ATI Catalyst 4.8 drivers

[B.Ob.]

4.8 Catalyst's

 

4.8 Release Notes

 

New Features

This section provides information on new features found in this release of the CATALYST™ Display Drivers. New features include:

 

Geometry Instancing

VPU Recover Enhancement

EIA 861B Timing Specification

Geometry Instancing

This release of CATALYST introduces the support of Geometry Instancing. This new feature provides assistance when a game has to render many objects where the geometry is highly similar. Geometry Instancing allows the VPU to create multiple objects from a single geometric model, rather than passing an entire new model for each item on the screen. This increases the rendering speed of images such as leaves, or grass.

 

VPU Recover Enhancement

VPU Recover has been improved in this release of CATALYST. In most cases, VPU Recover will fully recover instead of switching to software rendering mode. This enhancement is supported under the Windows XP operating system.

 

EIA 861B Timing Specification

This release of CATALYST™ introduces EIA 861B Timing Specification for DVI based televisions. The RADEON™ Software Release version 8.04 will support 256 byte E-EDID and will decode CEA timing extensions. Further, it will retrieve DTV timing information. When the driver detects EIA 861B timings in E-EDID that the controller cannot handle, it will replace the EDID detail timing with adjusted timings suitable to our controller. The modes will be added as EDID detailed timing.

 

Common modes that are supported include:

 

640 x 480p at 60 Hz and 25.2 MHz pclk

720 x 480p at 59.94 Hz and 27.0 MHz pclk

720 x 576p at 50 Hz and 27.0 MHz pclk

1280 x 720p at 60 Hz and 74.25 MHz pclk

1280 x 720p at 50 Hz and 74.25 MHz pclk

1920 x 1080i at 60 Hz and 74.25 MHz pclk

1920 x 1080i at 50 Hz and 74.25 MHz pclk

1920 x 1080p at 60 Hz and 148.5 MHz pclk

1920 x 1080p at 50 Hz and 148.5 MHz pclk

This feature will be supported under the Windows XP and Windows 2000 operating systems.

 

Performance Improvements

As with most CATALYST™ releases performance has increased in various situations. The following performance gains are noticed:

 

Direct3D driver efficiency has improved considerably. Significant performance gains are noted in multiple "CPU-bound" cases, including 3DMark2001, Aquamark 3, Comanche4, Dungeon Siege, and Unreal Tournament 2003 and 2004. Typical improvements are in the 1-5% range.

OpenGL driver efficiency is also improved. Older OpenGL games such as Quake III Arena and Wolfenstein - Enemy Territory show small improvement (1-2%) at low resolutions. Call of Duty framerates are up approximately 4%. Doom3 improves considerably more (as much as 12% on some product configurations) as a result of the same software efficiency improvements.

 

Issues Resolved in CATALYST™ Version 4.8

The following section provides a summary of the issues that have been resolved in the latest release of CATALYST™ 4.8. These include:

 

3D Mark03: Display corruption is no longer noticed when running the Trolls Lair test 3 under Windows XP

Beyond Divinity:Playing the game with FSAA set to 2x no longer results in display corruption when scrolling the display by moving the mouse to the left of the display

High Heat Baseball 2003: The display no longer loses sync when exiting or changing player characters in the game High Heat Baseball 2003 under Windows XP with an ATI RADEON X800 series installed

Madden NFL 2003: The game no longer fails to respond under Windows XP when an ATI RADEON 9800 XT is installed and attempting to set the Truform slider to Application Preference

Need for Speed Underground:Playing the game under Windows XP with an ATI RADEON 9000/9200 installed no longer results in the road ahead not being lit up by the car's headlights

Splinter Cell Pandora Tomorrow:Display corruption is no longer noticed when launching a multiplayer game under Windows XP with an ATI RADEON™ 9200 installed

Thief 3:Inconsistent lighting and shadow flicker is no longer noticed when playing the game under Windows XP

Unreal Tournament 2004: Playing the game under Windows XP with an ATI RADEON X600 series installed no longer results in game corruption being displayed when setting Anti-Aliasing to 4x and having the display properties set to 1600x1200 32bpp

 

Known Issues

The following section provides a brief description of known issues associated with the latest version of CATALYST™. These include the following:

 

City of Heroes: Specular lighting issues and incorrect textures is noticed when playing the game under Windows XP. Further information on this issue can be found at: www.ati.com/support/infobase/4561.html

F1 Challenge: A performance decrease is noticed under Windows XP with an ATI RADEON™ X800 PRO installed. Further information on this issue can be found at: http://www.ati.com/support/infobase/4578.html

Indian Jones and the Emperors Tomb: Display corruption and missing polygons are noticed in the game. Further information on this issue can be found at: http://www.ati.com/support/infobase/4563.html

PainKiller: missing textures is noticed on the ground and light artifacts are noticed when moving around within the game or when moving in and out of the light. This issue is known to occur under Windows XP when an ATI RADEON X800 XT is installed. Further information on this issue can be found at: http://www.ati.com/support/infobase/4579.html

Attempting to play a Java based game or visit a Java based website results in display corruption under Windows XP when either an ATI RADEON 9800 SE or RADEON™ X800 XT Platinum card installed and AA is enabled. Further information on this issue can be found at: http://www.ati.com/support/infobase/4570.html

[ParoxysM]

It's almost time to upgrade from Win98 and Cattlists from 2.42

/me makes restore point .

[ParoxysM]

So I downloaded the 4.7s and applied Dx9.0c...and gained 110 points in 3dmark2k1!!

 

:cheer: :cheer: :cheer: :cheer: :cheer: :cheer: :cheer: :cheer: :cheer: :cheer: :cheer: :cheer:

[ParoxysM]

Nothing crashed so far...runs T:V well.