ATI Catalyst 9.7 - AMD's first official unified Windows7 / Windows Vista Microsoft WHQL certified graphics driver for the Windows 7 RTM

AMD has delivered its first official unified WHQL certified graphics driver designed for the Windows 7 RTM (Release To Manufacturing)

• ATI Catalyst 9.7 delivers a superior Windows 7 experience:
• Great gaming performance - superior performance compared to Windows Vista for single GPU configurations and ATI CrossFireX configurations
• Stability - through AMD's WHQL certified, unified Windows 7 / Windows Vista graphics driver
• Leadership in Innovation - support for all the Windows 7 WDDM 1.1 features and AMD ATI Catalyst features on the ATI Radeon HD 4000 Series, ATI Radeon HD 3000 Series, and ATI Radeon HD 2000 Series of products

ATI Catalyst Control Center Updates

The ATI Catalyst Control Center now features:

• A newly designed Desktops & Displays Manager - enabling users to more quickly configure and arrange their displays
• Full support for HydraVision under Windows 7
• The new ATI Catalyst Control Center is supported under Windows 7 and Windows Vista

ATI Video encoder update - support for Windows 7

• ATI Catalyst 9.7 introduces support for the ATI Video converter under Windows 7 32-bit and Windows 7 64-bit
• Using ATI Stream technology, owners of ATI Radeon HD 4800 Series and ATI Radeon HD 4600 Series of graphics cards can take advantage of this video conversion tool (found in ATI Catalyst Control Center Basic View) to achieve substantial performance improvements when transcoding video files

Performance Improvements

Catalyst 9.7 brings performance benefits in several cases where framerates are CPUlimited. Some measured examples are:

• Crysis - performance at very high quality preset increases by up to 8% on HD4800 series products
• Lost Planet Colonies - performance increases by 7-11% when 8x Anti-Aliasing is used on the HD4800 series products

Resolved Issues for All Windows Operating System
This section provides information on resolved issues in this release of the ATI Catalyst Software Suite for all Windows OS. These include:

• Added support for OpenGL extensions: EXT_provoking_vertex and EXT_vertex_array_bgra
• Catalyst Control Center in some multi-display configurations Extend Desktop no longer causes the secondary display to become the primary display
• Catalyst Control Center, "Make Primary" option no longer fails to function in some "Extended Desktop" modes
• Opening Catalyst Control Center no longer results in an error message when using Dual Adapters with a non-ATI ASIC and ATI ASIC
• Catalyst Control Center, HDMI configuration aspects no longer fail to launch on some systems
• Catalyst Control Center hotkeys now toggle through all desktop modes
• Catalyst Control Center: Default HDTV modes can now be enabled properly
• Catalyst Control Center duplicated display options no longeer become available in some multi-adapter configurations
• Interlaced modes can now be applied on HDTV supported DFP panels even when forced via Catalyst Control Center
• Confirmation dialog box now appears when applying HDTV 720p and 1080i formats; the resolution will be applied automatically
• Catalyst Control Center, add custom modes is now available in the Digital Panel HDTV support page
• Catalyst Control Center Advance Color page, when enabling the advanced color settings the preview window no longer blanks out
• Catalyst Control Center Overdrive Auto-Tune no longer stops responding on some CrossFire configurations
• Catalyst Control Center does not show a "System restart required ... " message for some multi adapter CrossFire configurations
• Catalyst Control Center an additional window no longer appears when running in Wizard mode
• Catalyst Control Center tab is now available in advance Display Settings with Windows 7

Resolved Issues for the Windows Vista Operating System
This section provides information on resolved issues in this release of the ATI Catalyst Software Suite for Windows Vista. These include:

• Displays on some HDMI devices no longer fails to scale to the full display when running at resolutions greater than 1152 x 864
• A delay no longer occurs when resuming from sleep on some system configurations
• Systems no longer become unresponsive when entering sleep mode when running Google Eearth in Open GL mode
• Cyberlink Media Show Espresso no longer stops responding when transcoding some videos to WMV with hardware decode enabled
• Resolved frames drops when playing Blu-ray video with PowerDVD8
• Avivo video converter/transcoder generic image quality fixes
• Catalyst Control Center CrossFire configuration options now are displayed on subsequent system restart
• Disabling and re-enabling CrossFire no longer causes flickering on certain direct 3D applications running in full screen
• Cybelink Media Show Espresso no longer show corruption when transcoded to ipod touch or PSP devices formats

Resolved Issues for the Windows XP Operating System
This section provides information on resolved issues in this release of the ATI Catalyst Software Suite for Windows XP. These include:

• Catalyst Control Center image scaling options, "Maintain aspect ratio" and "Use centered timings" now function on DVI displays
• Catalyst Control Center, the Scaling Option is available on HDMI and Component Video configurations
• Catalyst Control Center, system configurations CrossFire does not become disabled on system restart

Resolved Issues for the Windows 7 Operating System
This section provides information on resolved issues in this release of the ATI Catalyst Software Suite for Windows 7. These include:

• On some systems with both component video display and a secondary display, it is now possible to duplicate the displays using the display settings
• Playing back Blu-ray content in extended desktop no longer switches to primary display after unplugging the secondary display
• Catalyst Control Center, on some clone mode configuration with a TV, setting the TV Image Quality does not cause the primary display to become disabled on restart
• On some Clone mode configurations restoring from hibernate no longer causes the displays to switch to extended mode
• Restricting the maximum refresh rate and resolution via Catalyst Control Center no longer fails to apply
• Interlaced modes are now listed in the "List all Modes" window with HDTV supported DFP panels
• Catalyst Control Center, "Scaling Options" are available in HDTV modes
• HDTV modes no longer fail to appear in the "Display Properties", "list all modes" settings
• Catalyst Control Center: System no longer fails to set Component Video modes
• Catalyst Control Center no longer reports Crossfire as disabled for some quad crossfire configurations
• DVD playback video no longer fails to render when played on a secondary display
• Some system configurations now allow resolution switching when configured in clone mode with a TV display
• The login screen is centered after a display reconfiguration when the system is in standby
• Power Cinema no longer needs to be launched twice to start Blu-ray playback
• Color corruption no longer occurs when playing back some interlaced video content
• After hot-unplugging a digital display from a multi-display configuration, the current display settings now refresh

Known Issues for All Windows Operating System
This section provides information on known issues that may be experienced under all Windows operating system with the latest version of Catalyst. These include:

• Catalyst Control Center, some of the Monitor options in the Displays tab are not available for some system configurations
• Catalyst Control Center may fail to launch when CrossFire has been disabled on some system configurations with multi-adapter enabled

Known Issues under the Windows Vista Operating System
This section provides information on known issues that may be experienced under the Windows Vista operating system with the latest version of Catalyst. These include:

• With some system configurations a delay may be noticed when task switching between the desktop and a game in progress
• Game corruption artifacts may be noticed in Call of Duty World at War on some system configurations with Software CrossFire enabled
• Some video playback corruption may be observed when the CrossFire option has been enabled then disabled through the Catalyst Control Center
• HDMI audio may not be enabled in some DX10 games when Crossfire has been enabled

Known Issues under the Windows XP Operating System
This section provides information on known issues that may be experienced under the Windows XP operating system in the latest version of Catalyst. These include:

• Some video artifacts may intermittently occur when playing a DVD in stretched desktop mode

Known Issues under the Windows 7 Operating System
The following section provides a summary of open issues that may be experienced under the Windows 7 operating system in the latest version of Catalyst. These include:

• HDMI Audio may not be available on some system configurations with Sony XBR displays
• In some HDTV extended mode configurations, some audio breaks may intermittently be heard when connected through HDMI audio
• Attaching a secondary display may cause the desktop to black screen when playing back Blu-ray with WinDVD
• Some system configurations may not properly resume from hibernation
• On some system configurations with extended/virtual desktop modes, resuming from hibernate may cause the system to become unresponsive