Catalyst 5.3

CATALYST Control Center

Old Control Panel

Release notes


OVERDRIVE™ Version 4
The latest version of OVERDRIVE™ includes a new 3D test and extra safety checks to ensure the best over-clocking experience - allowing manual over-clocking of both engine and memory while keep the user's graphics card safe from any of the dangers usually associated with over-clocking.

eRecord
The CATALYST™ Software Suite 5.3 introduces a new feature named eRecord. This feature is the first error logging system used by the ATI multimedia software. The eRecord feature provides a mechanism for software components to output error messages. A new System Messages (Event Viewer) menu has been added to the CATALYST™ CONTROL CENTER System Tray. This launches the Event Viewer, providing a mechanism for users to view the error messages.

Windows XP Media Center Edition Display Control Panel Extension
The CATALYST™ Software Suite 5.3 introduces enhanced capabilities of the display panel through a Windows Media Center Edition look-alike control panel. The control panel options include:
  • Display devices. Provides the ability to select preferred display devices such as; TVs, LCDs, or Monitors
  • Display options. A user controllable option for desktop color, brightness, contrast
OpenGL Version 2.0 Support
The CATALYST™ Software Suite introduces OpenGL Version 2.0 support. This version of OpenGL will be in line with the latest GL ARB approved specifications. New to this specification are GLSL, non-power-of-two-textures, separate stencil, multiple render targets, and point sprites.


Fixed in this driver:
  • 3DMark2001: A black screen is no longer displayed when launching 3DMark2001 after launching Aquamark3, when the CATALYST™ CONTROL CENTER is installed. Topic number 737-1140
  • Code Creatures: Running the benchmark under Windows XP SP2 with an ATI RADEON™ 9250 installed, and the desktop display set to either 1600x1200, 1280x1024, or 1024x768 no longer results in the ground textures appearing corrupted. Topic number 737-10108
  • Pacific Fighters: Playing the game after playing any track for a short period of time and having the landscape detail set to perfect no longer results in the clouds becoming blocking when flying. Topic number 737-209
  • Thief Deadly Shadows: Setting the desktop display to 1024x768 32bpp and setting the Texture Preference to High Performance in the control panel no longer results in corruption being seen at the end of the introduction movie. Topic number 737-10109
  • Attempting to apply a higher refresh rate to a non-DDC monitor no longer results in the refresh rate reverting to 60hz. Topic number 737-10101
  • Accessing the Problem Report Wizard option from the ATI icon in the system tray no longer results in Problem Report Wizard not being translated in the supported localized languages. Topic number 737-341
  • Entering the Video option found in the Graphic Setting tab of the CATALYST™ CONTROL CENTER no longer results in the side scroll bar being missing for the secondary display device connected to an ATI RADEON™ 9800 series under Windows XP. Topic number 737-347
  • The Welcome tab found in the CATALYST™ CONTROL CENTER is now completely localized for the Japanese version of Windows XP, or 2000. Topic number 737-351
  • Using the CATALYST™ CONTROL CENTER to access the Display Manager no longer results in corruption being seen on top of menu text in the Dutch, French, Spanish, and Portuguese versions of Windows XP. Topic number 737-353
  • The TV formats now corresponds to the country selected in the TV properties. Topic number 737-1438
  • Having a CRT and TV connected to the ATI RADEON™ X850 series no longer results in the TV image quality page not being grayed out when enable video mode is enabled. Topic number 737-1439
  • Launching the Hotkey Manager found in the CATALYST™ CONTROL CENTER no longer results in the Hotkey Manager window not closing when hitting the ESC key. Topic number 737-10097
  • Using the CATALYST™ CONTROL CENTER to access the Display Manager no longer results in corruption being seen on top of menu text in the Dutch, French, Spanish, and Portuguese versions of Windows XP
  • Entering the Video option found in the Graphic Setting tab of the CATALYST™ CONTROL CENTER no longer results in the side scroll bar being missing for the secondary display device connected to an ATI RADEON™ 9800 series under Windows XP
  • Creating a profile for clone or stretch mode and attempting to change to that mode from an extended desktop mode, no longer results in the task failing to complete. Topic number 737-10098
  • The Windows desktop and Full-screen video options are no longer missing when clicking the back button found in the Video Wizard of the CATALYST™ CONTROL CENTER. Topic number 737-10098
  • The CATALYST™ CONTROL CENTER tool bar now displays correctly after applying a new skin and restarting the CATALYST™ CONTROL CENTER. Topic number737-10098
  • Defining a custom view in the CATALYST™ CONTROL CENTER by deselecting the graphic adapter and applying the changes, no longer results in the Advanced view taking on the properties of the defined custom view. Topic number 737-10102
  • The font size used in the CATALYST™ CONTROL CENTER for the Quicksilver and Steelblue skins have been readjusted in order to be seen clearer. Topic number 737-10103
  • Enabling Temporal AA no longer results in a noticeable flicker on the display device. Topic number 737-10103
 
Overdrive 4 states i can manually OC my card, i have an X800 Pro retail, but how do i do this?
 
i tested them,in 3dmark05 it gave me only a couple of point more, but 03 was bigger difference. i am staing w/ 5.3 for now
 
is the overdrive only in the Catalyst control center? Cause when I had the Catalyst Control Center, it was crappy, to much like bloat ware to me.
 
Rtstrider said:
Would I notice any difference on my 9800XT with this catalyst compared to the 5.1?
Click to expand...
wow, are you THAT lazy? just download them and see.
 
i am cool man, all i am saying is that we cant really tell if its better before a lot of people try them and report. from my tests, tehy are better.
 
DO I have to get rid of the 5.1 drivers if I am upgrading to the 5.3 ones? Or can they just overlap.
 
vage said:
DO I have to get rid of the 5.1 drivers if I am upgrading to the 5.3 ones? Or can they just overlap.
Click to expand...


It is best to get rid of your older drivers first. Just use the ATI Catalyst uninstaller (do a search on ATI's website, as I can't seem to get the link to work.)

BTW...did anyone see the April Issue of Maximum PC? They printed an email I sent them about a mistake on the CD that came with the magazine that envolved the ATI CATALYST UNINSTALLER. teehee. :p
 
Tiny said:
It is best to get rid of your older drivers first. Just use the ATI Catalyst uninstaller (do a search on ATI's website, as I can't seem to get the link to work.)
Click to expand...

The uninstaller has always been part of the driver package, just go to your c:\(or whatever drive you installed your driver on) ati\support\winxp......\AtiCimUn
 
MrSlacker said:
i tested them,in 3dmark05 it gave me only a couple of point more, but 03 was bigger difference. i am staing w/ 5.3 for now
Click to expand...

Anybody else have benches to compare 5.3 to 5.1 or 5.2? I will have to wait till tonight to test them out.

I skipped the 5.2 because of the poor performance reported and I want to know if these are any better.
 
I went from 5.1 to 5.3 and this was my results. CS:S Stress Test dropped 1 frame. Aquamark droped .5, 3D Mark 03 went up 50, 3D Mark 01 dropped 100, 3D mark 05 went up 30.
 
BaNaNaS said:
I went from 5.1 to 5.3 and this was my results. CS:S Stress Test dropped 1 frame. Aquamark droped .5, 3D Mark 03 went up 50, 3D Mark 01 dropped 100, 3D mark 05 went up 30.
Click to expand...

thanks, sounds like it's might be worth it...
 
~4-5 fps increase from 5.1 to 5.3 in CS:S (1280x1024 @ 75hz)

I noticed my WoW got a lot smoother too, except I'm still having a problem when I open my character list or spell book my fps drops to 30 from 90+ and it's only my horde char. On my alliance char it works fine. Weird...

Tried deleting cosmosUI, didnt do anything. Have no idea what it could be, atm.

Shuttle SN95G5 V2.0
BBA X800 XT PE (Stock speeds)
4xAA, 4xAF
V-Sync off
 
when i tried installing the new catalyst drivers I got an error message saying that some dll couldn't register itself. It was something associated with the control center, cause after the reboot i couldn't load the control center, so I had to uninstall the control center.
 
So in a nutshell, what does the OpenGL 2.0 support boil down to? That ATi cards can now be a closer rival to the 6800's in OpenGL games(doom3)? Or is it just a small step forward?

I havent installed the 5.3's yet cause I'm still waiting on an answer regarding if SP2 is REQUIRED to use these drivers. :D
 
I installed the new 5.3 drivers and right away something doesn't look right. My login menu background image seem to be smaller, as in it looks like the resolution was higher than normal.

Once I logged in to windows, I noticed all my desktop icons were grouped together into smaller, tighter groups as if the icon spacing had been changed. But worst of all, the font size (I run my monitor at 1600x1200 with the fonts changed to 125DPI fonts instead of the default 96DP) had decreased, and everything in general looks smaller, as if the resolution is higher than 1600x1200. I tried changing resolutions to something lower and back to 1600x1200, but it all looks the same.

I also tried changing to 96 DPI fonts and back to 120 DPI fonts, but doing this makes the fonts look bigger on the desktop as they should, but they look small everywhere else. No clue what's going on. I think I'm gonna try installing the 5.2 drivers again and see if it helps.

For the record, I did try the Overdrive setting, and before the 5.3 drivers, the clock speed would normally go up to about only 417 MHz on my 9800XT. With the new drivers, it jumps straight up to 432. Pretty nice increase, especially considering it's ATI doing it and not voiding my warranty or anything. I haven't changed my cooling on the system or anything, btw.

I'm gonna go work on the resolution problem and post back if I get it fixed.

Anyone else having this issue?

UPDATE: I couldn't fix this issue with the 5.3 drivers so I rolled back to the 5.2 drivers. I'm getting the feeling I might be experiencing one of the known issues with the new drivers which was mis-reporting of the screen resolution. Not sure what that's all about though.
 
does anybody know what cli.exe is? its in c:\Program Files\Ati Technologies\ATI.ACE\cli.exe

after i installed the cat 5.3's it gave me this error once upon the first reboot and aquamark 3 and pcmark 04 crash randomly when i try benchmarking though all three of the 3dmarks work beautifully.

here are my 3dmark scores:

3DMark 2005 v120: 5583
3DMark 2003 v360: 11446
3DMark 2001SE v330: 23,319

this is what i'm running:

Athlon 64 3400+ @ 2.4GHZ
1Gig TwinMOS DDR400 PC3200 @ CAS 2.5
ATI All In Wonder X800XT (Core: 500MHZ/ Memory: 1GHZ/ Catalyst 5.3's)
300Gig 16MB Cache Maxtor DiamondMax 10
Creative Audigy 2 ZS
Asus K8N-E Deluxe
OCZ 450 Watt ModStream
Windows XP Pro SP2/ Security 2004/ Plus! DME

I didn't have this problem with the 5.2's :confused: i dont really care about the benchmarks i just dont want it to bite me in the ass in the middle of a game later on down the road.
 
wow these new 5.3 drivers really do suck. i always stutter in cs source while playing at 1024x786. same with Joint operations, while im flying in a helicopter i stutter alot. im definetly switching back to the 5.1's when i get home today from work.
 
I would try uninstalling and reinstalling the drivers.

I believe cli.exe is the ATI control panel or something. I've gotten that message before, always on startup. Basically reinstalling the drivers should fix it.
 
Redefined said:
wow these new 5.3 drivers really do suck. i always stutter in cs source while playing at 1024x786. same with Joint operations, while im flying in a helicopter i stutter alot. im definetly switching back to the 5.1's when i get home today from work.
Click to expand...
Yah, I uninstalled them as well. I was getting a stutter on WoW, where I would have 4xAA, 4xAF and 1280x1024 res (What I usually play all my games at) and it would drop to 60fps (from ~90fps) for no apparent reason.

Since I went back to the 5.1's seemed to have fixed that problem.
 
AlbeeC13 said:
Once I logged in to windows, I noticed all my desktop icons were grouped together into smaller, tighter groups as if the icon spacing had been changed. But worst of all, the font size (I run my monitor at 1600x1200 with the fonts changed to 125DPI fonts instead of the default 96DP) had decreased, and everything in general looks smaller, as if the resolution is higher than 1600x1200. I tried changing resolutions to something lower and back to 1600x1200, but it all looks the same.
Click to expand...

HELL NO, it wasn't just you. I had the exact same problem -- also rolled back to 5.2. WTF is it with these developers who think EVERYONE runs at 96dpi? And weren't the fixes for 3D mode!?! How the HELL do you screw up 2D mode when there was nothing wrong with it to begin with!?!
 
The Titan said:
Whyd wizzard stop doing these?
Click to expand...

When did W1z ever say he stopped doing the Softmod...there's nothing on his site that says so. W1z, if you're reading this please don't stop your work.
 
Spank said:
  • Enabling Temporal AA no longer results in a noticeable flicker on the display device. Topic number 737-10103
Click to expand...

Does this mean that there wont be flickering now when using Temporal AA if the fps drops?
 
burningrave101 said:
Does this mean that there wont be flickering now when using Temporal AA if the fps drops?
Click to expand...
Not with my testing. Tried CS:Source and still had flickering.
 
Dr. DVS 1 said:
HELL NO, it wasn't just you. I had the exact same problem -- also rolled back to 5.2. WTF is it with these developers who think EVERYONE runs at 96dpi? And weren't the fixes for 3D mode!?! How the HELL do you screw up 2D mode when there was nothing wrong with it to begin with!?!
Click to expand...

I have noooo freakin clue what they did. I did notice something on the release notes in the "known issues" section that said something about the driver possibly mis-reporting screen resolutions. I'm thinking it must be that, but how the hell am I supposed to set my resolution at 1600x1200 if that's not really what its being set at.....

This is the first time I've had a problem with a new driver since god-knows-when, and I update every time a new one comes out. Looks like I'm sticking with the 5.2s, but I hope I don't have to be the guinea pig when the 5.4s come out.
 
Getting the same issues I've had with the 5.2's- Sudden drop in framerate in CS:S, but everything else runs just fine.

Switching back to the last omega's.
 
Is there any performance differences, or any other reasons, to upgrade from the Omega Drivers based on Catalyst 5.1 to the plain Cat 5.3 drivers?
 
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