ATI Releases CATALYST 6.8 Drivers For Download

Post by **Apoptosis** » Fri Aug 18, 2006 12:44 pm

We have just released Catalyst 6.8 on http://www.ati.com for both Windows and Linux platforms

Highlights of the Windows Catalyst 6.8 release include:

Performance improvements:

OpenGL – Improved shader compiler and transform engine optimizations have led to many significant performance gains in OpenGL applications across the entire Radeon X1000 Series of products:

· Doom 3 performance improves as much as 6.5%

· Quake 4 (v1.2 or higher) performance improves as much as 18%

· Chronicles of Riddick performance improves as much as 20%. Average improvements of 5-10% are commonly seen.

· Prey performance improves as much as 16%.

Direct3D – Optimizations made to ATI’s graphics memory manager have led to significant gains in applications that make heavy use of graphics memory on 256MB ATI graphics cards:

· 3DMark06 performance improves as much as 22% on the Radeon X1000 Series of products in single card configurations with 256MB of graphics memory at 1280x1024 and anti-aliasing enabled. The largest gains are found on the ATI Radeon X1800 Series and Radeon X1900 Series of products.

· Call of Duty 2 performance improves as much as 30% on single Radeon X550 cards or higher with 256MB of video memory at 1280x1024 and anti-aliasing enabled. The largest gains are found on the ATI Radeon X1800 Series and Radeon X1900 Series of products.

Highlights of the Linux Catalyst 6.8 ( 8.28.8 ) release include:

New Features:

ATI Pairmode Support (available when using Horizontal BigDesktop mode)
· This release of the ATI Proprietary Linux driver introduces a new feature called Pairmode. This feature allows users to enable BigDesktop mode with two different screen resolutions. When using Xrandr, users can now dynamically switch between BigDesktop and Clone mode without having to restart the X Server.Fedora Core Package Support
Retaining Display Device State between restarts
· This release of the ATI Proprietary Linux driver now maintains the display device status between restarts. Previously, when using multiple display devices, the ATI Proprietary Linux drivers enabled all displays connected to the display adapter even if the display devices were disabled by aticonfig or Display Switching.

New Product Support
This release of the ATI Proprietary Linux driver introduces support the ATI Radeon® Xpress 1200, Radeon® Xpress 1250, and Radeon® Xpress 1300 products.

Unified Linux Proprietary Linux Driver
This release of the ATI Proprietary Linux driver now provides a unified driver installer for the 32bit and 64bit Linux platforms. This intelligent installer will identify which CPU architecture (IA32, and x86_64) is being used and install the appropriate driver.

For more information on Catalyst 6.8 (for Windows and Linux versions), including all of the resolved issues in this release, please see the Catalyst 6.8 release notes found in driver download section.

kenc51 · Post by **kenc51** » Fri Aug 18, 2006 1:12 pm

Unified Linux Proprietary Linux Driver

'Bout time!

I'll test this on Sunday, after I finish "something else" which was promised for far too long ago now! ehh Nate.

Post by **DMB2000uk** » Fri Aug 18, 2006 5:20 pm

Bet the first people with x1900xtx crossfire to get these up and running will be in the 3dmark top 10. For how long though

Dan

Post by **Apoptosis** » Fri Aug 18, 2006 9:31 pm

till the X1950XTX's come in in the near future

kenc51 · Post by **kenc51** » Sat Aug 19, 2006 5:45 am

Apoptosis wrote:till the X1950XTX's come in in the near future

Also the current X1900 will drop in price (according to Fudo @ the Inq)

IF it does, I'm thinking of getting a CF master card.......

The X1950 does look very sweet, but with the €€€ I've spent & lost on parts this year, I doubt I'll get one