Thursday, September 27th 2012
AMD Catalyst 12.9 Beta Driver Available for Download
With September drawing to a close AMD has rolled out a new graphics driver, the Catalyst 12.9 Beta which brings an improved Catalyst Control Center, support for the mobile-focused Enduro graphics switching technology, some fixes, and a 10% performance boost in Lost Planet 2 (for single-GPU setups).
Download: for Windows 8, Windows 7 & Windows Vista / for Windows 8, Windows 7 & Windows Vista (with .NET 4.0) / for Windows XP / for Linux
Release Notes
AMD Catalyst Mobility now includes support for AMD Enduro Technology.
● AMD Enduro Technology for Notebooks delivers:
- Long lasting battery life
- GPU accelerated performance for gaming, video, and compute apps
- A Seamless and automatic experience
New features found in Catalyst 12.9 Beta:
● Re-designed Catalyst Control Center user interface
- View all profiled applications
- View recently run applications
- Profile applications based on power source
● Expert mode control and customization
- Performance centric AC
- Battery centric DC
Performance highlights of AMD Catalyst 12.9 Beta (versus AMD Catalyst 12.8)
● Up to 10% in Lost Planet 2 in single GPU configurations
This release of AMD Catalyst Linux introduces support for the following new operating systems.
● Ubuntu 12.10 early look support
● RHEL 6.3 production support
Resolved issue highlights of the AMD Catalyst 12.9 Beta driver
● Tri and Quad CrossFire+ Eyefinity configurations - Certain DirectX 10 and DirectX 11 applications lower than expected performance
● FireFox - corruption observed in CrossFire configurations
● Enabling Overdrive settings increased clocks in all power states
● Availability of AMD Video Converter support in AMD Catalyst 12.9 Beta Windows 7 and Windows Vista packages
Download: for Windows 8, Windows 7 & Windows Vista / for Windows 8, Windows 7 & Windows Vista (with .NET 4.0) / for Windows XP / for Linux
Release Notes
AMD Catalyst Mobility now includes support for AMD Enduro Technology.
● AMD Enduro Technology for Notebooks delivers:
- Long lasting battery life
- GPU accelerated performance for gaming, video, and compute apps
- A Seamless and automatic experience
New features found in Catalyst 12.9 Beta:
● Re-designed Catalyst Control Center user interface
- View all profiled applications
- View recently run applications
- Profile applications based on power source
● Expert mode control and customization
- Performance centric AC
- Battery centric DC
Performance highlights of AMD Catalyst 12.9 Beta (versus AMD Catalyst 12.8)
● Up to 10% in Lost Planet 2 in single GPU configurations
This release of AMD Catalyst Linux introduces support for the following new operating systems.
● Ubuntu 12.10 early look support
● RHEL 6.3 production support
Resolved issue highlights of the AMD Catalyst 12.9 Beta driver
● Tri and Quad CrossFire+ Eyefinity configurations - Certain DirectX 10 and DirectX 11 applications lower than expected performance
● FireFox - corruption observed in CrossFire configurations
● Enabling Overdrive settings increased clocks in all power states
● Availability of AMD Video Converter support in AMD Catalyst 12.9 Beta Windows 7 and Windows Vista packages
23 Comments on AMD Catalyst 12.9 Beta Driver Available for Download
It's completely broken, as several review sites have shown, and they act like it's not an issue at all. :banghead:
I have over fifty games installed on my comp atm from the year 2000 onwards and nearly all work fine with 12.8 drivers.
My hopes went up when I read this:
Resolved issue highlights of the AMD Catalyst 12.9 Beta driver
● Enabling Overdrive settings increased clocks in all power states
but sadly, UVD clocks are still overwriting everything else, even the overdrive/afterburner settings, like it did before 12.9.
How about a performance improvement in Tribes: Ascend? That's one game where AMD's cards are certainly doing way slower than they should.
I've been playing since the day it was beta. Perf was great. But every patch since launch has made it worse and worse. All kinds of bugs relating to video appeared forcing you to tweak the ini or you couldn't even play the game it was so choppy.
It's so bad, now, that I can't even use 2xAA on my 1200 MHz 7950 @ 2560x1440. I can do 2x @ 1080 barely. This is with depth of field and ambient occlusion off. I used to be able to run it at 1080 with 4xAA! Not to mention that you must force AA with the driver b/c the game doesn't support it. Good luck rendering in dx10/11 b/c perf takes a big nose dive.
The game is broken and it has nothing to do with AMD (or nvidia, forum full of complaints). It used to run at about 45% usage, and now, about 80% at 1080 and 90%ish at 2560.
For shame.
12.8 resulted in a crash launching Killing Floor for me (who knows the fault). Installed some modded 12.8s and everything has been fine, plus OCing is working out better with Afterburner.
These are the one's I'm using benchmark3d.com/amd-catalyst-12-8-whql-7900-mod
I've had good luck in the past with tweakforce, formerly x-treme g (nvidia and AMD).
I missed my FFox
I have just installed 12.9 for my 7950 and i didn't even bother doing a clean install, and they are fine for me.
Hope they work out for you anyway, if you try them.
ATiMan uninstaller helps, especially with beta drivers. Check this post, the links are there along with a link to bug reporting.