ATI Catalyst 8.6 Release

[roadie]

Think I will give these a go tonight. These may well be the last drivers I'll upgrade to on my 3870 under XP x64.

[warmage]

"The OverDrive™ option is no longer missing in the Catalyst™ Control Center after the installation of the graphics driver on systems containing an ATI Radeon™ HD 2900 series of product and running the Windows Vista operating system. Further details can be found in topic number 737-34123"

Best part about this update , hope it fixes my problem !

[CraptacularOne]

After further testing and damn me again for forgetting to reboot twice after installing the drivers. My 3Dmark Vantage score has gone past 15k for a gain of nearly 1k over my previous score:

Cat 8.6 = P15292
http://service.futuremark.com/compare?3dmv=177536

I'm really quite surprised at the performance gain in COD4 still. Staggering performance gains, I've seen some areas where my fps are 50fps higher than what I was getting with the 8.5's and the 8.6 betas but on average it's a constant 30fps higher across the board in all areas. Impressive to say the least.

Call of Juarez also is seeing a nice bump in performance, I'm on average getting about 15fps higher there. BioShock even though it's not mentioned is also less jittery and much more constant in fps. Crysis also stutters a lot less with these, but no noticeable performance gains, just less stuttering. Oh and 3Dmark 06 also got a bump of about 200 points. So far I'm liking these drivers very much

[Eastcoasthandle]

The driver update option from the Welcome section takes you to ATI's driver update page.

[SoulsCollective]

Hooray, maybe these have fixed the Vista 64 / X1950 Pro Crossfire issue that's kept me on 7.12 for so long.

[onewingedangel]

I'm having real issues getting CAT 8.6 to work (running vista 64 bit with a HD3870) - I keep getting the error message "No Ati graphics driver is installed, or the ATI driver is not functioning properly. Please install the ATI driver appropriate for your Ati hardware". Clean install, install over 8.5, installing just the display driver - all with no luck.

CAT 8.5 runs without problem, so theres something specific to the 8.6 install messing up.

[cadaveca]

you cannot only install driver, you must install 8.6 CCC as well. no issues here, same OS, I removed old drivers first though...as it seems to me unless last driver supported updates, this driver is first to support such, and as such, only next month should you install driver directly without removing old driver!

[Cooper]

I'm having real issues getting CAT 8.6 to work (running vista 64 bit with a HD3870) - I keep getting the error message "No Ati graphics driver is installed, or the ATI driver is not functioning properly. Please install the ATI driver appropriate for your Ati hardware". Clean install, install over 8.5, installing just the display driver - all with no luck.

CAT 8.5 runs without problem, so theres something specific to the 8.6 install messing up.

Try installing the driver manually via updating the display driver in Device Manager and point the wizzard to the C:/ATI (default folder for Ctas package extraction) - usually works

you cannot only install driver, you must install 8.6 CCC as well

not necessary

[onewingedangel]

Finally got it working after using driver cleaner pro again and reinstalling. I think having the 4850 review drivers on the system earlier made it throw a hissy fit.

[cadaveca]

not necessary

overdrive has changed...so driver interaction may be different. , but yeah, I agree.

[G.Foyle]

I seem to have IQ improvement in Crysis. Also Motion Blur no longer results in performance drop.

[ThatGuy16]

COD4 does run a bit smoother. I'm running a single 3870 now, and COD4 was running choppy even though fraps is telling me that I'm getting 70FPS. The 8.6 driver has improved the choppiness though..

[s1nykuL]

Nice drivers.

Crysis 1680x1050 DX10 very high, No AA. GPU island test gives an average 24fps. Min=16.5, Max=28.7 Vista SP1 HD3870@825/1206.
System as sig.