Wednesday, April 8th 2009
ATI Catalyst 9.4 Released
AMD have just released their ATI Catalyst 9.4 Driver for Windows 7, Windows Vista and Windows XP. Highlights of the ATI Catalyst 9.4 Windows release include:
New Features
New Features
- ATI Catalyst 9.4 includes a new ATI Overdrive auto-tune application to estimate the over-clocked engine and memory values for ATI Overdrive supported ATI Radeon Graphics accelerators
Designed for the ATI Radeon HD 4000 Series
- "World of Warcraft" or "World of Warcraft - Wrath of the Lich King": Flickering no longer occurs when Shadow is set to medium/high using ATI CrossFire configurations
- Google Sketchup no longer displays blank screen
- Resolutions above 1024 x 768 will now full screen properly for specific HDMI displays
- Artifacts no longer visible while playing Age of Conan DX10
- VC-1 progressive disc playback no longer exhibits block corruption.
- The Compute Abstraction Layer (CAL) driver now functions properly under Windows XP
183 Comments on ATI Catalyst 9.4 Released
1. Stock coolers make a lot more noise compared to 3rd party coolers
2. 3rd party coolers cool the GPU better
3. Some stock cooling doesn't even have a HS on crucial areas like power VRMs.
4. 3rd party coolers offer proper memory cooling solutions, most stock coolers just throw some thick thermal pads on their coolers as a afterthought.
5. As I said, stock coolers could be much better with a minimum of additional thought. For example; proper standoffs for memory on the cooler not thick shitty thermal pads, use better fans such as those seen on the Akasa Vortexx, and on more "elite" graphics card models, add some heatpipes.
That is how stock coolers could be improved. 2/3 of the suggestions really would not cost much, and I for one would happily pay a few more quid knowing I was getting a pretty decent stock cooler rather than the rubbish most cards come with. Argue all you want, you know the main reason people get 3rd party coolers is for any additional cooling benefit and to reduce noise.
then when it's finished, run the installer to get the new CCC to
Then go to have disk.
woopie :D
custom cooler = branded companies atempts at making cheaper coolers that look like they might do the job but they certainly do not.
Do not know if its Beta , what i notice are, that its not "WHQL " ;)
Hmm in the ep 39 of techreport (might have been an earlier episode), one of the reviewer's had said he received a passively cooled gpu that failed because he ran a heavy benchmark on it and the cooler just didn't keep it cool, and the company's solution? Don't run that program then. LOL
Hey Ya'll !!! My first post to this site/forum....
I have been monitoring this thread to see/feel hows folks are experiencing with the new release of 9.4 before I myself attempting the upgrade from 8.12.
So after a bit of waiting.... I have decided to attempt the upgrade. UPGRADE = SUCCESSFUL.
There was a surprise though.... kinda scared me a little bit.. :eek: After the upgrade and the system did that last reset/re-boot.... as it was coming up... I heard the Window start sound... You may say that is normal and what so surprise about it.... Well, my sound system (logitech Z-680) was not on.... the sound eminated from my monitor's internal speaker... :twitch: yeah.... I was getting sound out of my monitor's speakers.. heheheh... In otherwords... the sound was traveling through my HD4870's DVI port, DVI to HDMI converter, and then into my monitor's HDMI inport port...
So this is the first time I have heard sound via HDMI.. heheheh... music, HDTV, wave file, etc... anything with sound went via my HDMI... Only sucky part about it is that the speakers in my monitor sounds like a portable radio. hehehe.. but expected. I guess if I have a sound system with HDMI input that I can have better sound if I wanted to use the HDMI path... but for now... I just switched it back via my X-Fi to my Logitech Z-680.
Uninstall went fine... All i did was uninstall via Add/Remove. Delete ATI folder. Use CCcleaner. Double check msconfig for any remaining ATI entries...
Then finally install the new 9.4 cat. All went well and all functions seems to be working fine.
Checked out my games to see if they all still work... AND yes, they all work just fine (BF2, HALO, Call of Duty 4, and GRID).
So .... as of right now... im a happy camper... (just glad that nothing went wrong and all is working).
Why did you reboot by the way? Ati added an upgrade path in their drivers, you can just install over the top of older 9 drivers and not have to reboot (at least I think so, correct me if I'm wrong).
Reboot is from the old ways..... :o
My current system was built only since Dec '08. When I built her... I used 8.12... Since then she has been working fine. As for versions 9.1 ~ 9.3 ... I didnt bother to go upgrade.. been reading that 9.1 was iffy, 9.2 was good, and 9.3 was bad. I was going to go with 9.2 but waited to hear about 9.4 since i'm already into April... Since there seems to be some good results with 9.4 or at least equal to 9.2 when it comes to performance, I decided to with 9.4version.
As for doing the upgrade. I just did it the old fashion way... Uninstall old drivers, verify, reboot (forced reboot), install new drivers, verify, and then reboot just for good measure.
Yes, I have read back in a few threads that some of you had upgraded from 9.x to 9.4 without the need to uninstall the old drivers.... Would this have worked ontop of 8.X versions????
I'm just glad that my stuff is working with 9.4