ATI CATALYST 4.6 Released
Posted: Sun Jun 13, 2004 6:22 am
Available now on ati.com (and various mirror sites) is CATALYST 4.6. This is the 6th official release of the year, setting a blazing pace never seen before in the hardware industry. This CATALYST posting brings up the driver version to 8.02 and includes performance improvements, stability/compatibility enhancements, and new features.
The quick link to the driver is the same as always: http://www.ati.com/home/online/CatalystXPdriver.html
The quick link to the driver is the same as always: http://www.ati.com/home/online/CatalystXPdriver.html
Let us know what your expierences with the new driver are! I just updated today (bit late, but am getting back to normal after computex) & everything is good so far.Performance Improvements:
Pixel Shader compiler improvements bring significant performance gains to PS 2.0 applications such as Halo (2-3%), Tomb Raider (4-5%) and Mother Nature (4-5%). ShaderMark 2 shows numerous gains in the 3-6% range. The High Dynamic Range scenes in ShaderMark (Tests 20 & 21) gain 10-15%.
RADEON X800 driver tuning improves performance for several Vertex-Shader-heavy tests. For example, Battle of Proxycon, Troll's Lair and Mother Nature gain 9-15% on the RADEON X800 PRO.
Improvements in our surface allocation and texture management code have increased performance for resource-challenged cases. Re-Volt scores improve 25% at 1600x1200 across several RADEON configurations. ShaderMark Test 14 (Veined Marble) improves dramatically (up 380% at 1600x1200) on some 256MB products.
Improvements in OpenGL driver efficiency bring numerous small gains (1-3%) in Call of Duty, Wolfenstein - Enemy Territory, Star Trek - Elite Force II, Serious Sam, Return to Castle Wolfenstein and Quake III Arena.
X800 memory tuning improves Anti-Aliasing performance in a number of games and benchmarks. For example, at 4xAA, 3DMark2001 gains 4-7%, UT2003 Antalus and Asbestos Flybys improve 2-7%, and the CodeCreatures score rises 15%.
