The discussed new driver version for ATi’s graphics cards has been released today. You can do nothing but smile when you see all the improvements on the list.


What about VPU Recover; a function that saves the computer from the ”blue screen of death” if the graphics card encounters an infinite loop.

Or what about profiles for all your games; choose the level of FSAA and Aniso for every game and don’t hassle with changing the settings every time.


We talked about OverDrive in our review of the 9800XT. That feature, however, doesn’t look so impressive in the final version. ATi told us by the launch of the 9800XT that OverDrive could take the core up to 460 MHz. Instead it has set the maximum to 432 MHz in Catalyst 3.8. Furthermore, it has no support for the memory yet and there is no way to either read the clock frequencies nor the temperatures in the present version.


Nevertheless, the most exciting function is that you can activate pixel and vertex shaders in old games. After a look at some of the results, I personally feel that this is a quite unnecessary function by ATi. For most of the time it just makes the graphics look weird. The one thing that do look a little tad cool is the etch and sketch effect which makes any game look like a black and white cartoon movie.


This is just a scratch on the surface. Go here for the entire readme.


Envy News has put up an article about the drivers here. We also know that quite a lot of sites will follow its example.


To download the drivers you may go here.



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