AMD Catalyst 11.6 Driver Analysis

The olden days saw drivers being released every so often but stepping forward into the current times and the likes of AMD, Nvidia and other manufacturers are releasing drivers much more frequently. AMD have been bang on the money every month with fresh, new drivers that claim to bring improved performance and stability to a variety of platforms. Today sees us looking at the newest set of drivers from AMD; Catalyst 11.6. This set of drivers is said to improve performance on certain games, give image stabilization to YouTube as well as other new video features that have been incorporated. Among these, we also find extra bug fixes and improved stability on Windows XP, Vista and 7.

This is our first look at a set of drivers and we hope to analyse the performance between its predecessor and the current new release as well as listing what new features and performance enhancements have been brought to the table in more detail.

Release notes

Highlights of the AMD Catalyst 11.6 Windows release includes:

New Features:

• AMD Steady Video
  [LIST]
• Steady Video is currently an AMD exclusive feature based on AMD APP Technology
• By applying advanced algorithms behind the scenes, users do not have to deal with shaky or unstable video ever again!
• Capabilities scale with hardware and are end user controlled

[*]Image Stabilization brought to YouTube!
[*]Decode Acceleration of MPEG-4 part 2 content

• AMD has enabled decode acceleration of MPEG-4 part 2 content in Microsoft video player applications (through MFT support) for all AMD Radeon 6000 Series

[/LIST]Performance Enhancements

Performance highlights of the AMD Catalyst 11.6 release includes:

• Performance gains in Crysis of up to 7% on AMD Radeon HD 6000 series single card configurations.
• Performance gains in F1 2010 of up to 8% in DirectX 11 mode on AMD Radeon HD 6000 series products in single and Crossfire configurations.
• Performance gains in Far Cry 2 of up to 5% on AMD Radeon HD 6000 series products in single and Crossfire configurations.
• Performance gains in HAWX of up to 8% on AMD Radeon HD 6000 series products in single and Crossfire configurations.
• Performance gains in the Unigine OpenGL tests of up to 10% on AMD Radeon HD 6000 series single card configurations.

Resolved Issues for the Windows 7 Operating System

This section provides information on resolved known issues in this release of the AMD Catalyst 11.6 software suite for Windows 7. These include:

• Flashing titles are no longer displayed when playing F1 2010 in a Crossfire environment.
• Video playback no longer intermittently displays a black screen when using Windows Media Player.
• Graphics and Gaming scores are now correctly computed in the Windows Performance Index.
• A BSOD error is no longer generated randomly when Crossfire is enabled/disabled after video/LCD overdrive settings are changed on HD 6900 series products.
• Crossfire is now correctly enabled when playing The Witcher 2 on HD 6800 series products. (when used with AMD Catalyst 11.5 CAP 5 release)
• Screen tearing is no longer randomly seen when playing Riddick 2 at high performance settings and with Crossfire enabled.
• The game Kings Bounty now renders correctly.
• The game Empire Total War now no longer displays random flickering and in-game buttons display correctly.
• Google Earth now performs smoothly in OpenGL mode.
• Crossfire is now correctly enabled when playing Cars 2 on HD 6900 series products.
• Sid Meyers Civilization V no longer displays intermittent graphical corruption when played in DirectX 10 mode in a Crossfire environment.
• Heaven 2.1 running in DirectX 11 mode no longer displays intermittent graphical corruption in a Crossfire environment.
• Crossfire is correctly enabled when playing LEGO : Pirates of the Caribbean on HD6800 and HD 6900 series products.
• Poor performance is no longer experienced while Playing Heroes of Newerth and when the cursor is moved to the top right or bottom right corner of the screen.
• Mouse cursor corruption (in the upper right portion of the screen) should be resolved

Resolved Issues for the Windows Vista Operating System

This section provides information on resolved known issues in this release of the AMD Catalyst 11.6 software suite for Windows Vista. These include:

• The screen no longer briefly flashes green while changing screen resolution and playing a BluRay title using PowerDVD 10.

Resolved Issues for the Windows XP Operating System

This section provides information on resolved known issues in this release of the AMD Catalyst 11.6 software suite for Windows XP. These include:

• World of Warcraft no longer randomly crashes or fails to launch when using an A-Series APU.
• Random graphics corruption is no longer observed while playing World of Warcraft.
• Playing Dead Rising 2 no longer causes the system to hang.

Known issues under the Windows 7 operating system

The following section provides a summary of open issues that may be experienced under the Windows 7 operating system in the latest version of AMD Catalyst. These include:

• Some BluRay content may experience jittery playback.
• Star Wars Jedi Knight II / Jedi Academy may randomly crash on launch.
• Image rotation might not function correctly in Photoshop CS5.
• OpenGL acceleration might not be available in Photoshop CS5.
• High GPU speeds might be retained after exiting a 3D application.
• Display corruption may be observed while changing video resolution / settings while playing a video clip using Windows Media Center.
• Shogun 2 cinematics may display rendering issues while running in DirectX 9 mode in certain Eyefinity configurations.

Known Issues under the Windows Vista Operating System

The following section provides a summary of open issues that may be experienced under the Windows Vista operating system in the latest version of AMD Catalyst. These include:

• Windows Aero settings might not be available in some circumstances.
• Doom 3 and Quake 4 may experience random corruption on HD 4000 series products.
• Performing bezel compensation on a 3×2 configuration may cause the Bezel group to not appear.