ATi Catalyst™ Software Suite Version 8.9 Released ~*

September, 2008

ATI Catalyst™ Software Suite Version 8.9

This release note provides information on the latest posting of AMD’s industry leading software suite, Catalyst™. This particular software suite updates both the AMD Display Driver, and the Catalyst™ Control Center. This unified driver has been further enhanced to provide the highest level of power, performance, and reliability. The AMD Catalyst™ software suite is the ultimate in performance and stability.

This release note provides information on the following:

·    Web Content

·    AMD Product Support

·    Operating systems supported

·    New Features

·    ATI’s Folding@Home

·    Resolved Issues for the Windows Vista Operating System

·    Resolved Issues for the Windows XP Operating System

·    Known Issues Under the Windows Vista Operating System

·    Known Issues Under the Windows XP Operating System

·    Known Issues Under the Windows XP Professional x64 Edition

·    Installing the Catalyst™ Vista Software Driver

·    AMD Customer Care

·    Catalyst™ Crew Driver Feedback

Web Content

The Catalyst™ software suite 8.9 contains the following:

·    Radeon™ display driver 8.53

·    Multimedia Center™ 9.16 (Windows XP only)

·    HydraVision™ for both Windows XP and Vista

·    HydraVision™ Basic Edition (Windows XP only)

·    Remote Wonder 3.04 (Windows XP only)

·    WDM Driver Install Bundle

·    Southbridge/IXP Driver

·    Catalyst™ Control Center Version 8.9

Caution: The Catalyst™ software driver and the Catalyst™ Control Center can be downloaded independently of each other. However, for maximum stability and performance AMD recommends that both components be updated from the same Catalyst™ release

Caution: The Catalyst™ Control Center requires that the Microsoft .NET Framework version 2.0 be installed. Without .NET version 2.0 installed, the Catalyst™ Control Center will not launch properly and the user will see an error message.

Note: These release notes provide information on the Radeon™ display driver only. For information on the ATI Multimedia Center™, HydraVision™, HydraVision Basic Edition, WDM, Remote Wonder™, or the Southbridge/IXP driver, please refer to their respective release notes found at: https://support.ati.com/

AMD Product Support

The Catalyst™ Vista driver for both the 32bit and 64bit versions of the Microsoft Windows Vista operating system is supported on the following ATI Radeon™ products.

AMD Desktop Product Family Support for both Windows Vista and XP

AMD Desktop Product Family Support

ATI Radeon™ HD 4800 series

ATI Radeon™ X1300 series

ATI Radeon™ HD 3800 series

ATI Radeon™ X1050 series

ATI Radeon™ HD 3600 series

ATI Radeon™ X850 series

ATI Radeon™ HD 3400 series

ATI Radeon™ X800 series

ATI Radeon™ HD 2900 series

ATI Radeon™ X700 series

ATI Radeon™ HD 2600 series

ATI Radeon™ X600 series

ATI Radeon™ HD 2400 series

ATI Radeon™ X550 series

ATI Radeon™ X1950 series

ATI Radeon™ X300 series

ATI Radeon™ X1900 series

ATI Radeon™ 9800 series

ATI Radeon™ X1800 series

ATI Radeon™ 9700 series

ATI Radeon™ X1650 series

ATI Radeon™ 9600 series

ATI Radeon™ X1600 series

ATI Radeon™ 9550 series

ATI Radeon™ X1550 series

ATI Radeon™ 9500 series

AMD Multimedia Family Product Support for both Windows Vista and XP

AMD Multimedia Family Product Support

ATI All-in-Wonder™ X1900 Series

ATI Theater 600™

ATI All-in-Wonder™ X1800 Series

ATI All-in-Wonder™ X600 Series

ATI All-in-Wonder™ 2006 Edition

ATI Theater™ 550 PRO

ATI All-in-Wonder™ X800 Series

ATI All-in-Wonder™ 9800 Series

ATI Theater 650™

ATI All-in-Wonder™ 9600 Series

Note: ATI All-in-Wonder™ boards operate with AMD’s Windows Vista ready display and capture drivers under the Windows Vista operating system. However, the Windows Vista Media Center application does not support TV/Capture functionality provided by the ATI All-in-Wonder™. TV/Capture functionality is qualified to function with Snaptream’s BeyondTV 4.6 for Windows Vista. Other third party solutions (such as Arcsoft’s Total Media 3) may support TV/Capture with the ATI All-in-Wonder™, but these applications have not been fully tested by AMD.

AMD Chipset Product Support

AMD Chipset Product Support

ATI Radeon™ HD 3300 Series

ATI Radeon™ X1200 Series

ATI Radeon™ HD 3200 Series

AMD 580X Series Chipset

ATI Radeon™ HD 3100 Series

ATI Radeon™ Xpress 1150 Series

ATI Radeon™ HD 2100 Series

ATI Radeon™ Xpress 1100 Series

ATI Radeon™ Xpress 1250 Series

ATI Radeon™ Xpress 200 Series

ATI Radeon™ X1250 Series

AMD 690 Series Chipset

Operating systems supported

The latest version of the Catalyst™ software suite is designed to support the following Microsoft Windows platforms:

·    Windows Vista (32 and 64 bit versions)

·    Windows XP Professional

·    Windows XP Home Edition

·    Windows XP Media Center Edition

·    Windows XP Professional x64 Edition

Note: When installing the Catalyst™ Vista driver for Windows Vista, the user must logged on as an Administrator or have Administrator rights in order to successfully complete the installation of the Catalyst™ Vista driver.

New Features

Catalyst™ 8.9 introduces the following new features:

• Catalyst™ Control Center: New Display mode support

• OverDrive™ support for QUAD CrossFireX configurations

·    OpenGL™ 3.0 extension support

Catalyst™ Control Center: New Display mode support

This release of Catalyst™ introduces 1080p @ 50Hz custom mode support for HDTVs for the ATI Radeon HD 4000 Series, ATI Radeon HD 3000 Series, ATI Radeon HD 2000 Series, and ATI Radeon X1000 Series of products. Users can configure their own custom 1080p @ 50Hz modes to best fit their display.

OverDrive™ support for QUAD CrossFireX configurations

This release of Catalyst™ introduces Overdrive support for QUAD CrossFireX configurations. Users can now over-clock each graphics accelerator’s engine or memory speed when running in QUAD CrossFire configurations using manual controls or the automated auto-tuning utility.

OpenGL™ 3.0 support – Phase 1

This release of Catalyst™ introduces OpenGL™ 3.0 extension support. In upcoming Catalyst™ releases AMD will continue to expand its support for OpenGL 3.0 extensions. The following is a list of supported extensions in Catalyst 8.9:

·    ARB_half_float_pixel

·    ARB_draw_instanced

·    ARB_instanced_arrays

·    EXT_texture_compression_3dc

·    EXT_texture_compression_rgtc

·    EXT_texture_compression_latc

·    EXT_texture_shared_exponent

·    EXT_depth_buffer_float

·    EXT_gpu_shader4

·    ARB_map_buffer_range

ATI’s Folding@Home

Folding@Home is a distributed computing project designed by the Stanford University. The application performs intensive simulations of protein folding. This simulation will help researchers uncover how certain diseases develop. Folding@Home uses distributed computing to simulate protein folding, the workload is broken up into small work units and distributed across hundreds of thousands of computers over the internet. You can help find the cure to many different diseases! To join Folding@Home, follow these steps:

1. Download ATI’s Catalyst™ software suite

2. Download the Folding@Home GPU client application

3. Enter the ATI team number 51394 and start folding!

For more information on Folding@Home visit: http://ati.amd.com/technology/streamcomputing/folding.html

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:

·    Company of Heroes: Setting the in-game options to maximum levels no longer results in the game exiting to the desktop after the game has completed loading. Further details can be found in topic number 737-32600

·    Quake 4: Corruption is no longer noticed during the new game introduction • Playing a Blu-ray DVD title may result in corruption being intermittently noticed when using certain display resolutions such as 1360×768, 1360×1024, or 1600×1200

·    DiRT: Setting shadows to ultra quadCF no longer results in a performance drop being noticed. Further details can be found in topic number 737-37320

·    Assassins Creed: Brightness and saturation distortion is no longer observed during game play with ForceAA enabled. Further details can be found in topic number 737-37327

·    Grid: Enabling CrossFire and starting a new game no longer results in flickering bands being noticed across the display device. Further details can be found in topic number 737-37331

·    Jericho: Corruption is no longer noticed when AA is enabled and the in-game option Advanced Smoothing is enabled. Further details can be found in topic number 737-37332

·    Age of Conan: Playing the game for a short period of time no longer results in flickering corruption being noticed. Further details can be found in topic number 737-37333

·    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. Further details can be found in topic number 737-35895

·    Playing certain Blu-Ray DVD titles using the Cyberlink player no longer result in color corruption being noticed. This issue may be experienced under the Windows Vista (32 bit version) operating system when using an ATI Radeon™ HD 4870 X2 product

·    The Blu-ray DVD movie image no longer fails to rotated when the player window is drag to an extend monitor which rotated 180 degree. Further details can be found in topic number 737-37329

·    Switching from h.264 to MPEG2 video titles no longer results in the operating system failing to respond. Further details can be found in topic number 737-37322

·    VC1 streams with Interlaced Frame and Slice features no longer results in picture corruption and flicker in VLD sites. Further details can be found in topic number 737-37324

·    Playing a DVD title using the Windows Media Player no longer results in the user defined Avivo Video settings failing to be applied. Further details can be found in topic number 737-37317

·    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. Further details can be found in topic number 737-37328

·    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. Further details can be found in topic number 737-37323

·    Resuming from power saving mode on a system with an HDMI TV connected no longer results in the operating system failing to resume. Further details can be found in topic number 737-37318

·    Using a hot-key command to switch between an HDMI display device and any other display device no longer fails. Further details can be found in topic number 737-37330

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:

·    Lord of the Rings: Return of the King: Flickering is no longer noticed when changing chapters

·    Stranglehold: Setting the in-game options to 1024×768, and Decals off no longer results in the game failing to respond after a short period of game play

·    World in Conflict(DX9): Enabling CrossFire no longer results in flashing corruption and the game intermittently failing to respond. Further details can be found in topic number 737-37341

·    Oblivion: Setting the display option to 2048X1536 and AA to either 8x or 16x, while having the in-game options remain at their default values no longer results in the game failing to respond. Further details can be found in topic number 737-37342

·    HellgateLondon: Enabling AA to 8x, AF to 16x and setting Mipmap Detail Level to High Performance, along with AAA set to Performance no longer results in textures being missing when playing the game 8x. Further details can be found in topic number 737-37343

·    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. Further details can be found in topic number 737-37344

·    Spore: Playing the game in a windowed mode on the secondary display device no longer results in poor performance being noticed when AA is set to 8x. Further details can be found in topic number 737-37345

·    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

·    Age of Conan: The inventory icons may show corruption when playing the game with CrossFire™ enabled. This issue may also be experienced under the Windows Vista operating system as well. Further details can be found in topic number 737-34825

·    Catalyst Control Center->Theater Mode->Video Aspect Ratio: The default settings no longer fail to be restored when clicking on the Default button. Further details can be found in topic number 737-37337

·    Setting the display mode to 1080p50 and rebooting the system no longer results in the display mode failing to be retained

·    Cropped text is no longer noticed when changing the language option and DPI setting from their default values. Further details can be found in topic number 737-37334

·    Setting the language option to Polish no longer results in the hot-key Ctrl+alt+C being active resolving issues with Polish keyboards. Further details can be found in topic number 737-37335

·    Certain supported languages no longer display cropped text within the Display Options of the Catalyst Control Center. Further details can be found in topic number 737-37336

·    Resuming from hibernation mode no longer results in the TV signal failing to be restored. Further details can be found in topic number 737-37338

·    Closed captioning no longer fails under the Windows XP and Windows XP Professional x64 Edition operating systems. Further details can be found in topic number 737-37339

·    The FM seek function under Windows MCE no longer fails to find radio stations. Further details can be found in topic number 737-37340

Resolved Issues for the Windows XP Professional x64 Edition Operating System

This section provides information on resolved issues in this release of the ATI Catalyst™ Software Suite for Windows XP Professional x64 Edition. These include:

·    Momentary screen flicker may intermittently be noticed when launching or exiting a D3D or OpenGL application. This issue may be experienced on systems running the Windows XP Professional x64 Edition operating system and containing an ATI Radeon™ HD 4870 X2 product

Known Issues Under the Windows Vista Operating System

This section provides information on known issues that may be experienced under the Windows Vista operating system with the latest version of Catalyst™. These include:

·    Call of Duty 4 or Crysis: Color corruption may be noticed when running the games in full screen mode with Quad CrossFire™ enabled. Further details can be found in topic number 737-35115

·    Crysis: Playing the game at a display resolution lower than the native display resolution of a connected 30″ display device may result in corruption being noticed when CrossFire™ is enabled and having the Catalyst™ Control Center scaling the image to full screen. Further details can be found in topic number 737-35111

·    Hellgate London: Pressing Alt-Tab to return to the Windows Vista (32 bit version) desktop while playing the game may intermittently result in a translucent image of the game appearing on the Windows desktop. This issue may be experienced on systems containing either an ATI Radeon™ HD 4870 X2 or ATI Radeon™ 4800 product

·    Lost Planet (DX10 version): Some of the in-game display resolutions may fail to be available when using a CRT display device. Further details can be found in topic number 737-35872

·    Gears of War: The game may intermittently fail to respond on systems running Windows Vista (32 bit version) and containing an ATI 48×0 series of product when certain having various in-game options set. Further details can be found in topic number 737-37346

·    The secondary HDMI Display may turn off when resuming from an S1 hibernation with an HDMI display connected. Further details can be found in topic number 737-31146

·    An error message may appear when installing the display driver package through setup.exe. Further details can be found in topic number 737-31577

·    Installing an ATI Radeon™ X1600 series of product into a system containing an ATI Radeon™ HD 2600 series of product with the display driver already installed may result in the operating system entering a continuous reboot. This issue may be averted by removing the ATI graphics driver prior to the installation of the ATI Radeon™ X1600 series of product. This issue may also be experienced with the ATI Radeon™ X1300 and 1550 series of products. Furtherinformation may be found in topic number 737-33471

·    Performing an express install of the Catalyst™ Control Center may result in an error message being displayed when rebooting the system. Further details can be found in topic number 737-29532

·    Restoring the factory defaults for the Catalyst™ Control Center may result in the Catalyst™ Control Center title bar intermittently failing to be redrawn when dragging the interface around the Windows Vista (64 bit version) desktop

·    Video playback may occasionally appear shaky or jerky when playing a recorded video file using a Webcam to record and Quickplay to playback the file Enabling extended desktop mode and setting the color depth below 16bpp may occasionally result in the secondary display device failing to redraw properly

·    Connecting two or more display devices and enabling either extended desktop or clone mode may intermittently result in the operating system failing to respond when running the Auto-tune feature in the Catalyst Control Center -> OverDrive page. Further details can be found in topic number 737-37347

·    Setting the desktop resolution to 1600×1200 or greater may result in green pixel corruption being noticed when playing certain games. This issue maybe noticed when using a system running Windows Vista and containing an ATI Radeon™ HD 2600 or HD 2400 series of product. Further details can be found in topic number 737-31150

·    Attempting to play the HD-DVD title Harsh Times, School for Scoundrels using the Cyberlink player may result in block corruption being noticed. Further details can be found in topic number 737-31155

·    Enabling clone mode followed by switching to extended desktop mode may result in the Windows Vista (64 bit version) failing to respond. Further details can be found in topic number 737-34125

·    Enabling extended desktop mode and setting the color depth below 16bpp may result in the secondary display device failing to redraw properly. Further details can be found in topic number 737-35114

·    A green or black screen may be displayed when configuring MCE to ATSC mode. Further information may be found in topic number 737-27622

·    Playing a Blu-ray DVD title may result in corruption being noticed when using certain display resolutions such as 1360×768, 1360×1024, or 1600×1200. Further details can be found in topic number 737-35896

·    Enabling clone mode followed by switching to extended desktop mode may result in the Windows Vista (64 bit version) failing to respond. Further details can be found in topic number 737-35766

Known Issues Under the Windows XP Operating System

The following section provides a summary of open issues that may be experienced under the Windows XP operating system in the latest version of Catalyst™. These include:

·    Connecting a CRT display device as the secondary display and playing a Blu-ray DVD using a Cyberlink player may result in no video playback if extended desktop mode is enabled. Further details can be found in topic number 737-35122

·    Connecting a Dual Link Panel to the on-board DVI port, followed by hot plugging a DVI display to the add-on DVI card may result in clone mode becoming disabled when rebooting the machine and the secondary display device remaining blank. Further details can be found in topic number 737-31166

·    The display may be come corrupted with 4 bit color depth after hot unplugging the rotated primary HDMI/DFP display. Further details can be found in topic number 737-35116

·    Setting the display resolution to 1440×900 or lower may result in corruption being noticed when playing a DVD title. Further details can be found in topic number 737-31168

·    Setting the display resolution to 2560×1200 and playing a DVD title may occasionally result in corruption being noticed on sub-menu pages. Further details can be found in topic number 737-37348

·    Catalyst™ Control Center: Configuring a system with multi-adapters may result in an error message being displayed when running the Test Custom Clocks 737-29953

·    Enabling pull down detection in the Catalyst™ Control Center may result in flickering being noticed when playing a video clip using the Cyberlink PowerDVD player. Further details can be found in topic number 737-35121

·    Enabling pull down detection in the Catalyst Control Center may result in flickering being noticed when playing a video clip using the Cyberlink PowerDVD player. Further details can be found in topic number 737-35121

·    Avivo Video color settings may fail to be applied in the video when played using PowerDVD. Further details can be found in topic number 737-37350

·    Avivo Video color settings may occasionally fail to be applied in the video when played using PowerDVD • Enabling pull down detection in the Catalyst™ Control Center may intermittently result in flickering being noticed when playing a video clip using the Cyberlink PowerDVD player. Further details can be found in topic number 737-35121

·    Playing a DVD title on a display device that is rotated by 90 degrees may occasionally result in the player failing to play the title. Further details can be found in topic number 737-37351

·    Playing a Blu-ray DVD title using PowerDVD may result in the movie previews appearing corrupted. Further details can be found in topic number 737-37349

·

Known Issues Under the Windows XP Professional x64 Edition

The following section provides a summary of open issues that may be experienced under the Windows XP Professional x64 Edition operating system in the latest version of Catalyst™. These include:

·    Running an OpenGL application and attempting to rotate the desktop may result in corruption being noticed. Further details can be found in topic number 737-29556

For further information and general help on software driver installation, game issues, and more, visit ATI Customer Care.

Installing the Catalyst™ Vista Software Driver

Installation information can be found at: ati.amd.com

AMD Customer Care

The AMD Customer Care website provides a high level of technical support and ease of navigation. The AMD Customer Care website provides accurate and up-to-date product support for optimum usability and performance. Technical issues are categorized and personalized to enhance user experience. The AMD Customer Care Website can be found at: support.ati.com

To view a known issue or find troubleshooting information, do the following:

1. Go to ati.amd.com. The AMD home page is displayed.

2. Click on Support & Drivers. The AMD Support and Drivers web page is displayed.

3. In the left hand pane, select Graphics Support.

4. In the top right corner of the Graphics Support page, enter the topic number or a general description of the issue you are experiencing within the search field.

5. In the Select Site field, select ATI.

6. Click the SEARCH symbol.

The information requested (if available) is displayed.

Catalyst™ Crew Driver Feedback

This driver release incorporates suggestions received through the Catalyst™ CREW Driver Feedback program. To provide us with your feedback, visit: Catalyst™ Crew Driver Feedback.

                                                    <p style="text-align: right;" align="right"><a href="http://ati.amd.com/"><span style="font-size: 7.5pt; font-family: &quot;Verdana&quot;,&quot;sans-serif&quot;; color: rgb(0, 60, 40);">Advanced Micro Devices Inc.</span></a><span style="font-size: 7.5pt; font-family: &quot;Verdana&quot;,&quot;sans-serif&quot;;"><br />                http://ati.amd.com<br />                Voice: (905) 882-2600<br />                Fax: (905) 882-2620</span></p><br />