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09-30-2004, 11:57 PM
(This post was last modified: 09-30-2004, 11:58 PM by Nomad25055.)
Greetings Lurkers!
I have fairly recently found out about these new ATI drivers, and have decided to share this information. These new beta drivers entitled ATI Catalyst Beta 8.07 address several issues with ATI Radeon AGP cards. First off, this isn't really an issue so to speak but these drivers give a decent increase in performance. I have read several posts on various forums stating as much as a 1000 point increase in 3dMark05 :blink:. This comes very close to leveling the field between the newest cards from ATI and Nvidia. Secondly: These drivers fix a memory allocation problem on ATI cards with 256MB of memory therefor increasing performance that much more. You can read some about this new driver as well as download it from
here. The driver name should change to Catalyst 4.10 in a couple of days when the new form of this driver is supposed to be released. Happy gaming Lurkers ;)
NoMaD
R.I.P. Pete! I can't believe you're gone.
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How can I tell which drivers I currently have installed? I checked in my Control Panel under Display > Settings > Advanced > Adapter > Proerties > Driver, and all it says is that I have an ATI driver dated 3/22/2004 with a version number of 6.14.10.6436. Since I am not having any trouble with my card (Radeon 9200 128MB), is there any reason why I might want to install these beta drivers?
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What's up with your shirt? :)
WWBBD?
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Yrrek,Sep 30 2004, 09:40 PM Wrote:What's up with your shirt? :)
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I got it free in a case of beer!
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Quote:How can I tell which drivers I currently have installed? I checked in my Control Panel under Display > Settings > Advanced > Adapter > Proerties > Driver, and all it says is that I have an ATI driver dated 3/22/2004 with a version number of 6.14.10.6436. Since I am not having any trouble with my card (Radeon 9200 128MB), is there any reason why I might want to install these beta drivers?
I did a search with google and you have Catalyst version 4.4. This should work for when you want to know what driver you have in the future: on your desktop right click go to properties>settings>advanced and a little control panel for your video card should come up. On this control panel go to options and it should say what driver you have. Not sure if this works if you don't have catalyst control center though.
The new driver would most likely only increase performance for you, but then again thats one of the big reasons for getting new drivers besides bug fixes. As I stated previously this new driver is supposed to boost performance quite a bit. And from what I have read so far it does this quite well. I have been reading reports of 10-15FPS gains for games such as Doom 3 and Far Cry. Whether you get the new beta driver or not is up to you. If your happy with what your getting from your card right now then stick with your current drivers if you want. I might or might not have mentioned this earlier but a new version of this driver is supposed to be out in a couple of days thus renaming it to Catalyst 4.10. Whether this is an improved beta version or the official version I do not know as of yet. So if you decide you want the new driver wait about 2 days for the new version to come out, thats what I am doing.
NoMaD
R.I.P. Pete! I can't believe you're gone.
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DeeBye,Sep 30 2004, 09:21 PM Wrote:I got it free in a case of beer!
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Haha, I should have known, you get everything free! :D
WWBBD?
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Yrrek,Sep 30 2004, 10:46 PM Wrote:Haha, I should have known, you get everything free! :D
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I had to pay for the beer though :(
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Nomad25055,Sep 30 2004, 10:40 PM Wrote:I did a search with google and you have Catalyst version 4.4. This should work for when you want to know what driver you have in the future: on your desktop right click go to properties>settings>advanced and a little control panel for your video card should come up. On this control panel go to options and it should say what driver you have. Not sure if this works if you don't have catalyst control center though.
[right][snapback]56792[/snapback][/right]
I don't have catalyst control center, so that method just brings me to what I saw in my Control Panel. When I had my card installed, the techie guy just downloaded the drivers from ATI and didn't install any of the stuff from the supplied CDs.
If I decide to update my drivers to these new ones, do I have to uninstall the old ones first?
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Quote:If I decide to update my drivers to these new ones, do I have to uninstall the old ones first?
You shouldn't have to. Catalyst drivers install over previous versions as they are intended to be able to do so. I have never had to remove my older drivers first and I have been using the Catalyst drivers since version 4.2 and have not had any problems. I personally am waiting for the next version of this driver to come out, that is why I have not installed the current beta yet.
NoMaD
R.I.P. Pete! I can't believe you're gone.
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Nomad25055,Sep 30 2004, 11:08 PM Wrote:You shouldn't have to. Catalyst drivers install over previous versions as they are intended to be able to do so.
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Here's a question that's been bugging me forever. What's a Catalyst driver? Is "Catalyst" just what ATI calls their drivers, or is it some sort of super-l337 kind of video card driver?
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Quote:Here's a question that's been bugging me forever. What's a Catalyst driver? Is "Catalyst" just what ATI calls their drivers, or is it some sort of super-l337 kind of video card driver?
It's just what ATI calls their drivers. A "super-l337" kind of video card driver would be the DNA drivers (which are modified/hacked Catalyst drivers), an the Omega drivers. I'm not to sure about the Omega drivers but from what I have read the DNA drivers are better anyway. It doesn't take long for new DNA drivers to come out after a new release of the Catalyst drivers. I was looking into getting the DNA 3.0.4.9 driver which is based on the Catalyst 4.9's but seeing as a new Catalyst driver is on the verge of release I will wait and get the Cats. When the DNA drivers follow suite I will look into them and see if they are worth getting.
NoMaD
R.I.P. Pete! I can't believe you're gone.
