Les nouveaux drivers AMD Catalyst 8.12 sont disponibles

Comme chaque mois AMD vient de publier de nouveaux drivers vidéo à destination de ses cartes graphiques Radeon.

Estampillés 8.12 (12 pour le mois de décembre) ils sont disponibles pour Windows Vista, Windows XP et Linux.

Hormis l’amélioration des performances sous plusieurs applications (voir détails en fin d’article) une nouveauté fait son apparition, l’ATI Stream. Il s’agit d’une technologie concurrente à CUDA de Nvidia. La puissance du processeur graphique peut être utilisée à d’autres fins que la 3D. Comme exemple  l’Avivo Video Converter  est proposé ainsi que le client Folding@Home.

Bizarrement l’Avivo Video Converter  est limité aux possesseurs d’HD4800 et d’HD4600 tandis que Folding@Home s’adresse aux Radeon serie 2000, 3000 et 4000.

Améliorations des performances.

• 3DMark Vantage DX10 – performance gains of up to 5% for single GPU and CrossFire configurations.  Performance gains were seen on the ATI Radeon™ HD4600 Series, ATI Radeon™ HD 4550 Series and the ATI Radeon HD4350 Series.
• Call of Duty: World at War DX9 – performance gains of up to 21% for single GPU and CrossFire configurations.  Performance gains were seen on the ATI Radeon™ HD 4800 Series.
• Crysis DX10 – performance gains of up to 25% for single GPU and CrossFire configurations.  Performance gains were seen on the entire ATI Radeon™ HD4000 Series of products.
• Crysis Warhead DX10 – performance gains of up to 13% for single GPU and up to 16% for CrossFire configurations. Performance gains were seen on the entire ATI Radeon™ HD 4000 Series of products.
• Devil May Cry 4 DX10– performance gains of up to 6% for single GPU and CrossFire configurations.  Performance gains were noticed on the entire ATI Radeon™ HD 4000 Series and ATI Radeon™ HD 3800 Series of products
• Fallout 3 DX9 – performance gains of up to 15% for single GPU cards.
• Far Cry 2 DX10 – performance gains of up to 10% for single GPU and up to 57% in CrossFire configurations.  Performance gains were noticed on the entire ATI Radeon™ HD 4000 Series and ATI Radeon™ HD 3800 Series of products
• FEAR DX9 – performance gains of up to 6% for single GPU and CrossFire configurations.  Performance gains were noticed on the ATI Radeon HD 4870X2 and the ATI Radeon™ HD 4870.
• Hellgate: London DX10 – performance gains of up to 6% for single GPU and up to 10% for CrossFire configurations. Performance gains were seen on the entire ATI Radeon™ HD 4000 Series of products.
• Left 4 Dead DX9– performance gains of up to 10% for single GPU and up to 5% for CrossFire configurations.  Performance gains were noticed on the ATI Radeon™ HD 4870X2 and the ATI Radeon™ HD 4870.
• Lost Planet Colonies DX10 – performance gains of up to 10% for single GPU and CrossFire configurations. Performance gains were noticed on the entire ATI Radeon™ HD 4000 Series and ATI Radeon™ HD 3800 Series of products
• Prey OGL – performance gains of up to 15% for CrossFire configurations.  Performance gains were noticed on the ATI Radeon™ HD4870 1GB card, ATI Radeon™ HD 4600 Series, and the ATI Radeon™ HD 4500 Series of products.
• S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky – performance gains of up to 10% for CrossFire configurations.  Performance gains were noticed on the entire ATI Radeon™ HD 4000 Series and ATI Radeon™ HD 3800 Series of products
• Unreal Tournament 3 DX9 – performance gains of up to 18% for single GPU and up to 15% in CrossFire configurations, especially in cases where AA is enabled.  Performance gains were noticed on the entire ATI Radeon™ HD 4000 Series and ATI Radeon™ HD 3800 Series of products .

Notons aussi que concernant le système Linux ces drivers supportent désormais le système d’exploitation Ubuntu 8.10 avec la technologie l’ATI Stream.

Pour le téléchargement tout se passe ici : Drivers Catalyst 8.12