Catalyst 6.8 released

[Steve]

August's ATI Catalyst release is here, for both Windows and Linux.

Performance enhancements include OpenGL tweaks affecting Doom 3 engine games such as Doom 3 (duh), Quake 4, Chronicles of Riddick and Prey. On Direct3D the memory manager has been optimised to provide up to 30% performance boosts on certain 256MiB X1000 series cards, so say ATI.

The new Linux drivers supports the latest Radeon Xpress 1200, 1250 and 1300 products along with a unified driver for 32- and 64-bit versions of Linux.

More details and the downloads can be found over at ATI's support site or you can mosey on over to the XP driver page.

[Andrzej]

...you forgot to mention that it is 100% free of charge

[BlackDwarf]

And you can update your ATI-powered Mac's drivers here

[ExceededGoku]

<3 , get these installed next week when I get back home

[Steve]

I was disappointed to find they didn't work with my 6800 GT, though.

[SiM]

will this make any difference on the previous generations of cards? (e.g. x700pro)

[EllTheGamer]

Yer what about us little guys

Seriously does anyone else find a preformance increase when they install the control panel only ati drivers e.g. minus catalyst control center/ccc and the ai?
I have tried both the ccc and minus ccc version on my MSI x700pro 128mb pci-e card clocked from 427/430 -ish to 450/500 and have had major jumps in performance without the ccc (probably amplified by such a cheap-ass card).

[Agent]

Linux support still dire ?
I gave up testing them ages ago….

[Speedo]

From what I read (will be testing tomorrow), ATis Linux drivers are now very good in support and feature terms.. just lacking in performance. Luckily for me only my laptop is still using ATi graphics and I mostly use that for work anyway (still keeping the dual boot however).

[Synergy6]

Yup, for Linux nVidia is certainly still the way to go.
Synergy6

[ExceededGoku]

Yup, for Linux nVidia is certainly still the way to go.
Synergy6

ye okay lol i think the performance improvements are mainly for the X1xxx cards... since they have the ringbus memory controller and stuff :S

[mohammed]

what about x1950xtx. will it support? did anyone test it yet? please share

[Steve]

what about x1950xtx. will it support? did anyone test it yet? please share

I'm sure you could just crack open an inf file or two and check that, if you were so inclined.

[mohammed]

most of us already know that forceware is alot better than catalyst. i am not saying that because iam an invidiot but because i own 7950gx2 and x1900xtx and to tell you the truth forceware is alot better. i hope ati would fix catalyst.

[Robert]

most of us already know that forceware is alot better than catalyst. i am not saying that because iam an invidiot but because i own 7950gx2 and x1900xtx and to tell you the truth forceware is alot better. i hope ati would fix catalyst.

Umm, quit living in the past. ATI's drivers are equally as good as Nvidia's now. Oh and before anyone says - I am not a fanboy!

[mohammed]

ok then let me tell you that catalyst 6.7 and 6.6 whenever they review these two they find lacking performance unlike catalyst 6.5 and 6.4 promised more performance but on the x1600 and x1300 met the performance however on x1900 and x1800 it was slower than 6.5 and 6.4. dont forget that catalyst run time is slower than forcewares runtime it also sucks much of your ram.