AMD Catalyst 12.9 Beta Driver Available for Download

[Cristian_25H]

With September drawing to a close AMD has rolled out a new graphics driver, the Catalyst 12.9 Beta which brings an improved Catalyst Control Center, support for the mobile-focused Enduro graphics switching technology, some fixes, and a 10% performance boost in Lost Planet 2 (for single-GPU setups).

Download: for Windows 8, Windows 7 & Windows Vista / for Windows 8, Windows 7 & Windows Vista (with .NET 4.0) / for Windows XP / for Linux



Release Notes

AMD Catalyst Mobility now includes support for AMD Enduro Technology.

● AMD Enduro Technology for Notebooks delivers:
- Long lasting battery life
- GPU accelerated performance for gaming, video, and compute apps
- A Seamless and automatic experience

New features found in Catalyst 12.9 Beta:

● Re-designed Catalyst Control Center user interface
- View all profiled applications
- View recently run applications
- Profile applications based on power source
● Expert mode control and customization
- Performance centric AC
- Battery centric DC

Performance highlights of AMD Catalyst 12.9 Beta (versus AMD Catalyst 12.8)
● Up to 10% in Lost Planet 2 in single GPU configurations

This release of AMD Catalyst Linux introduces support for the following new operating systems.
● Ubuntu 12.10 early look support
● RHEL 6.3 production support

Resolved issue highlights of the AMD Catalyst 12.9 Beta driver
● Tri and Quad CrossFire+ Eyefinity configurations - Certain DirectX 10 and DirectX 11 applications lower than expected performance
● FireFox - corruption observed in CrossFire configurations
● Enabling Overdrive settings increased clocks in all power states
● Availability of AMD Video Converter support in AMD Catalyst 12.9 Beta Windows 7 and Windows Vista packages

View at TechPowerUp Main Site

 

[RejZoR]

And i was hoping AMD Enduro is some new tech to make battery last even longer just to see it's a renamed old tech. *sigh*

 

[BigMack70]

Too bad they still don't seem to care about getting The Witcher 2 working with 7970 Crossfire...

It's completely broken, as several review sites have shown, and they act like it's not an issue at all.

 

[mediasorcerer]

Thanx heaps for headz up, i will try them out right now for sure!! g1.

I have over fifty games installed on my comp atm from the year 2000 onwards and nearly all work fine with 12.8 drivers.

 

[Mathragh]

When running with more than one monitor, the screen annoyingly flickers when the card switches between memory clocks.

My hopes went up when I read this:
Resolved issue highlights of the AMD Catalyst 12.9 Beta driver

● Enabling Overdrive settings increased clocks in all power states

but sadly, UVD clocks are still overwriting everything else, even the overdrive/afterburner settings, like it did before 12.9.

 

[Prima.Vera]

%u25CF Enabling Overdrive settings increased clocks in all power states

THIS!!!

 

[Mathragh]

THIS!!!

After doing further research, UVD clocks are apparently locked for an architectural reason.

 

[Mistral]

A performance gain for Lost Planet 2? It wasn't all that popular in the first place, but how many people play that nowadays anyway?

How about a performance improvement in Tribes: Ascend? That's one game where AMD's cards are certainly doing way slower than they should.

 

[TheGuruStud]

A performance gain for Lost Planet 2? It wasn't all that popular in the first place, but how many people play that nowadays anyway?

How about a performance improvement in Tribes: Ascend? That's one game where AMD's cards are certainly doing way slower than they should.

You can thank Hi-rez for that. They have botched that game incredibly in respect to performance (not to happy with the pos CoD weapons, either).

I've been playing since the day it was beta. Perf was great. But every patch since launch has made it worse and worse. All kinds of bugs relating to video appeared forcing you to tweak the ini or you couldn't even play the game it was so choppy.

It's so bad, now, that I can't even use 2xAA on my 1200 MHz 7950 @ 2560x1440. I can do 2x @ 1080 barely. This is with depth of field and ambient occlusion off. I used to be able to run it at 1080 with 4xAA! Not to mention that you must force AA with the driver b/c the game doesn't support it. Good luck rendering in dx10/11 b/c perf takes a big nose dive.

The game is broken and it has nothing to do with AMD (or nvidia, forum full of complaints). It used to run at about 45% usage, and now, about 80% at 1080 and 90%ish at 2560.

For shame.

 

[fullinfusion]

So, this driver worth trying out or is it just going to be a waste of my time?

 

[avatar_raq]

After months of waiting, I finally got my hands on a stable Catalyst for my system, and that was 10.8, I am NOT going to upgrade any time soon, unless I definitely need to.

 

[TheGuruStud]

After months of waiting, I finally got my hands on a stable Catalyst for my system, and that was 10.8, I am NOT going to upgrade any time soon, unless I definitely need to.

You should try out modded drivers.

12.8 resulted in a crash launching Killing Floor for me (who knows the fault). Installed some modded 12.8s and everything has been fine, plus OCing is working out better with Afterburner.

These are the one's I'm using http://benchmark3d.com/amd-catalyst-12-8-whql-7900-mod

I've had good luck in the past with tweakforce, formerly x-treme g (nvidia and AMD).

 

[fullinfusion]

No issues here so far on my 6990.

 

[Mathragh]

Its been stable for me so far, only played some borderlands 2 though.

 

[erocker]

Borderlands 2, BF3, BF2142, F1 2012, DayZ all working great for me. I haven't had a single issue at all.

 

[MxPhenom 216]

Borderlands 2, BF3, BF2142, F1 2012, DayZ all working great for me. I haven't had a single issue at all.

How is F1 2012 BTW?

 

[erocker]

How is F1 2012 BTW?

As good as the demo I downloaded. I'm not buying the game since I have 2010 and 2011 that I have yet to thoroughly play.

 

[fullinfusion]

Fire Fox now works without crashing.. another plus for me

I missed my FFox

 

[Prima.Vera]

After doing further research, UVD clocks are apparently locked for an architectural reason.

Yeah, for some reason my second card stays iddle on 400/900 instead of 157/300. WTF is this happening?!!?

 

[avatar_raq]

You should try out modded drivers.

12.8 resulted in a crash launching Killing Floor for me (who knows the fault). Installed some modded 12.8s and everything has been fine, plus OCing is working out better with Afterburner.

These are the one's I'm using http://benchmark3d.com/amd-catalyst-12-8-whql-7900-mod

I've had good luck in the past with tweakforce, formerly x-treme g (nvidia and AMD).

The major problem with divers 12.2 -12.7 was the flash playback in chrome and IE which kept locking my PC no matter what, and that forced me to download any flash video I wanted to watch, 12.8 resolved that issue and I am so 'terrified' that horror could come back again

 

[mediasorcerer]

So, this driver worth trying out or is it just going to be a waste of my time?

I don't quite understand why so many folks complain about amd,s drivers, im not saying there isnt issues, just never had any problems myself with the 3 amd cards ive owned over the last 2 odd years. Maybe folks are not installing them properly?

I have just installed 12.9 for my 7950 and i didn't even bother doing a clean install, and they are fine for me.
Hope they work out for you anyway, if you try them.

 

[avatar_raq]

.... Maybe folks are not installing them properly?......

You know double clicking the file you just downloaded doesn't seem very hard, does it now?

 

[erocker]

Yeah, for some reason my second card stays iddle on 400/900 instead of 157/300. WTF is this happening?!!?

According to your system specs you shouldn't even be installing these drivers.

ATiMan uninstaller helps, especially with beta drivers. Check this post, the links are there along with a link to bug reporting.

 

[mediasorcerer]

You know double clicking the file you just downloaded doesn't seem very hard, does it now?

Exactly!!!