Catalyst 4.2 Driver Out

[Ethos]

Performance Improvements
As with most CATALYST™ releases performance has increased in various situations. This release of CATALYST™ provides performance gains to the ATI DX8 product family. These products include the RADEON™ 9200, 9000, and 8500 series. Performance gains are noticed throughout the following software:

Framerates in Unreal Tournament 2003 is up by 15%
A performance gain of between 5 and 10% is noticed in Aquamark3
A performance gain of between 2-3% is noticed in ShaderMark scores
Framerates in Halo is up between 3-4%
A performance improvement of 2% is noticed in Tomb Raider

Resolved CATALYST™ Driver Issues
This section provides information on CATALYST™ driver issues that have been resolved in the latest release of CATALYST™. These include the following:

Logging on as an Administrator under Windows XP and doing a fast user switch to limited user no longer results in display corruption when playing a DVD using WinDVD version 4 or 5
User defined colour setting are now retained when exiting a 3D game or application
The ATI Control Panel no longer fails to launch when attempting to enter the Advanced options of the primary display adapter after disabling extended desktop support
The Cancel button found in the ATI 3D tab is now working properly when switching between a user defined profile and the default setting
Enabling the CRT as the primary display and turning the TV off in the Display page no longer results in a general protection fault under Windows ME
The Anisotropic Filtering custom setting is now retained under Windows XP with an ATI RADEON™ 7200 installed
The D3D panel now retains the user defined AA/AF setting under Windows XP when a RADEON™ 8500 series is installed and the main setting is set to High Quality

Component Video Output Enhancement
The latest ATI software driver now allows the user the choice of using panning mode or a center-timing mode in which the image would appear in the center of the TV screen when using the Component Video output on an HDTV display. This option is found in the ATI Control Panel and is supported under the Windows XP, Windows 2000, and Windows ME operating systems. This feature is available on the ATI RADEON™ 8500 and higher class of products.

Direct3D Setting Enhancement
Previous versions of the ATI display driver required the monitor going blank for up to 8 seconds when applying Direct3D settings. The latest ATI software driver for the RADEON™ 9500 and higher class of products now allows for the Direct3D setting to be applied without the monitor's display going blank.


http://www.ati.com/support/driver.html

Anyone installed em yet?

[Steve]

I love how specific some of the resolved problems are!

"Logging on as an Administrator under Windows XP and doing a fast user switch to limited user no longer results in display corruption when playing a DVD using WinDVD version 4 or 5" - I'm sure we're ALL plagued by this one.

[Stoo]

"A performance improvement of 2% is noticed in Tomb Raider"

Ooooooooh! not a whole 2%!

Does anyone still play that? LOL

[Benjamin]

The 15% in UT 2003 should be noticable

[SilentDeath]

lots of small bugs fixed. i think i may try these drivers. the last official ones i tryed were 3.4 i *think* though it might have been 3.2. once i tryed omega drivers i havent went back...

resons for me to go back (note that i will try the 4.2 omegas first, once released):
in cs i get a very annoying and confusing error - and ive been having probs with this for ages - resinatled os a few times and no fix
the problem occurs when trying to join VAC proteced cs servers. doesnt happen on any other server. i dont cheat, never have. i think the cause is that valve have decided that they only allow official drivers to be used (as others could have built inn wall hacks etc...), this stops me playing cs as i get "error: server verification failed" when joining... in cs 1.5 exiting and rejioning fixed, with steam it doesnt

[[GSV]Trig]

Bet I still cant play LOMAC tho....

[Spud1]

nice info i'll wait for the omegas tho as per usual

[Zak33]

Trig....thats your damn card..not the drivers

I mean...come on......a Rage Pro

[[GSV]Trig]

Well I'm not upgrading my 8500 just to play LOMAC, if I did then that'd mean I'd have to buy 2 cards, 1 for the Shuttle and 1 for me main rig, how bloody much!!!!!

Hopefully someone at the LAN will lend me a card to play LOMAC n then I can decide if its worth upgrading both machines to play the damned thing...

Cant see it myself....

[Zak33]

its good...butIneed as much helin LOMAC as I did/do in IL2....

[Allen]

Trig, why do you need to upgrade both machines to play it? Won't one new card do?

[Zak33]

Trig uses Superglue in his PC to hold the components in....once in....there forever

Nah...his LAN case is in his bedroom for ....err.....viewing

[[GSV]Trig]

I have my main rig with its Xp2500 oc'd to 3200 in my computer room with its 1gb RAM, R8500 and 400Gb of drive space for storing all my films and stuff and plaiyng games while I'm at home..

I then have a Shuttle Xp2500 512Mb and 80Gb for LAN and watching films over hte network on the TV, so for me to play LOMAC at home and at LAN's I'd need 2 96/800's, thing is the Shuttle has onboard TV-O so whatever card I get for the Shuttle would also need TV-O..

THere are no PC's in the bedroom
Well not unless theres a LAN at mine then theres usually 4 in there

[Elspuddy]

o.k what lomac ?? ?

[Rod911]

Had to go back using 4.1. 4.2 caused artifacts to occur during desktop despite being clocked at stock speeds. Also, system basically froze within 5-10mins after the artifacts started. Note, the problem was only on my LCD monitor, whilst the CRT monitor was running fine (in dual monitor mode). Running with the CRT by itself caused lock-ups.

[Korky]

Lock On: Modern Air Combat, its got its own forum at the bottom, Flight sims favoured by quite a few ppl on this board.