New AMD Catalyst 11.11 Supports Stage 3D in Flash
AMD has added support for Adobe's Stage 3D API with the latest release of its graphics driver package, Catalyst 11.11.
The APU series A and E as well as Radeon HD graphic cards can now run the new technology, which Adobe introduced with its Flash Player 11 in early October.
Additionally, the driver corrects a bug in the game RAGE, which caused some textures to be displayed in blue color. There is also a bezel compensation fix for Far Cry 2, a crash fix for Homefront in Crossfire configurations, a hang fix for DC Universe Online, as well as a range of Windows 7 patches, according to the release notes.
The download of Catalyst 11.11 is offered via AMD's support pages.
Nvidia recently released the beta version of its 285.79 driver, which includes improvements for Battlefield 3 and Skyrim, as well as new game profiles for SLI and 3D Vision.
https://twitter.com/#!/CatalystCreator
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Reports of Flashs demise are greatly exaggerated
I believe you mean AMD, hence the "New AMD Catalyst 11.11."
Still have screen tearing issues in Portal 2, as the release notes mentioned. Nothing TOO serious, but I'm hoping drivers will eventually fix that...
They STILL have no CFX support for Rage. I have both a 5970 in one computer and a GTX480 in another, and the Nvidia card has far, far less issues with new games than the AMD one. Honestly, I dont think I will ever buy another ATI/AMD videocard because of their horrendous drivers ever since i bought the 5970 almost 2 years ago. Its the SAME thing every major release: previous catalyst drivers have a critical performance bug with X major release. Wait a couple of weeks till the bug fix. Then wait for a time after THAT for the CFX CAP (if you're lucky, as I mentioned there STILL isnt one for Rage). Nvidia isnt perfect, and I'm not a fanboy, but their driver team(s) still kick the crap out of AMD's IMHO.
And dont get me started on how piss-poor Skyrim runs on the 5970. Runs flawlessly at Ultra settings on the 480 though.
Both Nvidia and AMD seem to have struggling driver teams as of late, but Nvidia's got the upper hand here since they at least have something to show for it.
Duude, multi-gpu setups..especially on a single card; you're going to have issues because the amount of people who own those setups is much lower. a.k.a your a lower priority to nvidia or ati/amd. I don't mean to sound like an ass, but that's just the harsh reality of it.
Even disabling CFX (by adding the "Disable" flag to Catalyst AI in the driver profiles) does nothing to help Skyrim. Still chugs along with major hitches in Whitefall, for example. I can see waiting for a CFX CAP, after all CFX is a rather miniscule portion of the AMD customer, but there are/were major playability issues for me in every major A-list release this year on my Radeon, even running without CFX for those games, as I mentioned above. While the 480 is a single card only, I had zero issues with any newly released A-list game this year with it, and disabling Catalyst AI makes my 5970 into a single 5850 anyways, so that should make it a level playing field in terms of bugs. But it doesnt. Not even close.
I *want* to have the option of AMD for my next upgrade, but despite them making some amazing hardware, it ends up being hamstrung and crippled by shoddy drivers.
Like I say, if you have the option, go with the most powerful single GPU and be done with it. A single 580 or 6970 will give you adequate performance in most games max'd out at 1080p and it's MUCH easier to deal with.
If you've got mult-monitor or 3D gaming going on you may NEED multiple GPU's. Again tho, you're going to be in the minority of gamers and therefore get the minority mindshare and time of the devs and manufactures.
so now its the best slide show you ever saw
Disabling Catalyst AI completely makes my 5970 into essentially a single 5850, so there should not be anything going on related to CFX support in terms of bugs. It IS essentially then a single GPU card.
And I agreed in my last post....I do not blame AMD much for the CFX profile lacking for a few weeks, I understand it is rather low on their totem pole for development, but taking CFX completely out of the equation, there are still crippling video driver bugs I've had to deal with for every major A-list release this year which usually werent fixed till weeks after I bought the game(s) in question. Pretty much no problems at all for the Nvidia card.
Granted, I did not buy Rage but that p.o.s. should have been developed better, it was a flop from day one.
People keep talking about AMD drivers and my rig keeps on running great, go figure.
I understand that your 5970 running only one gpu "should" act like a 5870, but that just may not be the entire story. Even with one gpu disabled, even though it's the same gpu technically, it's not a standard/reference design or layout as a single gpu 5870. I know a guy that has a 5870 that has had less issues than me with my 6970 (6950 unlocked 850/1400 - @6950 voltage). The guy's had non of the issues that I've seen in your post and he's got an oc'd reference board from Sapphire, using the latest catalyst drivers.
If you've had no issues with the nvidia card, that's a positive. I'd just always recommend a single gpu card (even if you had to CF/SLI them) over a multi-gpu card in terms of reliability and stability. I'm not an engineer, but I can tell you from my own personal experience that those cards just tend to have more issues and get less support; which is a shame bc they're blazingly fast and they cost a ton.
I'm not justifying ati's lack of a solid set of drivers btw. I'm only saying I think the multi-gpu cards from them or nvidia Typically will encounter more issues than their single gpu cousins. IMO