I början av sommaren meddelade AMD att företaget upphör med månatliga uppdateringar av mjukvaran Catalyst, för att istället satsa mer på testversioner och större paket med samlade förbättringar. Sedan dess har det varit ganska tyst från det röda laget, där Catalyst 12.6 fungerat som senaste officiella variant.
Nu är det dock dags för ett nytt paket, i form av Catalyst 12.8 WHQL. Den nya drivrutinen bjuder på förbättrad prestanda i flera spel, samtidigt som mjukvaran får inkluderat stöd även för färska Windows 8. AMD passar även på att räta ut en hel hög buggar, och rullar ut uppdaterade Crossfire-profiler genom Catalyst 12.7 CAP3.
Prestandaförbättringar i Catalyst 12.8 (mot Catalyst 12.6)
- Upp till 25 procent i Elder Scrolls: Skyrim
- Upp till 3 procent i Battlefield 3
- Upp till 6 procent i Batman: Arkham City
- Upp till 3 procent i Deus Ex: Human Revolution
- Upp till 6 procent i Crysis 2
- Upp till 15 procent i Total War: Shogun
- Upp till 8 procent i Crysis Warhead
- Upp till 5 procent i Just Cause 2
- Upp till 10 procent i Dirt 3
AMD Catalyst 12.8 WHQL finns i 32- och 64-bitarsversion och laddas ned direkt från företagets webbplats.
AMD Catalyst™ 12.8 is Now Available
Feature Highlights of AMD Catalyst™ 12.8: Windows 8 support
- AMD’s first logo certified and unified driver for Windows 8 production
- Featuring support for the DirectX 11.1 and the new WDDM 1.2 driver model:
- AMD’s first official unified and logo certified driver for Windows 8, Windows 7 and Windows Vista
- Target-Independent Rasterization (TIR): TIR is a new rendering path that enables superior anti-aliasing in Direct3D driver applications
- Native Stereo 3D Support: Windows 8 natively supports stereoscopic 3D gaming and videos via compatible applications
- Unified Video API: Video playback has been integrated into the DirectX® 11 API, enabling simultaneous video and gaming content. Transcoding performance may also be improved for supporting applications.
- Optimized screen rotation for rotation aware devices
- Improved sleep/resume performance
- Optimized GPU power consumption
- Major technologies / features also supported under Windows 8:
- AMD Eyefinity technology
- OpenCL™
- OpenGL
- Unified Video Decoder (UVD)
- AMD Dual Graphics
- AMD CrossFire technology
- AMD Overdrive
- AMD Catalyst Control Center
- Vision Engine Control Center
Performance highlights of AMD Catalyst™ 12.8 (versus AMD Catalyst 12.6)
- Up to 25% in Elder Scrolls: Skyrim
- Up to 3% in Battlefield 3
- Up to 6% in Batman: Arkham City
- Up to 3% in Dues Ex: Human Revolution
- Up to 6% in Crysis 2
- Up to 15% in Total War: Shogun
- Up to 8% in Crysis Warhead
- Up to 5% in Just Cause 2
- Up to 10% in Dirt 3
AMD’s latest Catalyst™ Application Profile: AMD Catalyst 12.7 CAP3 (to be used with AMD Catalyst 12.8)
- The Secret World (DX11): Resolves corruption seen in HUD/options when running in CrossFire mode on the AMD Radeon HD 7000 Series
- TorchLight 2 – Improves single GPU performance, and disables CrossFire due to incompatible support when running in a Multi-GPU configuration
- Spec Ops: The Line: Improves CrossFire performance
- Hawken: Improves CrossFire performance
Resolved issue highlights of the AMD Catalyst™ 12.8 driver
- Over/underscan settings are correctly restored on system reboot
- Audio is no longer disabled if the connected HDTV Is switched off/on
- Shogun 2 : Flickering text is no longer experienced
- Star Wars – The Old Republic : In game cinematic no longer experience flicker when using the arrow keys
- Dirt Showdown: 8-Ball track No longer hangs with Crossfire enabled
- Max Payne 3 : A black screen is no longer observed when launching game in DirectX 11 mode with Crossfire enabled
Feature Highlights of AMD Catalyst™ 12.8 Linux Driver: New OS Support
This release of AMD Catalyst™ Linux introduces support for the following new operating systems
- Ubuntu 12.04 production support
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