IT News HeadLines (Elite Bastards) 26/10/2010

AMD Catalyst 10.10 driver and 10.10a hotfix released
Following the release of their Radeon HD 6870 and HD 6850 graphics boards last week, it was no surprise to see new drivers released in short order alongside them - on this occasion however, we have both an official, WHQL certified Catalyst 10.10 driver as well as a 10.10a branded hotfix download to choose from.

Here's what's new in Catalyst 10.10 for starters:

New Features

Introduction of AMD HD3D Technology
Blu-ray 3D support
o    This release of AMD Catalyst™ provides support for Blu-ray 3D playback
o    Requires Blu-ray 3D player software, 3D supported display and 3D Stereoscopic glasses
o    Supported on the AMD Radeon HD 6800 Series
Stereo 3D gaming support
o    This release of AMD Catalyst™ provides support for Stereo 3D gaming via 3^rd party Stereo 3D Conversion Software from Dynamic Digital Depth (DDD) and iZ3D
o    Requires 3D supported display and 3D Stereoscopic glasses
o    Supported on the ATI Radeon HD 5000 Series and AMD Radeon HD 6800 Series
*More information on AMD HD3D Technology, including Stereo 3D Conversion Software and a list of supported displays, can be found at www.amd.com/hd3d


Introduction of AMD Catalystâ„¢ Accelerated Parallel Processing (APP) technology Edition

• There will now be two variants of the AMD Catalyst package available:
  1. AMD Catalyst™ – includes the Direct3D, OpenGL, Display driver and AMD Catalyst Control Center components
  2. AMD Catalyst™ Accelerated Parallel Processing (APP) technology Edition Edition (same as ATI Catalyst, but includes the OpenCL driver) – Everything found in AMD Catalyst, plus the OpenCL driver
• Users can still grab all of the individual AMD Catalyst components as well (which will also include the OpenCL driver as well)

Video accleration for HD WMV video content

• This release of AMD Catalystâ„¢ provides video acceleration support for WMV HD (Microsoft video codec) under Windows 7
• Supported on the ATI Radeonâ„¢ HD 5000 Series of products

Enahnced Dynamic Contrast video controls

• This release of AMD Catalystâ„¢ enhances the Dynamic Contrast setting found in the Catalyst Control Center by adding support for histogram based detection

Performance Highlights of the AMD Catalystâ„¢ 10.10 release include:

Metro 2033â„¢

• Performance increases up to 7% on ATI Radeon HD 5800 Series single and CrossFire configurations
• Performance increases up to 8% on ATI Radeon HD 5700 Series single and CrossFire configurations
• Performance increases up to 5% on ATI Radeon HD 5600 Series in DirectX 11 and 10 modes
• Performance increases up to 5% on ATI Radeon HD 5500 Series in DirectX 11 and 10 modes
• Performance increases up to 4% on ATI Radeon HD 5400 Series in DirectX 11and 10 modes

S.T.A.L.K.E.R.â„¢ : Call of Pripyat Benchmark

• Performance increases up to 7% on single ATI Radeon HD 5800 Series products

Unigineâ„¢ Heaven

• Performance increases up to 9% on ATI Radeon HD 5800 Series single and CrossFire configurations with anti-aliasing enabled
• Performance increases up to 8% on ATI Radeon HD 5700 Series single and CrossFire configurations with anti-aliasing enabled

World in Conflictâ„¢

• Performance increases up to 9% on ATI Radeon HD 5600 Series
• Performance increases up to 10% on ATI Radeon HD 5500 Series

Aliens vs. Predatorâ„¢ DirectX 11 Benchmark

• Performance increases up to 6% on ATI Radeon HD 5800 Series single and CrossFire
• Performance increases up to 5% on ATI Radeon HD 5700 Series single and CrossFire
• Performance increases up to 5% on ATI Radeon HD 5600 Series
• Performance increases up to 5% on ATI Radeon HD 5500 Series
• Performance increases up to 4% on ATI Radeon HD 5400 Series

Crysis Warhead®

• Performance increases up to 9% on Single ATI Radeon HD 5800 Series products with anti-aliasing enabled

Far Cryâ„¢ 2

• Performance increases up to 7% on Single ATI Radeon HD 5800 Series products

Highlights of the Linux AMD Catalystâ„¢ 10.10 release include:

New Features

Support for new Linux operating systems

• This release of AMD Catalystâ„¢ Linux introduces support for the following new operating systems: 
  • openSUSE 11.3 support (production)
  • Ubuntu 10.10 support (early look)

As always, you can download the latest Catalyst driver for your Operating System of choice from AMD themselves.
If you fancy going with the latest available driver however, Catalyst 10.10a also offers up the following changes and additions:

• Support for the new Morphological Anti-Aliasing feature
• Performance optimizations for systems with an AMD Radeonâ„¢ HD 6870 and AMD Radeon HD 6850 series of graphics products installed

o   Aliens versus Predator performance enhancements
o   Star Craft 2 performance enhancements
o   OpenGL performance enhancements – gains can be seen in Prey, Quake Wars: Enemy Territories, and Heaven v2.1

You can download this hotfix driver right here.
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