AMD Details ATI Catalyst 9.8

[btarunr]

AMD today made ATI Catalyst 9.8 driver suite available to the masses through its proper channel of posting it on the AMD Game portal, complete with related documentation. The company released the software last friday to readers of the company blog, just so it could loosely coincide with the bulk of activity during Quakecon 2009, when the company also carried out a series of private demonstrations of its upcoming DirectX 11 compliant graphics hardware to sections of the media.

Catalyst 9.8 has an unusually long changelog this time around, which can be attributed to two important changes: a series of CrossFireX performance enhancements that are game-specific, and the inclusion of OpenGL 3.1 support.

Performance Enhancements:

• Battleforge DirectX 10/DirectX 10.1 performance improves up to 15-50% in CPU limited settings with the largest gains in CrossfireX configurations.
• Company of Heroes DirectX 10 performance improves by up to 10-77% in CPU limited settings.
• Crysis DirectX 10 Dual CrossfireX performance improves as much as 10% and Quad CrossfireX performance improves as much as 34% in CPU limited settings.
• Crysis Warhead DirectX 10 Dual CrossfireX performance improves as much as 7% and Quad CrossfireX performance improves as much as 69% in CPU limited settings.
• Far Cry 2 DirectX 10 Dual CrossfireX performance improves as much as 50% and Quad CrossfireX performance improves as much as 88% in CPU limited settings.
• Tom Clancy's H.A.W.X. DirectX 10/DirectX 10.1 Dual CrossfireX performance improves up to 40% in CPU limited settings with Quad CrossfireX performance improving up to 60%.
• UnigineTropics OpenGL performance improves 5-20%
• UnigineTropics DirectX 10 Quad CrossfireX performance improves 5-20% in CPU limited settings.
• World in Conflict DirectX 10 performance improves by 5-10%.

OpenGL 3.1 Support

• Support for OpenGL Shading Language 1.30 and 1.40.
• Instanced rendering with a per-instance counter accessible to vertex shaders (GL ARB draw instanced).
• Data copying between buffer objects (GL EXT copy buffer).
• Primitive restart (NV primitive restart). Because client enable/disable no longer exists in OpenGL 3.1, the PRIMITIVE RESTART state has become server state, unlike the NV extension where it is client state. As a result, the numeric values assigned to PRIMITIVE RESTART and PRIMITIVE RESTART INDEX differ from the NV versions of those tokens.
• At least 16 texture image units must be accessible to vertex shaders, in addition to the 16 already guaranteed to be accessible to fragment shaders.
• Texture buffer objects (GL ARB texture buffer object).
• Rectangular textures (GL ARB texture rectangle).
• Uniform buffer objects (GL ARB uniform buffer object).
• SNORM texture component formats.

The complete Release Notes document for ATI Catalyst 9.8, that covers a list of fixed and known issues, can be read here.

Pick Catalyst 9.8 for your version of Windows below.

DOWNLOAD: ATI Catalyst 9.8 Driver Suite for Windows 7 and Vista 32-bit | Windows 7 and Vista 64-bit | Windows XP 32-bit | Windows XP 64-bit

View at TechPowerUp Main Site

 

[ShRoOmAlIsTiC]

damn there is no South bridge drivers for Win 7 64bit. alot of stuff is missing for Win 7 64bit

 

[a_ump]

these are the results i got from the 2 games that used to lag on me

==Company of Heroes v1.71 DX10: ultra settings(high for ones that can't go ultra)/8xAA/1680x1050
9.7
Avg: 30.756 - Min: 9 - Max: 60
9.8
Avg: 41.502 - Min: 13 - Max: 59
==Stalker CLear Sky
9.7
Avg: 36.113 - Min: 22 - Max: 49
9.8
Avg: 37.963 - Min: 26 - Max: 46

EDIT: SCS settings

So company of heroes got a nice improvement in FPS, which is awesome as i'm just now starting to pick the game up again n learning to play at its quite different from most RTS where its usually amass a huge force. Clear Sky i couldn't notice much of a difference, but apparently my minimum rates should be better yet max lower? haha either way i'm happy with it as there's sure to be bug fixes and whatnot as well.

for those of u that don't know, sun quality is right after steep parallex in scs settings

 

[ShRoOmAlIsTiC]

well i used the vista 64 SB drivers in Win 7 and it wasnt a problem. there was a new driver i never seen before, AMD USB Filter driver? any clue what that is?

 

[Polarman]

TvWonder series needs Win 7 drivers also.

 

[ArmoredCavalry]

I really don't understand ATI's obsession with Company of Heroes.... Is there anyone not getting hundreds of frames per second in that game yet? :shadedshu

Edit: Just read post above... Maybe I have to go re-install the game, cause I could have sworn it was not that graphically intensive... ....

 

[a_ump]

you might not be running it in dx10.

 

[ArmoredCavalry]

you might not be running it in dx10.

The last time I played it was in XP, so yeah.

But dx10 really kills it that much? What effects does it add??

 

[Mistral]

I really don't understand ATI's obsession with Company of Heroes....

As long as it translates in framerate gains for DoWII as well, that's just fine by me...

 

[a_ump]

idk. i'll select high rendering instead of dx10 and see what options dissapear.

in-game you probly wont tell too much a difference. main difference i notice is that shadows or w/e seem sharper and the lighting is more realistic/better. Also it takes away the option of Ultra for terrain details and limits it to high. which as i said while playing probly won't notice too much, but the ground is much sharper and isn't um i guess i could say blurry looking in ultra compared to high.
in the readme for the 1.7 patch that added dx10 they said it adds much more random objects and whatnot but i don't notice lol'

here's an actual review comparing CoH dx9 vs dx10

 

[Sapientwolf]

I just played through the opening sequence of Fallout 3 from birth to escape and I didn't get any of those random slowdowns that seem to be associated with CrossfireX/SLI. HDR glitch is still there though.

 

[TAViX]

Nobody is saying, but the Call of Juarez 2 got a nice fps boost on CrossFire boards. Like the 4870X2 one.

 

[Mussels]

The last time I played it was in XP, so yeah.

But dx10 really kills it that much? What effects does it add??

it adds flowers, rocks, and multiple light sources. not that much graphically, but a shitload of performance loss.


Also, you get really bad performance if Vsync is left on - you need to add a commandline to the shortcut to disable it ( -novsync ) - my minimum FPS went from 9 to 40 something, just from changing that.

 

[a_ump]

it adds flowers, rocks, and multiple light sources. not that much graphically, but a shitload of performance loss.


Also, you get really bad performance if Vsync is left on - you need to add a commandline to the shortcut to disable it ( -novsync ) - my minimum FPS went from 9 to 40 something, just from changing that.

hmm i will try this.

 

[Mussels]

hmm i will try this.

-nomovies -novsync -nolitter


have some more

nolitter disables the random debris DX10 mode adds, it can give you a few FPS more without affecting graphics at all.

 

[a_ump]

nah i like my debris , n i only play at 1680x1050 at 4xaa, i used 8xaa just help show the difference. 4xaa i don't notice any slow downs. on a sidenote i'm finally learning how to play CoH, used to starcraft big difference in gameplay styles haha

 

[Mussels]

its not explosion debris, its flowers and rocks and crap put on the ground only in DX10 mode.