Catalyst 8.1 WHQL & Hotfix hit the street

Wednesday 16th January 2008, 04:04:00 PM, written by Geo

The red team has made their monthly delivery of WHQL'ed Catalyst goodness, in this case version 8.1. Several recent games such as Bioshock, F.E.A.R., World in Conflict, and others are called out in the release notes for improvements. Get the drivers themselves here for Vista x64, Vista x86 and XP.

To go with, in what is distressingly becoming something of a parallel tradition in recent months, AMD has also released a "hotfix" 8.1 Catalyst that is not WHQL'ed. As this driver claims to address the recent and severe issues that some AGP Radeon owners have reported, it is quite likely that it will be met with joy in some corners.

Having said that, with AMD apparently settling into a habit with these "hotfix" drivers it may be time to ask what's going on here? If WHQL is really the way to go, as has been the ATI position for many years, why all these hotfixes? And why are what are obviously a full driver release package being called a "hotfix" anyway? Because "hotfix" is 50% better than "beta" (6 chars vs 4, see?)? The reality is that most enthusiasts are used to thinking of a "hotfix" as a patch --an incremental update that requires a base package to be in place before it can be installed. This most certainly does not describe ATI's hotfixes and is therefore open to confusion and customers installing multiple versions of drivers unnecessarily.

So, what's up, AMD? In our view, it's time to call a beta a beta, or quit releasing them.

Discuss on the forums

Tagging

ati ± catalyst, 8.1, AGP


Latest Thread Comments (51 total)
Posted by w0mbat on Monday, 04-Feb-08 14:21:01 UTC
Same here: AA does work w/ Bioshock, UT3 and GoW but it just wont work w/ R6:V and MoH:A. Driver used is 8-451-2-080123a on XP32bit and X1900 XT.

Posted by Albuquerque on Monday, 04-Feb-08 14:54:18 UTC
I'm in for some CF-X benchies; might consider upgrading to a pair of X2's if they perform anything like what I'd hope...

Posted by Skinner on Monday, 04-Feb-08 17:05:08 UTC
Quoting Arnold Beckenbauer
Which AA? PCGH guys say, the performance with CFAA (NT or WT) is really bad: http://www.pcgameshardware.de/?menu=browser&article_id=630194&image_id=767278&show=original (HD3850)

Flyby or real game performance (with bots etc)? AAA on or off?
Just 4x box aa, without adaptive AA and ingame with bots.

Posted by Skinner on Monday, 04-Feb-08 21:56:08 UTC
Quoting Albuquerque
I'm in for some CF-X benchies; might consider upgrading to a pair of X2's if they perform anything like what I'd hope...

Ok here they are:


*A Brief Look at CrossFireX Scaling *

The numbers presented in this article should only be interpreted as “a brief look at the state of scaling performance generated by AMD’s current beta CrossFireX driver”. Again, the numbers presented in this article are tentative -by no means are they or should they be interpreted as directly indicative of the performance that CrossFireX will deliver upon its official release.

Image: http://www.fpslabs.com/images/stories/reviews/tgribble/crossfirex1/shoes_xfirex1_3dmark.jpg
Image: http://www.fpslabs.com/images/stories/reviews/tgribble/crossfirex1/shoes_xfirex1_coj.jpg
Image: http://www.fpslabs.com/images/stories/reviews/tgribble/crossfirex1/shoes_xfirex1_fear.jpg
Image: http://www.fpslabs.com/images/stories/reviews/tgribble/crossfirex1/shoes_xfirex1_percent.jpg

http://www.fpslabs.com/reviews/video/a-brief-look-at-crossfirex-scaling

Now if someone provid me with these, I'll pay well :D

Posted by Albuquerque on Monday, 04-Feb-08 22:14:20 UTC
:shock: :cool:

Nice. Not sure if they're worth the combined $900 pricetag, but... not bad at all! Better than I had expected, honestly.

Posted by Silent_Buddha on Thursday, 07-Feb-08 19:11:49 UTC
Woo...

Call of Juarez with 4xAFR would be like playing COJwith input lag as if it was only 12 FPS. Joy. :P At least with 2xAFR your input lag would only be as if you were playing at 15 FPS on a single card.

FEAR at least does a bit better with input lag as if you were playing at 50 fps. :P

No thanks, I'll continue to pass until something better than AFR comes along.

Regards,
SB

Posted by OpenGL guy on Friday, 08-Feb-08 05:23:33 UTC
Quoting Arnold Beckenbauer
€: In R6:V MSAA seems not to work with X1900, no idea about HD series.
Found the problem. It'll be fixed in a "Future Driver Release"(TM).

Posted by Morgoth the Dark Enemy on Friday, 08-Feb-08 10:16:45 UTC
Quoting OpenGL guy
Found the problem. It'll be fixed in a "Future Driver Release"(TM).
Is it correct to say that the workaround is aimed only at DX9 titles/rendering paths?It doesn't seem to work with Bioshock DX10, although it works with it in DX9. Or is it simply due to the work in progress nature of it?

Posted by Arnold Beckenbauer on Friday, 08-Feb-08 11:57:44 UTC
Quoting OpenGL guy
Found the problem. It'll be fixed in a "Future Driver Release"(TM).
I hope, you don't mean Valve Time's (http://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Valve_time) future for "Future Driver Release"(TM).

Some people reported, they made MSAA work in R6: Vegas by renaming its exe to ut3.exe.

My silly question: How can MSAA work in UE3 games on X1000 and HD2000/3000 Radeons? Supersampling for shadows?
I really hope, AMD will not drop MSAA support on X1000 series in the mentioned "Future Driver Release" (TM).

Posted by OpenGL guy on Friday, 08-Feb-08 20:23:33 UTC
Quoting Arnold Beckenbauer
Some people reported, they made MSAA work in R6: Vegas by renaming its exe to ut3.exe.
That's a good workaround as they use the same AA path.


Add your comment in the forums

Related ati News

PS3 Firmware 2.40 Brings In-Game XMB Access, Temporarily Pulled
ATI launch Radeon HD 4850 and HD 4870
Firmware 2.30 expands PS3 Blu-ray feature set, introduces new storefront
RadeonHD driver for Linux gets better RV6xx support and new features
Crossfire X @ Tech Report
AMD 780G integrated graphics core logic released
Cat 8.2 succeeds version 8.1 to everyone's bewilderment
AMD launches handheld D160/M210/A250 & 3D/VG GPU IP
STMicroelectronics: 720p MPEG-4 & AMD Mini-Xenos
AMD unleashes 55nm HD 3470 and HD 3650