Catalyst 3.8 release notes are up.

While you are waiting to download them, here's an overview:

http://www.beyond3d.com/reviews/ati/cat3.8/

Still working on performance numbers at the moment, so check back later

 

56°C - 127°C = 412MHz (Default speed)
48°C - 59°C = 419MHz
0°C - 51°C = 432MHz

"...Presently, in the Catalyst 3.8 drivers only Overdrive is enabled for the 9800 XT and it only increases the core speeds to those specified. ..."

No 460 clock speeds in cats 3.8 ?!

 

Bummer, the overdrive feature doesn't take into account the speed of the silicon lot.

Ah well.

 

Hmm, have I missed it, or is there no mention of the "Alternate Pixel Center" under the D3D compatability settings? Is this the global switch for centroid sampling in advance of Half Life 2 AA support?

Also am I right in thinking that you cannot access the per-program profile settings from the taskbar icon? You have to open the advanced screen settings, go to the 3D tab and select the profile from a drop down menu.

I would have been sensible and easier if you could chose it from the taskbar icon in the same way as you can change other settings like refresh rate and colour depth.

 

You know I never understood what that was for. What does "Alternate Pixel Center" do again?

 

AFAIK its an old setting for compatibility with old DX titles.

 

Oh, I'm mistaken then - I though it was something new - I guess it the new layout that make me think it's unfamiliar.

 

I just talked with one of the Catalyst guys and suggested that they should actually have an Application Launcher in the from the system tray icon. If you have an application launcher then you could associate both quality and colour settings to an individual game, however you could take that further with an app launcher by have multiple instances of a game "shortcut" but each can be associated with different profiles (i.e. you may have a game that you play single player in high quality, but in low quality in multiplayer, so you could set up two icons for that game each associated with different profiles). Hopefully they'll evaluate this method.

 

Radlinker has been using that method (shortcuts) for ages so Im surprised they havn't implemented somthing similar. It works great

Ill try the cat3.8s soon but im sticking with radlinker for game specific settings.

 

This is the type of thing we were dicussing in the beta program when we got these ones. The ati guys basically wanted to wait and see what people had to say about the current way its done. So keep on their back I say (as well as many others)

 

yeah, we also suggested some kind of shorcut feature that tied in with the game .exe's in some way if possible, to allow you to set profiles then save them and like double click on them to enable the profile and start the game, would be a neat addition

 

Having the settings associated with EXEs (either with app detection or shortcut launcher) is obviously the most convenient way, but I can definitely see reason (from a support standpoint) for a push against it. I would think it has the potential to complicate things significantly. Not that I wouldn't like to see them do it, but I could understand if they didn't.

But doing something like Bouncing Bros. is suggesting would be easy to implement, as it's only a UI change. Going to the taskbar and selecting the profile you want directly from there would be a big usability improvement, with relatively little cost.

 

Well I was expecting something as you suggest. Either a way to specify what exe's to look for and what settings to run, or at the very least a quick selection list from the taskbar applet.

The way ATI have done it now saves a couple of seconds moving dragbars between "high quality" and "application preference", but the real hassle of going into the screen settings and through the advanced tabs is still there.

Given how many other types of game profilers there have been, I'm surprised ATI have done such a cursory job that isn't really any more friendly than not bothering with profiles at all.

 

ya, i was hopeing for something better than radlinker, something that would work when i launch games though ase or steam.

 

The texture clipping bug was fixed in 3.7. This was the most serious issue and it caused certain wall textures to dissapear and turn grey. Also, the character shadows work on the earlier levels like the India levels, but on the later levels like the Underwater Base the shadows still do not display properly. However, you can turn off the character shadows and still play the game.

 

This is about the only method that would get me to use profiles. I don't want to mess around with changing them by hand every time, be it through sliders, control panel profiles, or system tray profiles. I'm sure we're at a stage now where we can afford a tiny "smart" program spotting what you run and switching profiles for you. All other methods are just clunky.

 

Wait for rTool 0.9.9.8.

I will release it soon.

 

Hehe Good man!!!!

 

Hmmm will it did not work for me. Brent any luck with U? However I may need to reformat as UnrealED still thinks I am using AA even though its shut off in the control pannel. I reboot always fixes the problem.

 

That depends. The downside of this method is that you have to create a new profile (or at least an association) for every new game etc. you install. And there are the problems when e.g. playing different games over steam or the like (i.e. every time a 3d app isn't directly tied to an .exe). For me it would be more than enough if you could simply switch profiles with one or 2 simple clicks in a systray menu.
Or maybe the best method would be a hybrid. A systray menu for general purpose profiles and a second menu for profiles directly connected to games. (i.e. a game-specific profile would be activated and the game started - but only if done via the systray menu and only for the duration of the game. Afterwards it will be resetted to the last active gen.purpose profile.).