This release note provides information on the latest posting of ATI's industry leading software suite, Catalyst™. This particular software suite updates both the ATI Display Driver (version 8.152), and the Catalyst™ Control Center (version 5.7). This unified driver has been further enhanced to provide the highest level of power, performance, and reliability. The ATI Catalyst™ software suite is the ultimate in performance and stability.
The Catalyst™ 5.7 Release Note provides information on the following:
- Web Content
- Desktop product family support
- ATI Chipset Product Support
- Operating systems supported
- New Features
- Performance Improvements
- Issues Resolved in Catalyst™ Software Suite 5.7
- Known Issues for Catalyst™ Software Suite 5.7
- Downloading the ATI Catalyst™ Software Suite
- Uninstalling the ATI Control Panel and Display Driver
- Installing the latest Catalyst™ Software Suite
- Catalyst™ Crew Driver Feedback
Web Content
The Catalyst™ software suite 5.7 contains the following:
- Radeon® display driver 8.152
- Multimedia Center™ 9.08
- HydraVision™ 3.25.0006
- HydraVision™ Basic Edition 3.25.9006
- Remote Wonder 3.02
- WDM Driver Install Bundle
- Southbridge/IXP Driver
- Catalyst™ Control Center Version 5.7
Caution: The Catalyst™ Control Center requires that Microsoft's .NET Framework Version 1.1 be installed. Without .NET Version 1.1 installed the Catalyst™ Control Center will not launch properly, and the user will see an error message as a result
Caution: The Remote Wonder™ 3.02 software is intended to support Remote Wonder™ and Remote Wonder™ II products. Remote Wonder™ Plus user should continue to use the software provided with the product.
Note: These release notes provide information on the Radeon® display driver only. For information on the ATI Multimedia Center™, HydraVision™, HydraVision Basic Edition, WDM, Remote Wonder™, or the Southbridge/IXP driver, please refer to their respective release notes found at: https://support.ati.com/
Desktop product family support
The Catalyst™ software suite is designed to support the following ATI desktop products:
- Radeon® X850 series
- Radeon® X800 series
- Radeon® X700 series
- Radeon® X600 series
- Radeon® X550 series
- Radeon® X300 series
- Radeon® 9X00 series
- Radeon® 8500 series
- Radeon® 7X00 series
- FireMV™ 2200 PCI
- FireMV™ 2200 PCIe
Note: ATI ALL-IN-WONDER™ variants based on the above are also supported.
Note: All ATI Radeon® PC Graphic cards are optimized for Microsoft's Media Center Edition 2005 when coupled with a supported video capture card.
ATI Chipset Product Support
The Catalyst™ software suite is designed to support the following ATI chipset products:
Operating systems supported
The latest version of the Catalyst™ software suite is designed to support the following Microsoft Windows platforms:
Note: As of January 1, 2004, Microsoft no longer accepted certification submissions for the Microsoft® Windows® Millennium Edition operating system. The ATI Catalyst™ CREW however is committed to all its customers and is now providing non certified WHQL software drivers for users of the Windows Millennium Edition operating system. Windows Millennium Edition users can obtain the software driver at: http://www.support.ati.com/. Windows 98/98SE is supported through the ME driver.
New Features
This section provides information on new features introduced in the latest release of the Catalyst™ Software Suite. New features include:
1080p Display Support Option
Catalyst™ 5.7 introduces support enhancement to the display support options found in the Digital Panel Properties of the Catalyst™ Control Center. This enhancement will offer a 1080p standard format option for a displays that are reporting incomplete or incorrect capabilities in their EDID information. This feature will be supported on ATI Radeon® X300 products and above, and will be supported under the Microsoft Windows XP, 2000 and the next release of the Windows XP Media Center Edition operating systems.
Catalyst™ Control Center Un-install Option
Catalyst™ 5.7 introduces a clean un-install option for the Catalyst™ Control Center. When a user chooses to remove the Catalyst™ Control Center, all desktop shortcuts, user defined profiles, and hotkeys will be completely removed from the system. All custom setting will need to be recreated when the Catalyst™ Control Center is installed once again.
Performance Improvements
Enhancements to our driver's internal memory management bring significant benefits to 64MB and 128MB framebuffer configurations in Catalyst™ 5.7.
The resulting performance gains are most apparent in high resolution, everything on modes, when running applications that use a significant amount of graphics memory. Examples include:
- 5-15% gains in 3DMark05 on some products
- 20-60% gain in Far Cry Regulator across multiple settings
- 25-60% gains in Half-Life 2 at 1600x1200 4xAA 8xAF
- 40-60% gains in UT2004 at 1600x1200 6xAA 16xAF
- 50-100% improvement in Comanche4 at 1600x1200 6xAA 16xAF
- 50-200% gains in certain ShaderMark tests at high resolution
Note: The exact magnitude of these performance benefits will vary depending on the product configuration, clock speeds and available system memory. All of the changes noted are specific to 64MB and 128MB framebuffer configurations. Performance of 256MB and 512MB boards is already very good at these settings.
Additionally, an improvement in our OpenGL driver brings a gain of approximately 10-15% to the Unigraphics test in SPECviewperf. This improvement is not framebuffer-specific.
Issues Resolved in Catalyst™ Software Suite 5.7
The following section provides a summary of the issues that have been resolved in the latest version of Catalyst™. These include:
- Flight Sim 2004: Launching the application under Windows XP and enabling Anisotropic Filtering (AF) within the Catalyst™ Control Center no longer results in the AF functionality not being enabled within the game
- Trackmania Sunrise: Playing the game under Windows XP no longer results in the operating system failing to respond when attempting to exit the game after leaving the PC idle for an extended period of time
- Warcraft III: Playing the game under Windows XP no longer results in display corruption being noticed when rotating the display 90 degrees counter-clockwise.
- Creating a custom hot-key for rotation currently no longer results in the custom hot-key to become unavailable for the secondary display device when extended desktop is enabled and the display devices are set to 1280x1024.
- Changing the format from NTSC to any PAL format no longer results in the PAL format not working.
- Changing the regional option found in the control panel to Japan followed by installing the display driver no longer results in the TV format failing to change in accordance with the regional option
- Changes to the Overlay Display in Clone Mode option found in the Theater Mode settings of the Catalyst™ Control Center are now retained
- The Scale to full screen option found in the Theater Mode Settings of the Catalyst™ Control Center is now working properly
- Rotating the display by 180 degrees no longer results in all the text on the desktop failing to appear
- Truncated text in the localized French version of the Catalyst™ Control Center is now resolved
- The profile manager hotkey notification dialog box is now translated for all supported languages
- ATI Color Controls can now be reactivated using a hotkey combination if the ATI Color Controls have changed by the color management tool of a third party application
- The TV is now detected when both the SVIDEO and the Composite connectors are used
- Windows Movie Maker 2.0: The Movie maker preview playback no longer displays a blank image when attempting to playback an mpeg file
- Windows Movie Maker 2.0: Attempting to record a TV source for 6 hours or more, no longer results in audio corruption being heard after approximately 4 hours of recording
- Subtitles are now displayed when playing a DVD under Windows XP Media Center Edition
- The Catalyst™ Control Center Hotkey Manager is now completely localized for Japanese
Known Issues for Catalyst™ Software Suite 5.7
The following section provides a brief description of known issues associated with the latest version of Catalyst™. These include the following:
- Archlord: Playing the game under Windows XP SP2 may result in intermittent display corruption being noticed on the lower portion of the display device when moving the character within the game. Further details can be found in topic number 737-19788
- Battlefield 2: Geometry corruption or missing textures maybe noticed when playing the game for an extended period of time under Windows XP with an ATI Radeon® X800 XT installed. Further details can be found in topic number 737-19709
- City of Heroes: Playing the game under Windows XP Media Center Edition may results in display corruption being notice when attempting to task-switch between the game and the desktop. Further details can be found in topic number 737-19792
- Doom3: Playing the game under Windows XP Media Center Edition may result in a noticeable performance decrease or corruption of the MCE on-screen display dialog box when lowering or muting the audio during game play. Further details can be found in topic number 737-19791
- Farcry: Playing the game under Windows XP SP2 with the display set to 1024x76832bpp along with AA disabled results in flashing textures being noticed when setting the game's video options to high detail. This issue is know to occur when using an ATI Radeon® 9100 or 8500 series product. Further details can be found in topic number 737-10089
- Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas: Playing the game under Windows XP with an ATI Radeon™ 8500 installed and having Anti-Aliasing set to 2x may result in corruption being noticed in menu corruption being noticed within the game when the display resolution is set to 1024x768. Further details can be found in topic number 737-19794
- Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas: Geometry corruption may be noticed when running the mission under Windows XP and using the default setting for the game. Further details can be found in topic number 737-19795
- Gunz Online: Attempting to change the screen brightness within the game may result in the operating system failing to respond. Further details can be found in topic number 737-19793
- MU Online: Opening a chat window and playing the on-line game results in Hesitation being noticed when pressing the Enter key. Further details can be found in topic number 737-19541
- Prince of Persia: Sands of Time: Attempting to launch the game under Windows with an ATI Radeon™ X800 series installed results in an error message being displayed. Further details can be found in topic number 737-19787
- Rainbow six3: Athena Sword: Playing the game under Windows 2000 with an ATI Radeon® X700 installed results in the game failing to retain its resolution option of 1600x1200 if you Alt-tab out of the game and then Alt-tab back to the game. Further details can be found in topic number 737-535
- Serious Sam: The Second Encounter: Playing the game for approximately 5 to 10 minutes under Windows XP with the game quality set at normal/default, results in display corruption being seen in the menu. Further details can be found in topic number 737-10090
- Star Wars Jedi Knight 2: Saving a game and attempting to load the saved game under Windows XP results in the preview window display a blank preview screen. Further details can be found in topic number
- Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic: Running the Dantoonie level of the game may result in hesitation being noticed. Further details can be found in topic number 737-19378
- World of Warcraft: Enabling Full-Screen Glow in the game may result in a blue screen image being displayed when walking under water. This issue is know to occur when using an ATI Radeon® 9100 or 8500 series product. Further details can be found in topic number 737-19075
- World of Warcraft: Display corruption is noticed when switching between the game and the Windows desktop, when the desktop is set to 1280x1024 and the graphic preferences is set to Optimal Quality. Further details can be found in topic number 737-19785
- The Apply button in the Custom settings of the Advanced mode found under the Catalyst™ Control Center Video standard settings is grayed out when playing a media file. Further details can be found in topic number 737-497
- Changing the DPI setting found in the General tab of the display properties to Large size (120 DPI) results in the change not taking effect when launching the Catalyst™ Control Center. Further details can be found in topic number 737-18885
- Installing Realtek Audio/Marvel Lan driver under Windows 2000 results in the operating system failing to respond when performing the ATI driver installation. Further details can be found in topic number 737-19543
- Creating a custom hot-key for rotation currently results in the custom hot-key to become unavailable for the secondary display device when extended desktop is enabled and the display devices are set to 1280x1024. Further details can be found in topic number 737-19542
- Connecting two display devices using the DVI and CRT connectors on a system containing an ATI Xpress 200 results in the system failing to resume when entering standby state. Further details can be found in topic number 737-19538
For further information and general help on driver or software installation, game issues, and more, visit ATI Customer Care.
Downloading the ATI Catalyst™ Software Suite
This section provides information on downloading the Catalyst™ Software Suite for your ATI Radeon® product. The ATI Catalyst™ Crew recommends that you create a central location for your ATI Catalyst™ downloads. To do this, follow these steps.
- Right-click on any open area of your desktop. A drop down menu is displayed.
- Select New->Folder. A new folder is created on your desktop.
- Name the folder Catalyst™ Downloads.
- Navigate to the http://ati.com. The ATI Technologies Inc. home page is displayed.
- Select Customer Care ->Find a Driver. The Drivers and Software download web page is displayed.
- Select the software or driver you require.
- Click Download. A File download dialog box is displayed.
- Click Save. The Save As dialog box is displayed.
- Navigate to the Catalyst™ Download folder, and click Save.
You have successfully saved the software driver to your desktop.
Uninstalling the ATI Control Panel and Display Driver
This section provides information on uninstalling the previous versions of your ATI Control Panel and ATI Display Driver for your Radeon® product.
Note: If you are using Windows 2000 or Windows XP, ensure that you have logged in with system administrative rights.
Before you can install the latest Catalyst™ software driver for your Radeon® product, you must uninstall the previous ATI Control Panel. To do this, follow these steps:
- Navigate to the Add/Remove programs tool provided by Microsoft. This tool is found in the Control Panel.
Note: Ensure all other applications are closed before continuing with the uninstall of the ATI Display Driver.
- Click the Change/Remove button. The ATI Control Panel Setup window is displayed.
- Select Remove, and click Next. A Confirm File Deletion dialog box is displayed.
- Click OK. The ATI Control Panel Setup window is displayed.
- Select No, and click Finish. You are returned to the Add/Remove Program tool.
You have successfully uninstalled the ATI Control Panel.
You are now ready to uninstall the ATI Display Driver. To do this, follow these steps:
- Select ATI Display Driver in the Add/Remove Program tool.
- Click the Change/Remove button.
Note: If you have multiple display adapters installed, a dialog box will appear instructing you to choose which ATI Display driver to uninstall. Click the Select All button.
- Click Yes when prompted to confirm the uninstall of the ATI Display Driver.
- Reboot your system as prompted to compete the uninstall of the ATI Display Driver.
Note: If you are prompted to start the installation of a display driver upon boot up, click CANCEL
You have successfully uninstalled the previous version of the ATI Display Driver and ATI Control Panel.
Installing the latest Catalyst™ Software Suite
This section provides information on installing the latest Catalyst™ Software Suite for your Radeon® product. To install the driver, follow these steps:
- Navigate to the Catalyst™ Download folder on your desktop. Double-click on the folder to view its content.
- Double click the Catalyst™ software suite you have downloaded. Accept all the default prompts.
- Restart your system as required.
You have successfully installed the latest Catalyst™ software suite.
Catalyst™ CREW Driver Feedback
This driver release incorporates suggestions received through the Catalyst™ CREW Driver Feedback program. To provide us with your feedback, visit: Catalyst™ CREW Driver Feedback.
Note: You must be registered and signed in to access the Catalyst™ CREW Driver Feedback program. Once you have registered, go to the ticket submission form, and select Catalyst™ CREW Driver Feedback as the category.
ATI Technologies Inc.
http://www.ati.com
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Fax: (905) 882-2620