temeteus82

ATI Catalyst™ Software Suite Version 7.12

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
* AMD Product Support
* Operating systems supported
* New Features
* Performance Improvements
* ATI's Folding@Home
* Resolved Issues for the Windows Vista Operating System
* Resolved Issues for the Windows XP Operating System
* Resolved Issues for the Windows XP Professional x64 Edition
* Known Issues Under the Windows Vista Operating System
* Known Issues Under the Windows XP Operating System
* Known Issues Under the Windows XP Professional x64 Edition
* Installing the Catalyst™ Vista Software Driver
* AMD Customer Care
* Catalyst™ Crew Driver Feedback

Web Content

The Catalyst™ software suite 7.12 contains the following:

* Radeon™ display driver 8.442
* 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 7.12

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.
AMD Desktop Product Family Support for both Windows Vista and XP ATI Radeon™ HD 3800 series
ATI Radeon™ X850 series
ATI Radeon™ HD 2900 series
ATI Radeon™ X800 series
ATI Radeon™ HD 2600 series
ATI Radeon™ X700 series
ATI Radeon™ HD 2400 series
ATI Radeon™ X600 series
ATI Radeon™ X1950 series
ATI Radeon™ X550 series
ATI Radeon™ X1900 series
ATI Radeon™ X300 series
ATI Radeon™ X1800 series
ATI Radeon™ 9800 series
ATI Radeon™ X1650 series
ATI Radeon™ 9700 series
ATI Radeon™ X1600 series
ATI Radeon™ 9600 series
ATI Radeon™ X1550 series
ATI Radeon™ 9550 series
ATI Radeon™ X1300 series
ATI Radeon™ 9500 series
ATI Radeon™ X1050 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
* Windows XP Professional x64 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

* Avivo™ Update
* Enhanced ATI Overdrive support for the ATI Radeon™HD 2900 Series

Avivo™ Update

Catalyst™ 7.12 introduces an Avivo™ update. The update allows the ATI Catalyst™ Control Center to reflect what is supported by the driver taking into account the graphics card installed in the system, and will not expose any video features that is not supported by the driver. The DirectX Video Acceleration (DXVA) driver will perform a profiling mechanism to query the graphics capability and the Catalyst™ Control Center queries the caps via the interface defined between the Catalyst™ Control Center and the DXVA components. This feature will be supported on ATI Radeon™ 9500 series products and above.
Enhanced ATI OverDrive™ support for the ATI Radeon™ HD 2900 Series

This release of Catalyst™ introduces an enhanced version of ATI OverDrive™ for the ATI Radeon™ HD 2900 Series. Users can now Overclock both GPU engine and graphics memory clock speeds in CrossFire™ mode (and over-clock single ATI Radeon™ graphics accelerators as well). This version of ATI Overdrive also
Performance Improvements

The following performance improvements are noticed with Catalyst™ 7.12:

* 3DMark2005 performance improves 5% or more with largest gains noticed when Anti-aliasing and Anisotropic Filtering are disabled on systems containing either an ATI Radeon™ HD 2400 or ATI Radeon™ HD 2600 series of products
* Company of Heroes DX10 performance improves up to 5% on systems containing an ATI Radeon™ HD38x0 series of product

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:

* Call of Duty: Enabling Super AA and CrossFire™ no longer results in the game failing to respond when the player dies. Further details can be found in topic number 737-31110
* Combat Mission: Shock Force Demo v1.02: Setting the ATI left-click compatibility option to off and starting a new battle no longer results in the game failing to respond when clicking the left mouse button on various options within the game. Further details can be found in topic number 737-30492
* Crysis: Momentary corruption is no longer noticed when playing the game. Further details can be found in topic number 737-31094
* Crysis: The ice level is no longer too bright which was making the game nonplayable. Further details can be found in topic number 737-31104
* Dark Messiah, Might and Magic, or Sin Episodes: Too much fog or incorrect fog no longer occurs during game play. This issue was known to occur on systems containing an ATI Radeon™ HD 2x00 series of product. Further details can be found in topic number 737-31101
* El Matador: Shadow corruption is no longer noticed throughout the game. Further details can be found in topic number 737-31099
* Enemy Territory: Quake Wars: Enabling Super AA and soft particles no longer results in corruption being noticed in the main menu and through-out game play. Further details can be found in topic number 737-29942
* FEAR: The slow motion visual effects is now functioning. Further details can be found in topic number 737-31100
* FlightSim X: Playing the game on a system running Windows Vista and containing an ATI Radeon™ HD 2900 series of product no longer results in the shadows being incorrect or failing to appear. Further details can be found in topic number 737-31095
* Google Sketchupno longer fails to pan when AA is enabled on systems containing an ATI Radeon™ X1300/1550/1600 series of product. Further details can be found in topic number 737-30496
* GTA San Andreas: Enabling AA within the game and within the Catalyst™ Control Center no longer results in the game failing to start. Further details can be found in topic number 737-31108
* GTA: San Andreas: Enabling high quality settings within the game no longer results in Vsync loss, no video, or artifact corruption. Further details can be found in topic number 737-31102
* Hellgate: MSAA is now working with the DX10 version of the game. Further details can be found in topic number 737-31105
* Hellgate: Screen flashing or the game failing no longer occurs when attempting to start a multiplayer game on a system running Windows Vista and containing an ATI Radeon™ HD 2600 series of product. Further details can be found in topic number 737-31106
* Infernal: the game no longer fails when attempting to launch a new game. Further details can be found in topic number 737-31096
* Lord of the Rings Return of the King: The game background no longer flashes when CrossFire is enabled. Further details can be found in topic number 737-31098
* Lost Planet: Setting the in-game options to maximum along with AA ste to 2x and AF set to 16x no longer results in corruption being noticed when CrossFiore is enabled. Further details can be found in topic number 737-31090
* Quake 4: Enabling CrossFire™ and setting the in game options to 1600x1200 and AA to 4x no longer results in corruption being noticed. Further details can be found in topic number 737-31109
* The Sims 2: Flickering and corruption are no longer noticed in certain areas of the game. Further details can be found in topic number 737-31097
* World in Conflict: Setting the in-game AA option to 4x and running the benchmark no longer results in flickering being noticed. Further details can be found in topic number 737-31107
* When running certain OpenGL samples, the ATI Radeon™ graphics adapter now runs at the requested clock values on a CrossFire™ configured system. Further details can be found in topic number 737-28824
* Catalyst™ Control Center: German character are no longer truncated in the ProfileManager Applications tab. Further details can be found in topic number 737-29930
* Connecting a secondary display device to a system containing an ATI Radeon™ x1200/1250/1270 series of product and enabling clone mode or extended desktop mode no longer results in horizontal line corruption being noticed when using a high refresh rate and display resolution. Further details can be found in topic number 737-29933
* Connecting a secondary display device no longer results in the Anisotropic Filtering option being missing for second adapter until the system is rebooted. Further details can be found in topic number 737-30568
* Connecting a secondary display device to a system containing an ATI Radeon™ x1200/1250/1270 series of product and enabling clone mode or extended desktop mode no longer results in horizontal line corruption being noticed when using a high refresh rate and display resolution. Further details can be found in topic number 737-30572
* TV corruption is no longer noticed when using an ATI Radeon™ Xpress 1250 series of product. Further details can be found in topic number 737-30577
* Cyberlink: Playing an h.264 disk no longer results in corruption being noticed on the lower portion of the playback window. Further details can be found in topic number 737-30581
* 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 737-30585
* Enabling extended desktop mode and dragging the media player window between the desktops no longer results in the playback stopping. Further details can be found in topic number 737-30586
* Setting the frame buffer size to 256mb in the CMOS setup no longer results in the ATI graphics driver failing to be installed. Further details can be found in topic number 737-31089
* The display no longer become white when resuming from an S4 state. Further details can be found in topic number 737-31091
* The display no longer becomes white for several seconds before entering hibernation mode. Further details can be found in topic number 737-31092
* Setting the display device to 1600x1200 75Hz no longer results in the HD DVD playback window appearing blank. Further details can be found in topic number 737-29936
* TV corruption is no longer noticed when using an ATI Radeon™ Xpress 1250 series of product. Further details can be found in topic number 737-30577
* A black screen is no longer displayed at the DVD menu when using WinDVD8 to play a DVD title with DXVA enabled. Further details can be found in topic number 737-30488
* Rotating the display device when playing a DVD using the WinDVD player no longer results in the display going blank. Further details can be found in topic number 737-31093
* Connecting a display device via Component Video as the primary display device and a DFP as a secondary display device no longer results in extended desktop mode failing to be applied. Further details can be found in topic number 737-30494
* Cyberlink: Playing an h.264 disk no longer results in corruption being noticed on the lower portion of the playback window. Further details can be found in topic number 737-30581
* Disabling CrossFire™ no longer results in a secondary display device being out of range on the secondary ASIC. Further details can be found in topic number 737-31103
* Installing two Radeon™ HD 2400 series of products into one system no longer results in the AA filter box failing to become greyed out when enabling CrossFire™ and setting AA to 8x. Further details can be found in topic number 737-31111

More info & drivers here : AMD GAME! Drivers and Utilities

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jp306

Opps sorry...

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"I told my psychiatrist that everyone hates me. He said I was being ridiculous - everyone hasn't met me yet."
Rodney Dangerfield.

temeteus82

We are talking about Vista drivers in here.

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Dyre Straits

Already got 'em....got 'em installed...and no problems so far.

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MitchRapp

Holy crap my eyes are killing me
for some reason since upgrading from 7.10 to 7.12, my monitor's frequency is stuck at 60hz

Native Resolution for my monitor is 1280x1024 75hz but for some reason I can't put it that way anymore

Whenever i "Force" 75hz in Catalyst, it brings my res down to 800x640 and the max allowed is 1024x768

GG ATI !

Dyre Straits

Sounds like TV OUT got enabled by default with the driver update. You might need to go and uncheck the 'use ... EDID' option.

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Dyre Straits

Sounds like the TV OUT got enabled by default with the driver update. You may need to go and uncheck the 'use.....EDID' option.

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MitchRapp

It was off
I honestly cannot look at my damn computer anymore. I tried rolling back to 7.10 and 7.11 but nothing changed

Dyre Straits

^^^ Go into Device Manager and remove all Monitors listed there. Reboot and let Windows redetect your monitor. Sounds like, for some reason, it's using the wrong .icc drivers for the monitor.

Be sure to View Hidden Devices and remove all PnP monitors if any show up.

Good luck!

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MitchRapp

Same problem.
Is this the same for all ATI cards? I've been a big fan of ATI for almost 10 years now ... and I'm suddenly thinking I should maybe try an nVidia card.

Dyre Straits

I've had nothing but ATI cards for over a dozen years. I've had only one bad card and that was the very, very first one: ATI AIW 8MB PCI. It was fixed using ATI's RMA service.

I've had many of the Rage cards, the Radeon 64 DDR VIVO, 8500, 9600 both Pro and AIW, and have had several newer ones over the past couple of years. In all honesty, I can't complain about the performance and stability I've had.

So, with that in mind, I have to wonder if there's just something in the particular system you have that's causing a conflict.

Did you upgrade from a different brand of card without doing a new windows installation?

I have found, for example, that some programs will cause problems. Example: Roxio's DAO gives big hassles whenever I've installed it.

Give us a complete rundown on your system specs and, hopefully, we can come up with a solution.

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MitchRapp

Brand new system built in early november of this year.

Vista x64 install
ATI 7.10 install

2 days ago --> ATI 7.12 install
that's it man.

MitchRapp

and as for my specs... they're all there
Each driver is up-to-date as of today
windows updates are all installed


like i said, as soon as I installed the 7.12 drivers, this started to happen.

Judas

Still the OVER 4gb of ram issue with the 7.12's when crossfire is enabled... (BSOD with no recovery, must use 4gb of ram or less to use crossfire)

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vf-

I suffered this with 7.5, but I only have 2GB. Soon as they were installed endless repeats of BSOD's at system start up. To this day I've been too scared to enable CrossFire on Vista 32bit. As last time it meant I had to do a complete clean install of Vista.

Now I'm more paranoid than ever after reading yours. As system restore would not save it.

Judas

running more then 2gb in vista 32bit is a bit of "iffy" situation..

but in 64bit, you can run 4gb just fine..

it's when your OVER 4gb and crossfire is enabled.. that all hell breaks loose.

it only happens when you try and install:

5gb/6gb/7gb/8gb of ram.....

however you can run fine and dandy if you don't enable crossfire..... it's really sick to see 3578MB of video memory addressable.

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aceboomer

totally dissappointed, stuttering on all 3d apps. used driver cleaner platinum to ensure clean install. then did a fresh vista install. i don't want to hear anybody else say nvidia is better. i have just as many problems with nvidia gfx cards in vista as i do ati cards.

Judas

IMO, in vista, deleteing/completely removing the previous driver set is unnesary...... only a last ditch effort if something has fouled up...

Simply extract, run and install over top of the previous driver sets..... the ATI install manager and all sub components will automatically update if nessary....

Windows XP however highly suggest removeing still.... But things are improving....

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Dyre Straits

What are your system specs, though?

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aceboomer

system specs as requested
Opteron 180
2GB DDR 333 Wintec 128 bit Dual Channel
Foxconn 6150BK8MC-KRSHN2
Radeon HD2600XT GDDR3 512MB

7.11 drivers worked decently, was just tired of the display driver bug that caused the driver to recover for no reason, thats why i tried the 7.12 drivers, i'll just go back to 7.11

Dyre Straits

I'm also using a HD2600XT 512 MB DDR3 card and have no issues with either 7.11 or 7.12 in my 3D programs.

Can you give a couple of examples of the ones you're using that give you the worst problems?

And, which PSU are you using?

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aceboomer

Gears Of War, Crysis, and 3D Mark 06. I have a 420watt PSU that came with my case. It's made by Aspire I believe. I never had any issues with my Sapphire x1950 Pro 256 card with the setup until around cat 7.10. Started getting the driver recover error. Tried the hotfix, that did not help. Tried disabling ATI Event Utility and then running ATITool to set fan speed, no good. So, I finally updated my GFX card to the HD2600XT 512mb GDDR3. Everything seemed ok at first, then the display driver recovered error started up. I must say, 7.11 did give me the performance improvements i needed to play GoW and Crysis, but that damn recover bug was still there. So, I tried 7/12 and it's back and now I gett stuttering in all the listed apps. I'm about to go back to 7.11 or XP Pro.

mkk

Feels like the nicest driver I've had for over 20 months. (just back from the nV camp)