Catalyst 8.1 WHQL & Hotfix hit the street

8.1 fixed my CCC startup problem (7.12 wouldn't let me boot CCC after numerous re-installs)

 

The 8.1 WHQL doesn't let me enable crossfire -- or at least, it isn't letting any apps know that it's enabled.

I fired up 3DMark06 last night just because I've yet to run it on the new rig, and several people have asked for scores. My first attempt netted a result of 11.5K, which is great for a single non-OC'd card and a dual-core processor, but is shite for a CF setup. Turns out that 3DMark couldn't see any linked video processors.

Fired up Crysis, and it was sorely obvious that CF wasn't working there either. Same with Oblivion. Doing the Uninstall / reinstall didn't fix it, nor did unchecking the crossfire box / rebooting / re-checking the crossfire box. I didn't have enough time to uninstall and revert to the 7.12's last night; I'll do that later today and report back.

 

For Crysis running on Cross-Fire use the hotfix derivate of 8.1, instead of the WHQL one.

 

That's not quite what I was trying to say -- I know that I don't need the Hotfix driver for Crysis CF to function correctly; see also my post in the Gaming forum about Crysis patched/unpatched testing I did with CF enabled / disabled along with DX9 / DX10 modes.

If I'm getting low-teens framerates in DX10, CF isn't enabled period. Same goes for Oblivion with all 8xAA and 16xAF forced at 1680x1050, same goes for 3DMark. It's quite simple: crossfire is not on.

 

Ahaha, lame. These new drivers completely destroy Crossfire for me (browsing some other major forums earlier showed a few people with the same results, can't find their posts though). In TF2, and just about any other game really, the bottom half of the screen (second card?) very frequently flickers or mis-aligns or jumps all over the place... There's also an occasional stutter where it feels like it's just dropped to 10fps for a few seconds.

All of the previous display corruption issues are still 100% present, no fix there. And I get that little square too, but it goes away after I play a game.

 

Interesting; I hadn't done any searching yet, but sounds like I don't want these drivers. 7.12's were fine for me, I was just hoping for the AF fixes with Oblivion's shadows on uber-mode.

 

A hotfix is a fix. The difference between a hotfix and a regular fix is that it's hot.
A hotfix doesn't have to be a patch, even if it often is. It makes more sense to call these kinds of releases hotfixes than betas. Beta is suitable for releases containing new features or performance improvements. Hotfix is suitable for something that's released ahead of normal testing procedures to fix a particular issue.

 

I did get Cat 8.1 WHQL working tonight; I did a Vista system restore back to before I installed them the first time -- did another ATI Uninstall process, and then reinstalled again. Worked this time

Also picked up a rather fancy 3DMark06 score of 17,2xx on my first attempt. Whee for synthetic e-peen benchmarks

 

Instead of calling them hotfix drivers...

 

I certainly hope so. I'm about to install them now. I'll let you know.......

 

Nope. AGAIN, no AAA fix. Enabling any form of AAA just makes textures transparent/missing.

I know it's not everyone's cup of tea, but considering over 9 million people play WoW, you'd think fixing it would be quite high on the Catalyst "to-do" list.

 

i tried the xp 32bit version of the hotfix download for my hercules 9800xt classic, running on uli agp[/pcie] controller

install ati driver: allowing installation mode and setting called exes as trusted applications via my firewall
reboot: follow by long pause upon reentering windows, no ati display test, loss of acceleration and appalling directdaw performance that is way worse than the neomagic chip in my ancient ibm 380z [test] laptop
reinstall ati driver
reboot: followed by long pause upon reentering windows, no ati display test, still no acceleration
let firewall return to normal mode rather than installation mode
reboot again: followed by long pause etc.
allow ati tray tools via firewall to set something to do with d3d9 caps
reboot: followed by long pause etc.
reinstall agp controller driver
reboot: long pause etc.
reinstall ati driver again
reboot: long pause etc. ...no fucking acceleration!
uninstall 9800xt via option in device manager
reboot: long pause etc.
"can not find ati video board or catalyst drivers not installed!"
windows automatically installs a basic vga driver and asks for a reboot. upon allowing this i get an access violation in ati tray tools
system reboots
upon reentering windows i get my card back - with acceleration! reported driver version 8.442.0.0 and windows display properties list whql too, although the actual install warned me that it was not

this is by far the worst install session yet
although, tbh, i have never noticed any agp issues with any of the recent reported problematic drivers
getting them to install in the first place has been my issue with these recent releases
what exactly is going wrong for me here?

 

A lucky HD3870X2 owner has "leaked" the newest cat 8.451.2-080123a-058514E-ATI (from his driver CD).
Why is this driver so interesting? With this driver it's possible to play UE3 games with MSAA!
Look here

http://www.pcgameshardware.de/?article_id=630194
http://www.computerbase.de/news/har...januar/ati-karten_unreal-engine-3-spielen_aa/

But the funniest thing is: It works on my X1950GT too!
Gears of War (PP quality low, this means no funny things like bloom, blur etc):
4xAA:


No 4xAA:


And now: Who is the coolest driver maker on the Earth?

And now with PP:
*removed*

 

http://files.filefront.com/Sample+R680+xp+vista+8+45aexe/;9552005;/fileinfo.html

I hope the quad evaluation ones will follow soon.

 

These are great drivers. I finally start playing Crysis in dx10 very high 1600x1200 4AA and getting a almost playable 20-25 fps on a 3870X2 If CFX scales right, my other X2 lift it maybe to 40-50 fps.

 

Do these support trifire?

 

Not that I now, I have a second X2 here, but not installed because I thought it would hammering perf when a CF-X driver is not installed, but I think CF X is called evaluation driver, see:


http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=175360

 

UT3, Bioshock, Gears of War and The Witcher: Radeon owners (HD series and X1000 series) can play with anti-aliasing. Still no AA in R6:V and Medal of Honor: Airborne.

 

AA should work in R6:V. I'll take a look next week.

 

Will we see some AA in STALKER (both renderers or one of them)?


€: In R6:V MSAA seems not to work with X1900, no idea about HD series.