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#1 2009-07-22 6:03 pm
- Bat
- Flawless Cowboy
- Royal Wombat
- From: Björk, Björk
- Registered: 2001-05-14
- Posts: 28541
ATI releases Cat 9.7 for Vista/7/XP
They weren't supposed to officially go live until July 24th, but with Windows 7 hitting RTM status an hour ago, ATI apparently decided to post Catalyst 9.7 for Windows Vista/Windows 7 early (AMD had planned to issue a PR stating that 9.7 was the first driver certified for Windows 7 RTM release).
The most notable feature found in Catalyst 9.7 is its new user interface. ATI says the UI has been tweaked to "enhance usability and end user efficiency" although I'm not a big fan of the new streamlined interface myself -- way too much digging through submenus now. The tree menu from previous Catalyst releases has been replaced with the new "Graphics" menu option: basically everything you need to tweak graphics settings can be found inside this menu. As ATI notes, "a single page with multiple tabs now exist for features that used to have multiple tree options". The hotkey, profile, preferences, and help menus have now been moved under one general "Options" menu. Skins and custom view are no longer supported.
The UI in Catalyst 9.7 also includes a new desktop and displays manager interface that more easily facilitates users configuring and arranging their displays under Windows Vista and Windows 7.
Another addition found in Catalyst 9.7 is ATI's video encoder program, which is now fully supported under Windows 7. ATI says that Catalyst 9.10 will provide acceleration for the Windows 7 Drag and Drop transcoder application using ATI Stream technology.
In terms of performance improvements, ATI says Catalyst 9.7 delivers up to 8% better performance for Radeon 4800 GPUs in Crysis when run under the "very high" graphics quality preset. In addition, Lost Planet Colonies also runs 8-11% faster under 8xAA for 4800 series GPUs.
Links:
Windows Vista 32-bit
Windows Vista 64-bit
Windows 7 32-bit
Windows 7 64-bit
I would guess that Windows XP drivers will be hitting AMD's servers at midnight on July 24th (the original embargo date). Feel free to voice your thoughts on the new user interface in the news comments.
My bold. http://www.firingsquad.com/news/newsart … chid=21917
Last edited by Bat (2009-07-23 4:00 pm)
If all economists were laid end to end, they would not reach a conclusion - George Bernard Shaw
"Fire up a colortini, sit back, relax, and watch the pictures, now, as they fly through the air."
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#2 2009-07-23 3:51 pm
- Bat
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- From: Björk, Björk
- Registered: 2001-05-14
- Posts: 28541
Re: ATI releases Cat 9.7 for Vista/7/XP
AT has an article up. The UI has changed quite a bit.
Last night, AMD made public it's Catalyst 9.7 drivers. These drivers coincide with Windows 7 RTM availability and are WHQL certified for not only windows Vista, but for Windows 7 as well. But this isn't the only new and interesting tidbit about the Catalyst 9.7 release. AMD has reworked the advanced driver interface as well.
We are working on performance testing the new driver with an eye towards Windows 7. AMD claims that performance on Windows 7 boxes with the same hardware as a Vista counterpart will see performance benefits. The marketing slides we received indicate that some games could see about a 10% improvement when moving to the new OS, and that's just for single GPU configurations. With multiGPU setups, AMD has us expecting some titles to show between 15% and 30% improvement with Windows 7.
We are anxious to put the driver to the test as soon as we can get our hands on the final Windows 7 RTM build. A performance improvement in moving from Vista to Windows 7 could definitely help Microsoft move their latest operating system. Those gamers who are still holding out for something better than Windows XP might finally have a reason to let go of the older platform for one that delivers an all around better experience.
But in the meantime, there is another important change AMD made with the Catalyst 9.7 driver release. The UI has been overhauled. Let's have a look at the old version first:
[img]
The first change we notice is that the left menu tree structure is now gone. It is hidden in the Graphics menu option at the top left of the window.
[img]
For the most part, individual subsections are unchanged. But the new Desktops & Displays page pulls a bunch of related options into one place. All the desktop resolution and color settings, monitor specific settings, and multi-monitor layout adjustments for all desktops and monitors are combined in one place.
Have a read and a look. http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3609
Edit: implied but not addressed, DX11 is apparently code final, since it's part of 7. I wonder how soon before DX11 for Vista?
Last edited by Bat (2009-07-23 3:54 pm)
If all economists were laid end to end, they would not reach a conclusion - George Bernard Shaw
"Fire up a colortini, sit back, relax, and watch the pictures, now, as they fly through the air."
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#3 2009-07-23 4:00 pm
- Bat
- Flawless Cowboy
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- From: Björk, Björk
- Registered: 2001-05-14
- Posts: 28541
Re: ATI releases Cat 9.7 for Vista/7/XP
XP drivers are up now, so title edit time again.
http://game.amd.com/us-en/drivers_catalyst.aspx
If all economists were laid end to end, they would not reach a conclusion - George Bernard Shaw
"Fire up a colortini, sit back, relax, and watch the pictures, now, as they fly through the air."
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