ATI Catalyst 10.4 Preview driver

[Maziar]

Download from here:
http://support.amd.com/us/kbarticles/Pages/ATI-Catalyst-10-4-Hotfix.aspx
"Long load times for new maps in Battlefield: Bad Company 2 when using an ATI Radeon HD 5xxx series graphics card"
I read in fudzilla that the GSOD problems was going to be fixed with 10.4 drivers,i hope they do with the final release

 

[EXT64]

Why do they call it 10.4 Hotfix? Shouldn't it be 10.3, as all it sounds like it fixes is one game, so that in my opinion is a hotfix to the old driver.

Anyway, if that's all they've done, I'll pass and wait for the full.

Also Maziar, might want to point out that this is a "Hotfix" not a "Preview" driver.

 

[Maziar]

Yes its strange that they call it a Hotfix driver in the download link,because its not released yet and as you said it only solves one problem.
But the best way is to test and find out

 

[EXT64]

Yes, it would be interesting to know if it really is 10.4, but this is a big fix they wanted to point out, or if it is 10.3 with only this fix. Originally they said 10.4 would include the 2-D fix, but obviously no mention of it there.

 

[Maziar]

Yes but i really hope they will include 2D fix in 10.4,its really necessary

 

[mactronix]

The info i have is that this is indeed a 10.4 preview driver and the general use driver will be allocated as 10.4a.
Personally i thought it bad that they are profiling a driver to improve one certain game. but they have done so in reality for a while now and are just being a bit more open about it this time around. Its always the popular games that seemed to get increases anyway, coincidence ?
Maybe they are being more specific this time and actually targeting the one game where as before they targeted the performance aspects that needed improving for certain games ?
So anyway yes this one is 10.4 preview driver for BC2 and 5 series cards only and the 10.4a is meant to be out in a few days.

Mactronix

 

[EXT64]

And I saw they changed it from "Hotfix" to "Preview", so you were right after all Maziar.

This would imply that this is the true 10.4 driver, just minus testing (like 10.3a was). Whether that is actually true is anyone's guess.

 

[Dashkatt]

I installed the 10.4 Preview driver on 4/14/10. By 4/17/10 my computer was so locked up I had to use "Restore" to get back to where I could use the system. I tried to figure out what was wrong and after a day or so, I reinstalled 10.3 and everything worked perfectly, again. So, I decided that I'd try 10.4 again and loaded it. It worked great and definitely cut down the time it took to get into a BC2 map. But after another couple of days, I'm noticing that my system is slowing down again, using BC2. It is suffering noticeable freeze-ups, delays in re-spawning, etc., exactly the same symptoms I had before it crashed the first time.

Something is definitely wrong, at least in my opinion. I'm running an ATI 5770 and it's worked perfectly since day one. It also was working perfectly with BC2, but like other ATI owners, I had to tolerate a loading time that far exceeded any other players, (Nvidia owners). Maybe it's just my rig, (Intel 9450, 4GB G-Skill RAM, 5770, Vista Prem. Home 64). I say there's something wrong with the driver.

It seems the issue was that the ATI drivers were having to compile shaders prior to each game being started for the player. Whereby Nvidia drivers cached the compiled shaders. Whatever the problem, ATI, FIX IT!