ATI - Catalyst 4.8 (Win 2k/XP)

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ATI Catalyst 4.8 (Win 2k/XP)
New Features
This section provides information on new features found in this release of the CATALYST™ Display Drivers. New features include:
Geometry Instancing
VPU Recover Enhancement
EIA 861B Timing Specification

Geometry Instancing
This release of CATALYST introduces the support of Geometry Instancing. This new feature provides assistance when a game has to render many objects where the geometry is highly similar. Geometry Instancing allows the VPU to create multiple objects from a single geometric model, rather than passing an entire new model for each item on the screen. This increases the rendering speed of images such as leaves, or grass.
VPU Recover Enhancement
VPU Recover has been improved in this release of CATALYST. In most cases, VPU Recover will fully recover instead of switching to software rendering mode. This enhancement is supported under the Windows XP operating system.
EIA 861B Timing Specification
This release of CATALYST™ introduces EIA 861B Timing Specification for DVI based televisions. The RADEON™ Software Release version 8.04 will support 256 byte E-EDID and will decode CEA timing extensions. Further, it will retrieve DTV timing information. When the driver detects EIA 861B timings in E-EDID that the controller cannot handle, it will replace the EDID detail timing with adjusted timings suitable to our controller. The modes will be added as EDID detailed timing.
Common modes that are supported include:
640 x 480p at 60 Hz and 25.2 MHz pclk
720 x 480p at 59.94 Hz and 27.0 MHz pclk
720 x 576p at 50 Hz and 27.0 MHz pclk
1280 x 720p at 60 Hz and 74.25 MHz pclk
1280 x 720p at 50 Hz and 74.25 MHz pclk
1920 x 1080i at 60 Hz and 74.25 MHz pclk
1920 x 1080i at 50 Hz and 74.25 MHz pclk
1920 x 1080p at 60 Hz and 148.5 MHz pclk
1920 x 1080p at 50 Hz and 148.5 MHz pclk
This feature will be supported under the Windows XP and Windows 2000 operating systems.
Performance Improvements
As with most CATALYST™ releases performance has increased in various situations. The following performance gains are noticed:
-Direct3D driver efficiency has improved considerably. Significant performance gains are noted in multiple "CPU-bound" cases, including 3DMark2001, Aquamark 3, Comanche4, Dungeon Siege, and Unreal Tournament 2003 and 2004. Typical improvements are in the 1-5% range.
-OpenGL driver efficiency is also improved. Older OpenGL games such as Quake III Arena and Wolfenstein - Enemy Territory show small improvement (1-2%) at low resolutions. Call of Duty framerates are up approximately 4%. Doom3 improves considerably more (as much as 12% on some product configurations) as a result of the same software efficiency improvements.
 
Issues Resolved in CATALYST™ Version 4.8
The following section provides a summary of the issues that have been resolved in the latest release of CATALYST™ 4.8. These include:
-3D Mark03: Display corruption is no longer noticed when running the Trolls Lair test 3 under Windows XP
-Beyond Divinity:Playing the game with FSAA set to 2x no longer results in display corruption when scrolling the display by moving the mouse to the left of the display
-High Heat Baseball 2003: The display no longer loses sync when exiting or changing player characters in the game High Heat Baseball 2003 under Windows XP with an ATI RADEON X800 series installed
-Madden NFL 2003: The game no longer fails to respond under Windows XP when an ATI RADEON 9800 XT is installed and attempting to set the Truform slider to Application Preference
-Need for Speed Underground:Playing the game under Windows XP with an ATI RADEON 9000/9200 installed no longer results in the road ahead not being lit up by the car's headlights
-Splinter Cell Pandora Tomorrow:Display corruption is no longer noticed when launching a multiplayer game under Windows XP with an ATI RADEON™ 9200 installed
-Thief 3:Inconsistent lighting and shadow flicker is no longer noticed when playing the game under Windows XP
-Unreal Tournament 2004: Playing the game under Windows XP with an ATI RADEON X600 series installed no longer results in game corruption being displayed when setting Anti-Aliasing to 4x and having the display properties set to 1600x1200 32bpp

Known Issues
The following section provides a brief description of known issues associated with the latest version of CATALYST™. These include the following:
City of Heroes: Specular lighting issues and incorrect textures is noticed when playing the game under Windows XP. Further information on this issue can be found at: ATI - Catalyst 4.8 (Win 2k/XP)