Windows 8 driver for Windows 8 Release Preview up
AMD has a long tradition of monthly Catalyst updates and high-end users really appreciate the timely rollouts. However, as of this month, AMD is giving up this strategy and it was quite clear in its statement.
“You just won’t see a new driver every single month.”
The new tactic is that you’ll only need to upgrade to a new Catalyst driver, when it makes sense, claims AMD. The naming remains the same, the year number stays, and the second number will mark the release month, but it won’t come every single month anymore, claims AMD.
With this in mind AMD has released AMD Catalyst 12.6 Beta that can be downloaded here.
This new driver has resolved many issues especially for Radeon 7000 series and brings some new crossfire profiles. Here is what you can expect:
• AMD Radeon HD 7900, AMD Radeon HD 7800 Tri-CrossFire configurations + Eyefinity no longer results in a BSOD when launching a DirectX application
• AMD Radeon HD 7900, AMD Radeon HD 7800 Eyefinity/Multiple Display configurations no longer results in a BSOD when using desktop applications
• AMD Radeon HD 7900, AMD Radeon HD 7800, and AMD Radeon HD 7700 cards no longer hang when system goes to sleep
• Please ensure that your System BIOS is up to date – some occurrences of this issue are related to outdated SBIOS
• Resolves CrossFire scaling issues seen in AMD Catalyst 12.4 with Elder Scrolls: Skyrim CrossFire
• AMD Catalyst Control Center – Overdrive page is no longer intermittently missing
• AMD Catalyst Control Center – GPU Activity gauge is no longer missing
• AMD Radeon HD 7900 CrossFire Configuration – no longer results in system hang after cinematic in Call Of Duty: Black Ops
• Heroes and Generals: Blocky corruption in scenes with smoke effects when run in DirectX 11 mode are no longer experienced.
• Dirt Showdown: Improves scaling for CrossFire configurations using the AMD Radeon HD 6000 Series
• HDMI audio is no longer disabled if the connected HDTV is powered Off/On.
Furthermore, some new feature highlights include:
Dual Graphics enhancements – new application profiles
• Supported Dual Graphics configurations:
AMD Accelerated Processors for Desktop PCs
• AMD Radeon™ HD 7660D (A10-5700)
• AMD Radeon™ HD 7560D (A8-5500)
Notebooks with AMD Accelerated Processors
• AMD Radeon™ HD 7660G (A10-4600M)
• AMD Radeon™ HD 7640G (A8-4500M)
• AMD Radeon™ HD 7520G (A6-4400M)
• New profiles have been added for the following titles:
o Diablo 3
o Elder Scrolls: Skyrim
o StarCraft 2
o Portal 2
o Call of Duty Modern Warfare
o Call of Duty Black Ops
• Future Catalyst releases will continue to add Dual Graphics support for additional titles
The Windows 8 release preview driver now supports Radeon HD 7900, 7800 and 7700 cards, native stereo 3D support, Unified Video API, AMD Eyefinity, OpenGL, Open CL, UVD, AMD Dual graphics and Crossfire technology, Catalyst control center and Vision Engine control center as well as AMD Overdriver overclocking. This is quite a an extensive list of features.
We are somewhat sad to see AMD leaving the monthly driver update behind, but we guess the move should not make much that of difference as far as most users are concerned. [At least it will make life easier for reviewers. Ed]
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