ATi Catalyst 4.2 Drivers Tested

Pentium 4 EE 3.2Ghz
Hercules Radeon 9800 XTCatalyst 3.10Catalyst 4.1Catalyst 4.23DMark2001SE2057620562205793DMark2003659865916608UT2003 Demo(Flyby)272.9268.5271.1SplinterCell 1.2b(1_1_1_Tbilisi)88.286.586.6Quake III Arena(Demo004)459464.6464.8Serious Sam SE 1.5b108.5107.5107.1

There aren't any significant performance improvements in the new set ofCatalyst 4.2 drivers on a Radeon 9800 XT card but according the release notes,Radeon 9000, 9200 and 8500 users will experience some nice improvements. Nowthere is no wait when you apply changes to the Direct3D settings which iscertainly more welcomed.

 

Release Notes

Component Video Output Enhancement
The latest ATI software driver now allows the user the choice of using panningmode or a center-timing mode in which the image would appear in the center ofthe TV screen when using the Component Video output on an HDTV display. Thisoption is found in the ATI Control Panel and is supported under the Windows XP,Windows 2000, and Windows ME operating systems. This feature is available on theATI RADEON™ 8500 and higher class of products.

Direct3D Setting Enhancement
Previous versions of the ATI display driver required the monitor going blank forup to 8 seconds when applying Direct3D settings. The latest ATI software driverfor the RADEON™ 9500 and higher class of products now allows for the Direct3Dsetting to be applied without the monitor's display going blank.

Performance Improvements
As with most CATALYST™ releases performance has increased in various situations.This release of CATALYST™ provides performance gains to the ATI DX8 productfamily. These products include the RADEON™ 9200, 9000, and 8500 series.Performance gains are noticed throughout the following software:

Framerates in Unreal Tournament 2003 are up by as much as 15%
A performance gain of between 5 and 10% is noticed in Aquamark3
A performance gain of between 2-3% is noticed in ShaderMark scores
Framerates in Halo are up 3 to 4%
A performance improvement of 2% is noticed in Tomb Raider

 

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