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New 9.6 cat drivers out

L

LostInRehab

Limp Gawd
Joined
Mar 1, 2007
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We have just released ATI Catalyst™ 9.6 for Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows XP, and Linux platforms on http://www.amd.com

Highlights of the Linux ATI Catalyst™ 9.6 release include:

Support for new Linux operating systems

* This release of ATI Catalyst™ Linux introduces support for the following new operating systems:
o SLED and SLED 11 production support
o RHEL 4.8 early look support


MultiView for Consumer users

* Allows users to render applications using a multiple GPU configuration with a unified workspace
* Enables Xinerama in single or multiple GPU configurations
* Supported on any combination of the ATI Radeon™ HD 4000, ATI Radeon™ 3000 Series and ATI Radeon™ 2000 Series of graphics cards

For more information on ATI Catalyst™ 9.6 (for Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows XP, and Linux versions), including all of the resolved issues in this release, please see the ATI Catalyst™ 9.6 release notes.
Click to expand...

The Catalyst Software Suite 9.6 contains the following:
Radeon™ display driver 8.62
HydraVision™ for both Windows XP and Vista
HydraVision™ Basic Edition (Windows XP only)
WDM Driver Install Bundle
Southbridge/IXP Driver
Catalyst™ Control Center Version 8.62

Catalyst™ 9.6 brings performance benefits in several cases where framerates are CPUlimited.
Some measured examples are:
Company of Heroes – performance improves up to 25% with HD 4600 series products and below as well as improvements of up to 10% on HD 4800 series
Crysis – performance improves up to 13% in multi-GPU configurations Crysis Warhead – performance improves up to 11% in multi-GPU configurations
World in Conflict – performance improvements of up to 30% can be seen in settings that were previously CPU limited

This section provides information on resolved issues in this release of the ATI Catalyst™
Software Suite for all Windows OS. These include:
Opening Crossfire pages no longer causes Catalyst Control Center to stop responding
Catalyst Control Center: With some multi adapter systems in clone mode, disabling the primary display is now possible
Changing the bitrate slider values, while transcoding WMV files, no longer causes Catalyst Control Center to stop responding
Catalyst Control Center: On some systems configurations, the Overdrive options no longer fails to display
Catalyst Control Center content no longer appears interlaced when automatic deinterlacing is enabled
Catalyst Control Center: Display settings no longer missing when hot plugging a CRT display in clone mode
Catalyst Control Center: Scaling option slider is no longer inadvertently enabled when using a non-HDTV resolution
Fixed a regression in ATI CAL that caused certain IL kernels that compiled and executed properly with Catalyst version prior to 9.4 to no longer work properly with Catalyst 9.4 or later
Click to expand...
 
I'm from the school of leaving well enough alone. I'm stable with v8.12
but maybe the jump to 9.6 maybe in order and well worth it for this
4870x2 Vista64 rig. I just forgot the procedures to the upgrade and
I've gotten a bit lazy to be honest. Some say to clean the old drivers,
some say don't worry. Some say you need to stack these and some
say no. The last time I did a driver cleaner to update my vc I had to
re-install my OS, it really f'ed things up and its probably made me
more gun shy than lazy actually.

Leave well enough alone or go for it? My sig is current.

Thanks!
 
keithallenlaw said:
I'm from the school of leaving well enough alone. I'm stable with v8.12
but maybe the jump to 9.6 maybe in order and well worth it for this
4870x2 Vista64 rig. I just forgot the procedures to the upgrade and
I've gotten a bit lazy to be honest. Some say to clean the old drivers,
some say don't worry. Some say you need to stack these and some
say no. The last time I did a driver cleaner to update my vc I had to
re-install my OS, it really f'ed things up and its probably made me
more gun shy than lazy actually.

Leave well enough alone or go for it? My sig is current.

Thanks!
Click to expand...

If everything is working properly, I say leave it alone. I usually only upgrade drivers when something doesn't work right.
 
FoxhoundOp said:
If everything is working properly, I say leave it alone. I usually only upgrade drivers when something doesn't work right.
Click to expand...

New drivers do give you a performance gain in some games. Sometimes the difference is huge. Check the release notes for the games you play.
 
I highly recommend them.

With 9.5, the card would not let me have my monitor (GDM-FW900) at 2304x1440 @ 80Hz unless Crossfire was disabled.

With 9.6, I was able to have that resolution.

I was then playing Crysis at a mixture of High and Very High settings with no AA at 2304x1440 with 55-70 FPS.
 
Reanimation_LP said:
I highly recommend them.

With 9.5, the card would not let me have my monitor (GDM-FW900) at 2304x1440 @ 80Hz unless Crossfire was disabled.

With 9.6, I was able to have that resolution.

I was then playing Crysis at a mixture of High and Very High settings with no AA at 2304x1440 with 55-70 FPS.
Click to expand...

This driver offered a solid gameplay improvement then?
 
Cowboy420 said:
And thats why there will be 544358724785 new threads from people asking why the new drivers fubar'd their systems..
Click to expand...

So we shouldn't upgrade drivers because a lot of people have trouble understanding basic concepts?

I have upgraded from every driver since I got my 4870 X2 (release day, think it was 8.8) and have had 0 problems with improvements every time. Sometimes not FPS related, but bugs or annoyances, but always something worth noting. Yes sometimes their are also new introduced bugs or annoyances, but usually outweighed.

As mentioned above some of these drivers show minimal to serious upgrades in performance for some games and applications, and dependent on OS/Rig.

If you had an older card, I would say sure stick with what works. They don't keep releasing drivers to update your ancients cards, However if you have a 48** then it is well worth upgrading almost every time, Drivers are released for a reason and unlike what a lot of people seem to think, it is not to break your system ;).
 
Cowboy420 said:
And thats why there will be 544358724785 new threads from people asking why the new drivers fubar'd their systems..
Click to expand...

Easy now with the generalizations, we don't all need our hands held. This is the [H]ardforum, not the Anandtech forums. Some of us know what we're doing. ;)
 
i always update drivers. in fact i dont ever use the drivers on the disk that come with the hardware. i go right to the web site and dl the latest drivers. for everything. they make new drivers to fix problems with old drivers.
 
..well except severe tearing while playing Morrowind but thats
an older 32bit game engine issue I care to wager. Thanks.

FoxhoundOp said:
If everything is working properly, I say leave it alone. I usually only upgrade drivers when something doesn't work right.
Click to expand...
 
These are the best drivers yet.. all my games work fine, no "display driver has stopped working" errors (Crysis, Mass Effect, Bioshock, UT3, and believe it or not KOTOR2; these old games put some stress on these new GPUs.. unbelievable but true). Photoshop GPU enhancements are also working normally. The best part of this, the GPU isn't underclocked, it's a default speeds. Had a slight scare after install though... when i did the normal first restart of vista 64, i got a BSOD... it restarted again, and i decided to boot it up in normal mode, and, phew!!! it's working like a charm... hopefully no BSOD's in the future...
 
I haven't seen any reference to it as of yet, but has ATI finally fixed fan control in CCC or dod I still need to rely on ATT or Rivatuner to do that? Right now, I'm running 9.4 without CCC.
 
FerrelGeek said:
I haven't seen any reference to it as of yet, but has ATI finally fixed fan control in CCC or dod I still need to rely on ATT or Rivatuner to do that? Right now, I'm running 9.4 without CCC.
Click to expand...

What do you mean? Fan control has worked fine for me with my 4870?
 
Looking forward to installing these when I get a chance.


Great that ATI is providing continued improvements to their drivers. :)
 
pfunkman said:
What do you mean? Fan control has worked fine for me with my 4870?
Click to expand...

Automatic fan control based a temperature profile? Yes, manual control works, but I've had to go to ATT to set up fan speed control based on temperature. I readily admit that I could be missing something totally obvious here, but others have had the same experience.
 
UPDATE: my fears where made reality when I boot up in the morning, and the BSOD appeared. In the AMD game Forums there has been talk that if you uninstall CCC, it will work.... damn you ATI for making pass through this problem one more time.
 
Ever since installing these I've been getting hard freezes during video playback.
Installed them last night and it's already frozen twice since then.
 
9.6 Catalyst driver gave me vpu recover playing warcraft 3.. twice. Once during underclock 160/500 and another at 625/993.

So back to 9.6 Beta for me. I guess everyone's card is different huh? :)
 
Only problem I come up with is that GPU scaling is still disabled using Win 7 RC-1 64-Bit.
 
Here we go again..... And I have another system with a gtx280 with no problems at all in the last year.

So DON'T tell me both ATi and Nvidia both have driver issues.
 
FerrelGeek said:
Automatic fan control based a temperature profile? Yes, manual control works, but I've had to go to ATT to set up fan speed control based on temperature. I readily admit that I could be missing something totally obvious here, but others have had the same experience.
Click to expand...

Its not a feature we will probably ever see. When you said "fix" i assumed something about it was broken for you. I dont think the ATI drivers have ever had what your looking for.
 
Dual said:
Here we go again..... And I have another system with a gtx280 with no problems at all in the last year.

So DON'T tell me both ATi and Nvidia both have driver issues.
Click to expand...

Both ATi and Nvidia have driver issues. 9.6 is working flawlessly for me so far.
 
Both 9.5 and 9.6 have been good for the 4870x2 on Vista x64. Also running on the laptop with 2 3870's no problem.
 
pfunkman said:
Its not a feature we will probably ever see. When you said "fix" i assumed something about it was broken for you. I dont think the ATI drivers have ever had what your looking for.
Click to expand...

That's what I figured. Well, I'll stick with just the vid driver then. Don't really need CCC anyway.
 
pfunkman said:
What do you mean? Fan control has worked fine for me with my 4870?
Click to expand...

Also, 9.6 marks the arrival of LCD Overdrive down to the HD3xxx (this was restricted to HD4xxx in 9.5); has anyone seen this feature in HD2xxx?

I have the HIS HD3450 (256 MB PCIe).
 
Perfect. BTW those on Vista make sure you delete the previous unzipped 9.5 folder because device manager has a nasty habit of stubbornly pointing to older drivers after new ones are installed.
 
kadozer said:
Perfect. BTW those on Vista make sure you delete the previous unzipped 9.5 folder because device manager has a nasty habit of stubbornly pointing to older drivers after new ones are installed.
Click to expand...

Yep, I learned that. Sucks to get a CCC error after a fresh install :p


And word of warning to you that do not know this?

RIGHT CLICK THE SETUP AND HIT RUN AS ADMINISTRATOR!
 
I am just upset that I still cant apply AA to warhammer:dawn of ware 2. I think this is actually the problem within the game itself but I was still hoping ATi may resolve it :(
 
RADEoN said:
Yep, I learned that. Sucks to get a CCC error after a fresh install :p


And word of warning to you that do not know this?

RIGHT CLICK THE SETUP AND HIT RUN AS ADMINISTRATOR!
Click to expand...

It should be automatically set to ask for admin privileges. There should be no need to right click.
 
tricky0502 said:
i always update drivers. in fact i dont ever use the drivers on the disk that come with the hardware. i go right to the web site and dl the latest drivers. for everything. they make new drivers to fix problems with old drivers.
Click to expand...

that's what i do as well
 
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