Wednesday, April 25th 2012
AMD Releases the Catalyst 12.4 WHQL Driver
AMD has today let loose the newest Catalyst release, the WHQL-certified Catalyst 12.4 which includes the 8.961 graphics driver and features support for the Radeon HD 2000, HD 3000, HD 4000, HD 5000, HD 6000 and HD 7000 Series desktop cards.
Download links Windows 7/Vista (32-bit) | Windows 7/Vista (64-bit) | Windows XP (32-bit) | Windows XP (64-bit)
Catalyst 12.4 Release Highlights
New Features
Windows XP support for the AMD Radeon HD 7900 Series, AMD Radeon HD 7800, and AMD Radeon HD 7700 Series
- In addition to Windows 7 and Windows Vista support, Catalyst 12.4 now also introduces Windows XP (64-bit/32-bit) support for the AMD Radeon HD 7900, AMD Radeon HD 7800, and AMD Radeon HD 7700 Series
Super Sampling Anti-Aliasing: Level of Detail (LOD) Image Quality enhancements
- Supported on the AMD Radeon HD 7900, AMD Radeon HD 7800, and AMD Radeon HD 7700 Series
- LOD Image quality enhancements have been improved when enabling Super Sample Anti-Aliasing and Adaptive Anti-Aliasing through the AMD Catalyst Control Center for DirectX 10 and DirectX 11 applications.
- Applications must support in game Anti-Aliasing for the feature to work (Forced on Anti-Aliasing through the Catalyst Control Center is not supported for DirectX 10 and DirectX 11 applications)
Morphological Anti-Aliasing (MLAA): Significant performance enhancements
- Supported on the AMD Radeon HD 7900, AMD Radeon HD 7800, AMD Radeon HD 7700 Series, AMD Radeon HD 6000 Series, and AMD Radeon HD 5000 Series
- MLAA now operates up to 80% faster than previous versions
Texture filtering quality improvements
- Supported on the AMD Radeon HD 7900, AMD Radeon HD 7800, and AMD Radeon HD 7700 Series
- Improvements have been made to the texture filtering algorithm (for both DirectX9 and DirectX10/DirectX11 applications) to increase the quality of rendered textures, with no impact to performance
Resolved Issues
Resolved Issues for the Windows 7 Operating System
- Elder Scrolls: Skyrim: no longer hangs on single GPU configurations when used with AMD Catalyst 12.3 CAP1 and later CAP releases
- Elder Scolls: Skyrim: flickering square corruption is no longer observed.
- Rage: Vsync is no longer disabled after task switching.
- Enemy Territory: Quake Wars: no longer crashes when launched in High Performance Mode.
- Stalker - Call of Pripyat: flickering is no longer observed in trees with specific Catalyst Control Center settings.
- Tom Clancy HAWX 2: no longer crashes on game launch.
- Windows Media Center: no longer crashes when run in Eyefinity mode and High Performance mode settings.
- AMD Steady Video: an error message is no longer displayed when enabling AMD Steady Video for the Microsoft Internet Explorer 9.0 plugin.
- Duplicating displays no longer generates random corruption.
- Tearing is no longer observed on the third screen in 3x1 and 1x3 Eyefinity configurations.
- A system crash is no longer experienced when enabling Crossfire in a 4 display configuration.
Resolved Issues for the Windows Vista Operating System
- The Catalyst Control Center now renders correctly when launched while playing a Bluray disc using WinDVD.
Resolved Issues for the Windows XP Operating System
- Dirt 3: a system hang is no longer experienced when running game at maximum in game settings.
- Dragon Age 2: visual corruption is no longer observed.
The advanced video quality settings are now correctly displayed in the Catalyst Control Center.
Download links Windows 7/Vista (32-bit) | Windows 7/Vista (64-bit) | Windows XP (32-bit) | Windows XP (64-bit)
Catalyst 12.4 Release Highlights
New Features
Windows XP support for the AMD Radeon HD 7900 Series, AMD Radeon HD 7800, and AMD Radeon HD 7700 Series
- In addition to Windows 7 and Windows Vista support, Catalyst 12.4 now also introduces Windows XP (64-bit/32-bit) support for the AMD Radeon HD 7900, AMD Radeon HD 7800, and AMD Radeon HD 7700 Series
Super Sampling Anti-Aliasing: Level of Detail (LOD) Image Quality enhancements
- Supported on the AMD Radeon HD 7900, AMD Radeon HD 7800, and AMD Radeon HD 7700 Series
- LOD Image quality enhancements have been improved when enabling Super Sample Anti-Aliasing and Adaptive Anti-Aliasing through the AMD Catalyst Control Center for DirectX 10 and DirectX 11 applications.
- Applications must support in game Anti-Aliasing for the feature to work (Forced on Anti-Aliasing through the Catalyst Control Center is not supported for DirectX 10 and DirectX 11 applications)
Morphological Anti-Aliasing (MLAA): Significant performance enhancements
- Supported on the AMD Radeon HD 7900, AMD Radeon HD 7800, AMD Radeon HD 7700 Series, AMD Radeon HD 6000 Series, and AMD Radeon HD 5000 Series
- MLAA now operates up to 80% faster than previous versions
Texture filtering quality improvements
- Supported on the AMD Radeon HD 7900, AMD Radeon HD 7800, and AMD Radeon HD 7700 Series
- Improvements have been made to the texture filtering algorithm (for both DirectX9 and DirectX10/DirectX11 applications) to increase the quality of rendered textures, with no impact to performance
Resolved Issues
Resolved Issues for the Windows 7 Operating System
- Elder Scrolls: Skyrim: no longer hangs on single GPU configurations when used with AMD Catalyst 12.3 CAP1 and later CAP releases
- Elder Scolls: Skyrim: flickering square corruption is no longer observed.
- Rage: Vsync is no longer disabled after task switching.
- Enemy Territory: Quake Wars: no longer crashes when launched in High Performance Mode.
- Stalker - Call of Pripyat: flickering is no longer observed in trees with specific Catalyst Control Center settings.
- Tom Clancy HAWX 2: no longer crashes on game launch.
- Windows Media Center: no longer crashes when run in Eyefinity mode and High Performance mode settings.
- AMD Steady Video: an error message is no longer displayed when enabling AMD Steady Video for the Microsoft Internet Explorer 9.0 plugin.
- Duplicating displays no longer generates random corruption.
- Tearing is no longer observed on the third screen in 3x1 and 1x3 Eyefinity configurations.
- A system crash is no longer experienced when enabling Crossfire in a 4 display configuration.
Resolved Issues for the Windows Vista Operating System
- The Catalyst Control Center now renders correctly when launched while playing a Bluray disc using WinDVD.
Resolved Issues for the Windows XP Operating System
- Dirt 3: a system hang is no longer experienced when running game at maximum in game settings.
- Dragon Age 2: visual corruption is no longer observed.
The advanced video quality settings are now correctly displayed in the Catalyst Control Center.
75 Comments on AMD Releases the Catalyst 12.4 WHQL Driver
this is HUGE news for those of us who like to run MLAA in addition to other AA.
there's actually still a quite large community of players.
The game seemed like it was always on the verge of greatness IMO. But things like the sounds (Quake plink on impact) and the cheesy Earth voice always kept me from being immersed into the game. You know what I mean?
But there was a lot of strategy in that game. Some I wish they would have done in BF3. Like the commander perks of setting up a hammer behind enemy lines and stuff.
as far as the Earth voices go, yea they were a bit cheesy but tolerable.
Strategy? some of the best i've found in an FPS without playing scrims in other FPS games...
enough strategy to be fun and make you plan, but not enough that both teams are so competitive that it's not fun anymore.
Back on topic, I hadn't realized this was MLAA 2.0. glad it's finally WHQL, blurry textures were bothersome.
I go for morpho + 4xmsaa ,looks good in most situations, 1080p though
Ill go try 12.4 & see how it goes in general...