Wednesday, August 25th 2010
AMD Releases ATI Catalyst 10.8 WHQL Software Suite
AMD kept up with its monthly driver update cycle, and released the ATI Catalyst 10.8 software suite. The software installs the latest WHQL-signed drivers for ATI Radeon GPUs, AMD Chipsets, and other ATI Multimedia products. The new version packs a set of game-specific performance improvements, and a few feature updates. To begin with, Far Cry 2, Left 4 Dead 2, and Stormrise, each got GPU configuration specific, mostly single-digit performance increments.
New features include full-support for the OpenGL ES 2.0 API, greater control over video quality by means of a checkbox control from Catalyst Control Center. This is particularly of importance, as AMD seems to have taken notes from the press coverage, such as our Video Enhancement Quality Tests. There are image-quality improvements for StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty, that includes anti-aliasing support. An update also claims to greatly improve overall performance of Eyefinity setups that use 4-way/Quad CrossFireX (or CrossFire involving four GPUs).
DOWNLOAD: ATI Catalyst 10.8 WHQL for Windows 7/Vista 64-bit, Windows 7/Vista 32-bit, Windows XP 32-bit, Windows XP 64-bit
A detailed list of important updates follows.
New Features:
OpenGL ES 2.0 support
Performance Improvements:
Far Cry 2
New features include full-support for the OpenGL ES 2.0 API, greater control over video quality by means of a checkbox control from Catalyst Control Center. This is particularly of importance, as AMD seems to have taken notes from the press coverage, such as our Video Enhancement Quality Tests. There are image-quality improvements for StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty, that includes anti-aliasing support. An update also claims to greatly improve overall performance of Eyefinity setups that use 4-way/Quad CrossFireX (or CrossFire involving four GPUs).
DOWNLOAD: ATI Catalyst 10.8 WHQL for Windows 7/Vista 64-bit, Windows 7/Vista 32-bit, Windows XP 32-bit, Windows XP 64-bit
A detailed list of important updates follows.
New Features:
OpenGL ES 2.0 support
- ATI Catalyst 10.8 delivers full support for OpenGL ES 2.0 specification
- Enables 3D accelerated graphics within a web browser that supports OpenGL ES 2.0
- Supported on Windows XP, Windows Vista, and Windows 7
- The Default video options for ATI Catalyst have been greatly enhanced to deliver the best quality video viewing experience. Users can also choose to apply these settings to Internet Video via a new checkbox control within the ATI Catalyst Control Center.
- Performance has been greatly improved for users running with ATI Eyefinity on a Quad ATI CrossFireX configuration
Performance Improvements:
Far Cry 2
- Performance increases 2-6% on ATI Radeon HD 5800 Series single and CrossFire configurations
- Performance increases 2-4% on ATI Radeon HD 5700 Series single and CrossFire configurations
- Performance increases 3-8% on ATI Radeon HD 4800 Series single and
CrossFire configurations
- Performance increases 3-5% on CrossFire ATI Radeon HD 5800 series and CrossFire ATI Radeon HD 5700 series configurations
- Performance increases 5-10% on ATI Radeon HD 5600 series and ATI Radeon HD 5500 series configurations
122 Comments on AMD Releases ATI Catalyst 10.8 WHQL Software Suite
Has to be said, glad I learnt that lil upgrade trick recently, didn't even have to restart my rig.
What programs use open gl es?
Oh well, there are far more interesting games out there. Check out Mafia II, runs like a charm on a 5870.
Semi-ProTip: For those of you using Hybrid PhysX, no need to uninstall your Nvidia drivers. Once you uninstall the ATi drivers you may get a black screen. Just swap your display cable to the Nvidia card (viola, no more black screen) and wait for the ATi uninstall restart prompt. Shut down, swap cables again and your're good.
to do an update instead chron after the driver has self extracted cancel the catalyst install manger go to C:\ATI\Support\10-8_vista64_win7_64_dd_ccc_enu\config ,open up the installconfig file with note pad and change update from false to true, save go back into the 10.8 main folder and load the exe and BAM upgrade mode is there.
No need to uninstall drivers or restart.
*uninstalling....*
Damn I loved the 8, 9 and some of the 200 series. But there latest cards are just below standard. Atleast, not the quality I am used to from Nvidia. Heat and powerconsumption do mind, thank you very much.