It’s that time again for the AMD Catalyst driver update!  We have been getting great comments and feedback from the community because of this blog site.  Please continue to send us your feedback as we do review them all*.

*IF you are having technical issues with the AMD Catalyst driver, or your graphics card please report your issues here.

AMD has released a new AMD Catalyst 10.12 Preview driver this month!  This preview driver features an all new AMD Catalyst Control Center (CCC) Graphics User Interface.

We wanted to let our customers try out the brand new AMD Catalyst Control Center before it’s officially part of the regular AMD Catalyst driver package.

What does this new AMD Catalyst Control Center offer?

The New AMD Catalyst Control Center enables a NEW simplified interface to help improve the user experience by allowing users advanced control over the features and functions of their AMD graphics card.

Things like:

• Enable all of your 3D game settings to enhance image quality
• Easily configure multiple displays to get the most out of your AMD Eyefinity technology setup to increase your desktop field of view
• Adjust your mobile GPU power settings to help improve battery life

Grab it here and give it a try:  http://sites.amd.com/us/game/Pages/game-home.aspx

*Note: The AMD Catalyst 10.12 Preview includes support for all of the Windows features listed below as well*

Highlights of the AMD Catalyst 10.12 Windows release includes:

New Features:

Support for DivX GPU acceleration for AMD Radeon HD 6800 / HD 6900 Series Graphics

• AMD Radeon HD 6800 and HD 6900 Graphics featuring UVD 3 support DivX Accelerated solution – enable superior playback of your DivX movies. 
• With DivX software and AMD Radeon HD 6800 or HD 6900 series graphics, you can enjoy an improved DivX video playback experience engineered to lower CPU load, extend notebook battery life, reduce home theater PC noise and improve overall computer operation.
• With a DivX Accelerated product you can experience:
  • Low CPU usage
  • extended notebook battery life
  • superior overall computer operation

To start enjoying the DivX Accelerated solution, here is what you need:

• AMD products featuring UVD 3  - such as AMD Radeon HD 6800 and HD 6900 series graphics
• AMD Catalyst Software v.10.12 release
• DivX Accelerated solution
• Download here: http://go.divx.com/accelerated

Support for OpenGL 4.1

• New features introduced in OpenGL 4.1
  • Full compatibility with OpenGL ES 2.0 APIs for easier porting between mobile and desktop platforms
  • The ability to query and load a binary for shader program objects to save re-compilation time
  • The capability to bind programs individually to programmable stages for programming flexibility
  • 64-bit floating-point component vertex shader inputs for higher geometric precision
  • Multiple viewports for a rendering surface for increased rendering flexibility
  • New ARB extensions introduced with OpenGL 4.1
    • Linking OpenGL sync objects to OpenCL event objects for enhanced OpenCL interoperability
    • The ability to set stencil values in a fragment shader for enhanced rendering flexibility
    • Features to improve robustness, for example when running WebGL applications
    • Callback mechanisms to receive enhanced errors and warning messages

AMD Stream 2.3 Software Development Kit release

• Performance improvements for AMD’s OpenCL toolset
• Support UVD video hardware component through OpenCL driver (Windows 7 only)
• Support for the Stream Profiler on Linux (command line version)
• Support added for AMD Radeon HD 6800 Series and AMD Radeon HD 6900 Series
• Support for FFT and BLAS-3 libraries
• Stream Profiler enhancements (including timeline visualization)
• Resolves a number of bug fixes from the Stream SDK 2.2 release

More information on AMD’s Stream SDK 2.3 releases can be found on our developer page here.

Highlights of the AMD Catalyst 10.12 drivers for Linux release include:

New Features

Support for new Linux operating systems

• This release of AMD Catalyst for Linux introduces support for the following new operating systems: 
  • Ubuntu 10.10 support (production)

For more information on AMD Catalyst 10.12 (for Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows XP, and Linux versions), including all of the resolved issues in this release, please see the AMD Catalyst 10.12 release notes.

To download the driver, click here.

Happy Holidays!

Till Next Year,

Jay Marsden