI Catalyst 9.7 Driver – Everything you want to know
Posted by Ian McNaughton in 5:23 PM
Do you regularly update your graphics drivers?
With four months of ATI CatalystTM driver blogs under our belt, we are seeing a steady engagement from the community via this blog site. Please keep up the comments and suggestions and we will endeavor to answer as many as we can. So, without further ado – let me introduce the ATI Catalyst 9.7 Driver Release!
Please report all driver related issues here.
*If you are having technical issues with your graphics card or are in need of driver support, please use the proper channels to submit those issues here.*
Marketing sound bite: ATI Catalyst 9.7 – AMD’s first official unified Windows 7 / Windows Vista Microsoft WHQL certified graphics driver for the Windows 7 RTM
ATI Catalyst 9.7 driver is AMD’s first official unified WHQL (Windows Hardware Quality Labs) certified graphics driver designed for Windows 7 RTM (Release to Manufacturing) as well as Windows Vista. Being able to have a single unified driver can enable power users to continue to support their existing OS while also experiencing the great new features of Windows 7 while running dual OS’s.
In a previous blog I highlight my own personal experience but for the purposes of this blog here are the Windows 7 highlights:
- Superior gaming performance when compared to previous Microsoft OS’s using either a single GPU configuration or ATI CrossfireXTM technology configurations
- Superior stability via AMD’s WHQL certified and unified Windows 7/Windows Vista graphics driver
- Leadership in Innovation with support for all the Windows 7 WDDM 1.1 features and ATI CatalystTM features with current ATI RadeonTM HD 4000, HD 3000 and HD 2000 series of products.
Marketing sound bite: ATI CatalystTM 9.7 – ATI CatalystTM Control Center – Enhanced user interface
When our customers provide feedback, we listen! Case in point, we have received feedback that the Catalyst GUI needed a refresh, some parts of the GUI were not efficient and required a makeover, AMD listened and delivered.
In this new beta version of CatalystTM Control Center we have a newly redesigned user interface to enhance usability and end user efficiency, which includes a newly designed Desktops and Displays Manager which will enable users to quickly configure and arrange their displays. Most of us power users have multiple monitors and as such, this will help with the frustrations of multi monitor management, especially with scenarios where a laptop is removed from a docking station prior to sleeping and returned prior to sleeping. ATI CatalystTM 9.7 has full support for Hydravision under Windows 7.
We have designed in a new streamlined look where the settings and controls are now found in the new “Graphics” and “Options” drop down menus allowing users to very quickly select different tabs and adjust the desired settings.
All of the above enhancements to ATI CatalystTM Control Center are supported under Windows 7 and Windows Vista. This beta version is the first in an exciting transition for CCC and we await feedback!
Marketing sound bite: ATI CatalystTM 9.7 – ATI Video Converter update – support for Windows 7
With the introduction of CatalystTM 9.7, we are introducing support for the ATI Video converter under Windows 7 32-bit and Windows 7 64-bit versions.
With the massive explosion of mainstream consumption of HD video, owners of ATI RadeonTM HD 4800 and ATI RadeonTM HD 4600 series of graphics cards can now take advantage of the video conversion tool found in the ATI CatalystTM Control Center under Basic View. Using this video conversion tool, users can benefit from substantial performance improvements when transcoding video files.
Game Optimizations: ATI CatalystTM 9.7
Our test system configuration is:
| AMD Phenom II 940 (3.0GHz) |
| Asus M3A79-T(790) |
| 4GB DDR2-800 5-5-5-18 |
| Windows VISTA Ultimate SP1 64bit |
This month we are seeing a further performance increase with Crysis and Lost Planet Colonies as compared to ATI Catalyst 9.6. Following are some of this month’s highlights. Detailed release notes are available for most of the game optimizations; I have simply picked a few to highlight in this blog.
- Crysis – performance gains at ‘very high’ quality presets increase by up to 8% on ATI Radeon HD 4800 series products.
- Lost Planet Colonies – performance increase of up to 7-11% when 8x Anti-Aliasing is used on the ATI Radeon HD 4800 series products
And last but surely not least, my favorite community: Linux® ATI CatalystTM 9.7
This month’s release has support for the following new operating systems:
- RedFlag DT 7.0 production support
To download the full release notes, click here.
See you next month!
Cheers!
Ian “Cabrtosr” 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.
ATI Catalyst 9.6 Driver – Everything you want to know
Posted by Ian McNaughton in 1:51 PM
Loading ...
With three months of ATI Catalyst™ driver blogs under our belt, we are seeing a steady engagement from the community via this blog site. Please keep up the comments and suggestions and we will endeavor to answer as many as we can. So, without further ado – let me introduce ATI Catalyst 9.6!
Please report all driver related issues here.
*If you are having technical issues with your graphics card or are in need of driver support, please use the proper channels to submit those issues here.*
Game Optimizations: ATI Catalyst™ 9.6
Our test system configuration is:
|
AMD Phenom II 940 (3.0GHz) processor |
|
Asus M3A79-T(790) |
|
4GB DDR2-800 5-5-5-18 |
|
Windows Vista Ultimate SP1 64bit |
This month we are seeing a further performance increase with Company of Heroes and some significant performance increases for Crysis Warhead, Crysis and World in Conflict, compared with last month’s ATI Cataylst 9.5 driver. Following are some of this month’s highlights. Detailed release notes are available here.
- Company of Heroes – performance gains of up to 25% for the ATI Radeon HD 4600 Series, and performance gains of up to 10% for the ATI Radeon HD 4800 Series
- Crysis Warhead – performance gains of up to 11% for ATI CrossFireX technology in dual configuration.
- Crysis – performance gains of up to 13% for ATI CrossFireX technology in dual configuration.
- World in Conflict – performance gains of up to 30% for high settings that were previously CPU limited with the ATI Radeon HD 4800 series.
Of course, your performance may vary, depending on your particular system configuration.
And last but surely not least, my favorite community: Linux® ATI Catalyst™ 9.6 Driver
This month’s release has support for the following new operating systems:
· SLED and SLED 11 production support
· RHEL 4.8 early look support
ATI MultiView™ for Consumer users
· Allows users to render applications using a multiple GPU configuration with a unified workspace
· Enables Xinerama in single or multiple GPU configurations
· Supported on any combination of the ATI Radeon™ HD 4000, ATI Radeon™ 3000 Series and ATI Radeon™ 2000 Series of graphics cards
To download the full release notes, click here.
See you next month!
Cheers!
Ian “Cabrtosr” 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.
ATI Catalyst 9.5 Driver – Everything you want to know
Posted by Ian McNaughton in 1:49 PM
Do you regularly update your graphics drivers?
With 2 months of ATI CatalystTM driver blogs under our belt, we are seeing a steady engagement from you guys in the community via this blog site. Please keep up the comments and suggestions and we will endeavor to answer as many as we can. So, without further ado – let me introduce ATI Catalyst 9.5!
Please report all driver related issues here.
*If you are having technical issues with your graphics card or are in need of driver support, please use the proper channels to submit those issues here.*
Marketing sound bite: ATI CatalystTM 9.5 – Unified Microsoft WHQL certified graphics driver for Windows® 7 and Windows Vista®
WHQL is the word of the month for this blog; AMD was the first to introduce a fully certified single unified WHQL approved graphics driver for Windows® 7 and Windows Vista®. By meeting Microsoft’s WHQL certification requirements in ATI CatalystTM 9.5 driver for both Windows 7 and Windows Vista, we clearly showcase our continued focus on delivering an extremely stable and robust Win 7 experience. First to market is important, but best to market first is how we roll at AMD in terms of graphics driver support for new operating systems. AMD led the market with early support for Vista and now continues that graphics driver leadership with the launch of Catalyst 9.5.
All ATI RadeonTM GPU users with an ATI Radeon HD 4000, 3000 and 2000 series product will enjoy WHQL certified support under Win 7 with ATI Catalyst 9.5.
Marketing sound bite: ATI Stream update:
<Insert Drum roll here please>
The comments section of my blog has been filled for 2 months with questions on when we were going to deliver 64-bit support for ATI AVIVOTM technology under Windows Vista, today is the day!
With today’s release of ATI Catalyst 9.5 a number of issues that you may have previously experienced using the ATI Video Converter have been resolved! Also, ATI AVIVO technology is now supported under Windows Vista 32-bit and Windows Vista 64-bit.
Using ATI Stream technology, users of ATI Radeon HD 4800 Series and ATI Radeon HD 4600 Series of graphics cards can take advantage of new optimizations in this video conversion tool (found in ATI CatalystTM Control Center Basic View) for a better experience when transcoding video files.
Game Optimizations: ATI CatalystTM 9.5
One of the items I want to cover each month is optimizations in games and highlighting those for you in this blog; now, I want to be honest and upfront, I intend to highlight the top games and/or optimizations but not all of them! All of the details and minutia are listed in the release notes of each ATI Catalyst Driver and that can be viewed here.
For this month the highlights are:
- Unigine Tropics DirectX® 9 – enables performance gains for single GPU and ATI CrossFireXTM configurations with anti-aliasing enabled.
- Company of Heroes - enables performance gains for both single GPU and ATI CrossFireXTM configurations.
- BattleForge- enables performance gains for ATI CrossFireXTM configurations.
And last but surely not least, my favorite community: Linux® ATI CatalystTM 9.5
No new features this month but a host of fixes included in this month’s release.
See you next month!
Cheers!
Ian “Cabrtosr” 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.
ATI Catalyst™ 9.4 Driver – Everything you want to know
Posted by Ian McNaughton in 2:04 PM
Do you regularly update your graphics drivers?
Hot on the heels of the ATI Radeon™ HD 4890 launch complete with astounding reception from journalists, customers, gamers and winning over 40 awards to date, Terry Makedon and his team have a Catalyst update to launch as well! The ATI Catalyst™ 9.3 driver was only released 22 days ago, so don’t expect a lot of optimizations, but the driver team has built in a few goodies for ATI Catalyst 9.4 that are worth the update.
[NOTE: Some readers took advantage of my last blog to raise some driver support issues - I wanted to remind readers that this blog is not meant as a driver support page, and ALL driver support issues should be communicated through the proper channels so we can capture them correctly and fix the issues. So please report all driver related issues here. I am happy to read and comment on some of them that you feel are relevant to this blog, but no support will be given via this blog, sadly I am not a driver engineer!]
Marketing sound bite: ATI Catalyst™ 9.4 - New ATI OverDrive™ auto-tuning application*
ATI Catalyst 9.4 includes a new ATI Overdrive™ auto-tune application finds over-clocked engine and memory values for ATI Overdrive supported ATI Radeon™ Graphics accelerators. This new added support is designed for the ATI Radeon™ HD 4000 Series of GPUs.
We work hard to deliver the best platform solutions that consist of CPU and GPU. As the only company in the industry that can deliver both we have the unique opportunity to develop free software to optimize performance across AMD-based platforms.
I don’t think we say enough about our gaming software, here are links to download all of our recent applications:
- AMD Fusion for Gaming Utility*
- AMD Overdrive Software*
- ATI Catalyst™9.4 Drivers with ATI OverDrive™ auto-tuning application*
Some of the other notable highlights in ATI Catalyst 9.4 are that this driver is optimized for the upcoming highly anticipated game The Chronicles of Riddick – Assault on Dark Athena. Catalyst 9.4 also supports the new ATI Radeon™ HD 4890 as well as fixes a load of bugs; please check out the release notes for full details.
And last but surely not least, my favorite community: ATI Catalyst™ 9.4 for Linux
We will have support (once the driver is available on or about April 17th) for new operating systems:
- RHEL 5.3 production support
- Ubuntu 9.04 early look support
So, what does this all really mean to you, the gamer? It is further commitment to the enthusiast community that overclock or want the ability to tweak their systems.* That is, you own an AMD processor and an ATI Radeon GPU, you will be enabled to have a superior PC experience with our gaming software products, and of course, if you are a Linux user, a broader set of platform support.
See you next month!
Cheers!
Ian “Cabrtosr” McNaughton
*AMD product warranty does not cover damage caused by performance tuning, even when enabled using AMD software.
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.