AMD announce Catalyst 12.8 WHQL drivers

AMD has just gotten around to releasing the 12.8 Catalyst drivers. Its the first unified driver package to fully support Windows 8 – although it’ll only support HD 5xxx or newer graphics. The driver introduces target-independent rasterization (TIR), an efficient new Direct3D rendering path. The driver also works to improve GPU power consumption. A suite of Windows 8-exclusive features, including native stereo 3D support and unified video API are included.

The change log makes for pleasing viewing, particularly if you own a HD 7000 series card as they will see the most performance gains:

Performance highlights

• Up to 25% in Elder Scrolls: Skyrim
• Up to 3% in Battlefield 3
• Up to 6% in Batman: Arkham City
• Up to 3% in Dues Ex: Human Revolution
• Up to 6% in Crysis 2
• Up to 15% in Total War: Shogun
• Up to 8% in Crysis Warhead
• Up to 5% in Just Cause 2
• Up to 10% in Dirt 3

New and updated CAPs

• The Secret World (DX11): Resolves corruption seen in HUD/options when running in CrossFire mode on the AMD Radeon HD 7000 Series
• TorchLight 2 – Improves single GPU performance, and disables CrossFire due to incompatible support when running in a Multi-GPU configuration
• Spec Ops: The Line: Improves CrossFire performance
• Hawken: Improves CrossFire performance

Resolved issue highlights

• Over/underscan settings are correctly restored on system reboot
• Audio is no longer disabled if the connected HDTV Is switched off/on
• Shogun 2 : Flickering text is no longer experienced
• Star Wars – The Old Republic : In game cinematic no longer experience flicker when using the arrow keys
• Dirt Showdown: 8-Ball track No longer hangs with Crossfire enabled
• Max Payne 3 : A black screen is no longer observed when launching game in DirectX 11 mode with Crossfire enabled

Download the drivers from here.Check the full change log here.

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