ATI 6.5 Catalyst released

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Duke

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https://support.ati.com/ics/support/default.asp?deptID=894&task=knowledge&folderID=293

New Features

This release of Catalyst® introduces the following new features:

* Overlay Theater Mode Update
* Adaptive Anti-Aliasing for ATI Radeon® 9500 and above

Overlay Theater Mode Update

Catalyst® 6.5 introduces a new option for Overlay Theater Mode. The new option, Standard Dual Mode is available for Radeon® X1x00 series of graphics cards. This new feature now allows users to playback video using hardware acceleration when it is played on both displays (clone mode). Hardware acceleration decreases CPU utilization, allowing the PC to run smoother and faster. When using two displays in clone mode, video playback will be identically displayed on both display devices. For Radeon® X1000 series products (Avivo Video) overlay is per-display and true overlay will be used for both displays. For pre-Radeon® X1x00 boards, there is only one hardware overlay, so video on the second clone display device is either software-rendered (i.e. "Same on all" selection) or the Windows desktop is displayed but the video will not show through the color key (i.e., "Standard mode" selection).
Adaptive Anti-Aliasing for ATI Radeon® 9500 and above

Adaptive Anti-Aliasing smoothes out the surfaces in an entire scene unlike Multi-Sample which works only on edge surfaces. Adaptive AA has the ability to work on transparent or opaque texels, like those that comprise a surface texture. Previously this feature was available on the ATI Radeon® X1000 family products. Starting with Catalyst® 6.5, Adaptive AA support is now available to ATI Radeon® 9500 products and above.

Performance Improvements

As with most Catalyst® releases, performance has increased in various situations. The PCI Express bandwidth optimization code in Catalyst® 6.5 brings performance improvements for both the ATI Radeon® X1600 and Radeon® X1300 Crossfire configurations, including:

* Up to 23% gain in UT2004
* Up to 20% gain in Splinter Cell

Issues Resolved in Catalyst® Software Suite 6.5

The following section provides a summary of the issues that are resolved in the latest release of Catalyst®. These include:

* 3DMark05: Running the application with CrossFire enabled and then attempting to hot un-plug and then hot-plug the CRT no longer results in 3DMark05 failing to respond. Further details on this resolved issue can be found in topic number 737-22347
* Aquamark 3: Exiting the Start Measurement benchmark test once it is complete no longer results in the display device displaying a black desktop image with only the mouse cursor being available. Further details on this resolved issue can be found in topic number 737-22344
* Doom 3: Beginning a new game and selecting the shotgun in the give all console no longer results in corruption being noticed when Ultra Quality is disabled in the in game video quality settings. Further details on this resolved issue can be found in topic number 737-22350
* Far Cry: Installing the v1.33 patch and selecting D3D along with setting the display to 1024x768 English no longer results in the operating system failing to respond when running the benchmark. Further details on this resolved issue can be found in topic number 737-22314
* Catalyst® Control Center: Enabling clone mode no longer results in the refresh rate being locked at 60Hz when using an ATI Radeon® X700 series product. Further details on this resolved issue can be found in topic number 737-21454
* The MCE encoder no longer fails to install after the installation of the ATI display driver, WDM driver, and MMC software. Further details on this resolved issue can be found in topic number. 737-22009
* The display device no longer fades to black when attempting to do an inf install of the display driver. Further details on this resolved issue can be found in topic number 737-22313
* Connecting a CRT and disconnecting a TV followed by entering suspend mode and disconnecting the CRT no longer results in the LCD display failing to resume from suspend mode. Further details on this resolved issue can be found in topic number 737-22379
* Disconnecting a TV and connecting a CRT while in hibernation mode no longer results in the CRT failing to display an image when resuming from hibernation mode. Further details on this resolved issue can be found in topic number 737-22379
* Connecting a Sharp 32 inch LCD TV using the DVI connector no longer results in the a display mode of 659x496 being displayed when setting the display to 640x480. Further details on this resolved issue can be found in topic number737-22316
* Catalyst® Control Center: Advanced Mode: Incorrect text and cropped text is no longer noticed when selecting Japanese as the language for the Catalyst® Control Center. Further details on this resolved issue can be found in topic number 737-22319
* Clicking Start->All Programs->Catalyst® Control Center->Advanced->Catalyst® Control Center no longer results in the Catalyst® Control Center Basic View launching. Further details on this resolved issue can be found in topic number 737-22318
* The HDTV formats list no longer becomes empty after changing the display mode from extended desktop mode to clone mode. Further details on this resolved issue can be found in topic number 737-22319
* The Windows MCE operating system no longer fails to respond when doing a TV channel scan when using an ATI All-In-Wonder X1900 (PAL). Further details on this resolved issue can be found in topic number 737-22320
* A .net 2.0 error message is no longer displayed during the installation under the Windows 2000 SP4 Chinese version. Further details on this resolved issue can be found in topic number737-22321
* Using the Catalyst® Control Center to change the skin to the ATI Catalyst® Crimson no longer results in the ATI Quicksilver skin being applied. Further details on this resolved issue can be found in topic number 737-22322
* Running the automated clock configuration utility found in the Overdrive aspect page of the Catalyst® Control Center no longer results in the operating system failing to respond. Further details on this resolved issue can be found in topic number 737-22323
* Enabling Picture-in-picture no longer results in the windowed TV image failing to respond when changing the TV channel. Further details on this resolved issue can be found in topic number 737-22324
* Catalyst® Control Center: A VPU Recover warning window no longer fails to be displayed when an ASIC reset occurs. Further details on this resolved issue can be found in topic number 737-22325
* Catalyst® Control Center: Connecting a secondary CRT display device no longer results in the LCD display device failing to display an image after completing the Catalyst® Control Center->Easy Setup Wizard. Further details on this resolved issue can be found in topic number 737-22326
* Applying the Custom settings found in the CV aspect page of the Catalyst® Control Center no longer results in the custom setting being lost when the system is rebooted. Further details on this resolved issue can be found in topic number 737-22327
* Running SFR in 720p on a system containing an ATI Radeon® X1800 series no longer results in line corruption being noticed when CrossFire is enabled. Further details on this resolved issue can be found in topic number 737-22328
* Connecting a TV and a CRT to a system containing an ATI Xpress 200 series no longer results in the secondary LCD being display when shutting down and disconnecting the TV. Further details on this resolved issue can be found in topic number 737-22329
* The operating system no longer fails to respond when connecting a DVO dongle to an ATI Radeon® 7000 series. Further details on this resolved issue can be found in topic number 737-22330
* Adding a new custom HDTV mode no longer results in the custom mode not being available in the Catalyst® Control Center Display Manager. Further details on this resolved issue can be found in topic number 737-22331
* The predefined HDTV modes are no longer missing from the CV aspect page in the Catalyst® Control Center. Further details on this resolved issue can be found in topic number 737-22332
* Catalyst® Control Center: Enabling clone mode may result in the refresh rate being locked at 60Hz when using an ATI Radeon® X700 series product. Further details on this resolved issue can be found in topic number 737-22333
* The display mode of 1024x768@60Hz is now included in Catalyst® Control Center for component video output. Further details on this resolved issue can be found in topic number 737-22335
* The HDTV Support aspect is now available under the Monitor Properties when using Advanced View in the Catalyst® Control Center. Further details on this resolved issue can be found in topic number737-22336
* Connecting an HDTV using the CV dongle and setting the power option to turn the monitor off after one minute no longer results in the HDTV failing to resume. Further details on this resolved issue can be found in topic number 737-22337
* An HDMI detection message is now displayed when hot plugging an HDMI display device. Further details on this resolved issue can be found in topic number 737-22338
* Catalyst® Control Center: Truncated and cut-off text is no longer noticed in various supported languages. Further details on this resolved issue can be found in topic number 737-22339
* Black cubes and fog function no longer fail when testing GLView. Further details on this resolved issue can be found in topic number 737-22340
* Two error messages are no longer displayed in the event viewer after the installation of the driver. Further details on this resolved issue can be found in topic number 737-22341
* Using the hot-key function to change an LCD display panel setting no longer results in the LCD Panel Properties found in the Catalyst® Control Center failing to be updated with the current setting. Further details on this resolved issue can be found in topic number 737-22342
* Catalyst® Control Center: Basic View: Enabling Use Advanced view 3D settings in the 3D Quality and Performance Setting no longer results in the Catalyst® Control Center reverting back to Use Basic 3D setting below. Further details on this resolved issue can be found in topic number 737-22343
* Connecting a CRT to a system containing an ATI Xpress 200 series and toggling between a full screen DOS session and Windows, no longer results in vertical lines appearing on the secondary display device. Further details on this resolved issue can be found in topic number 737-22345
* The operating system no longer restarts multiple verdana after unplugging the power cable to the slave card and using only the master card. Further details on this resolved issue can be found in topic number 737-22346
* Using the composite connectors to connect a CRT and TVout to an ATI Radeon® X1600 or 1300 no longer results in the TVout failing to display the desktop image when attempting to resume from hibernation mode. Further details on this resolved issue can be found in topic number 737-22348
* NaviSet V1.1.10: Connecting an NEC display device to an ATI Radeon® X1600 series may result in the Monitor Adjustment dialog box stating No DDC/CI monitors detected. Further details on this resolved issue can be found in topic number 737-22349
* The Catalyst® Control Center TV Properties no longer lists H/PAL as an appropriate, third format for countries that do not support this format. Further details on this resolved issue can be found in topic number 737-22351
* An un-necessary hyphen next to the Go to ATI.com option found in the German version of the Catalyst® Control Center is now removed. Further details on this resolved issue can be found in topic number 737-22352
* Connecting two display devices using a DVI-CRT and DVI-CV dongles no longer results in extended desktop mode failing to be applied. Further details on this resolved issue can be found in topic number 737-22353
* The submenu Formats fields found in the TV Properties are no longer blank when setting the TV standard to PAL within the Catalyst® Control Center. Further details on this resolved issue can be found in topic number 737-22354
Click to expand...
 
My 9800 pro has always displayed shadows strangely in games, Oblivion, Battlefield 2, even older ones. Very pixelated, even with shadows set on high (and no, it's not set in catalyst; it's application preference). No previous patches have fixed this. Think the age of my card is just showing?
 
I was useing adaptive AA on my 9800 pro last year. You could enable it with ATI tray tools.
 
so here I go once again asking about this:

I have an ATI X800XT P.E. (PCI Express), and I'm still using CAT 5.12(CP version, not CCC).

Should I bother to continue upgrading my drivers to the 6.x's?? I mean, I know that the newer drivers are starting provide lots of stuff for the newer cards(x1xxx series), but what about the older cards? How much ,if any, of an improvement would I get for updating?
At what point does it become pointless for the current card you have to continue to update a video driver?
I haven't had any problems with 5.12 at all, but if this new one would actually *still* provide some performance boosts/improvements for my card, then I'll upgrdade....but how would I know this/figure this out? (I know that sounds realy noobish, but I had no other way of phrasing it..haha).

Also, if you guys think I should update to this new one, then is there a link to a CP version and not the CCC version (if there IS one)???


Thanks
 
Does anyone know anything about aAA performance on an x850xt? Any benchmarks floating around?
 
Obi_Kwiet said:
I was useing adaptive AA on my 9800 pro last year. You could enable it with ATI tray tools.
Click to expand...


I know but there was no official support for it
 
AeriaGloris said:
Does anyone know anything about aAA performance on an x850xt? Any benchmarks floating around?
Click to expand...


You should be able to use it without to much of a performance loss
 
Nice to see them making improvments for Aquamark. That benchmark is several years old now, and the company that made it doesn't even exist anymore. :rolleyes:
 
LOL, uninstalled my 6.2 Omega and installed these 6.5s...

Now windows found new hardware (other than the video card) and neither I nor windows have any idea what driver it wants. This is in addition to the two dispay adapters under display adapters... wtf?

Uninstalled and re-installed again, same thing. Any ideas?

So now I have a nice little question mark in my device manager...
 
Hey do you guys know if they will have the version 6.5 Drivers for Windows 2000? They only have 6.2 on their site. Thanks.
 
Obi_Kwiet said:
I was useing adaptive AA on my 9800 pro last year. You could enable it with ATI tray tools.
Click to expand...

Is he refering to the temporal anti-aliasing?

My real question is Adaptive AA is different then temporal AA, correct? And would Adaptive AA now be available in game menus (like HL2), or only through forcing via CCC?
 
toddw said:
LOL, uninstalled my 6.2 Omega and installed these 6.5s...

Now windows found new hardware (other than the video card) and neither I nor windows have any idea what driver it wants. This is in addition to the two dispay adapters under display adapters... wtf?

Uninstalled and re-installed again, same thing. Any ideas?

So now I have a nice little question mark in my device manager...
Click to expand...

Look at this post. Should help y ou out...

http://www.hardforum.com/showpost.php?p=1026222376&postcount=3
 
Dayvon said:
Is he refering to the temporal anti-aliasing?

My real question is Adaptive AA is different then temporal AA, correct? And would Adaptive AA now be available in game menus (like HL2), or only through forcing via CCC?
Click to expand...

Temporal is the crappiest AA (4x Temporal = 2x regular AA). Adaptive AA is the best it applies AA to not only edges of textures but also opaque and translucent texels as well as alpha textures. If you have the 6.5 drivers installed you should be able to enable it through CCC.
 
I knew what Adaptive AA was (that its superb and that I couldn't use it :( ) , but I never heard an explanation of Temporal before. Thx for the tip.

I just recently reinstalled windows and wanted to install Cat 6.4 and not upgrade it for awhile... Well, this has me gonna upgrade now. Adaptive AA in Oblivion and DoD:Source here I come!!
 
Maybe a dumb question but which is better AA or AAA???

and what is the performance hit difference???
 
rcf1987 said:
Temporal is the crappiest AA (4x Temporal = 2x regular AA). Adaptive AA is the best it applies AA to not only edges of textures but also opaque and translucent texels as well as alpha textures. If you have the 6.5 drivers installed you should be able to enable it through CCC.
Click to expand...

That's not how it works. It's good for older games seeing how most likely your fps will be constantly high. But 4xTemporal is actually like 6xAA IF your fps are staying high. It's rendering every other frame at higher AA. If not, it doesn't do AA and then the quality is dropped down to have lower impact.

Newer games = bad
Older games = good
 
Sipster said:
Maybe a dumb question but which is better AA or AAA???

and what is the performance hit difference???
Click to expand...

Two different things

AA (anti-aliasing) just affects geometry of objects. But not textures (think chains, grass, hair that are pretty 1 dimensional in games)

AAA(adapative anti-aliasing) affects the textures smoothing those out (chains look less jaggy and same with grass hair)
 
Netrat33 said:
That's not how it works. It's good for older games seeing how most likely your fps will be constantly high. But 4xTemporal is actually like 6xAA IF your fps are staying high. If not, it doesn't do AA and then the quality is dropped down to have lower impact.

Newer games = bad
Older games = good
Click to expand...


actually its more like this:

you set the standard aa mode, say 4xAA. Then you turn on Temporal AA. Now when your fps is greater than your refresh rate (vsync is enabled with temp aa) your aa is now 8XAA. when the fps falls below the refresh rate your aa is now 4xAA.
 
Sabrewulf165 said:
Anyone know if HDR+AA in Oblivion is in this driver? aka "Chuck"?
Click to expand...
No. I just installed these last night and I can only enable either one, but not both. OTOH, battling outdoors is a lot better now than the occasional stutter that I was getting with 6.4 on my X1800 crossfire setup.
 
No Limit said:
No. I just installed these last night and I can only enable either one, but not both. OTOH, battling outdoors is a lot better now than the occasional stutter that I was getting with 6.4 on my X1800 crossfire setup.
Click to expand...

You couldn't enable both via Oblivion's setup program even with the 6.3/Chuck Patch combo.

What you did was enable HDR, and use CCC or CP to force AA rather than let application decide. Remember, the Chuck Patch didn't patch Oblivion, it patched the drivers. Oblivion was hard-coded not to allow you to select both options (that might change in a future Oblivion patch).

ATI Knowledge Base said:
Note: You will need to enable HDR and disable AA in Oblivion while enabling AA within the Catalyst Control Center. This package does not include Catalyst Control Center.
Click to expand...

http://support.ati.com/ics/support/default.asp?deptID=894&task=knowledge&questionID=21960
 
pandora's box said:
actually its more like this:

you set the standard aa mode, say 4xAA. Then you turn on Temporal AA. Now when your fps is greater than your refresh rate (vsync is enabled with temp aa) your aa is now 8XAA. when the fps falls below the refresh rate your aa is now 4xAA.
Click to expand...

VSync/TAA/TB

Article I wrote back in the day about how TAA works.

You're close to correct but you can set the FPS threshold to whatever you want; it usually defaults to 60. V-Sync + triple-buffering means that you can actually have TAA without hitting the refresh rate, if it's higher than 60.
 
CptTrips said:
My 9800 pro has always displayed shadows strangely in games, Oblivion, Battlefield 2, even older ones. Very pixelated, even with shadows set on high (and no, it's not set in catalyst; it's application preference). No previous patches have fixed this. Think the age of my card is just showing?
Click to expand...

This seems to be mainly an issue to the way the Electronic Arts writes their code for shadows. I also have the same problem, but only in games likes BF2 and NFSMW. All other games, even the new(er) ones, like Far Cry and HL2 all run the shadows fine.

For NFSMW, setting the shadows to Medium fixes it.
 
Here is a quick Oblivion comparison between 2xAAA Quality and 2xAA. My card is a X800XT-PE at stock speeds running a Westy 32" LCD @ 1360x768 on a 3.0GHz P4 w/ 2GB RAM.

The first image in town fps was about 42fps for 2xAAA and 48fps for 2xAA.


This image is outdoors with grass set at about 50%. Framerate was about 27fps 2xAA and 16-18fps for 2xAAA. :(


The good news is, with 2xAAA set to performance (instead of quality), the fps was about 25-26 with better than 2xAA quality :) .
 
toddw said:
LOL, uninstalled my 6.2 Omega and installed these 6.5s...

Now windows found new hardware (other than the video card) and neither I nor windows have any idea what driver it wants. This is in addition to the two dispay adapters under display adapters... wtf?

Uninstalled and re-installed again, same thing. Any ideas?

So now I have a nice little question mark in my device manager...
Click to expand...

Its the ATI T200 Unified AVStream Driver. I had this problem, and had to install the 6.4's with CCC to get it to install.
 
What I want to know is if AAA works in OpenGL, it only seems to work in D3D at the moment (Cat 6.4)
 
Deimos said:
What I want to know is if AAA works in OpenGL, it only seems to work in D3D at the moment (Cat 6.4)
Click to expand...


TSAA (NVidia) and AAA (ATI) do not work in OGL. It's a limitation of the API from what I've read.
 
One other thing I would like to add.

I always have temporal AA enabled, if a game runs well with 2aa, you pretty much get 4aa for free with temporal enabled, and if the framerate is too low, you still get at least 2aa.

Also, if you have an old game, e.g. Quake 3, you can have it on 6aa and get an effective 12 aa, but honestly I can't really tell the difference because 6aa is so good.
 
is AAA availble for x800xl? I went to my CCC found the AAA, but its grey out and won't let me drag the meter
 
BlackDragon323 said:
so here I go once again asking about this:

I have an ATI X800XT P.E. (PCI Express), and I'm still using CAT 5.12(CP version, not CCC).

Should I bother to continue upgrading my drivers to the 6.x's?? I mean, I know that the newer drivers are starting provide lots of stuff for the newer cards(x1xxx series), but what about the older cards? How much ,if any, of an improvement would I get for updating?
At what point does it become pointless for the current card you have to continue to update a video driver?
I haven't had any problems with 5.12 at all, but if this new one would actually *still* provide some performance boosts/improvements for my card, then I'll upgrdade....but how would I know this/figure this out? (I know that sounds realy noobish, but I had no other way of phrasing it..haha).

Also, if you guys think I should update to this new one, then is there a link to a CP version and not the CCC version (if there IS one)???


Thanks
Click to expand...



so..can anyone help me with this dilema? Should I update to 6.5? is it worth it for my card? or is 5.12 pretty much the "best" as far as drivers for my card is going to get???

Thanks in advance
 
BlackDragon323 said:
so..can anyone help me with this dilema? Should I update to 6.5? is it worth it for my card? or is 5.12 pretty much the "best" as far as drivers for my card is going to get???

Thanks in advance
Click to expand...

Update. This set enables Adaptive Anti-Aliasing for your card, which you probably want.
 
I have a 9700pro and the AAA is still greyed out. was going to use it in Half life oh well.
 
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