AMD Catalyst 11.1a Hotfix Driver Leaked

AMD, not scared by the upcoming launch from Nvidia, with its GTX 560Ti have been sitting back, relaxing and tweaking more performance out of their currently successful cards from the 6800 and 6900 series. They are achieving this in the form of a driver update; Catalyst 11.1a Hot-Fix.

The hotfix has arrived onto the net just in time as AMD are ready to launch new variants of the 6950 and 6970 with 1GB versions and also a rumoured TURBO edition of the top selling 6870.

The hotfix will provide performance increases in certain benchmarks and games including older 3DMark suites, the top-selling game of 2010; Black Ops among adding massive improvements to games such as Metro 2033, especially when using MSAA functionality and settings.

Other new features of 11.1a includes an early addition of new tessellation controls, which will give users full control over the levels used in each application including optimized settings for all around detail/performance.

Download from here: AMD Catalyst 11.1a Hotfix

The latest Catalyst Hot-Fix; (11.1a) offers increased performance brings a slew of new features and should be the driver used for any performance testing. Below are a few of the highlights from this driver:

Performance improvements for the AMD Radeon HD 6800 & HD 6900 series include but not limited to:

AMD Radeon HD 6900 and AMD Radeon HD 6800 Series:

• 3DMark Vantage improves ~7%
• 3DMark06 improves ~3%
• Call of Duty Black Ops improves ~20% at 4xMSAA and up to 35% at 8xMSAA
• Riddick Assault on Dark Athena SSAO performance improves ~20%
• Unigine Heaven OpenGL performance improves ~10% at moderate, 30% at normal and 100% at extreme tessellation levels

AMD Radeon HD 6800 Series:

• Aliens vs. Predators improves ~9% at 2xMSAA and up to 20% at 4xMSAA
• Batman Arkham Asylum improves ~4%
• Crysis Warhead improves ~2-4%
• Metro 2033 improves ~28% at 4xMSAA

AMD Radeon HD 6900 Series:

• Battleforge DirectX 11 performance improves as much as 6%

The Catalyst Control Center includes an early prototype of some new tessellation controls. Our goal is to give users full control over the tessellation levels used in applications. The default selection “AMD Optimized” setting allows AMD, on a per application basis, to set the best level of tessellation. The intention is to help users get the maximum visual benefit of Tessellation, while minimizing the impact on performance. Currently no applications have been profiled, so the “AMD Optimized” setting will be non-operational until further notice.

• The “Use Application Settings” option gives applications full control over the Tessellation level. Users can also manually set the maximum tessellation level used by applications with the slider control
• The long term goal for the “AMD Optimized” setting is to use the Catalyst Application Profile mechanism to control the AMD recommended level of tessellation on a per application basis. AMD’s intention is to set the tessellation level such that we will not be reducing image quality in any way that would negatively impact the gaming experience.

Download from here: AMD Catalyst 11.1a Hotfix