Catalyst 8.1 released.

[KasuCode]

http://www.tcmagazine.com/comments.php?shownews=17689&catid=3


A little sooner than we expected AMD has released the first Catalyst driver version of the year. Catalyst 8.1 comes with support for everything from the Radeon 9550 and up, including the Radeon HD 3800 series and it boasts one new feature:

- MultiView which provides for hardware accelerated OpenGL rendering across multiple graphics adapters. This feature will allow for the rendering performance and additional frame buffer resources to be evenly shared with the second and third graphics adapters. This allows for a 3D application to have the same performance running on a secondary or third display device as if it were running on the primary display device. This feature will be supported under Windows XP (32 and 64 bit versions), Windows Vista (32 and 64 bit versions), and Linux operating systems.

... and fixes for issues found in: Half-Life 2: Episode 2, F.E.A.R., BioShock, TES IV Oblivion, World in Conflict, ET: Quake Wars and more.

[poursoul]

So does this ONLY mean more performance, or does it allow for motherboards with on board AMD graphics to be used as outputs even with another AMD discrete graphics card installed in it's only PCIE slot?

I mean, let's say that I have a motherboard with a x1300 on board with a VGA and DVI output. Then I also have an dual-head x1900 that I stick in ye olde PCIE slot. Is it possible to now have a quad display setup even if the motherboard automatically disables the on board when a discrete graphics card is installed?

[SH64]

Thanks for the headsup.