Driver Update: ATi Catalyst 3.7

Brent is the first to draw our attention to ATi’s new Catalyst drivers. The company has released version 3.7 and includes drivers for the Radeon series video cards. As usual, the programmers have removed bugs from the drivers that affect games, applications and the driver itself. The complete changelog looks like this:

Performance Improvements

• Pixel Shader processing has been enhanced across all of our DX9 products. As a result, certain PS 2.0 ShaderMark tests are now running as much as 12% faster.
• Unreal Tournament 2003 performance is up considerably for DX9 products running with Anti-Aliasing enabled. This is due to improvements in the driver code for rendering character shadows. For example, the Anubis botmatch test gains as much as 23%
• The result of this optimization is also apparent in Dungeon Siege, where gains ranging from 3-10% are observed on our DX9 product line-up, when Anti-Aliasing is enabled. Other game titles may also be improved
• RADEON 7000 gains as much as 25% in Direct3D titles when running at very high resolution (1600×1200). Aquamark, Comanche 4, Dungeon Siege, Expendable, Giants and Re-Volt all gain approximately 20% at this setting. OpenGL titles are not affected
• Modest gains of approximately 5% are noticed for our DX8 class of products (RADEON™ 9200, 9000, and 8500) in OpenGL games such as Quake III Arena, Return to Castle Wolfenstein, and Serious Sam

Resolved Game Issues

• Running MS Links 2003 with Anisotropic filtering and Anti-Aliasing enabled results in vertical and horizontal lines being displayed within the game. This issue is known to occur under Windows XP with a RADEON™ 9700 series card installed
• Switching the display resolution mode when playing Jedi Knight II or Quake 3 no longer results in display corruption being displayed on the top of the menu screen
• Unreal Tournament 2003 highlight corruption is no longer seen when the pull down menu bar is used to choose a selection
• The Windows XP system not responding when attempting to launch IL2 Sturmovik Forgotten Battles if the display resolution is set to 1024×768 32bpp is now resolved. This issue was known to occur on the RADEON™ 9700, 9600, and 9500 series of cards
• The Windows XP operating system no longer stop responding when switching the display resolution from 1280×1024 to 1600×1200 when playing Jedi Knight II
• Configuring the game NASCAR Racing to 1600×1200 32 bpp under Windows ME with a RADEON™ 9600 series card installed no longer results in the system not responding
• Selecting the pin camera in the game MS Links 2003 no longer results in the ground not being drawn correctly in the sub window. This issue was known to occur under Windows XP with the RADEON™ 9000 series card installed
• Playing a multiplayer game in the lost city map in the game Will Rock no longer results in the sky flashing black images. This issue was known to occur under Windows XP with the RADEON™ 9000 series card installed
• Slow playback of the game Remington Big Buck Trophy Hunt is now resolved. This issue was known to occur under Windows XP with a RADEON™ 9700, 9600 TX or 9500 series card installed
• Configuring the game NeverWinter Nights with Nice 4 Sample Anti-Aliasing enabled and attempting to launch the game no longer results in the system failing to respond. This issue was known to occur under Windows XP with a RADEON™ 9800 SE or 9500 series card installed
• Enabling Anti-Aliasing and attempting to take a screen shot results in a corrupt capture when running OpenGL games such as, CounterStrike, Half-Life, Quake III or Medal of Honor: Allied Assault
• The Tron 2 demo no longer runs slowly on the RADEON™ 7200 and 9000 series
• Anti-Aliasing support is now available for the game Giants Citizen Kabuto

Resolved Software Application issues

• The shadow image is no longer missing in the demo named Miracle
• Setting the display resolution to 1024×768 32bpp and running D3D DolphinVS DX8.1 no longer results in display corruption under the Japanese version of Windows XP
• Starting the TV in a windowed mode on a RADEON™ 7200 All-In-Wonder series no longer results in the display going blank and the Windows XP operating system failing to respond

Resolved CATALYST™ Driver Issues

• Running Hydravision with the Transparency feature enabled and setting the display resolution to 1024×768 16bpp no ​​longer results in display corruption being left behind when dragging an MS Paint window over a DVD image
• Tiling corruption noticed under the Windows 9X operating system when the display is set to an interlaced mode is now resolved
• Changing the compatibility settings in the ATI OpenGL tab now results in the users’ setting being retained when the system reboots
• Setting the secondary desktop to panning mode and the primary desktop to normal mode, followed by enabling Overlay Theater Mode no longer results in display corruption being displayed on the secondary display
• Installing a RADEON™ 8500 series card that has two CRT connectors under Windows XP, no longer results in the display not being available on the second CRT
• Connecting two display devices to a RADEON™ 9700 series card no longer results in display corruption being seen in Overlay Theater Mode when playing an HDTV source
• Running the 3D Pipes screen saver for an extended period of time (24 hours or longer) produces an error message indicating that the virtual memory is not enough
• Resuming from suspend mode under Windows ME no longer results in the system not responding
• Setting the display to 2048×1536 followed by installing the latest version of Hydravision no longer results in display corruption when relaunching the Windows Explorer
• Setting the desktop display to 1024×768 32bpp and enabling OTM no longer results in display corruption when toggling between expansion and non-expansion mode while playing an MPG1 file
• Help is now available when entering the Adjustments page found under the Displays tab for HDTV
• Enabling clone mode followed by setting the display resolution to 1200×800 no longer results in the CRT being in pan mode
• The ATI Options page no longer displays incorrect information about the graphic card’s memory size under the traditional Chinese version of Windows XP
• The Video BIOS number now reflects the current version number in the control panel
• Text no longer appears blurred when font smoothing is enabled and set to Standard. This issue was known to occur under Windows XP with a RADEON™ 8500 or 9100 series card installed
• The driver component that interfaces to the DDC/CI is now working properly
• When the AGP Fastwrite is disabled it no longer appears to be enabled in both the Private and Public SmartGart control panels
• The option buttons for Digital Video Interface are now function correctly when the system is set to extended desktop mode
• Disabling Extended Desktop with two Adapters and four Displays no longer results in corruption on one display

Known Issues

• When updating to future CATALYST™ releases your current color control panel profiles will be lost. This will be fixed in an upcoming CATALYST™ release
• Running the 3D Pipes screen saver for an extended period of time (24 hours or longer), produces an error message indicating that the virtual memory is not enough
• Setting the Landscape details to Perfect in the game IL2 Sturmovik Forgotten Battles results in the system not responding during track playback
• Playing the game Tiger Woods with the game options set to 1280×1024 32bpp and graphic parameters set to high results in the game failing to respond after the scorecard is displayed. This issue will be fixed in an upcoming CATALYST™ release
• Setting the game Flight Simulator 2004 to display at 1024×768 or 1280×1024 followed by starting a new flight results in the menu being flipped just before the new flight is about to begin. This issue will be fixed in an upcoming CATALYST™ release
• The CodeCreatures benchmark score drops by approximately 10-12% on DX8-class hardware (RADEON™ 9200, 9000, and 8500). This is due to a minor performance bug introduced in CATALYST™ 3.7. The issue is already resolved and a fix will be released in CATALYST™ 3.8. No other titles are known to be affected