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ATI release Catalyst 6.2 Drivers

Submitted by admin on Fri, 2006-02-10 10:08
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ATI News ATI have released a new edition of the Catalyst drivers for Windows XP and Windows Vista beta. There are various bug-fixes and enhancements. Download new XP drivers from ATI here. We provide a rundown of the changes, the advantages and the drawbacks of the new release.

New Feature

A new feature has been added called the 'Catalyst Control Center Basic View Wizard'. This assumes that you actually use the Catalyst Control Center, but if you do, it now provides some additional hand-holding to help you check through all the important settings for your card.

Bug Fixes

  • BattleField 2 Special Forces: A blooming or ghosting effect is no longer noticed when playing the game in night vision mode.
  • City of Heroes: Running Shadertest 7 no longer results in slow performance being noticed.
  • Dragonshard: Playing the game under Windows XP Media Center Edition with CrossFire™ enabled, no longer results in the screen becoming out of sync, and a scrolling display image occurring shortly there after.
  • Fable: The Lost Chapters: Playing the game under Windows XP MCE may result in the shadows found within the game appearing jittery, when the desktop resolution is set to 1024x768 32bpp, and all the game options are set to default.
  • Half-Life2: Enabling Catalyst AI no longer results in the outer edges of the water appear dark or black in color.
  • Pacific Fighters: A stuttering effect at certain levels of the game is no longer noticed when playing the game with CrossFire enabled.
  • The Fall: A VPU Recover event or the operating system failing to respond no longer occur when playing the game.
  • World of Warcraft: Pixel corruption is no longer noticed when playing the game on systems containing an ATI Radeon X1600 series.
  • Attempting to install the integrated WDM driver under Windows XP no longer results in an error message being displayed indicating that the hardware is not installed because the install Wizard cannot find the necessary software.
  • Catalyst™ Control Center: The preview for the Deinterlacing aspect found in the Catalyst™ Control Center is now available when using the ATI Radeon® X1300.
  • The Video Preview found in the Standard Settings aspect within the Video option of the Catalyst® Control Center, no longer fails to provide a preview after hotplugging an LCD panel to an ATI Radeon® 9500 or 9800, when selecting to extend the desktop.
  • Connecting two display devices to the ATI Radeon X850 CrossFire Edition and one display device to the ATI Radeon X850 XT no longer results in the display device connected to the Radeon X850 XT still being active once CrossFire is enabled.
  • The WDM Driver is now enumerated and the Capture chip is now being detected when using the ATI Radeon® X850 XT (ViVo) as a slave card on a system containing an ATI Radeon® X850 CrossFire™ Edition.
  • The secondary display device no longer fails to activate when attempting to enable clone mode when using an ATI Radeon® X800 GTO.
  • Using the Custom option when installing the software driver no longer results in the Theater™ 550 software driver not being present.
  • The apply button no longer remains inactive when attempting to change the Hue and Saturation settings found in the TV Properties\Avivo Color settings when enabling a TV as the primary display device and a CRT as the secondary display device.
  • The image for extended desktop and clone mode are no longer reversed when an external monitor is connected.
  • This release of Catalyst provides improved audio quality for European customers.
  • The radio seek option found in the Windows XP Media Center Edition operating system is now functioning properly.
  • The radio seek function found in the Windows XP Media Center Edition operating system is now functioning properly when using an ATI Radeon X800.
  • Connecting an HDTV to an ATI Radeon X1300 and attempting to apply any of the custom modes found in the Digital display panel properties of the HDTV, no longer results in the display failing to apply the underscan modes.
  • Attempting to hot-plug a DFP display device using the HDMI-DVI connector no longer results in the DFP display device failing to display an image.
  • The ADD button for the Custom mode option found in the Catalyst Control Center is no longer greyed out when attempting to add the custom mode of 1920x1080i@30Hz.
  • Viewing TV for several hours under Windows XP Media Center Edition on a system containing either an ATI Radeon X1300 or an ATI Radeon X1800 no longer results in an extraordinary long delay in the shut down and no longer results in Windows XP MCE TV failing to restart.

As the .Net Framework based Catalyst Control Center is quite hungry for resources, and by no means essential, you may want to avoid it and go for the 'drivers only' download instead.

ATI recommend that SP2 be installed, and of course you will also need the .Net Framework if you wish to use the Catalyst Control Center.

ATI also recommend that you do not upgrade your drivers unless you are experiencing problems with your existing drivers. Good call.