Friday, March 26th 2010
![ATI Catalyst](https://tpucdn.com/images/news/catalyst-v1723816949774.png)
AMD First with OpenGL 4.0 Compliant Graphics Driver
Shortly after the Khronos group announced the OpenGL 4.0, the newest version of the multi-platform graphics API, AMD is out with a preview graphics driver for its ATI Radeon, FireGL, FirePro, and Mobility Radeon graphics accelerators, which includes the OpenGL 4.0 ICD (installable client driver). The driver is available for Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows XP, and Linux. OpenGL 4.0 is comparable and up to times with Microsoft's DirectX 11 API, it makes use of hardware features such as tessellation on the GPU, per-sample fragment shaders and programmable fragment shader input positions, 64-bit double precision floating point shader operations, etc., and has no restrictions on which later version of Windows it can run on. With OpenGL 4.0 for example, one can expect 3D graphics with the complexity comparable to DirectX 11 on Windows XP.
DOWNLOAD: ATI Catalyst OpenGL 4.0 Preview Driver for Windows 7/Vista, Windows XP, and Linux.
DOWNLOAD: ATI Catalyst OpenGL 4.0 Preview Driver for Windows 7/Vista, Windows XP, and Linux.
51 Comments on AMD First with OpenGL 4.0 Compliant Graphics Driver
I got to say, WELL Played ATI, well played haha :nutkick:
10.3 OGL4
Seems clear to me that these are 10.3a + OGL4 (direct3D version hasnt changed)
Lord knows I need all the help I can get with BFBC2 anyways :o
I found that plain CAT 10.3 OpenGL performance was down from the 9.11 drivers. I was getting over 10k in FurMark, now it's 9550.
I wonder how the optimization is with these, guess I'll have to give it a try.
This issue applies to the following configuration(s):
* Hardware
o ATI Radeon™ HD 5000 Series
o ATI Radeon™ HD 4000 Series
o ATI Radeon™ HD 3000 Series
o ATI Radeon™ HD 2000 Series
o ATI FirePro V8750
o ATI FirePro V8700
o ATI FirePro V8650
o ATI FirePro V8600
o ATI FirePro V7750
o ATI FireGL V7700
o ATI FireGL V7600
o ATI FirePro V5700
o ATI FirePro V5600
o ATI FirePro V3750
o ATI FirePro V3700
o ATI FireGL V3600
However, this is just software support as these cards only support OpenGL 3.2 and lower on a hardware level. The 5 series are the only cards that can support the OpenGL 4.0 specification even though they don't have hardware support. OpenGL 3.3 is meant to bring some/most of the features in 4.0 to older cards.
Heres AMDs statement:
blogs.amd.com/developer/2010/03/25/ready-willing-and-able-%E2%80%93-amd-supports-opengl-3-3-and-opengl-4-0/
www.realtech-vr.com/glview/download.html
Things like simulations etc.
www.khronos.org/news/press/releases/khronos-unleashes-cutting-edge-cross-platform-graphics-acceleration-opengl4