Thursday, January 29th 2009
AMD Releases ATI Catalyst 9.1 Driver Suite
AMD today released its timely update to the ATI Catalyst system drivers package that provides drivers driver support for ATI Radeon graphics accelerators, AMD 7-series chipset with integrated graphics. The drivers are effictive for Windows XP, Windows Vista and Linux operating systems.
The new release expands the feature-set of the ATI Catalyst, along with a set of fixes as described in the release notes (PDF). The fixes mostly revolve around Catalyst Control Center and the video acceleration features of the driver. To begin with, the new driver provides full OpenGL 3.0 support, including a few new GL extensions. The release also favours Linux by providing support for Hybrid CrossFireX. More importantly, the Linux version of the driver, provides MultiView support, that enables using independent display-heads on setups with multiple ATI GPUs. It is supported by any combination of ATI Radeon GPUs, Radeon HD 2000 series and later.
DOWNLOAD: ATI Catalyst 9.1 for Windows XP (32bit) | Windows XP (64bit) | Windows Vista (32bit) | Windows Vista (64bit)
The new release expands the feature-set of the ATI Catalyst, along with a set of fixes as described in the release notes (PDF). The fixes mostly revolve around Catalyst Control Center and the video acceleration features of the driver. To begin with, the new driver provides full OpenGL 3.0 support, including a few new GL extensions. The release also favours Linux by providing support for Hybrid CrossFireX. More importantly, the Linux version of the driver, provides MultiView support, that enables using independent display-heads on setups with multiple ATI GPUs. It is supported by any combination of ATI Radeon GPUs, Radeon HD 2000 series and later.
DOWNLOAD: ATI Catalyst 9.1 for Windows XP (32bit) | Windows XP (64bit) | Windows Vista (32bit) | Windows Vista (64bit)
76 Comments on AMD Releases ATI Catalyst 9.1 Driver Suite
I switched to basic mode but the option didn't show up
damn AMD for misleading me
support.ati.com/ics/support/default.asp?deptID=894&task=knowledge&questionID=21793
EDit:It was a veryy strong aspect of these cards for me ...I remember my X1800XTX and my X1950XTX use to encode very very fast ..Nice when I was on Socket 954 cuz my CPU then hated to do it them selves.
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I can't comment on the other games because i haven't played them to know but the games i mentioned they will never ever run better on vista than on XP.
There are tons of reviews on the Internet with tests in windows XP and windows Vista , all the time XP it's faster , except far cry 2 which i don't know at what stage it is now with the driver updates.
It doesn't matter if it's the OS fault for crashing or the game/drivers , i can admit it's always the drivers/games , but , what should i do ? suffer with windows vista until developers decide to actually improve things for us ? or stay in windows XP and game well and free of problems ( not entirely but better than vista ).
Your logic is based on false things , why would the AA have a perf. hit of 20% in XP and 10 % in vista ? can you explain in better terms or you can only say because it uses DX10 and that's why , because Nvidia and ati told you ?
It only remains for me to completely embarrass you with reviews from reputable sites showing the difference between XP and vista , do you want that ?
You should see how i game in DOS , i play crysis at full HD with 16xAA and have 200 fps , i can't show you prrof because i don't have fraps there but you can take my word for it , i'm honest ;).DOS is the best , i have installed just the core stuff , no nice interface to consume my memory or CPU time , i go trough opengl , fastest 3d platfrom on teh planet , your windows sucks man , you should install DOS :laugh: .
Bottom line shows us the proof , talk is cheap , explaining me how you think vista is faster in a manner you think it's intelligent can make some people here laugh so hard they fell of the chair ( like me ) or piss their pants for christ sake , do you want to have that on your conscience.
I must admit, although in general usage and multi-tasking Vista is faster, feels faster, with 4GBs of ram or more.
However, in games, Vista is bound to decrease frame rates in comparison to XP due to the extra memory hog which it uses for its themes, interface and multitude of unnecessary start up processes and useless applications and services.
Frame rate wise, on today's CPUs Vista wouldn't necessarily hurt performance, you may loose 1-5 frames per second, but who cares. But I would agree that Vista wouldn't increase performance but wouldn't hurt it enough to make it an issue.
Side note (Vista is getting priority for driver support from GPU/motherboard/soundcard manufacturers, so obviously Vista has a huge advantage on that front)
Edit:
Eventually we all have to move on, XP has had a good run, soon we have to shut that chapter. Its been almost a decade.
Having them both for some time on my mediocre hardware i can see a big difference in perf. between them , people who argue here with no actual experience makes me laugh.
Vista is a power hog even on graphics cards , that aero interface eats up some perf. for some unknown reason of mine and on low end / mediocre hardware the perf. impact is kind of big , you Darren with the system you display you are better of with XP , wayyyy better if you play newer games and want good details.
I tried a lot of games in vista hoping for better perf. or at least the same perf. ( gta4 , crysis series , fallout 3 , TF2 ...etc. ) and all of them worked much better in XP , i didn't had crashing problems , just slower perf. wich bothered me
Maybe if i had a 4870x2 i wouldn't see a difference , but this doesn't mean a better hardware is absolved of having to work just the same and loosing that little perf. just as much as i did.
But whether you get 80 FPS in XP or 75 FPS in Vista who cares? is 5 FPS really noticeable? its a mundane reason to dismiss Vista considering that away from gaming it has enough features, services, interface and navigational differences to justify the superficial loss of FPS. Doubt it, GPU has little to no baring on Vistas performance, I would recommend 4 GBs of ram to game on vista, once you have 4 GBs+ you can immediately tell that Vista is faster overall. If you have less 2 GBs than you shouldn't be running Vista anyways let alone today's games.
Aero does not effect game performance AT ALL.
You are just acting like another Vista basher. Bashing Vista without having all the facts.
The only website i know tests with XP too but in only 2 games is tweaktown , and those 2 games are fra cry 2 and stalker clear sky , stalker always put up better numbers in XP despite ATI having some dx10.1 tewak for better perf. and far cry 2 is a bit faster in vista but with much much lower minimum framerate than XP.
Tell me this Wile E , does crysis or crysis warhead perform better in vista than XP ? it's easy to give an answer to this because we have a tool for testing this games.
I know XP is better because there is a thread full of people testing this game ( not here , on another forum where i'm active ).
Far cry 2 looks the same on both OS's , stalker clear sky look the same on both OS's ( not sure about stalker but i didn't find a setting exclusive for vista when i played it and nighter do i know of anything special ).
Eighter way it doesn't matter , on twektown they used the same setiings for both OS's.
BTW , how is it with that question of mine , the game with the best graphics to date , crysis warhead , on wich OS runs better ? vista or xp ? enthusiast settings can be enabled on both OS's so no discrimination here :) .
One can run Vista in DX 9.0 mode and enjoy the mundane differences that XP enjoys :)
BTW, what is your system specification, can you please fill it out in the appropriate place. "Private messages", "Edit system specs"
Edit-
To add some more games...
Look at Assassins Creed and compare the 3 versions...
DX9, DX10, DX10.1
When you enconuter people who say crysis warhead runs 20% better in dx10 (or another wrong fact from other areas ) you can do only one thing , ingore them or admit they are right so they let you move on.
In my case ignore.
Bye bye this thread and have a nice life all of you.
But the fact that you ignored my lengthy post which was directed at you just to nitpick at "Flyordie" shows that you have realised I was correct and you wanted an escape goat to leave the thread.
About what you say of differences between them in graphics or code , for me as a casual gamer it doesn't mean a thing , all i want is best graphics and best perf. , if this not happens I'll say it's bad optimizations.
The difference in code is there because they run on different paths ( dx9 and 10 ) but still , i don't care , so does ATI and Nvidia have different arhitectures and different drivers , when we look at them we don't consider who works more , we only consider speed and quality.
Why we would compare this 2 differently and say vista is forgivable because it has to work more and XP doesn't , if the graphics are the same then i can't forgive vista for anything.
Like i said there are exceptions , COH , lost planet , COJ , first crysis ....etc. , some games that broke a deal with microsoft in the campaign how to fool people buy the new OS which is crap in games , they didn't convinced people so the next game from crytek , crysis warhead , included even in XP all effects ( much because people already modified first crysis to have the exclusive vista effects on XP and it was hard to explain why they hold back) , then we saw the real deal , same graphics but better perf. on windows XP and the myth of only DX10 can do those pretty graphics destroyed completely.
Direct x 9.0
Direct x 10
Direct x 9.0
Direct x 10
I'm not disputing which version looks more appealing as that is a personal choice. But it is clear that the two pictures of identical scenes are not the same.
You can't expect additional in game detail with the acquired shader model 4.0 without a slight performance hit. To ask for more detail and more frame rate simultaneously isn't reasonable. I agree, we all know Microsoft do secret deals to fool people. But anyone that buys Vista just for Direct X 10 alone is stupid. Most sensible people bought it for the increased security, navigational interface, enhanced driver support, stability etc. Direct X 10 is just a bonus, and like I said previously its 100% up to the user whether they enable DX 10.
Edit:
I run Vista and play Assasins Creed, full visual settings, 1440x900, 4x AA. I use DX 9.0 because I get better stability and frame rate. But its optional and my choice, I could easily run the DX10 executable file and loose about 5-10 FPS at the expense of better visuals - everyones priorities is different, some people want slighly better FPS, some want visual quality, some want a balance of both. Vista gives that choice, who are you or anyone else to take the choice away.
They even said windows vista starts faster than windows XP , so you get my point of how much they lie.
Those pictures are from the time windows vista wasn't even launched and they need it to build hype around the new windows , incredible graphics but they never materialezed in an actual game , they just remained some pretty pictures , take them as the slides Nvidia and ATI present to showcase how good they are and we laugh how staged everything looks.
I only recognized one game from those pictures
Flight simulator X as it really looks
www.gamespot.com/pages/image_viewer/frame_lead.php?pid=931252&img=1&popup=1
Nice eh :) , what a shock , you would expect the same graphics in that picture but the actual game looks like the crappiest simulator ever created.
This arguing is getting to time consuming for me , i think i replyed enough Darren , i answered your post and i'll let it be how you want it to be , vista or XP , you choose and that is the best for whatever reason you consider best.
edit
Another thing you might have lost , the picture with flight simulator x showcasing DX10 is named "DX10's artists concept image" , this means is not real from actual game.
I don't want you leaving with the wrong impression. I'm actually on your side to a certain extent. I agree DX10 is marketing hype to sell a operating system and to sell GPUs. But there is subtle differences in visuals which some people (not me) would pay extra for the latest GPU and OS to see. These people are crazy enthusiasts but its their right to do so without prejudice. Even if there is not a visual difference, there is a difference in code, if there was not a difference in code performance would be the same whether shader 4.0 is enabled or disabled, but it isn't. But overall away from Microsoft's hype, Vista is a better operating system, a few gaming disputes can not take this fact away from Vista.
Edit:
Although I use Vista I play my games under DX 9.0, it defeats to purpose having an XP operating system to run DX 9.0 when I can DX 9.0 under Vista and enjoy Vistas other enhancements away from gaming in addition.
Vista does boot faster on my machine than XP. But that comes down to an individual's setup. Some setups do boot slower to Vista. I know my old one did.
Games like Crysis do look better in DX10 than they do in DX9. And if you put it in DX10, it does lose some performance to XP because XP plays it in DX9, but if you play it in DX9 in Vista, the performance is almost exactly the same in both Vista and XP. Like I said, I play ALL games at the same exact settings in both Vista and XP with no performance difference. There hasn't been a noticeable performance difference in months. There was only a difference in the early months of Vista, and those differences have been attributed to under-optimized gfx drivers.
The fact remains that you have not proven any point whatsoever, except that you are ignorant towards the facts surrounding Vista. You are bashing Vista based on information that is no longer relevant.
They said they fixed it in 8.12 hotfix, but i still had to turn off the service there.
Now its REALLY fixed.