ATI Catalyst 8.5 released

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New Features

Catalyst™ 8.5 introduces the following new features:

* Catalyst™ Control Center Component Video
* ATI Graphics Driver Un-install Enhancement
* SECAM TV Out Support
* 1080p HDTV custom mode
* HDMI Audio for non-standard TV modes
* Adaptive AA on OpenGL for Catalyst™ Control Center
* 1080p24 Mode Support
* Windows XP Service Pack 3 support


Performance Improvements

The following performance gains are noticed with this release of Catalyst™.

* Call of Juarez DX10: Performance increases up to 12% on systems containing an ATI Radeon™ HD 3xx0 series of product
* Halo: Performance increases by 10-30% across all of the supported ATI Radeon™ series of products
* Lost Planet DX10: Performance increases from 5 to 35% on systems containing an ATI Radeon™ HD 3xx0 series of product
* Stalker DX9: Performance increases by 20-50% when HDR is enabled in the game; across all ATI Radeon™ HD38x0 series of products
* World in Conflict DX10: Performance increases up to 25% on systems containing an ATI Radeon™ HD36x0 and/or an ATI Radeon™ 38x0 series of product. Higher performance gains are noticed on systems contianing an ATI Radeon™ 3870x2 series of product

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Release Notes: http://game.amd.com/us-en/content/pdf/Catalyst_85.pdf
Download: http://ati.amd.com/support/driver.html

:up:

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Originally Posted by STaRGaZeR

Download: http://ati.amd.com/support/driver.html

:up:

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Nice, they're definitely going in right direction with this drivers.
Only if they could introduce some smashing performance with their
new card.

Someone's willing to give the comparison in 3DMark vantage between the 3870X2's and 9800GX2's another shot?

more fixed problems here; https://a248.e.akamai.net/f/674/9206...ase_notes.html. anyone check the sub files to see any new ATI card support?

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Originally Posted by Monkeywoman

more fixed problems here; https://a248.e.akamai.net/f/674/9206...ase_notes.html. anyone check the sub files to see any new ATI card support?

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That link doesn't work, that's why it is not in the first post :p:

DX10 improvements are huge if true, if anybody has results please post them.

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Originally Posted by STaRGaZeR

That link doesn't work, that's why it is not in the first post.

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works for me, r u using ff3 beta? that might be y...anyway its funny how they are still optimising the cards for Halo1,2 Doom and FarCry. it just seems like a waist of time, i'm guessing crysis will be optimised in 3 years? :(

Link doesn't work here also...

http://game.amd.com/us-en/content/pdf/Catalyst_85.pdf

This one works for sure ;)

But looks like a nice little update, DX10 tweaks look good. Looking forward to the Catalyst 8.6 release and the new HD4xxx series.

a lot of bugfixes and some improvements, good job ati

Thanks for the heads up StaRGaZeR. Off to download now.....

You have to be kidding me ...

I checked for new ATI drivers after recieving my 3850's yesterday and went ahead and installed 8.4 on them...

And now I need to reinstall again :ROTF:

Oh well.

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Originally Posted by bhavv

You have to be kidding me ...

I checked for new ATI drivers after recieving my 3850's yesterday and went ahead and installed 8.4 on them...

And now I need to reinstall again :ROTF:

Oh well.

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I too checked yesterday before work, oh well. I was just thinking that thaey are running out of time to have drivers to call 8.5 rather than skipping straight to 8.6.

Will whack these on my system tonight. Hopefully, they will solve the crashing I get with CCC when trying to access the Video settings.

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Originally Posted by roadie

Will whack these on my system tonight. Hopefully, they will solve the crashing I get with CCC when trying to access the Video settings.

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That's not CCC to blame. I had similar thing from some incorrect video codecs.
Last time it was old version of ffdshow. Just turn it off and try CCC again.

PS or get correct last versions of codecs

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[FUD] Catalyst 8.5 hints new cards

The HD 3410, HD 3550, HD 3730 and HD 3750



It is always fun to dig around the .inf file when a new Catalyst driver is released, you never know what might pop up. In the case of the recently released Catalyst 8.5, we have few cards which were never announced.

So after a quick look through the .inf file we managed to find id strings of Sapphire's unannounced Radeon HD 3750. Some other strings revealed the RV610 based HD 3410 and HD 3550 cards. Last but not least we have the RV630 based HD 3730, which might be interesting to see.

When these cards will be officially announced, and if they will ever appear on shop shelves is of course unknown. But as we said, it is always fun to dig inside that .inf file.

"Sapphire Radeon HD 3750" = ati2mtag_RV630, PCI\VEN_1002&DEV_9598&SUBSYS_3001174B
"ATI Radeon HD 3410" = ati2mtag_RV610, PCI\VEN_1002&DEV_94C3&SUBSYS_30001458
"ATI Radeon HD 3550 " = ati2mtag_RV610, PCI\VEN_1002&DEV_95C5&SUBSYS_3001148C
"ATI Radeon HD 3730" = ati2mtag_RV630, PCI\VEN_1002&DEV_9598&SUBSYS_3000148C



Fudzilla

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regards

Another driver that breaks Vantage...rendering errors in almost every test.

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Originally Posted by cadaveca

Another driver that breaks Vantage...rendering errors in almost every test.

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What is your system configuration?

I hope this fixes my sound problem with my htpc (motherboard: GA-MA78GM-S2H AMD 780G) when using hdmi output and changing channel on TV...
Fingers crossed :)

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Originally Posted by cadaveca

Another driver that breaks Vantage...rendering errors in almost every test.

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Agreed. Running Vista 64 here:mad:

Spelling error in the release notes, what the heck?!

//Andreas

best realease in a long time, and it fixes one major issue for me:

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This section provides information on resolved issues in this release of the ATI
Catalyst™ Software Suite for Windows XP Professional x64 Edition. These
include:
• Crysis: Corruption is no longer noticed when playing the game on a system
running Windows XP Professional x64 Edition and containing an ATI
Radeon™ HD 3870 series of product. Further details can be found in topic
number 737-34141
• Unreal Tournament 3: Changing

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i love it =D

BTW: who cares about vantage, i hope you guys don'T sit in front of the screen and gaze at some stupid benchmark for several hours :ROTF::rofl::ROTF::rofl::ROTF::rofl::ROTF::rofl::R OTF::rofl:

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Originally Posted by generics_user

best realease in a long time, and it fixes one major issue for me:


i love it =D

BTW: who cares about vantage, i hope you guys don'T sit in front of the screen and gaze at some stupid benchmark for several hours

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Good that it has improvements for you, but some do like those 'stupid benchmarks'. Here at XS, games aren't the ones being benchmarked, but 'stupid benchmarks' instead :)

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Originally Posted by Cooper

What is your system configuration?

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Maximus Formula SE, QX9650, 2x 3870x2, 4GB pc8500.

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Originally Posted by generics_user

BTW: who cares about vantage, i hope you guys don'T sit in front of the screen and gaze at some stupid benchmark for several hours :ROTF::rofl::ROTF::rofl::ROTF::rofl::ROTF::rofl::R OTF::rofl:

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Sure you are on the right forum?:stick::ROTF:

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Originally Posted by cadaveca

Maximus Formula SE, QX9650, 2x 3870x2, 4GB pc8500.



Sure you are on the right forum?:stick::ROTF:

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you still get a score at the end, who cares if the image during the test had corruption (benchmarking is about the score, not the looks :shakes:

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Originally Posted by generics_user

you still get a score at the end, who cares if the image during the test had corruption (benchmarking is about the score, not the looks :shakes:

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Becuase unless teh graphics are properly driawn , no real comparisons can be made between hardware. Valid scores are all I care about..no mipmap tweaking, etc, is allowed. It's not jsut about points..otherwise I'd be posting far greater scores than what I have already.


You might not be into benching by your comments...but I am!:D


Anyway, these rendering errors simply highlight issues with the driver rendering specific scenes and sharing the workload across the cards. It's not jsut about the bench...it's about quadfire being broken!

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Originally Posted by cadaveca

Becuase unless teh graphics are properly driawn , no real comparisons can be made between hardware. Valid scores are all I care about..no mipmap tweaking, etc, is allowed. It's not jsut about points..otherwise I'd be posting far greater scores than what I have already.


You might not be into benching by your comments...but I am!:D

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and how to make sure that scores on the orb weren't achieved with systems getting image corruption???

sorry i'm not into benchmarking so i dont know how FM validates scores :shrug:

EDIT: and yes CF is broken, just like any multigpu solution is.... (i still like my cf setup, sure it has its problems but it runs crysis @1920x1200 with almost everything on high)

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Originally Posted by generics_user

best realease in a long time, and it fixes one major issue for me:


i love it =D

BTW: who cares about vantage, i hope you guys don'T sit in front of the screen and gaze at some stupid benchmark for several hours :ROTF::rofl::ROTF::rofl::ROTF::rofl::ROTF::rofl::R OTF::rofl:

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A lot of us here at XS care about the benchmarks...

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Originally Posted by cadaveca

Maximus Formula SE, QX9650, 2x 3870x2, 4GB pc8500.



Sure you are on the right forum?:stick::ROTF:

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I think he logged into the wrong one thinking this was a gaming forum....

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Originally Posted by cadaveca

Becuase unless teh graphics are properly driawn , no real comparisons can be made between hardware. Valid scores are all I care about..no mipmap tweaking, etc, is allowed. It's not jsut about points..otherwise I'd be posting far greater scores than what I have already.


You might not be into benching by your comments...but I am!:D

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:up:

Not that I am very much into benchmarking myself, but I don't miss the point at all, with the various 3DMark version or others used as accepted standards here at XS.

My systems sucks in most of those benchmarks, but perform really well in most games. My system is beaten by stuff in these 'stupid benchmarks' my own could rape in most games, but that doesn't mean I belittle those benchmarks. I accept them for they are, and nothing more or less.

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Originally Posted by Seraphiel

:up:

Not that I am very much into benchmarking myself, but I don't miss the point at all, with the various 3DMark version or others used as accepted standards here at XS.

My systems sucks in most of those benchmarks, but perform really well in most games. My system is beaten by stuff in these 'stupid benchmarks' my own could rape in most games, but that doesn't mean I belittle those benchmarks. I accept them for they are, and nothing more or less.

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i never said that i don'T accpet the purpose of 3dmark benchmakkrs, they're here to put out some fancy numbers just like superpi and it'S fun to look how people try to get higher numbers but i odn't see the problem with some rendering errors as long as the marks get validated :shrug: (i know that this is cheating but how to control wether there was image corruption or not...)

edit: i didn'T want to say who cares about vantage, but who cares about image corruption in vantage... vantage still is a total ripoff in my opinion, for me it was fun to check how many marks my system was able to pull off some years ago but charging so much money for a benchmark is not OK...

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Originally Posted by generics_user

and how to make sure that scores on the orb weren't achieved with systems getting image corruption???

sorry i'm not into benchmarking so i dont know how FM validates scores :shrug:

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There are a few users that will only post such scores..and if you are into benching and have some experience, it's quite easy to realize the validity of one score to the next...most OS tweaks will net small gains, measuarble across most benchmarks; big gains are easily suspect. But again, if you've played with the hardware, it's so easy to tell/replicate a score.

This thread is NOT about benchmarks

Anyone have any meaningful results with these drivers? Like how does it do in Crysis in Vista 64 or with UT3? Has it helped those games out any with multi GPU scaling?

In UT3, I get a noticeable boost in performance in DM-ShangriLa with my 2900. There used to be areas in that map that made my FPS choke into the low high 30s-low40s, now it barely goes below 60. I also see similar boosts in DM-Deck.

halo.... Why on earth? I don't think I have a problem playing halo on a 3870. :ROTF:

how about COD4?:shrug:

I'm trying to figure out if i should update or not. So far, does anyone know what drivers give the best 3dmark score? :wasntme:

help me out guys. check my video and see what i've been dealing with since the release of 8.3. all CrossFireX drivers are completely useless for me. i've been running 8.2 for the past three months because of what CFX does to my machine. all specs in my sig except the OS, which is Windows XP MCE SP3.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YITV_xqW_Jc

please check the video and tell me it's happening to others too. i have a few friends with CrossFire and XP and we're all getting the same thing. i just don't hear about it much on this forum.

Edit: i tried messing with my CF bridges and it didn't fix anything. i got a better framerate with one of the bridges over the other, but i had massive corruption with either one of them by itself.

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Originally Posted by SEA

That's not CCC to blame. I had similar thing from some incorrect video codecs.
Last time it was old version of ffdshow. Just turn it off and try CCC again.

PS or get correct last versions of codecs

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Cheers for this. However, it all seems to be working fine now with the new CCC.

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Originally Posted by ThatGuy16

I'm trying to figure out if i should update or not. So far, does anyone know what drivers give the best 3dmark score? :wasntme:

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The 8.49 betas are still giving me better 3Dmark scores than these are. But with these in game fps has improved. Although Crysis is still a stuttering mess, but UT3 has improved quite a bit, COD4 is about the same, Call of Juarez got a huge increase in performance, Company of Heroes plays smoother, and World in Conflict got a nice gain.

these are excellent drivers! this is from HD3870 user perspective!

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Originally Posted by CraptacularOne

Anyone have any meaningful results with these drivers? Like how does it do in Crysis in Vista 64 or with UT3? Has it helped those games out any with multi GPU scaling?

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No one has explicitly mentioned this yet but there is a *SIGNIFICANT* peformance boost in world of warcraft to the tune of about 2x especially if you are using crossfire.

In Shattrath city with crossfire I used to get in the low 30s mid 40FPS and now its well over 80 with the same settings. In addition wow had alot of graphics corruption (flashing and checkerboxes) and that appears to be fixed as well

:up::up::up::up::up::up:

I don't really play WOW, but it's nice just the same to know there is an improvement in that game as well.:)

Also, I'd like to add that BioShock got a small gain as well. Less stuttering and higher min fps. So far there are keepers for gaming. 3Dmark 06 suffers about a 200 point loss and 05 takes about a 400 point hit, 03 seems to be roughly the same. I'm glad they are improving game performance rather than 3D mark performance anyway :up:

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Originally Posted by xMrBunglex

help me out guys. check my video and see what i've been dealing with since the release of 8.3. all CrossFireX drivers are completely useless for me. i've been running 8.2 for the past three months because of what CFX does to my machine. all specs in my sig except the OS, which is Windows XP MCE SP3.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YITV_xqW_Jc

please check the video and tell me it's happening to others too. i have a few friends with CrossFire and XP and we're all getting the same thing. i just don't hear about it much on this forum.

Edit: i tried messing with my CF bridges and it didn't fix anything. i got a better framerate with one of the bridges over the other, but i had massive corruption with either one of them by itself.

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I'm running Windows XP x64 and Vista x64 (dual booting) on a 2 x HD3870 setup and I haven't seen that problem. Though the last time I played COD4 was on 8.3. I had problems enabling Crossfire after installing 8.4 in XP and ended up having to clean install to fix it. I have 8.5 installed but haven't gamed on it yet. Will try 8.5 when I get home (out of town at the moment).

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Originally Posted by CraptacularOne

I don't really play WOW, but it's nice just the same to know there is an improvement in that game as well.:)

Also, I'd like to add that BioShock got a small gain as well. Less stuttering and higher min fps. So far there are keepers for gaming. 3Dmark 06 suffers about a 200 point loss and 05 takes about a 400 point hit, 03 seems to be roughly the same. I'm glad they are improving game performance rather than 3D mark performance anyway :up:

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+1:up:

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Originally Posted by Nedjo

these are excellent drivers! this is from HD3870 user perspective!

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So far they seem good to me:) but has anyone got any feedback with these drivers with WinXP and Crysis?

Excellent set of drivers!

How good is Cat 8.5 with OpenGL? There is a program called GLSL Parser Test Source Code which does a quick test of 186 items to assure they all pass. The results all appear to be driver related so it's worth it to see if this Cat release passes all of them.

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Originally Posted by Eastcoasthandle

How good is Cat 8.5 with OpenGL? There is a program called GLSL Parser Test Source Code which does a quick test of 186 items to assure they all pass. The results all appear to be driver related so it's worth it to see if this Cat release passes all of them.

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Passed: 177
Failed: 9
Score: 95%

HD3870 Cats 8.5

Thanks for that.

Vista Ult x64 / HD3870 / Cat 8.5

result:
passed: 177
failed: 9

But what does it mean?! Look:
Expected: error - Actual: success - so it concludes= fail. :confused:

http://www.blindnero.com/pictures/glsl-7.jpg

I'll post my complete results, and hope you can tell something usefull from it.
[EDIT: nevermind, i won't bother...]

it happens to me on windows 2003.. i have 2 of the 3870's in cf.. 8.2 works the best for me also. 8.4 gave me all kinds of issues even after removing and re installing them a few times. i went back to 8.2 and it works again. 8.5 worked ok but i notice some glitches my picture jumps up and down in games, like when i scroll the mouse wheel up or down 1 click to move this thread up or down to read it..

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Originally Posted by xMrBunglex

help me out guys. check my video and see what i've been dealing with since the release of 8.3. all CrossFireX drivers are completely useless for me. i've been running 8.2 for the past three months because of what CFX does to my machine. all specs in my sig except the OS, which is Windows XP MCE SP3.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YITV_xqW_Jc

please check the video and tell me it's happening to others too. i have a few friends with CrossFire and XP and we're all getting the same thing. i just don't hear about it much on this forum.

Edit: i tried messing with my CF bridges and it didn't fix anything. i got a better framerate with one of the bridges over the other, but i had massive corruption with either one of them by itself.

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Originally Posted by loften

it happens to me on windows 2003.. i have 2 of the 3870's in cf.. 8.2 works the best for me also. 8.4 gave me all kinds of issues even after removing and re installing them a few times. i went back to 8.2 and it works again. 8.5 worked ok but i notice some glitches my picture jumps up and down in games, like when i scroll the mouse wheel up or down 1 click to move this thread up or down to read it..

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Windows 2003 is not supported by ATI.

i guess i am lucky it works at all with any drivers then. how much different is server 2003/xp64 from xp64?

it's my mistake.. i said windows 2003 meaning server 2003 which came as a windows xp pro x64 disk and paper work with service pack 2. my bad..

thank you ati!

Did ATi hired more capable software Dev (drivers related)? :cool:

Overall good drivers but seems the Dev team can't seem to master CoH DX10 with AA enabled. Performance is good but every now and then there is still odd graphics corruption in the menus. On the other hand, it is better than the disaster that is the 9800GX2 with the latest WHQL in CoH... :(

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Originally Posted by Monkeywoman

anyway its funny how they are still optimising the cards for Halo1,2 Doom and FarCry. it just seems like a waist of time, i'm guessing crysis will be optimised in 3 years? :(

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Because there is a bigger user base,there's not many playing crysis compared to those titles.

P35-DS4, xp x86 sp3, 3870x2.... CrossfireX disabled, stuck at pcie x1. Wonderful. Everything I try to do, it doesn't work. Previous 8.4 worked like a charm.

This driver was my final straw for ATi, performance with this driver using my 3870's in X-Fire, along with 8.4 / 8.3 / etc... sucked so bad, I decided to get a 8800GTX for a trade. It seemed that only 8.2 / 8.1 drivers were the real performers. ATi is finally ehind me now, and back to the green team again

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Originally Posted by newls1

This driver was my final straw for ATi, performance with this driver using my 3870's in X-Fire, along with 8.4 / 8.3 / etc... sucked so bad, I decided to get a 8800GTX for a trade. It seemed that only 8.2 / 8.1 drivers were the real performers. ATi is finally ehind me now, and back to the green team again

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If you want a good experience with either ATI or NV be sure to pick a single card next time ;)

How do you guys feel about this release compared to CATALYST 8.4?

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Originally Posted by STaRGaZeR

If you want a good experience with either ATI or NV be sure to pick a single card next time ;)

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Very true, but sad:(

Since I installed this driver everytime I come out of a game or a benchmark the fonts and some other graphics are corrupted on my desktop and applications. The letters are hazy and broken up. Has anyone else had such a problem? I have to reboot to fix it. thanks