AMD Updates Catalyst Program to Focus More on Newer GPUs
AMD has announced the AMD Radeon HD 2000, AMD Radeon HD 3000, and AMD Radeon HD 4000 Series of products will be moved to quarterly updates versus the normal monthly updates.
In recent information provided to Tom's Hardware, AMD will be moving the AMD Radeon HD 2000, HD 3000, and HD 4000 series of products to a new driver support model. AMD will be supporting these graphics cards through its Catalyst releases, but they will be moved to a quarterly basis versus the standard monthly updates. The Radeon HD 5000 and newer products will continue to see the monthly updates through the Catalyst releases. The quarterly Catalyst releases will focus on resolving application specific issues and critical updates.
The reason for the shift in support policy is largely due to the fact that the Radeon HD 2000, HD 3000, and HD 4000 Series have been optimized to their maximum potential from a performance and feature perspective. The 8.97-based driver, to be released in May, will be the first driver for the Radeon HD 2000, HD 3000, and HD 4000 Series under the new support model. According to AMD, it is an extremely stable and robust driver branch for these products and will be the baseline for the quarterly updates. In an effort to optimize the Radeon HD 5000 and newer cards, AMD states this move is the best use of its resources, as the Radeon HD 5000, Radeon HD 6000, Radeon HD 7000, and future products have the greatest potential for further performance and feature enhancements.
As with regards to Windows 8 support for the AMD Radeon HD 2000, 3000, 4000 series of products, AMD states that the in-the-box AMD Graphics driver that ships with Windows 8 will include support for the AMD Radeon HD 2000, 3000, and 4000 Series. In addition, it will support the WDDM 1.1 driver level features. The AMD Catalyst driver for Windows 8 will only include support for WDDM 1.2 support products (AMD Radeon HD 5000 and newer graphic cards).
You can download the latest AMD Catalyst drivers here at AMD's website.

The older cards you can't do much more with as far as updates are concerned.
Just drop it for the 2k and 3k 8(
Cheers!
Just drop it for the 2k and 3k 8(
Cheers!
But if you spend $150 on an upgrade now you'll get a whooping .45% performance increase; and we'll officially support your card for monthly upgrades!!! YAY
The older cards you can't do much more with as far as updates are concerned.
Well I would bet that the reason why we had so many DX9 titles was because over the past years, the vast majority of computers were still running Windows XP. Now that Windows 7 is edging out XP, we could maybe start seeing companies develop for DX11.
DX10 is garbage. Looks better then DX9 but performs worse. At least with DX11 you'll get the best of both worlds.
But your right, DX9 and legacy cards will probably be around a little while longer. Why consoles don't utilize even DX9 to it's full potential (save for a very few games) boggles my mind. Hopefully with the next generation of consoles, they'll step it up to DX11.
Developing for DirectX 10/11 doesn't have to do with Windows XP as much as you make it out to be. Consoles run DirectX 9 hardware, so the games are developed accordingly. Computer games have been living off of the backs of console porting for years now, not the other way around. When the new generation of consoles come about, you will see the shift finally happen to the newer DirectX specs. DirectX 10 has still been around for what, four years going on five now? DirectX 10 does look better than 9 and does take a bit of a performance hit, but that's cause and effect in action just like any other transition for generations of DirectX, OpenGL, etc. (with the assumption that coding is done efficiently).
everyone hated vista, and was a joke, the only thing they had to get people to buy it was dx10, and because so few people gamed on it, compared to xp, they stuck with dx9
if ms supported xp with dx10, we would have made the jump long ago.
there is also a few facts.
there is noting in dx 10 that dx9 cant do, or at least fake doing.
everything substantial from dx10 was cut because nvidia complained, while amd was ready for the full dx10
dx11 is the first generation new dx to be on a widely used os. but still, well programed dx9 game looks equal to or better than dx11...
you have to take in the significance of dx9... it was a GIGANTIC leap forward, and none of the other dxes have so far been able to compeat.
dx10 may have with tessellation if that wasnt ripped out of it, and dx11... well... they used 9 so long they got all the kinks out of how you program for it, if you dont program 11 right, it looks as good as 9 but worse preforamnce.
now to add to the mix, we dont have single card gpus that can handle full world tessellation yet, or companies have NO idea how to do it.
Before??? Share your time-machine with us please!!!!
I threw something at my card and it exploded. Cheers!
What is whooping performance? YAY!
It's not ok...at all.
Get ready to be pissed.
You will see an impact of tile-based proportions.
Why you haven't reverted back to Windows XP boggles my mind.
Coding is never done efficiently.
True! I need that preforamnce!!
I pretty sure the 4890 is faster than anything that can be bought in that price range.
the 4890 is a more efficient version of the 4870. which means its no better then a 5770.
Also, as AMD states, the Drivers are mature enough that they dont need to be updated that often, its not like they are not supporting them.
A $150 upgrade could be something such as a 6870, 5850, 5870, GTX 560, or GTX 470 and all of these cards are significantly ahead of the 4890.
We have plenty of DX11 games nowadays. Older cards also don't support many of the GPU acceleration technologies that the newer OSs and programs are supposed to bring to us, so they are becoming less important on a grand scale. Oh, and go ahead and try using a 4870, 4890, 260, etc on BF3 in 1080p and we'll see how far those quality settings and the AA can be cranked up. The same goes for plenty of other games nowadays such as Metro 2033, Crysis 2 with the DX11 update, and many more.
Consoles are getting their refresh within the next few years (hopefully soon) and they're not PCs, so they should not be used as obstacles any greater than they already are for PC gaming progress.
DX 11 is better than DX9. Tessellation takes huge processing resources and that is why it isn't being used completely yet. The fact that Nvidia's Kepler cards have crap compute performance compared to even older generations such as Fermi tells us that Nvidia seems to not have much faith in tessellation anyway.
I'm not sure what you mean... Nvidia provides non-legacy Windows 7 driver support for all their cards since the Geforce 6 series.
The 4870 isn't fast enough for 1080p with the highest settings in plenty of games. The 4870 and 4890 are comparable to the 6770 and 5770 in performance.