Print


September 10, 2007


ATI Catalyst™ Software Suite Version 7.9


This release note provides information on the latest posting of AMD's industry leading software suite, Catalyst™. This particular software suite updates both the AMD Display Driver, and the Catalyst™ Control Center. This unified driver has been further enhanced to provide the highest level of power, performance, and reliability. The AMD Catalyst™ software suite is the ultimate in performance and stability.

This release note provides information on the following:

Web Content

The Catalyst™ software suite 7.9 contains the following:

  • Radeon™ display driver 8.411
  • Multimedia Center 9.16 (Windows XP only)
  • HydraVision (Windows XP only)
  • HydraVision™ Basic Edition (Windows XP only)
  • Remote Wonder 3.04 (Windows XP only)
  • WDM Driver Install Bundle
  • Southbridge/IXP Driver
  • Catalyst™ Control Center Version 7.9

Caution: The Catalyst™ software driver and the Catalyst™ Control Center can be downloaded independently of each other. However, for maximum stability and performance AMD recommends that both components be updated from the same Catalyst™ release


Caution: The Catalyst™ Control Center requires that the Microsoft .NET Framework version 2.0 be installed. Without .NET version 2.0 installed, the Catalyst™ Control Center will not launch properly and the user will see an error message.


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/

AMD Product Support

The Catalyst™ Vista driver for both the 32bit and 64bit versions of the Microsoft Windows Vista operating system is supported on the following ATI Radeon™ products.


Caution: Installing the Catalyst software suite 7.8 or 7.9 on a system containing the ATI Radeon™ X1950 AGP series of product may result in either the desktop failing to be drawn properly or the operating system failing to boot. It is recommended to continue using Catalyst 7.7 for this product at this time.

AMD Desktop Product Family Support for both Windows Vista and XP
ATI Radeon™ HD 2900 series
ATI Radeon™ X850 series
ATI Radeon™ HD 2600 series
ATI Radeon™ X800 series
ATI Radeon™ HD 2400 series
ATI Radeon™ X700 series
ATI Radeon™ X1950 series
ATI Radeon™ X600 series
ATI Radeon™ X1900 series
ATI Radeon™ X550 series
ATI Radeon™ X1800 series
ATI Radeon™ X300 series
ATI Radeon™ X1650 series
ATI Radeon™ 9800 series
ATI Radeon™ X1600 series
ATI Radeon™ 9700 series
ATI Radeon™ X1550 series
ATI Radeon™ 9600 series
ATI Radeon™ X1300 series
ATI Radeon™ 9550 series
ATI Radeon™ X1050 series
ATI Radeon™ 9500 series
AMD Multimedia Family Product Support for both Windows Vista and XP
ATI All-in-Wonder™ X1900 Series
ATI All-in-Wonder™ X600 Series
ATI All-in-Wonder™ X1800 Series
ATI Theater™ 550 PRO
ATI All-in-Wonder™ 2006 Edition
ATI All-in-Wonder™ 9800 Series
ATI All-in-Wonder™ X800 Series
ATI All-in-Wonder™ 9600 Series
ATI Theater 650™



Note: ATI All-in-Wonder™ boards operate with AMD's Windows Vista ready display and capture drivers under the Windows Vista operating system. However, the Windows Vista Media Center application does not support TV/Capture functionality provided by the ATI All-in-Wonder™. TV/Capture functionality is qualified to function with Snaptream's BeyondTV 4.6 for Windows Vista. Other third party solutions (such as Arcsoft's Total Media 3) may support TV/Capture with the ATI All-in-Wonder™, but these applications have not been fully tested by AMD.

AMD Chipset Product Support
ATI Radeon™ Xpress 1250 Series
ATI Radeon™ Xpress 1150 Series
ATI Radeon™ X1250 Series
ATI Radeon™ Xpress 1100 Series
ATI Radeon™ X1200 Series
ATI Radeon™ Xpress 200 Series
AMD 580X Series Chipset
AMD 690 Series Chipset

Operating systems supported

The latest version of the Catalyst™ software suite is designed to support the following Microsoft Windows platforms:

  • Windows Vista (32 and 64 bit versions)
  • Windows XP Professional
  • Windows XP Home Edition
  • Windows XP Media Center Edition

Note: When installing the Catalyst™ Vista driver for Windows Vista, the user must logged on as an Administrator or have Administrator rights in order to successfully complete the installation of the Catalyst™ Vista driver.


Caution: Once the driver installation is completed under the Vista operating system (32 and 64 bit), the driver log file may report that the ATI T200 Unified AVStream Driver failed to install. A reboot of the operating system resolves the issue.

New Features

Catalyst 7.9 introduces the following new features:

Avivo Video Converter for Windows Vista (64-bit)

This release of Catalyst™ introduces the Avivo Video Converter for the Windows Vista (64 bit) operating system. The Avivo Video Converter is a transcoder tool that provides a quick and easy way of converting videos from one format to another. The Avivo Video Converter found within the Catalyst™ Control Center, allows the user to select the input file, and output format, along with the quality level and file location. The Avivo. Video Converter accepts a wide variety of file formats as a source, and outputs to file formats such as MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4/DivX, WMA, H.264/AVC and more.

Catalyst Control Center: Color Temperature Control

This release of Catalyst™ introduces Color Temperature Control within the Catalyst Control Center, allowing users to adjust the chromatic level shown on their display. Supported on the ATI Radeon™ X1000 Series and Radeon™ HD 2000 Series of products.

Performance Improvements

The following performance improvements are noticed with Catalyst™ 7.9:

  • Far Cry performance improves up to 14 % on the ATI Radeon™ HD2900XT CrossFire™, ATI Radeon™ HD2600XT single card, and ATI Radeon™ HD2400XT CrossFire™ configurations
  • Call of Duty 2 performance improves as much as 12% with Anti-Aliasing enabled on the ATI Radeon™ HD2600XT CrossFire™ and single card configurations
  • Half-Life 2: Episode 1 performance improves at most 9% on ATI Radeon™ HD2600XT CrossFire™ and as much as 6% on the ATI Radeon™ HD2400XT CrossFire™ configurations.
  • Serious Sam 2 performance improves up to 46% on the ATI Radeon™ HD2400XT CrossFire™ and up to 27% on the ATI Radeon™ HD2600XT single card and CrossFire™ configurations with Anti-Aliasing enabled.
  • Quake 4 performance with Anti-Aliasing improves 9% or more on the ATI Radeon™ X1600/X1650Pro and ATI Radeon™ X1300/X1550 products in both single and CrossFire™ configurations

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. Folding@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 Folding@Home, follow these steps:

  1. Download ATI's Catalyst™ software suite
  2. Download the Folding@Home GPU client application
    Note: If you have an ATI Radeon™ X1600, X1800, or X1900 series of product, download the GPU client (either console or GUI version) not to be confused with the CPU "Graphical client". If you do not have an ATI Radeon™ product listed above, then download the CPU client.

  3. Enter the ATI team number 51394 and start folding!

For more information on Folding@Home visit: http://ati.amd.com/technology/streamcomputing/folding.html

Resolved Issues for the Windows Vista Operating System

This section provides information on resolved issues in this release of the ATI Catalyst™ Software Suite for Windows Vista. These include:

  • Bioshock: Missing, blackout, and flashing surfaces are no longer noticed in the game. Further details can be found in topic number 737-29549
  • Bioshock: Random polygons shooting up in the sky are no longer noticed. Further details can be found in topic number 737-29551
  • Gods: Land of Infinity (demo): Having the in-game options set to 1920x1200 32bpp, Shadows on High, and Texture Quality set to High no longer results in only the mouse pointer being visible. Further details can be found in topic number 737-28810
  • LostPlanet: Display flicker is no longer noticed when playing the game under the Windows Vista operating system. Further details can be found in topic number 737-29560
  • Monsters.Inc: Enabling DXVA no longer results in certain game scenes appearing choppy. Further details can be found in topic number 737-29546
  • Prey: Texture tearing is no longer noticed in certain areas of the game. This issue was known to occur on ATI Radeon™ HD 2x00 series of products. Further details can be found in topic number 737-29563
  • Quake3: Moving the mouse pointer over the options listed in the System Setup no longer results in the option being highlighted and the option being overdrawn by the highlight. Further details can be found in topic number 737-29531
  • World of Warcraft: Playing the game with wide or narrow tent Anti-Aliasing filters no longer results in wireframe flashing. Further details can be found in topic number 737-28807
  • Attempting to enable CrossFire™ on a secondary display device no longer results in CrossFire™ failing to be enabled. Further information on this issue may be found in topic number. Further details can be found in topic number 737-28844
  • Windows Dream Scene Content: Corruption is no longer noticed when attempting to run the preview for the chosen clips. Further details can be found in topic number 737-28856
  • The ATI resolution and color text "mouse over" dialog box no longer contains a mix of English and Arabic. Further details can be found in topic number 737-28811
  • Playing an HD-DVD title using the Cyberlink player no longer results in corruption or the Windows Vista operating system failing to respond after a short period of playback time. Further details can be found in topic number 737-28827
  • Using WinDVD or WMP11 to playback a DVD title with subtitles enabled no longer results in the edge of subtitle appearing transparent. Further details can be found in topic number 737-29533
  • Hot-plugging an HDMI display device to a system containing an ATI Radeon™ Xpress 12x0 series of product no longer results in the HDMI display device failing to be detected under the Windows Vista operating system. Further details can be found in topic number 737-29535
  • MediaDirect no longer displays corruption prior to Blu-ray movies starting. Further details can be found in topic number 737-29544
  • Enabling Overlay Theater Mode no longer results in tearing and choppy playback being noticed when clone mode is enabled. Further details can be found in topic number 737-29557
  • Playing an HD-DVD title using the Cyberlink player no longer results in corruption or the Windows Vista operating system failing to respond after a short period of playback time. Further details can be found in topic number 737-28827
  • Attempting to playing a DVD title using WinDVD 7 and enabling hardware acceleration no longer results in the DVD failing to play. Further details can be found in topic number 737-29558
  • Setting the secondary display device to primary and the primary to secondary no longer results in the display swapping failing after enabling extended desktop mode. Further details can be found in topic number 737-29559
  • Tearing artifact is no longer visible on OTM display when playing back any video using Overlay with OTM enabled. Further details can be found in topic number 737-29561
  • Google Sketchup no longer has an incorrect cyan colored X-axis. Further details can be found in topic number 737-29562
  • Cyberlink HD playback: Performing a mode change when playing a video no longer results in the video playing at various speeds. 737-29564
  • Overlay Theater Mode settings are no longer grayed out when the desktop is set to display resolutions of less than 1024x768. Further details can be found in topic number 737-29571
  • A Tuner Not Available error message is no longer displayed when starting MCE after installing the ATI driver and video decoder. Further details can be found in topic number 737-29572

Resolved Issues for the Windows XP Operating System

This section provides information on resolved issues in this release of the ATI Catalyst™ Software Suite for Windows XP. These include:

  • Adobe After Effects 8.0: The Fragment Shader no longer fails when rendering shadows. Further details can be found in topic number 737-29565
  • Bioshock: Frame stutter associated with time spikes in random components of the render stats is no longer noticed as the character walks around. Further details can be found in topic number 737-29041
  • City of Heroes: Attempting to play the game on a system running Windows XP no longer results in the game failing to launch when using an ATI Radeon™ HD 2600 XT. Further details can be found in topic number 737-29567
  • City of Heroes: Enabling CrossFire™ followed by attempting to launch the game no longer results in the game failing to launch and the operating system failing to respond. Further details can be found in topic number 737-29568
  • PowerDVD: Playing a DVD on a system containing an ATI Radeon™ HD 2400 series of product no longer results in missing pixels being noticed on the DVD menu selection. Further details can be found in topic number 737-28511
  • PowerDVD: Playing a DVD on a system containing an ATI Radeon™ HD 2400 series of product no longer results in missing pixels being noticed on the DVD menu selection. Further details can be found in topic number 737-28511
  • World of Warcraft: Intermittent flashing is no longer noticed when enabling AA. Further details can be found in topic number 737-29569
  • Setting the display device to 1280x1024 and attempting to playback a VC1/h.264 title using the Cyberlink player no longer results in choppy playback. Further details can be found in topic number 737-28832
  • Corruption is no longer noticed when playing wmv files with WinDVD when CrossFire™ is enabled. Further details can be found in topic number 737-29566

Known Issues Under the Windows Vista Operating System

This section provides information on known issues associated with the ATI Catalyst™. These include:

  • Call of Juarez: Enabling CrossFire™ and setting the in-game graphics options to higher settings may result in the game failing. Further details can be found in topic number 737-29541
  • Call of Juarez: Enabling CrossFire™ may result in flickering being noticed when playing the DX10 version of the game. Further details can be found in topic number 737-29540
  • City of Heroes: Attempting to play the game on a system with a dual link panel connected to it may result in the Windows Vista operating system failing to respond. Further details can be found in topic number 737-28495
  • Day Watch: Playing the game on a system running Windows Vista may result in the flickering being noticed. Further details can be found in topic number 737-28825
  • EarthSim2: Setting the desktop resolution to 1600x1200 32bpp may result in display corruption and the operating system failing to respond after a short period of game play. Further details can be found in topic number 737-29545
  • Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter: Pressing the Alt+Tab keys when playing the game may result in the Windows Vista operating system failing to respond. Further details can be found in topic number 737-28491
  • GTA San Andreas: Enabling AFR mode and CrossFire™ may results in corruption being noticed in the opening cinematic of the game. Further details can be found in topic number 737-29543
  • Lost Planet: Setting AA to either 4x or 8x may result in the game failing to respond. Further details can be found in topic number 737-28492
  • Rainbow Six Vegas: Setting the display resolution to 1600x1200 and applying the in-game settings to high may result in corruption being noticed when using an HDMI display device. Further details can be found in topic number 737-28826
  • Resuming from an S3 state may result in a longer than expected time for the Windows Vista operating system to resume. Further details can be found in topic number 737-25798
  • Catalyst™ Control Center->OverDrive™: The OverDrive™ setting are not retained for individual accounts. This issue may also be experienced under the Windows Vista operating system. Further details can be found in topic number 737-25805
  • The Record function currently fails to work when using an ATI All-In-Wonder X1300 and time shifting is enabled. Further information can be found in topic number 737-22014
  • A blank screen may be displayed after unchecking all the Component Video formats except when the 480i30 custom mode is applied. Further details can be found in topic number 737-27620
  • A green or black screen may be displayed when configuring MCE to ATSC mode. Further details can be found in topic number 737-27622
  • The 3D aspect may appear blank when launching a second instance of the Catalyst™ Control Center™. This issue may also be experienced under the Windows XP operating system. Further details can be found in topic number 737-28482
  • The Catalyst™ Control Center version number may fail to be updated after the installation of a newer Catalyst™ Control Center. Further details can be found in topic number 737-28493
  • Dragging player window to secondary display while playing back HD content and moving it back to primary may result in blank player window. Further details can be found in topic number 737-28496
  • Creating a secondary user account and switching from the secondary user account to the primary user account may results in CrossFire™ failing to be enabled. Further details can be found in topic number 737-28786
  • Connecting a secondary display device and enabling CrossFire™, followed by disabling CrossFire™ no longer results in CrossFire™ pages in the Catalyst™ Control Center showing that it is enabled. Further information on this issue may be found in topic number 737-28845
  • The composite video slider values may be automatically applied without clicking on the Apply button. Further details can be found in topic number 737-28812
  • Setting the language option to any of the supported languages other than English may result in the help page for Advanced Color failing to be displayed. Further details can be found in topic number 737-28822
  • Using live TV on a system containing an ATI HD 2900 XT product and running the Windows Vista operating system may result in the application failing if the Catalyst™ 7.6 driver is installed. Further details can be found in topic number 737-28823
  • When running certain OpenGL samples, the ATI Radeon™ graphics adapter may not be running at the requested clock values on a CrossFire™ configured system. Further details can be found in topic number 737-28824
  • The Catalyst™ Control Center version number may fail to be updated after the installation of a newer Catalyst™ Control Center. Further details can be found in topic number 737-28493
  • Setting the display resolution to 1680x1050 and playing either an MPEG 2HDi/p, VC1, or H.264 interlaced content may result in the content not being accelerated and resolution restrictions being applied. Further details can be found in topic number 737-28828
  • A Windows error message may occur when game settings are set to their highest levels. Further details can be found in topic number 737-28830
  • Performing an express install of the Catalyst Control Center may result in an error message being displayed when rebooting the system. Further details can be found in topic number 737-29532
  • Hot-plugging an HDMI display device may result in the display device failing to be detected. Further details can be found in topic number 737-29534
  • Hot-plugging an HDMI display device to a system that has a CRT connected to it, followed by swapping the display devices may result in invalid refresh rates being listed in the Display manager. Further details can be found in topic number 737-29536
  • Using PowerDVD to playback a Blu-ray title may result in the Windows Vista operating system failing with a 0x000000EA error. Further details can be found in topic number 737-29537
  • A black window may be displayed when attempting to play a DVD title using WinDVD 7 when Overlay Theater Mode and clone mode is enabled. Further details can be found in topic number 737-29539
  • Windows Dream Scene Content: Corruption may be noticed when attempting to run the preview for the chosen clips. Further details can be found in topic number 737-28856
  • Enabling extended desktop mode and setting the display resolution to 1280x800 or higher, followed by playing an HD-DVD using PowerDVD, may results in the HD-DVD title failing to play. Further details can be found in topic number 737-29547
  • Setting the display resolution to 1600x1200 or less may results in corruption being noticed when attempting to play an HD-DVD using the Cyberlink player. Further details can be found in topic number 737-29550
  • Setting the display resolution to 1680x1050 and playing either an MPEG 2HDi/p, VC1, or H.264 interlaced content may result in the content not being accelerated and resolution restrictions being applied. Further details can be found in topic number 737-28828
  • Frame flipping may occur while playing certain VC-1 content titles. Further details can be found in topic number 737-27804
  • Playing a HD-DVD or Blu-ray title using PowerDVD followed by rotating the display device by 90 degrees may result in the operating system failing to respond. Further details can be found in topic number 737-29552

Known Issues Under the Windows XP Operating System

The following section provides a summary of open issues in the latest version of Catalyst™. These include:

  • City of Heroes: A fatal error message may be displayed when exiting the game and attempting to launch the Catalyst™ Control Center™ in Advanced mode. Further details can be found in topic number 737-28514
  • DIRT: Launching DIRT with CrossFire™ enabled may result in the game failing to launch and an error message being displayed. Further details can be found in topic number 737-29554
  • Enabling CrossFire™ may result in display corruption being noticed when playing a DVD or media clip using either WinDVD 7, Windows Media Player or PowerDVD 6. Further details can be found in topic number 737-22806
  • Catalyst™ Control Center->OverDrive™: The OverDrive™ setting are not retained for individual accounts. This issue may also be experienced under the Windows Vista operating system. Further details can be found in topic number 737-25805
  • Connecting two display devices to an ATI Radeon™ X1600 series product may result in the device manager failing to detect the secondary display device. Further information may be found in topic number 737-21266
  • On certain products playing back VC-1 and H.264 content with display resolution set at 1360x768 or higher may result in screen flashing. Further details can be found in topic number 737-28515
  • On certain products, dragging player window from primary to secondary display no longer results in hardware acceleration being disabled which resulted in the CPU usage increasing. Further details can be found in topic number 737-28516
  • With some h.264 titles that have MPEG2 introductions; playback may switch from hardware accelerated to software once the introductory content is finished. Further details can be found in topic number 737-28517
  • Playing an HD Blu-ray title using Cyberlink PowerDVD 7.3 Ultra for Blu-ray and HD-DVD followed by open multiple windows and moving them around the desktop may result in the windows background not being re-drawn properly. Further details can be found in topic number 737-28831
  • Installing the HDMI audio driver and the VIA audio chipset driver may results in a compatibility issue being noticed and a yellow exclamation mark showing up in the Sound, Video and Game Controllers. Further details can be found in topic number 737-28833
  • On certain products playing back VC-1 and H.264 content with display resolution set at 1360x768 or higher may result in screen flashing. Further details can be found in topic number 737-28515
  • With some h.264 titles that have MPEG2 intros, playback may switch from hardware accelerated to software once the introductory content is finished. Further details can be found in topic number 737-28517
  • Enabling extended desktop mode following by launching the Windows Media Player may result in the player failing to appear on the secondary display device in full screen mode. Further details can be found in topic number 737-29555

For further information and general help on software driver installation, game issues, and more, visit ATI Customer Care.

Installing the Catalyst™ Vista Software Driver

Installation information can be found at: ati.amd.com

AMD Customer Care

The AMD Customer Care website provides a high level of technical support and ease of navigation. The AMD 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 AMD Customer Care Website can be found at: support.ati.com

To view a known issue or find troubleshooting information, do the following:

  1. Go to ati.amd.com. The AMD home page is displayed.
  2. Click on Customer Care and select Radeon™ (PC/Mac). The ATI Customer Care web page is displayed.
  3. Select Knowledge base. The AMD knowledge base is displayed.
  4. In the top right corner of the page, select Advanced Search. The Advanced Search page is displayed.
  5. Select the option you wish to search by.
  6. Click SEARCH. The information requested (if available) is displayed.

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.


Advanced Micro Devices Inc.
http://ati.amd.com
Voice: (905) 882-2600
Fax: (905) 882-2620