bluetarot.com

This will be ashort summary of my experience with these drivers.

Ok lets start by saying they aren’t TOO bad.

Increases in a few games and for the most part stable on my machines.

Test Setup

• Q6600@3.3
• 4Gb of patriot 1066@1098 5 5 5 15
• HIS 4870 qGb radeon @ 790/950
• Vista business Sp2 beta 64 bit
• 500 Gb seagate 8200.11
• Gigabyte P35 DS3Pro
• Catalyst 8.12 WHQL
• Unreal Tournament 3 (1.3)
• Counterstrike source
• 3dmark Vantage Performance pre settings
• Dell 24 inch 1920 1080

CCC settings were all high quality and 4x box AA except for vantage benches which were changed to butt ugly and no AA

UT3 was set to maximum except no motion blur.

Ciunterstrike was set to maximum and 4x AA

all games were were done at 1920 1080 except of course vantage performance which os 1280 1024

Now for the figures

Vanatage

8.12

http://service.futuremark.com/compare?3dmv=586152

9861

8.10 hotfix

http://service.futuremark.com/compare?3dmv=557624

9638

As you can see a bit of a jump and definately a jump from 8.9

UT3

Using my own recorded demo which runs around 9 minutes

8.12

56 fps

8.10

49 fps

Again a bit of a jump and at that resolution nothing to sneeze at.

The thing about it though is the increase in the IQ of the game, 8.11 and 8.12 both are better looking than the older versions, crisper and more defined (but that is my opinion i have no real photographic proof )

Counterstrike

8.12

265 fps

8.11

249 fps

againa  jump and better IQ and again nothing overly exciting.

Now lastly a few things to note.

Avivo convertor is not using stream yet everyone needs to wait till ATI release the new convertor.

Anyone with a crossfire or a 4870×2/3870×2 may be in for some pain as there have been multiple reports of issues with these drivers (not just those cards but it seems to make up the majority)

Stability and installation issues as well as seen in the link below…

OCAU

http://forums.overclockers.com.au/showthread.php?t=737497

Ati forum

http://forums.amd.com/game/categories.cfm?catid=279&forumid=11

So to sum up:

Buyer beware and use with caution.

There are gain to be had and when the convertor comes in then video encoding code get a massive boost but there are problems.

In my opinion if the older drivers work for you stick with them till someone hires a proper driver team to clean up the mess.

Vista 32./64 bit

http://www.mediafire.com/?h1ytmgy40w3

• 4870 1GB
• Q6600@3.3Gig
• p35 ds3p
• 4 Gb of patriot 1066
• vista business 64 bit sp1(old crunchy install)

I have tested these drivers on a 4870 1Gb and found they work but things that are a bit funky are:

• The video convertor does not work on a few videos and on the ones it does it corruppted them, alos it was using the cpu to encode not as it is supposeed to the stream proccessors.
• no noise reduction sloder(only de noise which has been there since day dot

Ok the good things:

• They work, they install and have no real issues.
• The IQ and speed is up, maybe 5 % accross the boards in the games i tested like UT3
• ut3@1920 1080 all maxed and 4x AA using a custom 9 minute demo average fps was 55(up from 49)
• HL CS source video test same resolution and settings avg for the test 259 fps
• tomb raider anniversary, no figures but ran very very smoothly

Overall worth a look or wait till the 10th December when the real deal comes out.

I would love some feedback on how these go

[poll id="5"]