ATI today is hosting the latest installment of their feature rich and well received Catalyst driver suite. Among the long list of fixes in this driver release are as main highlights:

CodeCreatures score is improved by 20% at 4X AA for 9700 series products
NASCAR 2002 framerate is up as much as 18% across the entire Radeon products line
NHL 2002 performance is up as much as 35% across the entire product line (largest gains on Radeon 7500/8500)
Performance on legacy (DX6 and DX7) apps is improved by as much as 15% for Radeon 9700 series products
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The Catalyst software suite is designed to support the following ATI desktop product family:

Radeon 9700 series
Radeon 9500 series
Radeon 9000 series
Radeon 8500 series
Radeon 7500 series
Radeon 7200 series
Radeon 7000 series
Additional Features:


Users can easily override refresh rate limitation imposed by both Windows 2000 and Windows XP, which limits the default refresh rate to 60 HZ when applications are run at a different resolution than the resolution of your desktop. Currently users are only able to override the refresh rate for DirectX applications, a future driver release will allow users to override the refresh rate for OpenGL applications as well.
To access the override navigate as follows: Bring up the ATI Control Panel and selected the Displays Tab. Click on Monitor tab and you will see a new DirectX Override Refresh Rate (ATI recommends selecting the ‘Same As Desktop’ setting) tab.
Catalyst 02.4 gives provides users with a new level of stability using SmartGart 2. SmartGart 2 gives users access to both the basic and advanced functionality through two control panel pages:
The Advanced control panel can be accessed by using the Start -> Run -> command then typing "SmartGart".
The basic SmartGart control panel can be easily accessed through the ATI control panel.
The Catalyst 02.4 driver also offers customer-setting options for formats supported by YPrPb monitors/TVs. Televisions are typically over scanned (i.e., the actual image goes marginally outside of the normal viewing area of the display). Selecting an Optimized Format will compensate for this over scanning, for the chosen format, and allow the entire desktop to fit the viewing area.
Issues Resolved:

The Details page now reports the correct AGP data transfer rate and video memory type
When extended desktop is enabled, the default display setting is no longer 640x480 @ 8 Bit bpp.
End-users are now able to un-install the display driver without requiring an ATI graphics accelerator installed in their system
The TV image is no longer over scanned on TV screens when Component Vide Output is connected to ATI a Radeon 8500 product
Descent 3 no longer displays corruption in sky on a ATI Radeon 8500 under Windows 2000
Myth 3 no longer suffers from speckling artifacts and missing triangles on the swords on a ATI Radeon 8500 under Windows 2000
Tribes no longer suffers from corrupt textures and checkerboard effects on a ATI Radeon 9700 under Windows 2000
The game Aquanox no longer displays corruption when run in the 640x480 mode on a ATI Radeon 7000 graphic card under Windows ME
The right red energize bar and the left damage status squares are no longer missing in the game Ballistic on an ATI Radeon 7000 graphic card under Windows ME
Enabling all options in No One Lives Forever 2 and restarting the game no longer results in characters missing triangles
Trilinear option is now available in Serious Sam SE
This driver fixes a lock-up problem, which was evident under certain circumstances for the following games:
Spring Break
Lord of The Rings
Medieval Total War
Icewind Dale II
Sponge Bob 2
Robin Hood
Known Issues:


Need For Speed 2 may potentially hang in very high detail levels. ATI recommends turning down the World Details and Special Effects options down one notch to avoid hangs. A fix will be delivered in a future Catalyst release.

Windows XP / 2000:
File size: 5.63 MB
Posted: November 14, 2002
Version: 6.13.10.6200C
Packaging Version: 7.79-021023x-005856C
http://pdownload.mii.instacontent.ne...0-6200-efg.exe

Windows 9x / ME:
File size: 6.36 MB
Posted: November 14, 2002
Version: 4.13.01.9069
Packaging Version: 7.79-021023x-005856C
http://pdownload.mii.instacontent.ne...1-9069-efg.exe

Control Panel:

File size: 4.81 MB
Posted: November 14, 2002
Version: 6.13.10.3041
Use for all operating systems.

http://pdownload.mii.instacontent.ne...0-3041-efg.exe