News ATI releases Catalyst 10.6

ATI has released version 10.6 of its Catalyst drivers for Radeon GPUs - with Flash 10.1 support.

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/hardware/2010/06/18/amd-releases-catalyst-10-6/1

 

Time to check this out.

 

still gets shutter with low bit-rate compressed MKV or MP4 files. somehow high bit-rate HD files are fine.

 

Will give it a go now...

 

TBH I haven't noticed any difference. Testing it using an HD4650 unless it only applies to 5-series cards.

 

Apparently only some of it applies to 5 - series. I'm going to give them a whirl this avo

 

[swear words]

 

Before:


After:


Bit of an improvement, better than nowt I suppose.

 

Ruined Powerplay on my Sapphire 4830 (idle clocks were 500/900 instead of 160/250), so reverted to 10.3 :|

 

I'll wait for the 10.6 hotfix.

 

What he said

 

From the release notes ( http://www2.ati.com/relnotes/Catalyst_106_release_notes.pdf )

"Adobe Flash Player 10.1 can be accelerated on notebook and desktop platforms
featuring AMD graphics including:
ATI Radeon™ HD 5000 and ATI Radeon™ HD 4000 series
ATI Mobility ATI Radeon™ HD 400 series (and higher)
ATI Radeon™ HD 3000 series integrated graphics (and higher)"

So where's Radeon HD3000 series? They support the integrated chip but not the Radeon cards? If it's a marketing move, I'd say it's a ridiculously stupid one...

And by the way, the hotfix is already there (if this is what you were referring to):

http://support.amd.com/us/kbarticles/Pages/CatalystAGPHotfix.aspx

 

CrossFireX performance with these new drivers has taken a big hit here in Battlefield: Bad Company 2 with two HD 5870s as I was getting 90-120 fps before with the 10.5a drivers and now I'm getting just 40-70 fps. I've double-checked by reinstalling the 10.5a hotfix drivers again and I got the higher framerate back. Back to 10.6 and I'm back to almost half-framerates. It's not so noticeable if you force v-sync on as I usually do but it's a loss of performance regardless. Apparently ATI are aware of it and no doubt we'll get another hotfix next week, as seems to be the case of late, to fix this.

Improvements include fixes for Red Faction Guerrilla's CrossFireX flickering issue (large areas of grass in Oasis still cause the framerate to plummet though) and Just Cause 2 no longers refuses to start full screen, something which has been bugging me since ATI broke it in the 10.5 drivers.

Sadly, Blur and Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands still run like crap with these drivers and CrossFireX as I get major framerate hits in both games which are only fixed by Alt-Tabbing to the desktop and back. The former slows down when driving through any water (plus hitches constantly even with a single card) and the latter drops to 15 fps when the prince dies or rewinds time but otherwise runs silky-smooth at 60 fps with v-sync on otherwise.

An OK release I guess but I wish ATI were more on the ball as regards new game releases and CrossFireX support. I thought the whole idea of having Application Profiles as a separate download was so they could be updated more regularly and easily than when they were included with the drivers? So far they've been released at the same time as the monthly drivers, which begs the question really of why they're even a separate install!!!

 

My friend who has crossfired 5770s is reporting the same thing, he's lost about 30 fps with these drivers.

 

Another thing I thought I'd mention just in case anyone else has the same issue me is that forcing triple buffering via RivaTuner's D3DOverrider or ATI Tray Tools in some DX10 games causes CrossFireX to only run on one card. I had this issue with Tom Clancy's H.A.W.X. which would work on both GPUs but only with the DX9 version; the DX10 version stubbornly refused to run on anything other than GPU2 despite the CrossFireX icon showing it was active. Disabling triple buffering fixed it. World in Conflict, another DX10 game, also has the same issue.

All those games worked fine with CrossFireX with the 10.5 drivers so I've reported it to ATI through their Catalyst Feedback Form.

 

Battlefield: BC2 issue confirmed here: http://www.kitguru.net/software/zardon/amd-talk-to-kitguru-badcompany-2-fix-is-coming/ with a new application profile released later today to fix. Well done, ATI!

 

I'm still running 10.3, time to update

 

wont be touching until the BC2 issue is fixed

 

The slow down jerking in vehicles is still present in RFG, and strobing/flashing could be fixed in 10.4 by turning off AI in CCC.

[/QUOTE]An OK release I guess but I wish ATI were more on the ball as regards new game releases and CrossFireX support. I thought the whole idea of having Application Profiles as a separate download was so they could be updated more regularly and easily than when they were included with the drivers? So far they've been released at the same time as the monthly drivers, which begs the question really of why they're even a separate install!!![/QUOTE]

I would say why can't we make our own profiles or at least have access to make changes like I did when I had nvidia cards in SLI?

 

Woo, I don't get this excited over Nvidia drivers