AMD Catalyst 12.10 & 12.11 Beta Now Available

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AMD just sent word that the new Catalyst 12.10 & 12.11 Beta drivers are now available. Here's a bit from the release notes:

For AMD Radeon™ HD 5000, HD 6000 and HD 7000 Series users, Microsoft® has certified today’s AMD Catalyst™ 12.10 release as “compatible with Windows 8.” With this driver, these products offer full support for WDDM 1.2, which is an updated model for graphics drivers that Microsoft has developed to ensure smooth performance and wide compatibility in their new operating system.

  • Target-Independent Rasterization (TIR): TIR is a new rendering path that enables superior anti-aliasing in Direct3D driver applications
  • Native Stereo 3D Support: Windows 8 natively supports stereoscopic 3D gaming and videos via compatible applications
  • Unified Video API: Video playback has been integrated into the DirectX® 11 API, enabling simultaneous video and gaming content. Transcoding performance may also be improved for supporting applications.
  • Optimized screen rotation for rotation aware devices
  • Improved sleep/resume performance
  • Optimized GPU power consumption
  • Major technologies / features also supported under Windows 8:
  • AMD Eyefinity technology
  • OpenCL™
  • OpenGL
  • Unified Video Decoder (UVD)
  • AMD Dual Graphics
  • AMD CrossFire technology
  • AMD Overdrive
  • AMD Catalyst Control Center
  • Vision Engine Control Center

For more advanced users, we are also making the AMD Catalyst™ 12.11 Beta available today. This driver introduces significant performance improvements for many games across ALL 28nm AMD Radeon™ HD 7000 Series products: HD 7700, HD 7800 and HD 7900.

Check out our blog posting on Catalyst 12.11 Beta for more information. Highlights of AMD Catalyst™ 12.11 Beta. Performance gains seen on the entire AMD Radeon HD 7000 Series:

  • 10%-15% more performance in Battlefield 3 in most cases
  • More than 20% in certain missions and sequences (Comrades)
  • Up to 7% more performance in Metro 2033
  • Up to 10% more performance in DiRT Showdown
  • Up to 8% more performance in Sleeping Dogs
  • Up to 12% more performance in Civilization V
  • Up to 10% more performance in StarCraft II
  • Up to 8% more performance in Sniper Elite: V2
Click to expand...
 
Running Windows 7 64 bit, 8 gigs of ram, 3 7970 gigabytes in Tri-Fire @ 1100/1700 and have good gains in 3dmark, Heaven, BF3 about 10 to 20 Fps, Crysis2 now scales with all 3 cards, Guild Wars 2 Maxxed graphic settings 1920X1200 running at 70Fps to 150Fps, One game that is not scaling above 1 card is F1 2011. All in All everthing is really improved, im very surprised. IM USING BETAs BTW forgot to mention that.
 
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Possible revisit to the crossfire/sli (trifire / tri sli) performance article or is the official verdict from [H] still in nvidias favor?
 
I just removed old drivers using the ATI Cat uninstall feature then a reboot. I just checked NEWEGG and there are at least 4 cards for $379 after $20 rebate, You really cant lose if you got 2 at that price!
 
I'd also love to see [H] revisit their crossfire opinion of 7970s... I've been running a pair of OC'd 7970s for a while and the only issue I ever had was The Witcher 2 not working with crossfire + ubersampling enabled, and this driver just fixed that for me.

It seems to me that their bad experience with 7970 CF at launch tainted them against AMD this round significantly, but that's just my opinion.
 
Marcdaddy said:
I just removed old drivers using the ATI Cat uninstall feature then a reboot.
Click to expand...

I thought you could just install right over the current drivers with the newer drivers. I thought AMD stated this awhile back but maybe I'm just mistaken...:):confused:
 
Was hoping to see a new Catalyst Control Center in the 12.10 drivers...

Nope, still sucks :mad:
 
owikh84 said:
Tested myself the Never Settle driver... on 7970 @ 1300/1750

Catalyst 12.9
3d1113001750129.jpg


Catalyst 12.11
3d11130017501211.jpg
Click to expand...
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums...game-bundles&p=5145823&viewfull=1#post5145823
 
MasonD said:
I thought you could just install right over the current drivers with the newer drivers. I thought AMD stated this awhile back but maybe I'm just mistaken...:):confused:
Click to expand...

Possibly but I have been doing manual uninstall then follow by driver sweeper in SAFE mode for along time and my drivers always work while others complain of problems. To me following safe procedure works.

Bottom line is being able to install these drivers and see performance improvements.


Right after I did a clean install with the method that I have posted above I ran 3dMark11 with my Sapphire HD7950 950 mhz edition at stock clocks and my 3570k at 4.5GHZ. 3dMark11 score was just under P9000 without making any adjustments to the CCC settings.

Next I went and played UT3 for about 20 minutes and the game play was fantastic. I even got accused of hacking because I was killing so many other players. :D

The 12.11 beta drivers are working great for me so far. :) Good job AMD.
 
Radeon HD 6970 here. So far, so good on Catalyst 12.10.

Didn't bother trying 12.11 beta, sounds like they're more for HD 7000 series cards.
 
I get a blue screen when I attempt to install the 12.11 beta driver on two 7770 in Xfire mode. Back to 12.10
 
Oh, wonderful. 12.10 has brought back cursor corruption. This is getting old...

It's a more minor version, the cursor will sometimes flash to a corrupt black square when it passes over window boarders, then snap back to normal. Still, shouldn't be happening, especially in a driver that tells us to "never settle"...

Edit:
Also only seems to effect the left-most monitor. My current display config is:
Left: DVI (minor cursor corruption on this display)
Middle: DVI (Set as primary monitor in Windows)
Right: Active DisplayPort-to-DualLink DVI adapter

Reverting to 12.4 = no issues. Looks like a regression to me.
 
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BF3 results are insane, my setup has had a 15fps to 30fps increase across the board. Caspian Border 64 player server. Nice increases in most everything else as well other than Borderlands 2 which has not changed too much.
 
Unknown-One said:
Oh, wonderful. 12.10 has brought back cursor corruption. This is getting old...

It's a more minor version, the cursor will sometimes flash to a corrupt black square when it passes over window boarders, then snap back to normal. Still, shouldn't be happening, especially in a driver that tells us to "never settle"...

Edit:
Also only seems to effect the left-most monitor. My current display config is:
Left: DVI (minor cursor corruption on this display)
Middle: DVI (Set as primary monitor in Windows)
Right: Active DisplayPort-to-DualLink DVI adapter

Reverting to 12.4 = no issues. Looks like a regression to me.
Click to expand...

12.11 is the never settle driver. 12.10 is the same old driver with some fixes.
 
Just installed 12.11. Installed right over old driver with no issues.

BF3- 10-20 FPS increase
Heaven Benchmark- +500 pts
3dMark + 1000 pts

Wow can't say enough good about these drivers. They have renewed my faith in AMD!
 
yeah same here. installed right over the top, big gains in fps. BF3 is amazingly fluid.
 
1100+ in 3dmark11!

Wonder if there's any difference between ghz and stock reference bios, since I'm sure these drivers were specifically tailored around ghz bios. If someone benchmarks both, and determines there's a marginal performance increase over stock bios, just might be tempted to void my warranty and flash my dualy.
 
I think there's a huge issue with the new drivers. My 7970 is constantly clocked at high performance mode, even when I'm just on the desktop.

I reverted back to 12.8

Just a warning to people.

This is what the clock speeds on a 7970 should look like when idling:
7970-clock-speeds.PNG



And....I just submitted a bug report to AMD about the issue.
 
tzhu07 said:
I think there's a huge issue with the new drivers. My 7970 is constantly clocked at high performance mode, even when I'm just on the desktop.

I reverted back to 12.8

Just a warning to people.

This is what the clock speeds on a 7970 should look like when idling:


And....I just submitted a bug report to AMD about the issue.
Click to expand...

AMD hardware REP
We're aware of the clock issue on the 7970, we've had two reports out of Europe today. We're on it.

On the flip side, the long-standing idle GPU clock bug for the 7870 should be solved.
Click to expand...

http://www.overclock.net/t/1318756/amd-12-11-beta-drivers/20

And temp work around.
http://www.overclock.net/t/1319122/12-11-beta-12-10-whql-7xxx-reference-user-idle-clock-bug-fix
 
I use msi afterburner to set mhz, so no clock issue with reference card for me.
 
i have a single 7970 and dont have the clock bug, idle and 3d clocks are fine.

i wonder if its specific manufactuers or models?
 
The Mac said:
i have a single 7970 and dont have the clock bug, idle and 3d clocks are fine.

i wonder if its specific manufactuers or models?
Click to expand...

I don't know. I have a reference Sapphire 7970 that I purchased on launch day.
 
Maybe I am mistaken but does the 12.11 driver set not have the auto tune feature in CCC panel? I saw it before upgrading to this latest set.
 
So no love for my Crossfire 6970.
I know my card are 1 gen back but come on, why only improve the performance of your current cards.

I did some searching and found no performance benefit for 6000 series cards, only 7000.

Just curious, doesn't nVidia do the same, have they stopped trying to improve GTX580 cards?
 
PHOBOS-82 said:
So no love for my Crossfire 6970.
I know my card are 1 gen back but come on, why only improve the performance of your current cards.

I did some searching and found no performance benefit for 6000 series cards, only 7000.

Just curious, doesn't nVidia do the same, have they stopped trying to improve GTX580 cards?
Click to expand...

It's different architecture, you cannot expect them to work on older one.
 
Hopefully AMD has a fix for the idle clocks soon. I like the performance improvements, but not if my video card is going to run unnecessarily hot and noisy when I'm just surfing the web.
 
shansoft said:
It's different architecture, you cannot expect them to work on older one.
Click to expand...

Erm, the 6970 he has is only one generation behind the latest cards they make. Of course we expect them to continue work towards improving the driver for the older one...
 
Unknown-One said:
Erm, the 6970 he has is only one generation behind the latest cards they make. Of course we expect them to continue work towards improving the driver for the older one...
Click to expand...

The old generation has pretty much hit a peak in terms of software optimizations. The AMD rep said so in that thread he's in.
 
Running two 5870's in crossfire config, in a P6X58D Premium motherboard.

12.10, causes intermittent black screen in Guild Wars 2. Frame rate ranges from 25fps to 140fps.
12.11 beta 4, no issues that I can see. Frame rate same as 12.10's.

So the beta driver, for me anyway, appears to be more stable. However, I'm taking the "never settle" hint and never settling for ATi, and going team green on my next upgrade. :rolleyes:
 
Ripperjack said:
Running two 5870's in crossfire config, in a P6X58D Premium motherboard.

12.10, causes intermittent black screen in Guild Wars 2. Frame rate ranges from 25fps to 140fps.
12.11 beta 4, no issues that I can see. Frame rate same as 12.10's.

So the beta driver, for me anyway, appears to be more stable. However, I'm taking the "never settle" hint and never settling for ATi, and going team green on my next upgrade. :rolleyes:
Click to expand...

Guild Wars 2 runs worse on NV cards than AMD last i read at 1080p and above on the latest cards and is your issue because of using multi GPU because if you go Multi GPU NV the potential for Multi GPU issues is there also.

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/guild-wars-2-performance-benchmark,review-32511-6.html


At 1920 x 1200 with every graphical option, including Super Sampling, set on maximum I'm now able to maintain 60fps consistently in Guild Wars 2 on my 7870 machine. I couldn't do that before. This driver offered me, personally, a very noticeable improvement. Also, I had some flickering with some light sources in the game with the previous drivers but they are now gone so that's nice as well.
__________________
3770K | 16GB | Z77 Pro4 | GTX 680 | 120ssd + 1tb
3570 | 8GB | H61M-DGS | HD 7870 | 120ssd + 500gb
T9600 | 8GB | G50VT-PM45 | 9800M GTS | 120ssd + 500gb
Atom N330 | 4GB | nVidia ION | 120ssd
Click to expand...

http://forums.anandtech.com/showpost.php?p=34143959&postcount=392
 
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tzhu07 said:
I think there's a huge issue with the new drivers. My 7970 is constantly clocked at high performance mode, even when I'm just on the desktop.

I reverted back to 12.8

Just a warning to people.

This is what the clock speeds on a 7970 should look like when idling:
7970-clock-speeds.PNG



And....I just submitted a bug report to AMD about the issue.
Click to expand...

-If, at some point you flashed your GPU(s), this symptom may occur. it's not the CCC tho it's a conflict w/the VGA BIOS and its video driver(s); changing the motherboard BIOS can also invoke such behavior. Fixed that by flashing VGA BIOS(to def bios). it was flashed w/software from a card with different idle power states/def power states than the original.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Excited about all the positivity posted here and people jumping into BETA drivers with resounding results. Before 12.9BETA, only "official" drivers governed my hardware, but this last installation assured me differently. Any1 not running "HD7-series" that was using CAT12.9 move up to 12.11? How good is it for HD5xxx and HD6xxx cards?
 
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