ATI Released Catalyst 8.5 Video Card Drivers for Download

[Digital Puppy]

ATI and AMD has just released Catalyst 8.5 for Windows Vista, Windows XP and Linux platforms on http://ati.amd.com/support/driver.html

Highlights of the Catalyst 8.5 Windows release include:

Performance improvements

* Call of Juarez DX10 - Performance increases up to 12% on the ATI Radeon HD 3000 Series of products
* Lost Planet DX10 - Performance increases from 5% to 35% on the ATI Radeon HD 3000 Series of products.
* World in Conflict DX10 - Performance increases up to 25% on the ATI Radeon HD 3600 and ATI Radeon HD 3800 Series of products. Even
greater gains are seen on the ATI Radeon HD 3870X2.
* Stalker DX9 - Performance increases by 20-50% when HDR is enabled in the game; across the ATI Radeon 3800 Series of products.
* Halo - Performance increases by 10-30% across all ATI Radeon graphics products.

New features

New display mode support

* This release of Catalyst(tm) introduces a number of display mode enhancements for the ATI Radeon HD 3000 Series, ATI Radeon HD 2000
Series, and ATI Radeon X1000 Series of products (configuration of these settings are adjusted in the Catalyst Control Center):

o SECAM TV-out support
o 1080p24 mode support
o 1080p Custom mode support for HDTVs (that support 60 Hz display modes) - users can configure their own custom 1080p modes to best fit
their display.


Adaptive Anti-Aliasing - OpenGL support

* This release of Catalyst(tm) introduces Adaptive Anti-Aliasing support for OpenGL applications for the ATI Radeon HD 3000 Series, ATI
Radeon HD 2000 Series, and ATI Radeon X1000 Series of products. Adaptive Anti-Aliasing substantially improves image quality by
anti-aliasing transparent textures.

HDMI Audio for non-standard TV modes

* This release of Catalyst(tm) introduces support for HDMI Audio for all TV timing modes and non-standard (CEA 861b) TV modes. A dialog
box will be shown to users when a non-standard TV mode is selected, asking if they would like to use HDMI Audio (in certain situations HDMI
audio can get out of sync when running on a non-standard TV mode).


Windows XP Service Pack 3 support

* This release of Catalyst(tm) introduces WHQL certified support or Microsoft's Windows XP Service Pack 3 update for all ATI Radeon Series products.

Resolved Issue highlights

* Clive Barker's Jericho: Corruption is no longer noticed when playing the game on a system containing an ATI Radeon(tm) HD 38x0 series
of product and running the Windows Vista operating system.
* Crysis: Flickering shadow corruption no longer occurs in hallways of the ship when CrossFire(tm) is enabled.
* Gears of War: Launching the game under the 64 bit version of Windows Vista no longer results in momentary corruption of the desktop.
* Enemy Territory Quake Wars: Launch the game demo on a system containing an ATI Radeon(tm) X11x0 series of product and running the
Windows Vista operating system no longer results in the operating system failing to respond.
* Hellgate: London: Flickering is no longer noticed when quitting and then relaunching the game when the in-game setting are set to their
maximum levels.
* Stranglehold: The game no longer fails to load on systems running the Windows Vista operating system with default values enabled.
* Tabula Rasa: Setting the graphics option to enable Deferred Lighting and Dynamic Shadows no longer results in corruption being
displayed.
* Team Fortress 2: Enabling CrossFire(tm) and playing the game on a system running Windows Vista no longer results in corruption being noticed.
* Tomb Raider Anniversary: Performance improvement is now noticed when playing the game with CrossFire(tm) enabled.


Highlights of the Linux Catalyst 8.5 release include:

New features

Catalyst Control Center Linux Edition - new 3D settings

* This release of the ATI Catalyst(tm) Linux driver introduces new Catalyst Control Center Linux Edition 3D settings for the ATI Radeon HD
3000 Series and ATI Radeon HD 2000 Series users. Linux users can now adjust the following 3D settings:

o Catalyst AI
o Mipmap detail level
o Custom AA filters


Resolved Issues

* Support for video playback on the second head in dual head mode is now available.
* Unresolved symbols in Xorg log under RHEL 4u6 32 and 64 bit no longer occur.
* The desktop background color is no longer displayed incorrectly when using xcommgr.
* Change VT no longer fails when kernel module is not loaded.
* Switching to the virtual terminal multiple times no longer results in X displaying corruption.
* Catalyst Control Center: The Preference page is now localized for all supported languages.
* The Linux kernel module is no longer installed to wrong location if the Linux kernel is updated.
* Random system hangs no longer occur when calls to the ATI driver are made from Ring3.
* X window no longer fails to respond when GoogleEarth is maximized.
* A segmentation fault no longer occurs when running SPECViewperf on systems containing an ATI FireGL V5100 series product and running
SUSE 10.3 x86.
* Enabling Composite extension no longer displays 8x AA for graphic cards that do not support 8x AA under the Ubuntu 7.10 operating
system.
* Display corruption is no longer noticed at logon when compiz is enabled.
* Launching the glxgears application no longer results in segmentation faults.
* GoogleEarth: Launching the application in horizontal mode on a system running X no longer results in corruption being noticed.
* Specviewperf 8.1 64 bit version: Segmentation faults no longer occurs on IGP systems.
* Maya 2008: Moving the render window no longer results in the operating system failing.
* Glxgears corruption is no longer noticed in big desktop mode.

For more information on Catalyst 8.5 (for Windows Vista, Windows XP, and Linux versions), including all of the resolved issues in this release,
please see the Catalyst 8.5 release notes found in driver download section.

[skier]

WOW, out of my own free will, i thought, the new catalyst must be out by NOW, so i went to ati.amd.com about 5 min ago, and i was surprised to see, hey it is! so i started downloading, then thought, i wouldve seen it on LR if it came out a while ago, so i checked, and here the thread is all my updates fueled by upgrades made me check, wierd huh