ATI/AMD Catalyst 7.9 Drivers Released

ATI/AMD has released its latest version, Version 7.9, drivers for Windows XP and Windows Vista. The new release has brought in some new features, speed improvements and performance enhancements.

The new release of ATI/AMD Catalyst introduces the Avivo Video Converter for Windows Vista (64 bit) operating system. The Avivo Video Converter acts as a transcoder tool that provides a quick and easy way of converting videos from one format to another. The Avivo Video Converter found within the Catalyst Control Center, allows the user to select the input file, and output format, along with the quality level and file location. The Avivo. Video Converter accepts a wide variety of file formats as a source, and outputs to file formats such as MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4/DivX, WMA, H.264/AVC and more.

Version 7.9 drivers also brought in a new feature called colour temperature control within the Catalyst Control Centre. This feature allows users to adjust the chromatic level shown on their display. It Supports the ATI Radeon X1000 Series and Radeon HD 2000 Series of products.

In term of performance enhancements, this new drivers manage:
• Far Cry performance improves up to 14 % on the ATI Radeon HD2900XT CrossFire, ATI Radeon HD2600XT single card, and ATI Radeon HD2400XT CrossFire configurations

• Call of Duty 2 performance improves as much as 12% with Anti-Aliasing enabled on the ATI Radeon HD2600XT CrossFire and single card configurations

• Half-Life 2: Episode 1 performance improves at most 9% on ATI Radeon HD2600XT CrossFire and as much as 6% on the ATI Radeon HD2400XT CrossFire configurations.

• Serious Sam 2 performance improves up to 46% on the ATI Radeon HD2400XT CrossFire and up to 27% on the ATI Radeon HD2600XT single card and CrossFire configurations with Anti-Aliasing enabled.

• Quake 4 performance with Anti-Aliasing improves 9% or more on the ATI Radeon X1600/X1650Pro and ATI Radeon X1300/X1550 products in both single and CrossFire configurations