Catalyst 8.8 drivers are out

[Heinz68]

http://ati.amd.com/support/driver.html
The link is for AMD/ATI site and the drivers are dated August 20/08

Warning somebody at RAGE3D posted catalyst_8.8_8.522_aug13, believing they're the official new drivers, you can see by the date they're not. Also the drivers are not linked to AMD/ATI site and the download is very slow.

Release Notes:
Resolved Issues for the Windows Vista Operating System

This section provides information on resolved issues in this release of the ATI Catalyst™ Software Suite for Windows Vista. These include:

* Setting the language option to Greek no longer results in cropped text being noticed in the Catalyst™ Control Center->Component Video page
* Adobe After Effects: Exiting the application no longer results in the Windows Vista (64 bit version) operating system intermittently failing to respond
* Call of Duty 4: Corruption is no longer noticed when having Quad CrossFire™ enable and an HDMI 1080p display device connected. Further details can be found in topic number 737-35112
* Devil May Cry 4: Anti-Aliasing no longer fails to function when playing the game with CrossFire™ enabled
* Dirt: Playing the German Crossover track (Rally World Event) no longer results in the grand stands and chain link fences not being display correctly when CrossFire™ is enabled and MSAA is disabled
* Hellgate London: Setting the display resolution to 2560x1600 no longer results in the game failing to respond
* Linage II: Switching between the game and the Windows desktop no longer results in the desktop appearing brighter than its original setting. Exiting the game and restarting the operating system may also result in the desktop brightness failing to be restored to its original setting. Further details can be found in topic number 737-35108
* Lost Planet (DX9): Enabling CrossFire™, AA to 4x, AF to 8x, and having all of the in-game options set to high no longer results in the game failing to respond when running the performance test
* Mahjongg Artifacts: Flickering is no longer noticed when playing the game on pre-configured name brand systems
* Mass Effect: Playing the game with CrossFire™ enabled no longer results in corruption being noticed on the AA menu
* NASCAR demo: Setting all the in-game options to the highest levels no longer results in corruption being noticed on systems containing an ATI Radeon™ HD 2400 series of product and running Windows Vista
* Quake 4: Corruption is no longer noticed when starting a new game on systems running either Windows XP or Vista and containing an ATI Radeon™ HD 48x0 series of product
* Second Life: Playing the game on a CrossFire™ configured system (ATI Radeon™ HD 2400 and above) no longer results in corruption and slow performance being noticed
* Unreal Tournament 3: The game no longer intermittently fails to launch when a map has texture detail set to maximum. Further details can be found in topic number 737-31189
* World In Conflict: Setting the video quality to high no longer results in corruption being noticed
* Installing a newer version of the Catalyst™ Control Center without removing the older version no longer results in a windows error message appearing when attempting to launch the Catalyst™ Control Center
* The Reduce DVI frequency on high-resolution displays is no longer missing in the Catalyst™ Control Center->Digital Panel (DVI) page when hot un-plugging and then hot-plugging a display device using the HDMI port on systems containing an ATI Radeon™ HD 3100/3200 series of product
* The Display Management options are no longer missing or corrupted when switching between profiles in the Catalyst™ Control Center
* Clicking Start->All Program->Catalyst™ Control Center->Restart runtime twice no longer results in the two ATI Restart icons appearing on the Windows taskbar
* Setting the DPI to 120 or 144 no longer results in cropped text being noticed throughout various pages of the Catalyst™ Control Center
* Making changes to the default values in the Avivo color page and closing the Catalyst™ Control Center without applying the changes no longer results in the default values failing to be restored
* Cropped text is no longer noticed in the VPU Recover message when the DPI is set to 144
* Checking the Use application settings in Avivo Video->Basic Color no longer results in the preview failing to be updated with the default color settings
* Corruption is no longer noticed when entering the Catalyst™ Control Center->Basic Quality page on systems containing an ATI Radeon™ HD 4800 product
* Setting the language option to German and the Catalyst™ Control Center skin to ATI_Crimson no longer results in text appearing cropped within the Catalyst™ Control Center
* Catalyst™ Control Center: Enabling the option for Always on Top no longer results in dialog boxes failing to appear on top of the Catalyst™ Control Center
* Running through a custom install of the graphics driver and installing the driver to a directory of choice no longer results in a C++ error message when right clicking on the Windows desktop
* The pulldown menu options found within various pages of the Catalyst™ Control Center are no longer mis-aligned
* Setting the language option to Russian no longer results in cropped text being noticed within the Catalyst™ Control Center
* Using the Catalyst™ Control Center Setup Assistant no longer results in the Catalyst™ Control Center Advanced View text is appearing greyed out
* A restricted number of HDTV custom modes no longer occurs after deleting all of the custom modes that were previously added
* Catalyst™ Control Center: The online help links for Color->Full Screen3D are no longer missing
* Catalyst™ Control Center->Help->CrossFire™: The help file no longer states that CrossFire™ is enabled by default under the Windows XP operating system
* Incorrect help hardware configurations are no longer described for CrossFire™ in the Catalyst™ Control Center->Help contents
* Setting the language option to any of the supported languages now results in the translated language web pages being displayed (if in existence) when clicking on the Welcome link
* Corruption is no longer noticed in the lower portion of the HDMI display when using certain display modes
* Disabling the graphics driver while clone mode is enable no longer results in corruption being noticed on the display devices
* Connecting an HDMI display device and entering an S3 state no longer results in the operating system failing to respond or VPU Recover to activate
* Connecting an HDMI display device to the DVI port using an HDMI to DVI dongle no longer results in the display mode of 720x480 failing to be in the display mode list after hot-unplugging the HDMI display device and hot-plugging a DVI display device. Further details can be found in topic number 737-35105
* Screen flashing no longer occurs when connecting a display device that has incorrect Extended Display Identification Data information (EDID)
* An error message indicating that the display driver stopped responding and has recovered is no longer displayed when playing a DVD title using the Windows Media Player on systems containing an ATI Radeon™ 3100/3200 series of product
* Connecting a dual link display device to a system containing an ATI Radeon™ HD 36x0 series of product no longer results in the display device failing to display an image when enabling the option to reduce DVI and setting the display resolution to 1280x1024 60Hz 32bpp
* Connecting an HDMI display device and setting the display resolution to 1600x1024 or higher with a refresh rate higher than 60Hz. no longer result in the display device failing to display an image
* Logging off one user and logging on as another no longer results in CrossFire™ failing to be enabled or disabled when logging back on as the original user
* A CCCPrev.exe has stopped working error message no longer appears when selecting any 3D settings in the Catalyst™ Control Center when extended desktop mode is enabled
* Connecting a CRT as the primary and a DFP as a secondary display device followed by enabling extended desktop mode no longer results in clone mode becoming active when hot-unplugging the DFT and the hot-plugging it back on
* Connecting a TV as a secondary display device and attempting to enabled extended desktop mode no longer results in the TV format failing to change
* Connecting a secondary display device and enabling it as the primary display no longer results in the resolution being set to it maximum display resolution when enabling CrossFire™
* Clicking on the seek slider when playing a DVD title using the PowerDVD player no longer results in corruption being noticed on the playback window
* Switching from h.264 to MPEG2 video titles no longer results in the operating system intermittently failing to respond
* Playing VC1 video clips no longer results in green corruption being noticed in the player window
* Seeking or fast-forwarding in a media player application no longer results in corruption being noticed on systems containing an ATI Radeon™ HD 3600 series of product and running Windows Vista (32 bit version)
* Enabling BOB de-interlacing no longer results in a green line being noticed on the bottom of the playback window when playing a 1080i clip
* Playing a standard definition DVD using the Windows Media Player no longer results in the player window flashing when closed captioning is enabled
* Playing a DVD title using the PowerDVD player no longer results in the PowerDVD player failing to respond when DXVA is disabled, closed captioning is enabled and the user is fast forwarding the DVD title anywhere from 4x to 32x

Resolved Issues for the Windows XP Operating System

This section provides information on resolved issues in this release of the ATI Catalyst™ Software Suite for Windows XP. These include:

* 3 Kingdom OL: Playing the Asian game with CrossFire™ enabled on a system running Windows XP no longer results in texture corruption being noticed during the fight preparation menu
* Assassin's Creed: Setting all in-game options to 3 and the display resolution to 1024x768 no longer results in flashing being noticed around the character
* City of Heroes: Character stretching and double character reflection is no longer noticed when the in-game resolution is set to 2560x1600. Further details can be found in topic number 737-35757
* Company of Heroes: Opposing Fronts: Enabling CrossFire™ no longer results in the displays flashing corruption when setting the in game graphics options to off or their lowest settings. Further details can be found in topic number 737-35118
* Enemy Territory Quake Wars: Intermittent corruption is no longer noticed when playing the game on a system containing an ATI Radeon™ HD 48x0 series of product
* Fear Perseus Mandate Demo: Launching the game on a system running Windows XP and containing an ATI Radeon™ HD 2600 series of product no longer results in the system failing to respond
* Just Cause: Setting the in-game display resolution to 1280x1024 and all of the other game options to their maximum levels no longer results in corruption being noticed in the lower portion of the display
* Lost Planet: Task switching between the game and the Windows XP desktop no longer results in texture corruption being noticed when switching back to the game. This issue was known to occur on systems containing an ATI Radeon™ HD 36x0 series of product
* Witcher: Enabling AA and setting the in-game options to their maximum levels no longer results in background colors being missing and the game play back being choppy. Further details can be found in topic number 737-35898
* Witcher: Game corruption is no longer noticed when setting all of the in-game options to their maximum values and having CrossFire™ enabled along with AA set to 16x and AF set to 8x
* Witcher: Enabling CrossFire™ on a system containing an ATI Radeon™ HD 48x0 series of product no longer results in game failing to respond
* Using the WinDVD player (versions 14.x, 11.10x, or 9.xx) to play VC1 video content no longer results in corruption being noticed when hardware acceleration is enabled. This issue may also be experienced under the Windows Vista operating system. Further details can be found in topic number 737-35293
* Installing the HDMI audio driver and the VIA audio chipset driver no longer results in a compatibility issue being noticed and a yellow exclamation mark showing up in the Sound, Video and Game Controllers. Further details can be found in topic number 737-35119
* Connecting a display device to the display port no longer results in the Catalyst™ Control Center->Advanced View detecting the display device as a Digital Panel (DVI)
* Hot-plugging an HDMI display device to a system that has a CRT connected to it no longer results in the CRT becoming disabled after the system reboots
* Choppy DVD playback is no longer noticed when enabling the option cinema enhancement and closed captioning within the WinDVD player
* Corruption is no longer noticed in the lower third of the WinDVD player window when cinema enhancement is enabled
* Hot-plugging a display device while the system is in standby state no longer results in the display device failing to be detected
* Hot-plugging a display device no longer results in the display device failing to display an image
* ATI icon corruption is no longer noticed on systems running Windows XP and containing an ATI Radeon™ HD 48x0 series of product
* Resuming from a standby state and right clicking on the Windows desktop no longer results in menu items appearing corrupt when moving the mouse pointer over the drop down menu
* Playing a Blu-ray DVD title using the WinDVD player no longer results in only audio being heard
* Playing a DVD title and selecting the option to use basic color setting to default in the Catalyst™ Control Center now results in the option being applied. Further details can be found in topic number 737-35803
* A green tint is no longer noticed around the closed captioning when playing a standard definition DVD using the Cyberlink player

[methimpikehoses]

It just sends me to a lame url that says you're download request cannot be authorized. ???

http://ati.amd.com/online/403/leech.asp

[Heinz68]

Well I'm not getting the 403
You can also try this link
http://ati.amd.com/support/driver.html

[methimpikehoses]

k, that one works better, thanks.

[Heinz68]

k, that one works better, thanks.
OK I'm going to remove the first link since the second one works better.

[Blkout]

These drivers are slower in every benchmark I tested compared to the CD drivers that shipped with my 4870x2. I'm not a bench junkie, but the Crysis results are very disturbing. I don't know that I can live with these drivers.

1. My video card now runs about 15c hotter at idle than it did with the CD drivers. It used to idle around 60c, now idles at 75c with the exact same fan profile. Only one core appears to be downclocking to 500MHz, the other is staying at 750MHz. This was not the case with the CD drivers.

2. The 8.8 drivers seemed to fix a wierd texture issue I was getting using the CD drivers in Crysis using DX10 very high settings. While running the GPU benchmark, I would see the flashes of trees in the clouds. It didn't do it with high settings, only very high settings using the CD drivers. The 8.8's fixed that, but at a steep penalty in performance as you'll see.

Here are my benchmark results:

3DMARK03
CD Drivers - 71255
Cat 8.8's - 70807


3DMARK05
CD Drivers - 28031
Cat 8.8's - 27798


3DMARK06
CD Drivers - 20165
Cat 8.8's - 19191


3DMARK Vantage Performance Setting
CD Drivers - 11066
Cat 8.8's - 11040


Crysis 1900x1200 DX9 High Setting
CD Drivers - Min FPS: 38.79, Average FPS: 60.58, Max FPS: 74.76
Cat 8.8's - Min FPS: 36.31, Average FPS: 54.17, Max FPS: 66.91

Crysis 1900x1200 DX10 Very High Setting
CD Drivers - Min FPS: 16.73, Average FPS: 25.15, Max FPS: 50.79
Cat 8.8's - Min FPS: 13.25, Average FPS: 18.97, Max FPS: 33.41

[LordJuanlo]

I didn't find differences between the 8.8 and the drivers that came with the x2, except in Flatout Ultimate Carnage, the 8.8 are faster. But I'm having the same Crysis issue that I had with previous drivers and CCC mod: after finding your dead buddy and the sun rises, framerate is cut in half (fan speed is lowered too), until I do Alt-tab, then it recovers normal performance (and fan speed goes up again), but it only lasts for a couple of seconds until I start moving. Very strange it only happens with this mod.

I have also tried Episode 2, Assassin's Creed, Bioshock (DX9 and DX10), Jericho... it performs the same. Will do full Crysis benchmarks later

[Serrasalmus]

im using them on my 4870 and only did a vantage and played some cod and seems like there same as the 8.7 beata i was using

[slaWter]

Crysis 1900x1200 DX9 High Setting
CD Drivers - Min FPS: 38.79, Average FPS: 60.58, Max FPS: 74.76
Cat 8.8's - Min FPS: 36.31, Average FPS: 54.17, Max FPS: 66.91

Crysis 1900x1200 DX10 Very High Setting
CD Drivers - Min FPS: 16.73, Average FPS: 25.15, Max FPS: 50.79
Cat 8.8's - Min FPS: 13.25, Average FPS: 18.97, Max FPS: 33.41

What was ATI thinking? This game is the only one that really needs proper scaling... and the long awaited official driver is slower :thumbdwn:

LordJuanlo, that CCC 2.21 bug is really strange, I was very annoying with my card as well. Hope they'll fix it soon! At least Flatout UC is better :)

[LordJuanlo]

I have tried those (ftp://driver1.cptech.com.tw/Driver/temp/catalyst_8.8_vista_8.522_aug13_br67983.exe) drivers, they are official 8.8 too, but newer (8.522-080731a-067983C-ATI) than official drivers. They appeared at Rage3D forum. With those drivers I get higher FPS at Crysis timedemo than the default CD drivers (34 vs 32 fps with CCC 2.21 at 4xAA). But those drivers don't fix that Crysis issue anyway. Will test more things

[Heinz68]

I have tried those (ftp://driver1.cptech.com.tw/Driver/temp/catalyst_8.8_vista_8.522_aug13_br67983.exe) drivers, they are official 8.8 too, but newer (8.522-080731a-067983C-ATI) than official drivers. They appeared at Rage3D forum. With those drivers I get higher FPS at Crysis timedemo than the default CD drivers (34 vs 32 fps with CCC 2.21 at 4xAA). But those drivers don't fix that Crysis issue anyway. Will test more things
The drivers are definitely not official otherwise they would be available at AMD/ATI site and have Release Notes like any other official drivers, plus they're dated August 13 and the official drivers are dated August 20.
Also they take 3 hours to download, the drivers at AMD site take few seconds to Download.

Somebody at rage was just guessing they're the official drivers, anyway official drivers at RAGE3 are same as I posted: http://www.rage3d.com/board/showthread.php?t=33930236

[LordJuanlo]

They may not be on AMD site, but they are WHQL and perform better than official 8.8 in Crysis with the x2. And yes, they took all the night to download

[musman]

Hopefully this will solve my issue with running X-Plane. Stupid game halfway loads then crashes. Haven't had much luck finding much information on this. Only thing I found is that it could be a OpenGL issue.


PS: I'm running a HD4850

[Tr1cK]

CRYSIS CRYSIS CRYSIS CRYSIS CRYSIS CRYSIS CRYSIS CRYSIS CRYSIS CRYSIS CRYSIS CRYSIS CRYSIS CRYSIS CRYSIS

I could care less about this game and can't wait until I don't hear it spoken of anymore. Srsly, is there a word filter I can apply here?

I'm just saying...

[musman]

CRYSIS CRYSIS CRYSIS CRYSIS CRYSIS CRYSIS CRYSIS CRYSIS CRYSIS CRYSIS CRYSIS CRYSIS CRYSIS CRYSIS CRYSIS

I could care less about this game and can't wait until I don't hear it spoken of anymore. Srsly, is there a word filter I can apply here?

I'm just saying...


Would you like to play me in an online game? (nana2)

[Heinz68]

They may not be on AMD site, but they are WHQL and perform better than official 8.8 in Crysis with the x2. And yes, they took all the night to download
BTW
rflair who originally posted the catalyst_8.8_8.522_aug13 at RAGE3 (http://www.rage3d.com/board/showthread.php?t=33930205) removed the link.

I just don't think it's worth it promoting them since people might run into some other issue not fixed.
I think couple frames on Crysis benchmarks is not all so important, most people will probably not notice it in game play.

Anyway just my opinion, I don't have the x2 card, Crysis I have only demo plus I use Windos XP, so who am I to say.

[magitek]

Performance is about the same on my end compared with the on-disc drivers for the 4870x2, but I don't play Crysis. I did manage to boost FPS a bit by enabling the Cross Graphics Impeller option in my BIOS, which is odd because IIRC that's only supposed to work with dual-card crossfire.

Anyway, the other big thing this patch did was completely screw up any attempt at changing colors in 3d-mode. Apparently the driver only changes the color/gamma settings on one card, and not the other. Thus, any 3d-mode application suffers from massive flickering (alternating frames have different color settings). I guess I'll be going back to the on-disc drivers until this gets fixed.

Edit: GPU-Z says the cores are using different drivers. Lovely. Maybe a wipe and reinstall will fix it.

[slaWter]

Edit: GPU-Z says the cores are using different drivers. Lovely. Maybe a wipe and reinstall will fix it.

Use Driver Sweeper (http://www.guru3d.com/category/driversweeper/) after the normal ATI uninstaller.

[grey_1]

My performance with these is the same (Crysis) or just a bit better. Loving this card.

[Xion X2]

Use Driver Sweeper (http://www.guru3d.com/category/driversweeper/) after the normal ATI uninstaller.

Bad idea. Very bad idea.

ATI's drivers do not like these 3rd party driver cleaners/sweepers; they cause all sorts of problems including driver.inf errors and corrupted CCC.

Be careful not to automatically believe these 3rd party utilities like GPU-Z that may read a different driver version or such. Lots of times these programs have to be rewritten to record/monitor new hardware accurately.

[cvearl]

Bad idea. Very bad idea.

ATI's drivers do not like these 3rd party driver cleaners/sweepers; they cause all sorts of problems including driver.inf errors and corrupted CCC.

Be careful not to automatically believe these 3rd party utilities like GPU-Z that may read a different driver version or such. Lots of times these programs have to be rewritten to record/monitor new hardware accurately.

+1

I have had NO issues just following the rules. I learned long ago not to treat my ATI card like an nVidia card and visa versa.

With ATI I find if I simply uninstall via the ATI Catalyst Install Manager in the control pannel. It asks me to reboot and then I reinstall the new complete package.

Every single time I try beta 3rd party apps I break something. :headexplode:

I DO hope that some talented person makes a good one for ATI products but I am not confident yet.

Drivercleaner caused issues with my Vista+ATI install and took me some fixin to get the normal install/uninstall process working again. :o

C.

[cvearl]

Inside CCC Information Centre, 8.8's should read like this...

Driver Packaging Version 8.522-080731a-067980C-ATI
Catalyst® Version 08.8
Provider ATI Technologies Inc.
2D Driver Version 7.01.01.809
2D Driver File Path /REGISTRY/MACHINE/SYSTEM/ControlSet001/Control/Class/{4D36E968-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}/0000
Direct3D Version 7.14.10.0603
OpenGL Version 6.14.10.7873
Catalyst® Control Center Version 2008.0731.2322.39992

The current betas people are calling 8.8 betas that are floating about are actually going to be 8.9's. The Crysis white dots are fixed in that driver.

I am going to just wait for it though.

C.

[slaWter]

Driver Sweeper worked perfectly for me multiple times, with ATI and nV drivers.

[Blacklash]

I only use Drivercleaner if I am switching from an nVidia card to an ATi or the other way around.

With nVidia I uninstall my drivers in safe mode, and install new drivers in the same. With ATi I simply let their software handle it under a regular boot.

The only time I've had trouble with ATi was when my installation of .NET got corrupted when I was using Win XP Pro x64. Then I would get "mom" warnings when booting and the CCC wouldn't load. Cleaning out the drivers and reinstalling .NET fixed it.

[JaxMacFL]

Inside CCC Information Centre, 8.8's should read like this...

Driver Packaging Version 8.522-080731a-067980C-ATI
......

C.

My installed Driver Packaging Version reads: 8.522-080731a-067981C-ATI