AMD Releases Catalyst 10.10 Video Card Drivers for Download

[Apoptosis]

AMD has just released ATI Catalyst 10.10 for Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows XP, and Linux platforms on http://www.amd.com or http://game.amd.com/us-en/drivers_catalyst.aspx

AMD Catalyst™ Software Suite Version 10.10 Release Notes

New Features

Introduction of AMD Catalyst™ Accelerated Parallel Processing ("APP") technology Edition
There will now be two variants of the AMD Catalyst package available:
1. AMD Catalyst (comparable to prior versions in features and components) – currently includes the Direct3D®, OpenGL®, display driver and AMD Catalyst Control Center components
2. AMD Catalyst Accelerated Parallel Processing (“APP”) technology Edition – AMD Catalyst plus the OpenCL driver
Users can still obtain the individual AMD Catalyst components as well (which will also include the OpenCL driver as well)

Video accleration for WMV HD® video content
- This release of AMD Catalyst provides video acceleration support for WMV HD® (Microsoft video codec) under Windows 7
- Compatible with the ATI Radeon™ HD 5000 Series of products

Enhanced Dynamic Contrast video controls
- This release of AMD Catalyst enhances the Dynamic Contrast setting found in the Catalyst Control Center by adding histogram based detection

Introduction of AMD HD3D Technology

Blu-ray 3D Support
-This release of AMD Catalyst enables Blu-ray 3D™ playback
- Requirements include Blu-ray 3D player software, 3D supported display and 3D Stereoscopic glasses
- Compatible with the AMD Radeon HD 6800 Series

Stereo 3D Gaming Compatibility
-This release of AMD Catalyst enables Stereo 3D gaming via 3rd party Stereo 3D Conversion Software from Dynamic Digital Depth (DDD™) and iZ3D™
- Requirements include 3D supported display and 3D Stereoscopic glasses
- Compatible with the ATI Radeon HD 5000 Series and AMD Radeon HD 6800 Series

More information on AMD HD3D Technology, including Stereo 3D Conversion Software and a list of supported displays, can be found at http://www.amd.com/hd3d

Catalyst™ Application Profiles
The following application profiles are available with this release of AMD Catalyst 10.10:
- Multiplayer Medal of Honor™ (DirectX® 9/DirectX® 10/DirectX® 11) CrossFire™ update
- Darksider™ (DirectX 9) performance and CrossFire anti-aliasing update
- NBA 2K11™ (DirectX 9) CrossFire update
- Stone Giant™ (DirectX 10/DirectX 11) CrossFire update
- Civilization V™ (DirectX 10/DirectX 11) tweak CrossFire update
- H.A.W.X.™ 2 (DirectX 10/DirectX 11) CrossFire update
- Formula 1™ (DirectX 10/DirectX 11) CrossFire update
- World of Warcraft™ (DirectX 11) version CrossFire update

Performance Improvements
The following performance improvements were observed with this release of AMD Catalyst 10.10:

Aliens vs. Predator™ DirectX 11 Benchmark
- Performance increases up to 6% on ATI Radeon HD 5800 Series single and CrossFire
- Performance increases up to 5% on ATI Radeon HD 5700 Series single and CrossFire
- Performance increases up to 5% on ATI Radeon HD 5600 Series
- Performance increases up to 5% on ATI Radeon HD 5500 Series
- Performance increases up to 4% on ATI Radeon HD 5400 Series

BattleForge™
- Performance increases up to 6% on ATI Radeon HD 5800 Series single and CrossFire configurations with anti-aliasing enabled
- Performance increases up to 5% on ATI Radeon HD 5700 Series single and CrossFire configurations with anti-aliasing enabled

Crysis Warhead®
- Performance increases up to 9% on Single ATI Radeon HD 5800 Series products with anti-aliasing enabled

Far Cry™ 2
- Performance increases up to 7% on Single ATI Radeon HD 5800 Series products

Metro 2033™
- Performance increases up to 7% on ATI Radeon HD 5800 Series single and CrossFire configurations
- Performance increases up to 8% on ATI Radeon HD 5700 Series single and CrossFire configurations
- Performance increases up to 5% on ATI Radeon HD 5600 Series in DirectX 11 and 10 modes
- Performance increases up to 5% on ATI Radeon HD 5500 Series in DirectX 11 and 10 modes
- Performance increases up to 4% on ATI Radeon HD 5400 Series in DirectX 11 and 10 modes

S.T.A.L.K.E.R.™ : Call of Pripyat Benchmark
- Performance increases up to 7% on single ATI Radeon HD 5800 Series products

Unigine™ Heaven
- Performance increases up to 9% on ATI Radeon HD 5800 Series single and CrossFire configurations with anti-aliasing enabled
- Performance increases up to 8% on ATI Radeon HD 5700 Series single and CrossFire configurations with anti-aliasing enabled

World in Conflict™
- Performance increases up to 9% on ATI Radeon HD 5600 Series
- Performance increases up to 10% on ATI Radeon HD 5500 Series

[Apoptosis]

Also, for those that are interested, AMD HAS posted the AMD Catalyst 10.10a hotfix driver here:

http://support.amd.com/us/kbarticles/Pa ... otfix.aspx

Highlights include:

Support for the new Morphological Anti-Aliasing feature

Performance optimizations for systems with an AMD Radeon™ HD 6870 and AMD Radeon HD 6850 series of graphics products installed

o Aliens versus Predator performance enhancements

o Star Craft 2 performance enhancements

o OpenGL performance enhancements – gains can be seen in Prey, Quake Wars: Enemy Territories, and Heaven v2.1

[HONkUS]

kind of random but related.

I bought my 5870 in part because I was sick of getting blue screens from my X-fi and 8800GTS not playing nice together and the idea that it was Forceware related. I have been very happy with my 5870 EXCEPT when it comes to playing old games. A few weeks ago I was at a LAN party and we decided to fire up Diablo II for old times sake. It was a pain getting it to run with Catalyst 10.9, Earlier this year I also ran into the Borderlands "missing textures" bug. I guess my point in all this is that I believe both sides are pushing so hard to be the fastest that possibly compatibility and image quality are suffering as a result.

What do you guys think?