ATI Catalyst™ Software Q4 2009 newsletter
The ATI Catalyst™ Software quarterly
newsletter is designed to inform you about
significant software features that have been
released in the past quarter and about
significant upcoming software features and
milestones. This newsletter also includes a
selection of the latest press quotes, and
other important highlights
ATI Catalyst™ Software features released in Q4 2009:
GPU acceleration of H.264 video content using
Adobe® Flash Player 10.1 Beta
• The ATI Radeon™ HD 5000, ATI Radeon™ HD 4000
and ATI Radeon™ HD 3100 Series supports
hardware acceleration features of the Adobe
Flash Player 10.1 Beta for video encoded in the
H.264 format
• GPU acceleration helps deliver smooth video
playback, reduce system resource utilization and
preserve battery life
ATI Catalyst™ Control Center enhancements
• Switch between extended desktop and duplicate
desktop modes in a single step
• Welcome screen real-time content updates -
ensures users are aware of the latest AMD
promotions and products
• New video preview option to better understand
the benefits of enabling AMD video features
OpenGL enhancements
• Double precision support
• OpenGL 3.2 extension support
DirectCompute 10.1 support
• DirectCompute 10.1 is a subset of the features
found in DirectCompute 11
• Supported on the ATI Radeon™ HD 4800 series,
ATI Radeon™ HD 4700 series, and ATI CrossFireX™
technology supported variants
ATI Catalyst™ – the ultimate software solution:
Performance
Innovation Stability
ATI Catalyst support for the OpenCL™ GPU
component of the ATI Stream SDK v2.0
• Provides full support for GPU acceleration of
OpenCL™ when used in conjunction with the
ATI Stream SDK v2.0
Video enhancements
• High quality downscaling when transcoding
video content from high quality content
(1920x1080i @60 Hz) to low resolution content
(320x240p @ 30Hz)
• GPU acceleration of the Window 7 “Drag and
Drop” video converter
Linux enhancements
• New Operating System support: SLED and SLES
10 SP3, Ubuntu 9.10, RHEL 5.4. openSUSE 11.2
(early look support), RedFlag DT6.0 SP3
• ATI Catalyst Control Center Linux Edition –
Display enhancements; Projector support ,
new CRT/VGA settings, TV settings,
Component Video Overscan / Underscan
controls
Super Sampling Anti-Aliasing support for the ATI
Radeon™ HD 5900, HD 5800 and HD 5700 Series
• Highest level quality of Anti-Aliasing possible
• Uses a high number of samples to reduce
shimmering in textures and shading as well as
smooth out polygon edges
 Upcoming ATI Catalyst™ software
features
ATI Catalyst™ application profiles – delivering
support for new games using ATI CrossFireX™
technology configurations sooner
• ATI CrossFireX™ technology application profiles
are being removed from the 3D driver
component to a separate .XML file to enable
quick updates on amd.com
• ATI Catalyst™ packages will continue to install
the reference and fully qualified ATI
CrossFireX profile by default (which come from
the same driver release used for the ATI
Catalyst package)
• The new ATI CrossFireX application profile list
(posted as a separate file downloadable file on
amd.com) is created from the current mainline
driver (approximately 2 driver releases ahead
of the driver being used for the current ATI
Catalyst driver)
o Provides enthusiast users with
access to the very latest ATI
CrossFireX profiles
o The separate ATI CrossFireX profile
is considered beta will not be
supported by AMD’s customer
support team
ATI CrossFireX™ configurations featuring ATI
Power Play™ technology for the ATI Radeon™ HD
5900, HD 5800 and HD 5700 Series
• Delivers significant power savings by setting
the secondary GPU(s) engine and memory
clocks to very low levels when GPU(s) are not
in use
ATI Catalyst™ Software Suite in
the news:
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3678&p=5
“YouTube CPU usage on the Prince of Persia trailer
drops 31%, Hulu's Legend of the Seeker drops CPU use
20% while nearly doubling the frame rate (i.e. from
dropping half the frames to showing everything), and
480p Hulu drops CPU usage 10% with frame rates almost
tripling (from ~13 FPS to over 30 FPS for what appears
to be 30 FPS video content). Unlike the Intel
platform, if you have an ATI card and a moderate CPU it
appears that Flash 10.1 is a clear win.”
© 2009 Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. All rights reserved. AMD, the AMD Arrow logo, ATI, the ATI logo, Catalyst, Power Play, Radeon, and
combinations thereof are trademarks of Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. Microsoft and Windows are registered trademarks of Microsoft
Corporation in the US and other jurisdictions. Other names are for informational purposes only and may be trademarks of their respective
owners.
Upcoming ATI Catalyst™ software
features
AMD Dual graphics support
• AMD platforms featuring the RS880 and either
of the “Cedar” or “Park” GPU will use both
integrated and discrete GPUs together to
accelerate DirectX 10/10.1 applications for a
significant performance boost
Sterepscopic 3D support
• The Direct3D driver will be updated to support
3rd party vendors such as IZ3D to enable 3D
glasses using 120 Hz displays
• USB support for Bit Cauldron’s 3D goggles
Eyefinity enhancements – Bezel support
• Easy-to-use wizard shows users how to adjust
their display layout to remove the pixels
occupied by their display bezels for a more
immersive gaming experience
Mutlimedia updates
• Increased GPU acceleration of the Windows 7
“Drag and Drop” video converter
• Display Port audio for DisplayPort panels
• ATI Catalyst Control Center update - ATI Video
converter support in the “Advanced View”
ATI Catalyst™ software for ATI Mobility Radeon™
GPUs
• Laptops* featuring ATI Radeon™ graphics will
be able to install monthly ATI Catalyst
software suite releases on systems using
Windows Vista and Windows 7
* requires notebook vendor approval to install on laptop
Linux enhancements
• 2D performance enhancements
• New OS support: Ubuntu 9.10, OpenSUSE 11.2
http://www.tweaktown.com/articles/3018/ati_catalyst_9_11_windo
ws_7_driver_analysis/index9.html
“We do have to give some big props to the driver team
for creating a wonderful HD 5970 driver. You can know
that if you have a HD 5970 or if you're lucky enough to
have two, you will see some simply fantastic
performance from the setup.”
http://techreport.com/articles.x/18065/2
“In the Catalyst Control Center, one can enable and
modify the values for a host of color enhancements and
post-processing effects, and GPU-accelerated Flash
videos will be modified in real time. In fact, AMD has a
split-screen preview mode to show how the video
output is being modified. This is beyond nifty.