The May 2009 version of Catalyst graphics drivers for Radeon based graphics cards are out. Currently you can grab them on techPowerUp:
- Catalyst 9.5 XP 32 @ TPU
- Catalyst 9.5 XP 64 @ TPU
- Catalyst 9.5 Vista/7 32 @ TPU
- Catalyst 9.5 Vista/7 64 @ TPU
When AMD/ATI will have updated the official download page, I’ll add the changelog. I quickly tested this new Catalyst 9.5 with FurMark and GPU Caps Viewer
and everything seems to be ok. Test bed: Radeon HD 4850, Win XP 32 SP3, Core 2 Duo 8500.
Catalyst 9.5 has still the optimization for FurMark (slow down the GPU). This tweak is activated only when CCC AI is enabled:
FurMark score (1280×1024 / 60s / fullscreen / no AA) when CCC AI is enabled:
– FurMark not renamed: 2162
– FurMark renamed in etqw.exe: 4087
FurMark score (1280×1024 / 60s / fullscreen / no AA) when CCC AI is disabled:
– FurMark not renamed: 4097
– FurMark renamed in etqw.exe: 4097
In the OpenGL side, no new extension, still 137 exposed like in Catalyst 9.4:
Update (2009.05.22)
Official download links at AMD:
- Catalyst 9.5 XP 32
- Catalyst 9.5 XP 64
- Catalyst 9.5 Vista 32
- Catalyst 9.5 Vista 64
- Catalyst 9.5 Win7 32
- Catalyst 9.5 Win7 64
Why can’t we have access to geometry shaders with OpenGL on ATI cards, its so frustrating. Even more considering they are available via DirectX ! (am I wrong with this one ?)
OpenGL 3.1 just caught up to most of Direct3D 10’s features, save geometry shading. Not sure why they left them out. Perhaps they decided to skip on implementing the geometry shaders, and are working on a tesselation shading pipeline based on Direct3D 11/SM 5.0 hardware.