# AMD Releases ATI Catalyst  8.7 Graphics Driver Package



## btarunr (Jul 21, 2008)

AMD released stable versions of the ATI Catalyst driver package for the Radeon series graphics accelerators. According to the release notes document (located here), improvements on both the features and performance fronts have been brought about. The drivers specific to your version of Windows, Linux, Windows on Macintosh (Bootcamp), Mac OS and on your model of Radeon accelerator can be found on the company website here.



*Feature Improvements*

This release of Catalyst introduces an enhancement to the Catalyst Control Center Information Center. Full Hardware information will be shown for each physical graphics accelerator installed in the system.
This release of ATI Catalyst Linux introduces preview support for Ubuntu 8.04 ; SLED 10 sp2.

*Performance Improvements*

3DMark Vantage: Performance increases of up to 20% is noticed in the Performance Preset on single card configured systems when using ATI Radeon HD 36xx or ATI Radeon HD 34xx products.
Company of Heroes DX10: Performance increases of 3% to 12% is noticed in specific maps on single card configured systems when using either an ATI Radeon HD 48xx, ATI Radeon HD 38xx, or an ATI Radeon HD 36xx products.
Lost Planet DX10: Performance increases of 4% to 15% is noticed in specific maps on single card configured systems when using either an ATI Radeon HD 48xx, ATI Radeon HD 38xx, or an ATI Radeon HD 36xx product.
Call Of Duty 4 DX9: Performance increases of up to 4% in specific maps is noticed on single card configured systems when using an ATI Radeon HD 48xx product.
Lost Planet DX9: CrossFire scaling improves up to 1.7x and performance increases up to 80% across all Radeon products when AA and AF is enabled.

Several issues have been resolved as described in the release notes document.

*View at TechPowerUp Main Site*


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## ShadowFold (Jul 21, 2008)

Didn't really do much performance wise for me but it sure feels alot more stable!


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## Urbklr (Jul 21, 2008)

ShadowFold said:


> Didn't really do much performance wise for me but it sure feels alot more stable!



Same, got no performance increase...but Crysis seem's smoother


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## chron (Jul 21, 2008)

Are these the drivers everyone's been waiting for? Can I buy a 4850 now?


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## ShadowFold (Jul 21, 2008)

chron said:


> Are these the drivers everyone's been waiting for? Can I buy a 4850 now?



Yes   These are pretty damn stable from what ive been doing so far! Crysis doesn't crash at all now and stuff seems a bit smoother!


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## phanbuey (Jul 21, 2008)

hmmm... no 20% gain huh?  at least it sounds like they got rid of the stuttering.  

EDIT:  on the lost planet scaling tho!


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## Megasty (Jul 21, 2008)

Bah, I'm only using my 4870 now. Having both of those things in my rig felt like I was contributing to something very bad. 
AMD is getting much better. So far these drivers are rock solid. Now all they need to do is give us a fan controller.


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## Wshlist (Jul 21, 2008)

*Wut*

So they release a 'hotfix' at the same time as the driver now? I guess that's the driver with the bits that didn't get through WHQL then eh.


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## GLD (Jul 21, 2008)

Oh, and don't forget the Free WOW trial.  No thank's! 
Yes, they need to give us fan control!


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## Wshlist (Jul 21, 2008)

WoW trials are always free and always have been AFAIK, I'm guessing they added that to the driver? Well that's pathetic, what next? A gator toolbar?
While we are ranting, what's with the slowness of their site if you goto that hotfix page and similar pages? Why can't they do a nice clean HTML page instead of a 'prepare your system to lock up for 3 minutes pointlessly' sadness? Or perhaps they should release a GPU JAVA-script-just-for-AMD-sites accelerator of some sort.


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## Kei (Jul 21, 2008)

Wshlist said:


> So they release a 'hotfix' at the same time as the driver now? I guess that's the driver with the bits that didn't get through WHQL then eh.



The hotfix is from when the cards were first released (a little while back) the 8.7 Driver is the official new driver out for all ATi cards. It's newer than the Hotfix.

K


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## Kei (Jul 21, 2008)

Wshlist said:


> WoW trials are always free and always have been AFAIK, I'm guessing they added that to the driver? Well that's pathetic, what next? A gator toolbar?
> While we are ranting, what's with the slowness of their site if you goto that hotfix page and similar pages? Why can't they do a nice clean HTML page instead of a 'prepare your system to lock up for 3 minutes pointlessly' sadness? Or perhaps they should release a GPU JAVA-script-just-for-AMD-sites accelerator of some sort.



Haha, perhaps your pc was having a bad day? The site loads quick as lightning for me. 

WoW trials...I was like wtf when I got to the desktop and saw that there. It has since been banished back to wherever those sorts of evil things come from.

K


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## Wshlist (Jul 21, 2008)

Strange I thought it was a new hotfix since it's so prominently on the driver downloadpage above all 8.7 downloads, that's not very bright then is it, to confuse people like that.
Thanks for the correction.

And no it's not my pc, or both of them even, those AMD support pages are always slow, the sidebar setup uses some java code that just crawls and has been for many many months/years.
Perhaps it's an issue I notice because of firefox and my personal security settings, but it only happens on those AMD support pages.


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## Kei (Jul 21, 2008)

You're welcome, I think they need to redo the list as the 8.7 was just released today and the Hotfix was released I'd say just shy of 1 month ago. Either way the Hotfix was far far better than any other drivers if you were using a 4800 series card. The 8.7's so far are fine to me but I'll wait a few days before I declare a verdict but so far they're just as good. 

K


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## Wshlist (Jul 21, 2008)

I would have installed the 8.7 on my XP64 already but this time I'm going for broke and attempt a very thorough cleaning of previous drivers because there are various issues I keep having which I trace back to remnants of old drivers, that are locked into place and a normal uninstall doesn't remove.
And I'm a bit unsure I can take the aggravation if things go wrong again (every second driver install fails to install a working CCC and I have to manually fix it by copying CCC files while I'm not sure which I need to copy to get it to work until I finally have it working again)

EDIT: 
I removed the driver, and CCC, and all radeon software, then when I rebooted I got a CCC error... but I then removed CCC's start too, then removed all ati files from windows/system32, then removed all old ATI segments from the registry, and my profiles, then did another reboot.
Then I installed the 8.7's and got the same familiar 'file copy' error requester I've been getting for months (no indication what file) and a new additional requester shortly after that said 'could not find a compatible driver to install' then the CCC installer autostarted and CCC installed, I rebooted and lo-and-behold everything seems to be OK, CCC works, driver files are current, graphics work, games work, DXVA works.
Not sure what those errors were about now, perhaps I'll find out later.


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## PCpraiser100 (Jul 21, 2008)

AA performance seems a lot more solid with my HD 3870 on COD4 and Counter-Strike.


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## King Wookie (Jul 21, 2008)

So would it be worth my while downloading then?
Been running my 3850 on 8.3.


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## KainXS (Jul 21, 2008)

I popped in my 3850 and crysis runs alot smoother on medium high

nice job ati :3


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## Paintface (Jul 21, 2008)

King Wookie said:


> So would it be worth my while downloading then?
> Been running my 3850 on 8.3.



Yes no reason not to update drivers ever, always more fixes and performance for free.

If there would be an issue at release that is 100% cause of the drivers you will see it asap in threads like these.

But after using ATI for 6 years now i have updated monthly without any issues.


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## Kei (Jul 21, 2008)

I do the same and so far can't remember one that has made me go back to the previous driver. I do not however upgrade if it's only a beta version though I do try them out sometimes.

K


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## chron (Jul 21, 2008)

I wish ray adams would update ati tray tools for the new 4850's and 70's.  That would totally push me into buying one.


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## EastCoasthandle (Jul 21, 2008)

chron said:


> I wish ray adams would update ati tray tools for the new 4850's and 70's.  That would totally push me into buying one.



He can't until he's able to get a card.  I've read a few threads in different forums asking you to sign a petition.


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## mlupple (Jul 21, 2008)

The last update was fabulous.  I have a 2900XT and I always had problems joining Unreal Tournament 3 games, because the game would lock up on loading.  They fixed the problem in the last driver update because Epic doesn't update their games for shit.  VALVE FTW!


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## Polarman (Jul 21, 2008)

Guess it's time for a clean install, I was waiting for these official drivers for a while now.

It may take time but i'll feel better after it's done.


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## chaotic_uk (Jul 21, 2008)

i have just installed these drivers , i cannot believe how smooth crysis is on my system now


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## KainXS (Jul 21, 2008)

I just noticed something HUGE about these drivers

.....if im right


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## ShadowFold (Jul 21, 2008)

What???


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## KainXS (Jul 21, 2008)

unlike the 8.6's which crash with it.

these drivers . . . 

push my 3850(800/1000) to its max clock speed and gpu usage with . . . 

the PHYSX sdk in hw mode

HOW?


try it


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## Silverel (Jul 21, 2008)

Dumb question, but do these work with AGP? 

I can't imagine that they do, but it'd be nice...


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## kuroikenshi (Jul 21, 2008)

Silverel said:


> Dumb question, but do these work with AGP?
> 
> I can't imagine that they do, but it'd be nice...



I am pretty sure they do. When you go to ATI's website and do the wizard for your type of card it doesnt ask if its AGP or PCI-E.


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## entsyymi (Jul 21, 2008)

Dont know if this is mentioned here already, but seems that the leaked betas are newer than these "official" 8.7 drivers.

The version numbers go like this:

8.6 = 8.501
8.7 "leaked" = *8.520*
8.7 = 8.512

And it seems we have to wait for the PowerPlay fix for at least a month longer, since it's not on this release yet...


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## H82LUZ73 (Jul 21, 2008)

Silverel said:


> Dumb question, but do these work with AGP?
> 
> I can't imagine that they do, but it'd be nice...



Download the IGP package.


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## Wshlist (Jul 22, 2008)

KainXS said:


> the PHYSX sdk in hw mode
> 
> HOW?


Simple, you installed a PhysX card and forgot about it.


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## KainXS (Jul 22, 2008)

Wshlist said:


> Simple, you installed a PhysX card and forgot about it.



I don't have a physx card


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## chron (Jul 22, 2008)

KainXS said:


> I don't have a physx card



/sarcasm


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## KainXS (Jul 22, 2008)

chron said:


> /sarcasm



nop, im not joking and i don't have a physx card

look at this







that program wouldn't even work at all with 8.6 for me, and I can run all the phyx demos in the sdk using the gpu now, with 8.6 every single one of them crashed or ran terribly slow, some of them still run in software though

it was running at like 289fps


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## CrackerJack (Jul 22, 2008)

8.6=  8.501
8.7 Leak= 8.520 "These where modded drivers"
8.7= 8.512


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## Silverel (Jul 22, 2008)

H82LUZ73 said:


> Download the IGP package.



Wha, huh? How does that work?

Integrated Graphics Proccessor not the same as Accelerated Graphics Port...


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## Wshlist (Jul 22, 2008)

@KainXS
I'm sure ATI won't be secretly coding physx into their drivers and even if they did it would take many months, and that program runs fine because it's just a normal 3d display program and in fact to use PhysX you don't need any gpu/physx-card since its drivers simply default to software mode when HW isn't found, so if that didn't work for you it was something that was wrong with your system and not the ATI drivers getting magically HW PhysX support in 2 weeks.
Try one of the physx demos and you'll find it says 'software mode' I'm sure.

Still, I like your optimism


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## -=SNIPER=- (Jul 22, 2008)

Catalyst 8.7 Driver Comparison @ t-break.com


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## hrvoje (Jul 22, 2008)

Im running 8.7b (8.520) and everything works fine for me. In 3D Vantage i got P8595 over P5600 that i got on 8.4 that were most stable before 8.7b. 
So I think ill stick with betas for now.

Specs: 3870x2 + q6600 + 4GB


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## $ReaPeR$ (Jul 22, 2008)

i had a problem installing the drivers i dont know how the hell this happened. the ccc couldnt start after installing the driver. does anyone has info. thanks anyway


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## H82LUZ73 (Jul 22, 2008)

Silverel said:


> Wha, huh? How does that work?
> 
> Integrated Graphics Proccessor not the same as Accelerated Graphics Port...



It has the GART files for AGP support lol .


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## H82LUZ73 (Jul 22, 2008)

KainXS said:


> nop, im not joking and i don't have a physx card
> 
> look at this
> 
> ...



this the program your talking about? http://developer.nvidia.com/object/physx_downloads.html


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## Neohazard (Jul 22, 2008)

Same History again ATI launches a new PEG card and a Driver who dont suport it and whe test , test again , test test test it and whe only see the power of it when CCC goes to 9.0 or superior drivers come, its the same FuK shit all times, the same fuck drivers who dont make u work fine why they dont renew u people of driver project????. They can´t make a driver stable for a New released Card and whe can fuk own PC because this Asshole issues like the RPM of Fan in HD4850 a big blue screen.

I wana buy a HD4870 XOC when it came to sell but with all of this erros i will wait more


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## Urbklr (Jul 22, 2008)

Neohazard said:


> Same History again ATI launches a new PEG card and a Driver who dont suport it and whe test , test again , test test test it and whe only see the power of it when CCC goes to 9.0 or superior drivers come, its the same FuK shit all times, the same fuck drivers who dont make u work fine why they dont renew u people of driver project????. They can´t make a driver stable for a New released Card and whe can fuk own PC because this Asshole issues like the RPM of Fan in HD4850 a big blue screen.
> 
> I wana buy a HD4870 XOC when it came to sell but with all of this erros i will wait more



What are you all about? These drivers work great. And I don't know of anyone getting a blue-screen because of the HD4850's fan RPM. Temps are within spec, the card operates fine at those temps, user's just complain because we are used to lower temps.


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## Neohazard (Jul 22, 2008)

*sorry for my english im a Brazilian who need more english classes*

_What are you all about? These drivers work great. And I don't know of anyone getting a blue-screen because of the HD4850's fan RPM. Temps are within spec, the card operates fine at those temps, user's just complain because we are used to lower temps._

For a first driver its not work too great only think a few minutes when HD2900XT comes to market and the drivers are not mature many people dont like the PEGcard but now this card makes HD3870 eating dust, its the same thing now, no mature drivers for a Powerfull card only in CCC 9.0 or superior u will see the PEGcard at maximum performance many people here have much money or make a small vault to buy new released PEGcard and count in the fingers the day to test it and whe only see the same thing 1k points in 3d mark or 4 ~ 9 fps better but not the maximum performance of it 

People pay too much for this if anyone dont buy cards in the release the price of it goes down too fast and whe really pay the value of it imagine the taxes that i pay to take a product like this in release u pay $300 for me its like $650~$700 too expensive


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## erocker (Jul 22, 2008)

Neo, you have a filthy mouth today!  Please use better manners.  If you are having problems, start a thread, we all love helping man!


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## Scrizz (Jul 22, 2008)

can't w8 to try these when I get home!


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## Neohazard (Jul 22, 2008)

erocker said:


> Neo, you have a filthy mouth today!  Please use better manners.  If you are having problems, start a thread, we all love helping man!



LOL tks a lot Erocker, but im really disapointed sorry for the past words but its the true, i will only see this thing better when i saw results of it, Try to understand me i pay a lot for a PEGCARD i test it i make all the things possible to use it at the maximum and i dont have any kind of gain i only spent energy time and much patience of this = disapointment

If i spent this time playing games i will more happy but this things dont work 100%


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## PVTCaboose1337 (Jul 22, 2008)

Stability is much improved.  I am very happy with the update!


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## LifeOnMars (Jul 22, 2008)

Just gonna try these out on my newly sooped up 4850...stability sounds promising.....


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## Silverel (Jul 22, 2008)

For the record, I was asking about my 2600xt in those last posts.

On the other hand, going from 8.4 to 8.7 got me an extra 30 points on my 3850. lol.


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## ViciousXUSMC (Jul 22, 2008)

Im almost scared to try them, those "leaked" 8.7s broke the living hell out of my system not allowing me into windows with a totally black screen and I read into them and they were supposed to be fake.  Everybody that tried a 4850 bios flash suffered the same issues, and they were hard as hell to remove/fix.

But these are offical so it should be ok, shame that most of the performance boosts are for single cards and not crossfire, but you would think if a single card runs faster then crossfire would too....

Anyways I was having artifact issues in crysis so may as well try these to see if its fixed.  Wish me luck 

And yeah stay away from the 8.7 betas they are evil.


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## MadClown (Jul 22, 2008)

Theese drivers killed my framerates.  Ill try a fresh install.


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## Silverel (Jul 22, 2008)

Meh, CoD4 likes em.


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## erocker (Jul 22, 2008)

These drivers work great so far on my HD4870.  Lots of benching to do tomorrow!


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## MadClown (Jul 22, 2008)

I did a fresh driver instal and my performance is were it should be now, ill have to check out Crysis tomorrow.

Edit: it already is tomorrow, lol


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## InnocentCriminal (Jul 22, 2008)

Downloaded them this morning before work, I'll give 'em a shot in the mouth tonight. ^^

I'm only 403 marks off 10K in ePenis06 so if these drivers can give me any improvement I'll be happy.

Especially where it counts.... as in CoD 4 & Crysis!


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## TheMailMan78 (Jul 22, 2008)

Neohazard said:


> LOL tks a lot Erocker, but im really disapointed sorry for the past words but its the true, i will only see this thing better when i saw results of it, Try to understand me i pay a lot for a PEGCARD i test it i make all the things possible to use it at the maximum and i dont have any kind of gain i only spent energy time and much patience of this = disapointment
> 
> If i spent this time playing games i will more happy but this things dont work 100%



Hey man I went from a 2900XT to a 3870 and then to a 4850 without an issue. The 4850 without a doubt is the best bang for the buck. If your getting a BSOD then maybe you're overlocking it to far. My mobo doesn't take to ANY kind of OCing. Maybe yours is the same.

Whatever the issue you are having I can say with all honesty your in the minority. Also if your having such a big problem why don't you start a thread like erocker suggested. We all like to help!


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## johnnyfiive (Jul 22, 2008)

Gotta say it again. I love ATi.


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## sebx (Jul 22, 2008)

What about World in Conflict DX10 ? Is there any improvement on 3870 ?


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## InnocentCriminal (Jul 22, 2008)

Right, I haven't been able to install the 8.7's so it looks like I'm waiting for the hotfix.

CRAP!

For all the aging AGP'ers.


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## Wshlist (Jul 22, 2008)

sebx said:


> What about World in Conflict DX10 ? Is there any improvement on 3870 ?



Well the readme says:
"Resolved Issues for the Windows Vista Operating
System"
...
"World In Conflict: Setting the video quality to high no longer results in corruption
being noticed. Further details can be found in topic number
737-35884"

So I guess that's an improvement 
Or at least a sign that they used WiC in their test system on vista, which is where you'd use DX10.
So why don't you get them and try them.


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## ilpalmare (Jul 22, 2008)

I have installed 8.7 official ATI and i have 2 radeon 4870 in crossfire mode: ALL OK

3DMARK VANTAGE from P7460 tested wuth 8.6
to P10750 with first releas 8.7 that support crossfire perfect.

I think with the new 8.8 that comes out for the 4870X2 the performance goooo gooo 

UPDATE... 00.13
Tested RACE GRID: 1680x1050 Ultra quality in all video setting : 4X antialiasing ... always during the race fix to 105fps WOWOWOW


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## Arrakis9 (Jul 23, 2008)

thanks.


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## ilpalmare (Jul 23, 2008)

I was curious and i have tested the driver 8.7BETA.... and surprise 
go better than 8.7 OFFICIAL

3DMARK VANTAGE with 8.7 OFFICIAL P10750
With 8.7BETA P10955

205 point is very much 

And another thing that i have noticed.. with 8.7 official there's the texture problem in the first 2 test 3d mark vantage, than with the 8.7BETA the test is perfect

 Someone have tested this thing?????

Matteo


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## Scrizz (Jul 23, 2008)

8.7beta was kinda buggy for me


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## imperialreign (Jul 25, 2008)

Just curious . . . has anyone had any unusual issues with CAT 8.7 and the 3870 series?

I've been running into a lot of game crashes since installing 8.7, even getting error messages from ATT that "ATI Tray Tools has run out of system resources."   

lock-ups, crashes, artifacting, GPU unresponsive requiring VPU recover to kick in . . .

even reflashed my cards back to stock speeds . . . still . . .

I'm gonna clean 8.7 off and throw 8.6 back on and see if anything changes; just wondering if I'm the only one with these issues . . .


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## bogmali (Aug 9, 2008)

I cannot get this driver to enable Xfire Anybody have an idea why? I am using 2 X1950Pros and Catalyst says "one card is disabled" but device driver has both functioning properly I am using Vista Ultimate 64


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