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

ati ± catalyst, 8.1, AGP

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