http://game.amd.com/us-en/drivers_catalyst.aspx
Performance Improvements
The following performance gains are noticed with this release of Catalyst™.
* Call of Juarez: Up to 20% improvement is noticed on ATI CrossFireX™ configured systems containing an ATI Radeon™ HD38x0 series of product
* Company of Heroes DX10: Up to 17% improvement is noticed, especially at lower resolutions, on ATI Radeon™ HD38x0 products
* Crysis DX10: Up to 15% improvement is noticed on all supported ATI Radeon™ products
* Lost Planet DX9: Up to 36% improvement is noticed across all supported ATI Radeon™ products and in ATI CrossFireX™ configured systems
* Shadermark 2.1: Performance scores increased up to 35% across all supported Radeon™ products and in ATI CrossFireX™ configured systems
* Unreal Tournament 2004: Up to 10% increase in performance is noticed on systems containing an ATI Radeon™ HD2400, HD2600, or HD3400 series of products on in ATI CrossFireX™ configured systems
New Features
CrossFireX™ (Quad) Support 3 or 4 GPUs in CrossFireX™ Mode
This release of Catalyst™ introduces CrossFireX™ Quad support. Users with any combination of a ATI Radeon™ HD 3870, ATI Radeon™ HD 3850, and ATI Radeon™ HD 3870 X2 graphics accelerators running with 3 or 4 GPUs will be able to run in CrossFireX™ Quad mode (when used in a CrossFireX™ compatible PC). CrossFireX™ Quad will deliver significant performance improvements in a number of applications. Users can expect to see further DirectX 10 QUAD CrossFireX™ performance improvements in future Catalyst™ releases.
Users are now able to run in CrossFireX™ (Quad) mode while running in extended desktop mode on the Windows Vista desktop
Hybrid™ Graphics Support
This release of Catalyst™ introduces Hybrid™ Graphics support. Hybrid™ Graphics delivers a significant 3D performance boost for systems featuring an AMD 780G integrated graphics motherboard and an ATI Radeon™ HD 3400 series graphics accelerator.
Users can simply disable Hybrid™ Graphics to run in power saving mode (the ATI Radeon™ HD 3400 series features PowerPlay™ technology, which reduces power usage during low GPU activity). This feature provides support for up to four independent displays
DirectX 10.1 Support
This release of Catalyst™ introduces WHQL certified support for the DirectX 10.1 API found in Microsoft's Windows Vista Service Pack 1 update for all ATI Radeon™ HD 3000 Series products.
Anti-Aliasing Enhancements
This release of Catalyst™ introduces anti-aliasing support for all Unreal Engine 3.0 based games (running in DirectX 9 mode). Users can enable Anti-Aliasing for titles such as Gears of War and Unreal Tournament 3 by simply enabling Anti-Aliasing within the ATI Catalyst™ Control Center.
This release of Catalyst™ allows users to enable narrow tent and wide tent Anti-Aliasing custom filters while running in the CrossFire™ Super Anti-Aliasing modes, (for DirectX9 applications) providing an improved image quality experience.
ATI Catalyst™ Control Center: HydraVision support for Windows Vista
This release of Catalyst™ introduces HydraVision support for the ATI Catalyst™ Control Center under Windows Vista. HydraVision enables users to more efficiently organize multiple applications across single or multiple displays. High-lights include:
* HydraGrid - A new feature found in HydraVision that divides the Windows Vista desktop into user definable areas helping users to more easily move and organize multiple applications
* Hydravision Hotkeys - The ATI Catalyst™ Control Center Hotkey Manager can be used to quickly setup and define their HydraVision specific hotkey commands
* HydraVision Virtual desktops - Users can configure up to 9 virtual desktops, enabling users to manage and group multiple applications across user defined desktops. Application positions, desktop associations and display settings can be saved for every virtual desktop
* HydraVision Wizard - Using the ATI Catalyst™ Control Center Wizard, users can very quickly configure their HyrdaVision settings
Digital Panel GPU image scaling
This release of Catalyst™ introduces a new setting that allows users to enable GPU accelerated scaling for Wide aspect LCD displays. The new setting Maintain aspect ratio improves the display resolution image quality when scaling is enable by maintaining the wide panel aspect ratio (stops the image from looking distorted)
Catalyst™ Control Center: Advanced Video Quality Controls
This release of Catalyst™ introduces new advanced video quality controls which include:
* Edge enhancement, which adjusts the level of sharpness of video content
* De-noise, which removes ghosting artifacts while preserving details of the original video
ATI Catalyst™ driver: Tessellation support
This release of Catalyst™ introduces Tessellation support in the Catalyst™ driver for the ATI Radeon™ HD 3800 Series of products. Tessellation has the potential to simplify development efforts and improve application performance by creating high polygon models from low polygon models all within the GPU.
Resolved Issues for the Windows Vista Operating System
This section provides information on resolved issues in this release of the ATI Catalyst™ Software Suite for Windows Vista. These include:
* Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion: Playing the game on a system running Windows Vista with default game settings no longer results in the gadget sidebar bleeding through. Further details can be found in topic number 737-32545
* Enemy Territory: Quake Wars: Playing the game under Windows Vista (64 bit version) no longer results in corruption being noticed when loading multiple maps. Further details can be found in topic number 737-32544
* Enemy Territory: Quake Wars: The game no longer fails with an error pointing to atioglxx.dll when exiting the game. Further details can be found in topic number 737-32540
* Enemy Territory: Quake Wars: Corruption is no longer noticed when editing levels. Further details can be found in topic number 737-32532
* Guitar Hero 3: Poor performance is no longer noticed when playing the game on a system containing an ATI Radeon™ HD 2900 series of product and running the Windows Vista operating system. Further details can be found in topic number 737-32539
* Halo 2: Enabling AA in the Catalyst™ Control Center no longer results in the Halo 2 logo flickering when loading or quitting a campaign. Further details can be found in topic number 737-32541
* Halo2: Starting a new campaign with the default Catalyst™ Control Center setting and the default game settings no longer results in texture corruption being noticed when playing the game under Windows Vista with an ATI Radeon™ HD 2100 series of product installed. Further details can be found in topic number 737-32655
* Oblivion: Flickering is no longer noticed when first making a move if the in-game settings are set to maximum, CrossFire™ is enabled and AF is set to 16x. Further details can be found in topic number 737-31581
* Resident Evil 4: Minor flickering is no longer noticed when playing the game on a system running Windows Vista along with CrossFire™ being enabled. Further details can be found in topic number 737-32536
* Splinter Cell Double Agent: Multicolored rectangles are no longer noticed when UBM is enabled on systems containing an ATI Radeon™ HD 34x0 series of product. Further details can be found in topic number 737-32526
* World of Conflict: Text corruption is no longer noticed when playing the game under Windows Vista with CrossFire™ enabled. Further details can be found in topic number 737-32537
* World of Warcraft: Flickering and missing objects are no longer noticed when playing the game in OpenGL mode. Further details can be found in topic number 737-32538
* Installing the WDM driver on systems containing an ATI TV Tuner product and an ATI graphics adapter no longer results in the WDM driver failing to install. Further details can be found in topic number 737-30571
* Resuming from hibernation mode with HDMI display connected no longer results in a black screen with only a mouse cursor being displayed. Further details can be found in topic number 737-31149
* The OverDrive™ page is no longer grayed out and the GPU and memory clocks are no longer displayed as 000 after enabling CrossFire™ on systems containing and ATI Radeon™ X1900 CrossFire™ Edition and running Windows Vista (64 bit version). Further details can be found in topic number 737-31586
* Hot-plugging an HDMI display device no longer results in the display device failing to be detected on systems containing an ATI Radeon™ HD 2400 series of product and running Windows Vista. Further details can be found in topic number 737-31583
* Enabling extended desktop mode and setting the display resolution to 1280x800 or higher, followed by playing an HD-DVD using PowerDVD, no longer results in the HD-DVD title failing to play. Further details can be found in topic number 737-31584
* Dragging player window to secondary display while playing back HD content and moving it back to primary no longer results in blank player window. Further details can be found in topic number 737-31585
* The OverDrive™ page may be grayed out and the GPU and memory clocks as may be displayed as 000 after enabling CrossFire™ on systems containing and ATI Radeon™ X1900 CrossFire™ Edition and running Windows Vista (64 bit version). Further details can be found in topic number 737-31586
* The color temperature control settings no longer defaults to 4000K (yellow tint) when monitor unplugged during driver silent installation. Further details can be found in topic number 737-32527
* A Reduce DVI frequency on high-resolution displays option no longer appears when an HDMI display device is connected using an HDMI-DVI cable. Further details can be found in topic number 737-32528
* Playing DVD content using the Windows Media Player no longer results in the playback being choppy. Further details can be found in topic number 737-32529
* Hot plugging and hot-unplugging an HDMI display device multiple times during one windows session no longer results in the display device failing to be detected. Further details can be found in topic number 737-32530
* Enabling clone mode on a system containing an ATI Radeon™ X1200/1250/1270 series of product no longer results in the resolution and color depth changing to 640x480 8bpp. Further details can be found in topic number 737-32531
* An error message is no longer displayed when attempting to set both the primary (HDMI) display device and secondary (DVI) display device to a display resolution of 1280x1024. Further details can be found in topic number 737-32533
* The secondary display device no longer fails to resume from sleep mode. Further details can be found in topic number 737-32534
* Setting the display resolution to 1920x1200, followed by playing a DVD title no longer results in playback of the DVD appearing jittery. Further details can be found in topic number 737-32535
* Corruption is no longer noticed at the beginning of a DVD title or when resizing the media player window. Further details can be found in topic number 737-32540
* Connecting a CRT and an HDMI display device followed by enabling clone mode and setting the resolution to 1024x768 32bpp 60Hz. no longer results in corruption being noticed on the secondary display device when resuming from suspend mode. Further details can be found in topic number 737-32656
* Connecting a DFP display device to a system running Windows Vista (32 or 64 bit versions) no longer results in the display modes of 1024x768, 800x600, and 640x480 being missing in the Catalyst™ Control Center. Further details can be found in topic number 737-32542
* Connecting multiple display devices no longer results in the primary, secondary and other monitors swapping positions within the Catalyst™ Control Center. Further details can be found in topic number 737-32543
* The Windows Vista operating system no longer fails to resume from suspend mode when the HDMI display device is set to 1024x768 60Hz.on systems containing an ATI Radeon™ HD 2400 series of product. Further details can be found in topic number 737-32549
* Configuring a system with two ATI Radeon™ HD 3870s or two ATI Radeon™ HD 3850s no longer results in the CrossFire being enabled even after one display device is disabled yet still connected to the system. Further details can be found in topic number 737-32547
* Enabling extended desktop mode, followed by enabling Overlay Theater Mode no longer results in Overlay Theater Mode failing on the secondary display device. Further details can be found in topic number 737-32546
Resolved Issues for the Windows XP Operating System
This section provides information on resolved issues in this release of the ATI Catalyst™ Software Suite for Windows XP. These include:
* Call of Duty: Enabling AA in the Catalyst™ Control Center no longer results in corruption being noticed. Further details can be found in topic number 737-32582
* Call of Juarez: Intermittent flashing textures are no longer noticed when playing the game with CrossFire™ enabled on systems containing an ATI Radeon™ HD 38x0 series of product. Further details can be found in topic number 737-32579
* Call of Juarez: Setting the game level with Optimal Quality and high in-game settings no longer results in the game level being blank. Further details can be found in topic number 737-30591
* DaTang: Texture errors are no longer noticed when attempting to select a character or in the game map. Further details can be found in topic number 737-32575
* Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter: Enabling CrossFire™ an attempting to run either application no longer results in the applications exiting to the Windows XP desktop. Further details can be found in topic number 737-32583
* STALKER: Shadows are now being rendered properly when CrossFire™ is enabled along with AA being enabled at 4x and Full Dynamic Lighting also being enabled. Further details can be found in topic number 737-31597
* TianXia2: Launching the game on a system containing an ATI Radeon™ HD 36x0/38x0 series of product no longer results in the Windows XP operating system rebooting. Further details can be found in topic number 737-32578
* World of Warcraft: Connecting an Apple 30" display device to a system containing an ATI Radeon™ HD 26x0 series of product and running Windows XP no longer results in poor performance and intermittent flashing display. Further details can be found in topic number 737-32576
* World of Warcraft: Playing the game in a windowed mode under Windows XP no longer results in the game failing to respond when attempting to go full screen. Further details can be found in topic number 737-32586
* World of Warcraft: Poor performance and flashing on screen are no longer noticed. Further details can be found in topic number 737-32584
* After installing the graphics driver an error message is no longer displayed when attempting to launch DirectX based games when using an ATI AGP product. Further details can be found in topic number 737-31625
* Setting the desktop resolution to 1280x1024 and using PowerDVD to play an HD-DVD or Blu-ray title no longer results in corruption being noticed when using an ATI Radeon™ HD 2400 series of product. Further details can be found in topic number 737-31171
* On certain products, changing display resolution while playing back High Definition content no longer results in instability. It is recommended to set appropriate resolution while playback is stopped. Further details can be found in topic number 737-31172
* Cyberlink: Playing a DVD title on a system containing an ATI Radeon™ HD 2400 series no longer results in corruption being noticed. Further details can be found in topic number 737-31173
* Disabling the blackmambo driver or unplugging the power source no longer results in the Vista operating system failing. Further details can be found in topic number 737-32551
* The antenna signal strength is no longer reported by Vista Media Center as low. Further details can be found in topic number 737-32552
* The Windows XP Professional x64 Edition operating system no longer reboots when installing the T200 driver. Further details can be found in topic number 737-32553
* Setting the DPI to 120 in the Display Properties no longer results in the combo box being cut-off. Further details can be found in topic number 737-31566
* .NET Framework an Unhandled Exception error no longer occurs when upon booting or re-booting the system. Further details can be found in topic number 737-32554
* The information provided in the 3D Help for preview changes no longer provides the incorrect information on where the current settings and new settings are displayed when using the Windows Vista operating system. Further details can be found in topic number 737-32657
* The Catalyst™ Control Center aspects are no longer missing for the secondary extended display when hot unplugging and hot plugging the display device. Further details can be found in topic number 737-32555
* Native CrossFire™ can now be enabled when the primary display device is connected to the master card using a CV or TV. Further details can be found in topic number 737-32556
* Running the Spanish version of the Windows operating system no longer results in the Catalyst™ Control Center option failing to be available when right-clicking the Windows desktop menu bar. Further details can be found in topic number 737-32557
* The lower portion of the Catalyst™ Control Center is no longer cropped when changing the display resolution from 640x480 to 1920x1200. Further details can be found in topic number 737-32559
* The display resolution of 3840x2400 13Hz is now available on system running Windows Vista and having a display device connected that can support this resolution. Further details can be found in topic number 737-32560
* The help files for both Component Video and Avivo have been updated to reflect supported products for these options. Further details can be found in topic number 737-32561
* The video preview in the Catalyst™ Control Center->Avivo Video->Basic Quality no longer disappears when toggling between different option within the Catalyst™ Control Center. Further details can be found in topic number 737-32563
* Catalyst™ Control Center->Display options->Force TV detection: The text is no longer cropped at 144dpi settings. Further details can be found in topic number 737-32566
* The advanced color slider values are now changing when clicking the Up/Down spin buttons in the Catalyst™ Control Center->Avivo2. Further details can be found in topic number 737-32569
* Catalyst™ Control Center: Setting the skin to either Crimson or Classic no longer results in OverDrive option failing to display a clear image. Further details can be found in topic number 737-32572
* Enabling CrossFire™ followed by hot-unplugging a display device and then hot plugging the display device back in no longer results in the CrossFire™ option in the Catalyst™ Control Center being greyed out. Further details can be found in topic number 737-32573
* The video output window size is now set correctly. Further details can be found in topic number 737-32574
* Setting the display resolution to 1920x1200 or 1920x1080 on a system running Windows XP and containing an ATI Radeon™ HD 3100/3200 series of products, followed by enabling clone mode or extended desktop mode no longer results in horizontal line corruption being noticed when playing an SD DVD. Further details can be found in topic number 737-32658
* Connecting a TV as the primary display device on a system containing either an ATI Radeon™ HD 2400 or 34x0 series of product no longer results in the TV displaying green flashes during the welcome screen. Further details can be found in topic number 737-32577
* Connecting both a CRT and DFP display device to a system running Windows XP and enabling CrossFire™ no longer results in the DFP display device failing to display an image. Further details can be found in topic number 737-32581
* Catalyst™ Control Center-->3D-->All settings-->Setting the slider to Quality no longer results in the Wait for vertical refresh failing. Further details can be found in topic number 737-32587
Resolved Issues for the Windows XP Professional x64 Edition
This section provides information on resolved issues in this release of the ATI Catalyst™ Software Suite for Windows XP Professional x64 Edition. These include:
* Doom3: Running an OpenGL application with CrossFire™ enabled and AA set to 16x no longer results in corruption being noticed when the display resolution is set to 2048x1536 or higher. Further details can be found in topic number 737-32591
* World in Conflict: Text corruption is no longer noticed when playing the game on a system running Windows XP Professional x64 Edition and containing an ATI Radeon™ HD 30 series of product. Further details can be found in topic number 737-31619
* Hot plugging a display device to a system running Windows XP Professional x64 Edition and containing an ATI Radeon™ X1250/1270 series of product no longer results in the display device failing to be detected. Further details can be found in topic number 737-31618
* Standard PAL mode no longer fails to be available in the Catalyst™ Control Center. Further details can be found in topic number 737-31620
* Standard PAL mode no longer fail to be available in the Catalyst™ Control Center. Further details can be found in topic number 737-32588
* Hot plugging a display device to a system running Windows XP Professional x64 Edition and containing an ATI Radeon™ X1250/1270 series of product no longer results in the display device failing to be detected. Further details can be found in topic number 737-32589
