ATI CATALYST 5.12 drivers have been released.

[Everlost_MI]

ATI (http://www.ati.com/) has released the CATALYST 5.12 video card drivers (https://support.ati.com/ics/support/default.asp?deptID=894&task=knowledge&questionID=640) for Windows XP. The performance improvements and various issues resolved by this latest release can be read here. (https://a248.e.akamai.net/f/674/9206/0/www2.ati.com/drivers/Catalyst_512_release_notes.html)

Thanks to Blues (http://www.bluesnews.com/) for the tip.

[Captain Awesome]

ATI: We will not be posting the control panel any longer. Please use CCC, ATI Tray Tools, an old version of the control panel, or nothing at all


Bummer, CCC is one bloated piece of crap. Looks like im going back to http://www.omegadrivers.net/

[murpes]

[COLOR=Red]ATI
Bummer, CCC is one bloated piece of crap. Looks like im going back to http://www.omegadrivers.net/

Looks like I'll be going back to NVidia.

[Suicidal ShiZuru]

I was almost happy then remembered I use Nvidia... ATI sucks lately.

[Captain Awesome]

Looks like I'll be going back to NVidia.


That's a bit extreme, their drivers are great. But this mix n' match crap needs to stop. Just throw up the option of an updated CP. If not, I have many other options to get the CP back or a form of it somehow.

[Zurik]

You must be lucky, everyone I know using ATI has all kinds of driver problems.

[Captain Awesome]

You must be lucky, everyone I know using ATI has all kinds of driver problems.

Like what? I dont have any driver issues with any modern games that I play on my PC.

BF2, Valves titles, Q3, Q4, WOW (when I did play it), Guild Wars, and so on.

I always try out all their latest releases and I dont get any issues or corruptions. I also notice alot of problems that people get is when they dont uninstall the old drivers correctly and just expect the new releases to override everything with no problem.

[TheKeck]

Like what? I dont have any driver issues with any modern games that I play on my PC.

BF2, Valves titles, Q3, Q4, WOW (when I did play it), Guild Wars, and so on.

I always try out all their latest releases and I dont get any issues or corruptions. I also notice alot of problems that people get is when they dont uninstall the old drivers correctly and just expect the new releases to override everything with no problem.

Having to uninstall the old drivers is what makes upgrading such a pain, though. I think I'll stick with the current ones for now.

[Cyotik]

I've been using ATI for two years now and can think of only one driver release that caused me troubles.

[Captain Awesome]

Having to uninstall the old drivers is what makes upgrading such a pain, though. I think I'll stick with the current ones for now.


Oh come on, its not that hard :p

Uninstall > Driver Cleaner Pro > cha-ching ;)

[FunkyPoopMonkey]

Anyone who actually bashes ATI's drivers obviously haven't used an ATI product in the past 2-3 years. Those dark ages are long gone.

On the other hand, nVidia hasn't updated their nForce 1/2 drivers since Sept of 2004. Good job nVidia. I've had to use 3rd party driver packs all this time.

[TheKeck]

Oh come on, its not that hard :p

Uninstall > Driver Cleaner Pro > cha-ching ;)

No, it's not hard at all. But it IS a pain!

[Heretic Machine]

Between the poor CoH performance, and the CCC... I may actually buy a Nvidia after Christmas.

[TrackZero]

I've been using ATI for two years now and can think of only one driver release that caused me troubles.

Ditto.

The message you have entered is too short. Please lengthen your message to at least 10 characters.

[Dirty Harry]

Between the poor CoH performance, and the CCC... I may actually buy a Nvidia after Christmas.
My pc's not that great at all very low range and i have a low range ati card and that game ran fine for me at high resolutions with everything cranked.

[Nesta]

I've had this 9800pro for 2 years, I haven't had any issues with drivers or games not working. In fact, after I buy a new game I'm usually browsing game forums wondering why everyone else is having so many issues...

[MasterKwan]

I never uninstall drivers first, I just toss the new ones on top. Don't have a single problem either.

[zipR]

I wish that ATI's drivers would remember your setting when you updated them. Updating the drivers isn't so bad, but reconfiguring all of my profiles is kind of a pain. I'm still using 5.7s, because 1) I have an older card (9800 pro) and there haven't been many enhancements in the drivers for them lately, and 2) Because I don't want to have to go through and set everything up again.

[Mason]

Yeah, it's weird how badly ATI's gotten w/ drivers.

I program in C# a fair bit, so I'm generally pro-.NET, but the CCC is way too sluggish. C# is for rapid application development, using it for something as lightweight as a control panel is just silly.

[Demo_Boy]

My solution: Just don't update.

No problems.

[Dr Quincy]

If it lets my X800 run FEAR without massive graphical corruption I'll be happy.

[MrMeatshake]

My solution: Just don't update.

No problems.

i haven't updated, either. last time i tried i had some issues. i'm curious as to wheter anyone ever notices any actual improvement from installing the ATI ones over the ones u get with windows XP?

[Bubby]

I also notice alot of problems that people get is when they dont uninstall the old drivers correctly and just expect the new releases to override everything with no problem.

Is that asking too much? Really?

I think not.

[KhitomerRouge]

I love how ATI releases drivers on a monthly basis just so they can say they have a new release every month, unlike say, when problems need to be fixed. Not that nVidia is perfect by any means, but at least they have releases that fix issues when they're needed. In the last two months, they've had at least 4 official ForceWare updates, 2 PureVideo updates, and immedeate support for new products. When ATI came out with the X1800XL, they had some sort of Franken-Catalyst that was not only non-optimized, but it was usable only on that model. Brilliant! Plus, in the small but enthusiastic Home Theater PC world, nVidia (specifically the Geforce 6- and 7-Series) is the undisputed king of both video functions and picture quality. And they kick ass in games too, especially the currently unanswered 7800GTX 512MB.

[MrMeatshake]

bump for finding anyone who can actually notice a difference by installing new drivers.

[Varsity]

These people:The Catalyst(r) 5.12 software suite introduces dual core support for CPU bound cases. This feature provides improved graphics performance for DX 9 supported graphics adapters installed in systems running the Windows XP and Windows XP Professional x64 Edition operating systems.

[Heretic Machine]

My pc's not that great at all very low range and i have a low range ati card and that game ran fine for me at high resolutions with everything cranked.

Ya, it "runs" fine with cranked settings, but it still looks like shit. Go find a friend with a Nvidia card, even a cheap-ass $40 PCI card you can buy a Best Buy. It's WAY WAY better than even high range ATI cards. For some reason CoH just doesn't do lighting properlly with ATI cards, and it's something that neither ATI nor Cryptic have addressed since launch.

[Varsity]

bump for finding anyone who can actually notice a difference by installing new drivers.
Had a chance to try them myself: massive improvement. I have a HT processor, and it's really helped when things get hectic in DOD Source. My choke has gone down too.

[MrMeatshake]

Had a chance to try them myself: massive improvement. I have a HT processor, and it's really helped when things get hectic in DOD Source. My choke has gone down too.

kew, thanks for the heads-up. i might actually check this out. i'm fed up of installing new drivers that a) are worse than the default XP ones and b) DON'T ACTUALLY GO WHEN I UNINSTALL THEM. i'm not angry. at all. really. :mad: