ATI's FireGL™ cards are designed to accelerate 3D workstation applications based on OpenGL and Microsoft DirectX 9.0. With full certification on the leading computer aided design (CAD), architecture/engineering/construction (AEC) and digital content creation (DCC) applications, ATI FireGL™ is the high performance choice for graphics professionals working in Windows. These release notes provide information on the ATI FireGL™ Unified Driver version 8.293.
These release notes provide information on the following:
- API and Operating System Support
- Minimum System Requirements
- ATI FireGL™ Product Family Support
- Software Overview
- Summary of Resolved Issues
- Open Issues Report
- ATI Customer Care
API and Operating System Support
OpenGL® 2.0 + extensions
OpenGL Shading Language
Microsoft® DirectX® 9.0
DX9 HLSL
Windows® XP (through SP2)
Windows XP Professional x64 Edition
Windows 2000
Linux® 32/Linux 64
Note: The ATI FireGL™ Unified Driver for Windows XP Professional x64 Edition does not support the Intel Itanium 2 processor based server platforms.
Note: Linux users can obtain the software display driver at: http://www.atitech.com/support/driver.html
Caution: Pre-unified drivers (7.88 or older) should be un-installed before installing the ATI FireGL™ Unified Driver.
Minimum System Requirements
This section provides information on the system requirements for successful installation and operation. The following is a list of minimum system requirements:
- Intel Pentium 4/Xeon™, AMD Athlon/Opteron™ or compatible CPU
- PCI-Express x16 Bus for PCI-Express products
- AGP bus for AGP Products
- 128MB of system memory (256MB or more recommended)
- Installation software requires CD-ROM drive
- 300 watt or greater power supply (recommended)
ATI FireGL™ Product Family Support
The ATI FireGL™ Unified Driver version 8.293 is designed to support the following ATI FireGL™ product family:
Note: ATI Mobility™ FireGL™ 9000 driver support is available from ati.com
Software Overview
The ATI FireGL™ family of workstation products provides the performance, quality, and stability that is required for the most demanding projects.
The ATI FireGL™ Unified Driver provides users with a stable, user-friendly, and flexible software experience. Some of the features of the ATI FireGL™ Unified Driver include:
- Quad Buffer Stereo Sub Options
- Shared Front/Back/Z Dual Screen Mode Option
- ATI 3ds Max Maximum Driver
- Automatic Application Detection When Using the Default Profile
Quad Buffer Stereo Sub Options
The Enable Quad Buffer Stereo option is available in both the ATI Control Panel and the ATI Catalyst Control Center. The Enable Quad Buffer Stereo sub-buttons provides two options:
- Stereo Sync - Select this option if a display device is attached to the graphics card's stereo sync connector.
- Auto-Stereo (Vertical Interleaved) - Select this option if an Auto-Stereo (vertical interleaved) flat panel is connected.
Quad Buffer Stereo is available when using either a single display or when Extended Desktop Mode is enabled (multiple displays with the taskbar being display on the primary monitor only). Quad Buffer Stereo functionality is only available on the primary display regardless of Extended Desktop Mode being enabled. Quad Buffer Stereo support is not available in Span Mode (dual screen with both displays using the identical display resolutions and the operating system taskbar is running across both displays). When using Span Mode, the Enable Quad Buffer Stereo checkbox is greyed out and is unavailable for selection.
Shared Front/Back/Z Dual Screen Mode Option
The ATI Control Panel and the ATI Catalyst Control Center provides a Shared Front/Back/Z Dual Screen Mode checkbox option. This option is available when extended desktop mode is enabled. Enabling the option allocates a shared primary frame buffer surface for both displays when they are set to the same resolution. This allows the OpenGL driver to use a shared front/back/depth frame buffer layout which can enhance performance when using multiple OpenGL windows.
ATI 3ds Max Maximum Driver
3ds Max is a professional 3D modeling, rendering and animation software. The ATI 3ds Max Maximum Driver provided with the ATI software driver package allows for impressive hardware accelerated rendering in the 3ds Max viewport. To successfully install the ATI 3ds Max Maximum Driver, the 3ds Max software application must be installed first, and started once. Failing to install the 3ds Max software application prior to the installation of the ATI 3ds Max Maximum Driver will result in the ATI 3ds Max Maximum Driver not installing to the appropriate directory.
Automatic Application Detection When Using the Default Profile
When the Default Profile setting is selected, the driver will automatically attempt to recognize the application upon its launch; and if the application is recognized, the driver will use the Profile settings defined for that application instead of the actual Default settings. Users will no longer need to manually select the application specific profile for recognized applications to obtain the full optimized driver performance for the application. In addition to this, users can now obtain the full optimized driver performance for multiple recognized applications that are running simultaneously, by simply using the Default Profile. This allows for each and every recognized application to use the Profile settings defined for that particular application. When the Default Profile is selected, the Default Profile settings are used for applications that are not recognized.
The table below lists the professional applications and OpenGL games that are automatically recognized when using the Default Profile.
Recognized OpenGL Gaming Applications Chronicles of Riddick
Doom 3
Jedi Knight II
Quake 3
Quake 4
Return to Castle Wolfenstein
Summary of Resolved Issues
The following is a summary of the issues that have been resolved in this release of the ATI FireGL™ Unified Driver.
- Chronicles of Riddick: Enabling horizontal span mode on a system with an ATI FireGL V7200 installed and running the Windows XP operating system, no longer results in display corruption being noticed or the game failing to respond when setting the display resolution to 2560x1024. Further information may be found in topic number 737-23377
- Team Center Visualization 2005: Running the various test found in the GrACE window no longer results in the TextureMap Test Having Failures and or corruption. Further information may be found in topic number 737-23379
- Unigraphics: Setting OpenGL to Unigraphics and running Run GrPlayer.exe Lighting.tgl -u no longer results in the application running slowly or the application failing to respond. Further information may be found in topic number 737-23380
- Sensable FreeForm Modeling Plus v9: Launching the FreeForm Modeling Plus no longer results in the curves not displaying any lines when the see through clay option is not selected. Further information may be found in topic number 737-23381
- The overlay test application window no longer becomes corrupted on altering bit-depth (Color Quality) when the display resolution is set to 1280x1024 32bpp. Further information may be found in topic number 737-23389
- CATIA V5: A memory leak in Pbuffer creation no longer occurs. Further information may be found in topic number 737-23384
- Un-compressing, compiling and launching the glut sample no longer results in stereo buffers drawing to the incorrect eye when using an ATI FireGL V7300 or V7350 on a system running either Windows XP or Linux. Further information may be found in topic number 737-23388
- Maya6.5: A Fatal Error dialog box no longer appears when executing Test15 on mel6 script button. Further information may be found in topic number 737-23387
- Newtek Lightwave: When a GLSL shader falls back to software mode and textures are enabled, the ILVM no longer accesses stale texture information which was resulting in the operating system failing to respond. Further information may be found in topic number737-23390
- Maya: A black band is no longer seen when running the application in dual screen mode under the Windows XP Professional x64 Edition operating system. Further information may be found in topic number 737-23391
- Maya: Launching the application and selecting High Quality in the Shading menu no longer results in the application failing to respond. Further information may be found in topic number 737-23392
- Maya 7.01: Click on Windows->Rendering Editors->Render View, to open the Render View window as a floating window. Set the image size to 640x480, following by resizing the image, no longer results in offset images being rendered. Further information may be found in topic number 737-23393
- Yamaha ESPRi 15R10-2: Setting the display resolution to 1280x1024 32bpp and launching the G-PERF project no longer results in a graphics performance drop being noticed on T60p and T43p systems. Further information may be found in topic number 737-23394
- UGS NX3: Incorrect lines are no longer shown under faceted test when using either an ATI FireGL V7200 or FireGL V3400 in a system running the Windows XP operating system. Further information may be found in topic number 737-23395
- XP64/Studio Tools 13: Display corruption is no longer noticed when running the application with extended desktop mode enabled on systems running the Windows XP Professional x64 Edition operating system. Further information may be found in topic number 737-23396
- UGS Visualization Graphical Test Suite: Running the TextureMap test no longer results in failures or display corruption being noticed when using a FireGL V5200 product under the Windows XP operating system. Further information may be found in topic number 737-23397
Open Issues Report
The following is a summary of open issues found in this release of the ATI FireGL™ Unified Driver.
- Maya: Enabling Span mode followed by selecting items from the time slider on the second screen may result in the item selected failing to appear correctly. Further information may be found in topic number 737-23398
- Maya: Enabling dual screen mode and dragging the Maya application slowly around the desktop may result in the time line disappearing and reappearing as the application window is being moved across the desktop. Further information may be found in topic number 737-23399
- Solidworks 2007: Launching the Graphics Test 2007/shaderstest.sldasm, texture1 and texture2. tests may result in an Out of memory error message followed by an Application has to be terminated error message. Further information may be found in topic number 737-23400
ATI Customer Care
ATI Customer Care website provides a high level of technical support and easy of navigation. The ATI Customer Care website provides accurate and up-to-date product support for optimum usability and performance. Technical issues are categorized and personalized to enhance user experience. The ATI Customer Care Website can be found at: support.ati.com
To view a known or resolved issue, do the following:
- Go to: support.ati.com. The ATI Customer Care web page is displayed.
- In the top left hand pane, click Advanced Search. The Advanced Search pane is displayed.
- Under Search Type: Select the By: ID option.
- Enter the Topic number.
- Click Go.
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