Catalyst 7.8 is here !

[Rabidpeanut]

YAY!

Happiness, now to test them out and see if my room heats up.

 

[paladin13]

Its good to see AMD - ATI is loyal with driver releases. The beta driver was extremely promising so I expect the same thing with the final release. Performance increase in both non-AA-AF AND AA-AF resolutions!

 

[Rabidpeanut]

CAREFUL PEOPLE! i deselected the free games offer and it broke my steam so i think if you leave the offer on it will see your steam and leave it alone.

 

[rammedstein]

works great, i got to stop worrying when the beta would crash, i didn't select the free games ting but my steam works fine, still all the great perf from the 7.8betas

 

[Rabidpeanut]

Still runs lost coast at 20 fps on 24xAA but i don't have crossfire so i can believe that. Looks FREAKING AWESOME though. I wonder if the new edge detection is any better than the tent filters.

EDIT: in lost coast the wide tent filter at 2X (effectively 6X) caps at 60 (v sync required for them i think) and you get weird white lines on the cliffs, so i am going to go for edge detect i think.

EDIT 2: Edge detect AA is for those with crossfire i think cause 30 fps id not playable i am going to go for 4X box filter.

DAAMIT: I cant get it to go over 60 frames on 4XAA, and v sync is off... Any ideas? I think i am going to leave everything app preference.

 

[StarGazer79]

you guys do realise this driver release wasnt really for performance?
just in case you didnt know. there was a security flaw in the previous drivers that would allow a hacker to take control of the windows kernel and inject code into it. the 7.8 drivers are just an update to correct that flaw. (possibly along with any other fixes they had ready at the time.)

 

[justjc]

They had some performance improvements planed that was added, however the reason it was waited was that it's the purple pill that solves a possible hacker problem.

However at the same time it should be noted that nVidia drivers has the same possible hacker problem, but they still haven't posted a solution.

Good job being first on this one AMD!

 

[Mugz]

A(MD/Ti) clearly take the time to make sure a product really is ready before release.

*sends email to nVidia saying 'Learn, guys'*

 

[Thighzen]

I don't know if I would generalize that much. Most people thought differently right after the release of the HD2900xt with its lackluster performance. It was only after a few driver releases that it started performing reasonably for the amount of money it cost.

 

[mactronix]

So are these drivers gona be better across the board or is it just the HD series that will benefit.
Mactronix

 

[murphy82nd]

A(MD/Ti) clearly take the time to make sure a product really is ready before release.

*sends email to nVidia saying 'Learn, guys'*

LOL, tell me you're kidding right? A couple of months after the release is making sure a product really is ready before release? Please, if the drivers had really been ready at the release then the initial reviews would have been much better. As it is, the 2900 still has the stigma of not so great performance even though right now it is probably better than the GTS all around. Neither Nvidia nor Ati are great with drivers, though Ati does tend to crank them out much faster, for better or for worse is debatable. Personally, I am glad to see the 2900 better as I am actually more of an Ati fan than Nvidia, I just went with the best available at the time. Still, Ati is no fairy tale when it comes to drivers, and if it had really been on the ball at the beginning it's sales would be a lot better.

 

[Rej]

Hi,

Has anyone been able to install the 7.8 official drivers with a Sapphire x1950Pro AGP? Every time I try, the smartgart tests screw up and make the drivers unusable (they disable AGP write/read(OFF) and PCI write/read (OFF)).

All the other drivers since 6.9 have been working great without any issues and certainly not with smartgart (on those drivers, everything is ON.)

Sent a feedback to them explaining this situation but haven't found an official forum so far so I'm trying here.

System = E6400 not O/C,
Sapphire AGP X1950PRO 512mg
2 gig of ram (Kingston)
P5PE-VM Asus MB
etc etc

Rej

 

[illuminatirex]

you guys do realise this driver release wasnt really for performance?
just in case you didnt know. there was a security flaw in the previous drivers that would allow a hacker to take control of the windows kernel and inject code into it. the 7.8 drivers are just an update to correct that flaw. (possibly along with any other fixes they had ready at the time.)

This is right (check the inq, for the "purple pill" article
the 7.7 was renamed to 7.8 since this monday, and its teh same as the old 7.7, the awsome 7.8 beta was not yet implemented yet. so i guess the 7.8 beta will be called 7.9 since the 7.8 so far was just a cleaned up version of 7.7 thats more secure(no voulnerabilities, that were previously discovered)