[fellix]

A sneak peek in the new Catalyst -- get ready your quads!

[Arnold Beckenbauer]

http://www.behardware.com/news/lire/07-01-2009/

[Albuquerque]

I'll hafta test my old 3.6Ghz-stable Q9450 versus my newly re-acquired E8400 at 4.2Ghz. Wish I hadn't sold my old E8400

[fellix]

Originally Posted by Arnold Beckenbauer

http://www.behardware.com/news/lire/07-01-2009/

Oh, mon Dieu!

Curiously, how a quad-core taxing game, like GTA4, will fare with this driver release?!

[Dave Baumann]

IIRC GTA4 is DX9 and the DX9 drivers are already multithreaded.

[fellix]

Uh?
That was like a slap!

[digitalwanderer]

Well then make AA work with it please Dave...

[Dave Baumann]

Its not Cat 9.1, but the driver in question is available to everyone here:

http://support.ati.com/ics/support/d...estionID=40671

[digitalwanderer]

That's the "review" driver, isn't it?

[Arnold Beckenbauer]

Originally Posted by Dave Baumann

Its not Cat 9.1, but the driver in question is available to everyone here:

http://support.ati.com/ics/support/d...estionID=40671

There are three hotfixes:
If you click on "ATI Catalyst driver release 8.12 Hotfix for Windows Vista 32-bit Edition" you get ... hotfix_vista32_dd_ccc_73402.exe
But if you click on ATI Catalyst driver release, you'll get ... hotfix_vista64_dd_ccc_73402.exe

By clicking on 8.12 Hotfix for Windows Vista 64-bit Edition it will be 8-12-hotfix_vista64_dd_ccc_081215a-73652.exe

How is this possible?

[Ateo]

AMD now has just as many "hotfixes" as NVIDA has betadrivers..so much for their driver release schedule...

[Arnold Beckenbauer]

Originally Posted by Arnold Beckenbauer

There are three hotfixes:
If you click on "ATI Catalyst driver release 8.12 Hotfix for Windows Vista 32-bit Edition" you get ... hotfix_vista32_dd_ccc_73402.exe
But if you click on ATI Catalyst driver release, you'll get ... hotfix_vista64_dd_ccc_73402.exe

By clicking on 8.12 Hotfix for Windows Vista 64-bit Edition it will be 8-12-hotfix_vista64_dd_ccc_081215a-73652.exe

How is this possible?

So, people report, that 73402 is 8.561.3-081217a and 73652 is 8.561.8-081216a.

http://www.rage3d.com/board/showpost...5&postcount=10

The discussion on older vs newer only works if the second " . " is not present in the version. Look at Catalyst releases and you will see that NONE will have the second " . "

This happens due to the way a hotfix is created. Essentially we start with a regular driver version as indicated by the 8.551 and then add whatever enhancements are required in the hotfix. The 8.551.1 bit of the number. So if you see x.xxx.# in the driver version you have a special driver created out of the normal stream.

A hot fix is essentially a preview of enhancements that will eventually be released in a future Catalyst.

For this particular HOTFIX it was decided to consolidate a number of different enhancements into a single driver set rather than have multiple individual hotfixes.

[Silent_Buddha]

Oh bugger, am I actually going to have a reason to get a quad core? Guess I'd better start taking a look at x58 MB reviews to find a really stable one.

Regards,
SB

[Arnold Beckenbauer]

http://enthusiast.hardocp.com/articl...50aHVzaWFzdA==

AMD

The improvements that the new AMD 8.561.3 driver includes over Catalyst 8.12 are:

* Call of Juarez improves up to 15% with AA enabled

* Company of Heroes improves up to 5%

* Crysis improves as much as 18%

* Crysis Warhead improves as much as 20-30%

* Need for Speed Underground improves as much as 70%-80%

* World in Conflict improve as much as 5%

[fellix]

Catalyst 9.x (8.561.3 BETA) tested on 4870X2 @ ComputerBase

And another one from PCGH

[Silent_Buddha]

Interesting. With those beta drivers, the 4870x2 is basically the same speed as the GTX 295, yet 100 USD cheaper. Assuming Nvidia doen't also follow suit and drop the prices on the GTX 295.

Regards,
SB

[digitalwanderer]

Ain't competition grand?

[Silent_Buddha]

Yeah it's like some weird twisted price war.

Traditionally the manufacturer with the fastest hardware gets to set the prices that the other vendor has to follow. See Intel versus AMD in the CPU price wars.

Except here. Nvidia has the fastest (single chip) hardware (GTX 280), yet AMD appears to be the one dictating prices. But I guess that's what happens when you are "close enough" in performance to the best of the best, but at significant cost savings. Combine that with a computer market full of users tired of stratospheric (from a normal consumer PoV) performance cards and it's like viewing some bizarro technology revolution. Stickin' it to da man!

OK, time to rein in my overactive imagination there. I still find the whole situation entertaining though.

Regards,
SB

[Dooby]

This imaged worked yesterday.

Crysis Warhead: 1680x1050 8xFSAA

GTX 295 : 13.7 fps
4870x2 : 15.4 fps

4870x2 w/ new driver : 27.5 fps

Burn!

[Humus]

"No Deeplinking please!"

[Novum]

Originally Posted by Silent_Buddha

Interesting. With those beta drivers, the 4870x2 is basically the same speed as the GTX 295, yet 100 USD cheaper. Assuming Nvidia doen't also follow suit and drop the prices on the GTX 295.

Regards,
SB

And you are still forced to live without maximum image quality, because ATI ist refusing to allow the user to control texture filtering quality independent from A.I. which is a must for Crossfire. And even if A.I. is disabled the texture filter is still not on par with NVs HQ.

I simply can't understand why this is issue is debated so little. We now have over a TFLOP of computing power and nobody cares about quality.

[Albuquerque]

Some games were pretty "meh" in the improvement scale, but HOLY HELL on Crysis...

[Dooby]

Well didn't "thingy" (ATi guy that I cant remember name of now) say that they

"aren't where we (ATI) want to be in Crysis at present"

It seems now they are!

[Davros]

your saying ati are in crisis

[WaltC]

Originally Posted by Arnold Beckenbauer

There are three hotfixes:
If you click on "ATI Catalyst driver release 8.12 Hotfix for Windows Vista 32-bit Edition" you get ... hotfix_vista32_dd_ccc_73402.exe
But if you click on ATI Catalyst driver release, you'll get ... hotfix_vista64_dd_ccc_73402.exe

By clicking on 8.12 Hotfix for Windows Vista 64-bit Edition it will be 8-12-hotfix_vista64_dd_ccc_081215a-73652.exe

How is this possible?

I'm not sure...this is the 8.12 Hotfix driver I'm using (Vista x64, 4850 CrossFireX):

8.561.8-081216a-073652E-ATI

This was the second 8.12 HF driver I installed, and it works just fine. The first and third 8.12 x64 Hotfix drivers caused me to bsod at boot with the ATIMKDIAG.SYS cpu stop error. I manually got the other two drivers to function by booting into safe mode after the bsod, installing the drivers manually through the device manager, and then setting the ATi External Event service to "disabled," and then rebooting (steps must be followed in that precise order.) At that point I had to reboot a second time so that both 4850's were initialized and would function under CFX. The second 8.12 hotfix is the only one of the three that installs and boots properly with the ATi EE service set to automatic. No other troubles with the driver to report.

The third hotfix driver was supposed to be 081217a, but I never verified this before reinstalling the second hotfix.

So I count three separate hotfix drivers for 8.12 for Vista x64. Anyone encounter any more of them?...

Update:

'kay, for some reason I cannot fathom I have successfully installed the 3rd and final x64 8.12 hotfix driver:

8.561.3-081217a-073402E-ATI

All I did differently is that from the normal desktop I disabled off the ATI EE service, and then installed these drivers normally right over the former driver version as listed above, and rebooted to no bsod's whatever, rebooted a second time successfully with also no bsod's, and checked the CCC Crossfire setting and noted that it was indeed checked, indicating Crossfire is working fine. I then went back into services and set the ATi EE service to automatic, and started it, and everything is now running like it should, AND with the 3rd set of 8.12 hotfix Crossfire drivers running. Finally...