Version 8.1 introduces MultiView
Version 8.1 of ATI's Catalyst drivers is now available from game.amd.com for Windows Vista and Windows XP. Sorry Linux users, your new drivers aren't quite ready yet, but if it's any conselation, we're told they'll be "coming soon".
Windows users meanwhile, can now take advantage of two new features:
MultiView
Catalyst 8.1 introduces MultiView support. This feature provides for hardware accelerated OpenGL rendering across multiple graphics adaptors. MultiView will provide hardware accelerated 3D rendering in a system containing multiple graphics cards on an extended desktop arrangement. This feature will allow for the rendering performance and additional frame buffer resources to be evenly shared with the second and third graphics adaptors. This allows for a 3D application to have the same performance running on a secondary or third display device as if it were running on the primary display device.
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. Fold- ing@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 the ATI team, simply enter the ATI team number 51394. Better still, join the HEXUS teams instead.
As is usually the case with new Catalyst releases, you'll want to know what these drivers fix in terms of bugs. The list of resolved issues is a fairly long one, and can be seen in its entirety in the official release notes viewable here in PDF format. Here however are the highlights:
- Bioshock: Flickering is no longer noticed during the cinematic introduction of the game.
- Half-Life 2: Episode 2: Playing the game on a system containing an ATI Radeon HD 3800 series of product no longer results in the game failing to the desktop when CrossFire™ is enabled.
- F.E.A.R.: A black screen no longer occurs when the display is set to 2048x1536 and the in-game AA option is enabled.
- Lightsmark 2007: Running the benchmark no longer results in the robot character not being drawn properly.
- Oblivion: Task switching between the game and the Windows Vista desktop no longer results in corruption being noticed when AA is enabled.
- Oblivion: Flickering is no longer noticed when first making a move if the in-game settings are set to maximum, CrossFire™ is enabled and AF is set to 16X.
- Oblivion: The game no longer fails and display corruption is no longer noticed when the game is minimised to desktop and then restored.
- World In Conflict: The game no longer fails to the Windows desktop when the display resolution is set to 1280x768 and AF is set to 16X.
- Call of Juarez and Stalker and Timeshift: Launching the games under Windows XP no longer results in intermittent corruption or flashing being noticed.
- Enemy Territories Quake Wars v1.2: Flickering is no longer noticed when enabling Triple Buffering, setting AA to 8X and setting the display resolution to 2560x1600.
- TianJi: Logging into the game no longer results in the function buttons not working and the system setting window failing to open.
- World of Warcraft: Launching two game windows and switching between the game windows on a system with an Apple 30 inch display device no longer results in the game image failing to be drawn properly.
- Google SketchUP: the application no longer fails to launch on systems running Windows XP and containing an ATI Radeon HD 2900 series of product.
It isn't all good news though. In what appears to be an increasing occurrence, a hotfix for this new Catalyst release is already available. If following the install of 8.1, you're experiencing problems, the hotfix provides the following amendments:
- Fix for users having issues with their AGP ATI Radeon graphics card
- Crysis DirectX 10 Crossfire performance optimisations
Useful links
Download Catalyst 8.1
Download Catalyst 8.1 hotfix
Catalyst 8.1 release notes (PDF)
