AMD Releases ATI Catalyst 8.7 Graphics Driver Package

[btarunr]

AMD released stable versions of the ATI Catalyst driver package for the Radeon series graphics accelerators. According to the release notes document (located here), improvements on both the features and performance fronts have been brought about. The drivers specific to your version of Windows, Linux, Windows on Macintosh (Bootcamp), Mac OS and on your model of Radeon accelerator can be found on the company website here.

Feature Improvements

• This release of Catalyst introduces an enhancement to the Catalyst Control Center Information Center. Full Hardware information will be shown for each physical graphics accelerator installed in the system.
• This release of ATI Catalyst Linux introduces preview support for Ubuntu 8.04 ; SLED 10 sp2.

Performance Improvements

• 3DMark Vantage: Performance increases of up to 20% is noticed in the Performance Preset on single card configured systems when using ATI Radeon HD 36xx or ATI Radeon HD 34xx products.
• Company of Heroes DX10: Performance increases of 3% to 12% is noticed in specific maps on single card configured systems when using either an ATI Radeon HD 48xx, ATI Radeon HD 38xx, or an ATI Radeon HD 36xx products.
• Lost Planet DX10: Performance increases of 4% to 15% is noticed in specific maps on single card configured systems when using either an ATI Radeon HD 48xx, ATI Radeon HD 38xx, or an ATI Radeon HD 36xx product.
• Call Of Duty 4 DX9: Performance increases of up to 4% in specific maps is noticed on single card configured systems when using an ATI Radeon HD 48xx product.
• Lost Planet DX9: CrossFire scaling improves up to 1.7x and performance increases up to 80% across all Radeon products when AA and AF is enabled.

Several issues have been resolved as described in the release notes document.

View at TechPowerUp Main Site

 

[ShadowFold]

Didn't really do much performance wise for me but it sure feels alot more stable!

 

[Urbklr]

Didn't really do much performance wise for me but it sure feels alot more stable!

Same, got no performance increase...but Crysis seem's smoother

 

[chron]

Are these the drivers everyone's been waiting for? Can I buy a 4850 now?

 

[ShadowFold]

Are these the drivers everyone's been waiting for? Can I buy a 4850 now?

Yes These are pretty damn stable from what ive been doing so far! Crysis doesn't crash at all now and stuff seems a bit smoother!

 

[phanbuey]

hmmm... no 20% gain huh? at least it sounds like they got rid of the stuttering.

EDIT: on the lost planet scaling tho!

 

[Megasty]

Bah, I'm only using my 4870 now. Having both of those things in my rig felt like I was contributing to something very bad.
AMD is getting much better. So far these drivers are rock solid. Now all they need to do is give us a fan controller.

 

[Wshlist]

Wut

So they release a 'hotfix' at the same time as the driver now? I guess that's the driver with the bits that didn't get through WHQL then eh.

 

[GLD]

Oh, and don't forget the Free WOW trial. No thank's!
Yes, they need to give us fan control!

 

[Wshlist]

WoW trials are always free and always have been AFAIK, I'm guessing they added that to the driver? Well that's pathetic, what next? A gator toolbar?
While we are ranting, what's with the slowness of their site if you goto that hotfix page and similar pages? Why can't they do a nice clean HTML page instead of a 'prepare your system to lock up for 3 minutes pointlessly' sadness? Or perhaps they should release a GPU JAVA-script-just-for-AMD-sites accelerator of some sort.

 

[Kei]

So they release a 'hotfix' at the same time as the driver now? I guess that's the driver with the bits that didn't get through WHQL then eh.

The hotfix is from when the cards were first released (a little while back) the 8.7 Driver is the official new driver out for all ATi cards. It's newer than the Hotfix.

K

 

[Kei]

WoW trials are always free and always have been AFAIK, I'm guessing they added that to the driver? Well that's pathetic, what next? A gator toolbar?
While we are ranting, what's with the slowness of their site if you goto that hotfix page and similar pages? Why can't they do a nice clean HTML page instead of a 'prepare your system to lock up for 3 minutes pointlessly' sadness? Or perhaps they should release a GPU JAVA-script-just-for-AMD-sites accelerator of some sort.

Haha, perhaps your pc was having a bad day? The site loads quick as lightning for me.

WoW trials...I was like wtf when I got to the desktop and saw that there. It has since been banished back to wherever those sorts of evil things come from.

K

 

[Wshlist]

Strange I thought it was a new hotfix since it's so prominently on the driver downloadpage above all 8.7 downloads, that's not very bright then is it, to confuse people like that.
Thanks for the correction.

And no it's not my pc, or both of them even, those AMD support pages are always slow, the sidebar setup uses some java code that just crawls and has been for many many months/years.
Perhaps it's an issue I notice because of firefox and my personal security settings, but it only happens on those AMD support pages.

 

[Kei]

You're welcome, I think they need to redo the list as the 8.7 was just released today and the Hotfix was released I'd say just shy of 1 month ago. Either way the Hotfix was far far better than any other drivers if you were using a 4800 series card. The 8.7's so far are fine to me but I'll wait a few days before I declare a verdict but so far they're just as good.

K

 

[Wshlist]

I would have installed the 8.7 on my XP64 already but this time I'm going for broke and attempt a very thorough cleaning of previous drivers because there are various issues I keep having which I trace back to remnants of old drivers, that are locked into place and a normal uninstall doesn't remove.
And I'm a bit unsure I can take the aggravation if things go wrong again (every second driver install fails to install a working CCC and I have to manually fix it by copying CCC files while I'm not sure which I need to copy to get it to work until I finally have it working again)

EDIT:
I removed the driver, and CCC, and all radeon software, then when I rebooted I got a CCC error... but I then removed CCC's start too, then removed all ati files from windows/system32, then removed all old ATI segments from the registry, and my profiles, then did another reboot.
Then I installed the 8.7's and got the same familiar 'file copy' error requester I've been getting for months (no indication what file) and a new additional requester shortly after that said 'could not find a compatible driver to install' then the CCC installer autostarted and CCC installed, I rebooted and lo-and-behold everything seems to be OK, CCC works, driver files are current, graphics work, games work, DXVA works.
Not sure what those errors were about now, perhaps I'll find out later.

 

[PCpraiser100]

AA performance seems a lot more solid with my HD 3870 on COD4 and Counter-Strike.

 

[King Wookie]

So would it be worth my while downloading then?
Been running my 3850 on 8.3.

 

[KainXS]

I popped in my 3850 and crysis runs alot smoother on medium high

nice job ati :3

 

[Paintface]

So would it be worth my while downloading then?
Been running my 3850 on 8.3.

Yes no reason not to update drivers ever, always more fixes and performance for free.

If there would be an issue at release that is 100% cause of the drivers you will see it asap in threads like these.

But after using ATI for 6 years now i have updated monthly without any issues.

 

[Kei]

I do the same and so far can't remember one that has made me go back to the previous driver. I do not however upgrade if it's only a beta version though I do try them out sometimes.

K

 

[chron]

I wish ray adams would update ati tray tools for the new 4850's and 70's. That would totally push me into buying one.

 

[EastCoasthandle]

I wish ray adams would update ati tray tools for the new 4850's and 70's. That would totally push me into buying one.

He can't until he's able to get a card. I've read a few threads in different forums asking you to sign a petition.

 

[mlupple]

The last update was fabulous. I have a 2900XT and I always had problems joining Unreal Tournament 3 games, because the game would lock up on loading. They fixed the problem in the last driver update because Epic doesn't update their games for shit. VALVE FTW!

 

[Polarman]

Guess it's time for a clean install, I was waiting for these official drivers for a while now.

It may take time but i'll feel better after it's done.

 

[chaotic_uk]

i have just installed these drivers , i cannot believe how smooth crysis is on my system now