AMD: OpenGL 4.1 Arrives On Windows, Linux

AMD said on Monday that its new AMD Catalyst 10.12 drivers for consumer-based cards, now available on the AMD website, contain support for the OpenGL 4.1 standard. Support also arrives for ATI FirePro and ATI FireGL professional cards by way of a new unified driver (8.801). Both sets are now available for customers using Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows XP and Linux platforms.

"AMD has a long tradition of supporting open industry standards, and with the announcement of support for OpenGL 4.1, we continue to demonstrate that commitment," said Janet Matsuda, general manager, AMD professional graphics. "Maintaining OpenGL as a strong and viable graphics API is very important to AMD and we are proud to support the OpenGL development community."

Here's a list of what AMD's driver for OpenGL4.1 includes:

1. Full compatibility with the OpenGL 4.1 standard on AMD’s most recent graphics products including ATI FirePro V3800, ATI FirePro V4800, ATI FirePro V5800, ATI FirePro V7800, ATI FirePro V8800 and ATI FirePro V9800 and the AMD Radeon HD 6900 and AMD Radeon HD 6800 graphics cards:

  • Improved OpenCL interoperability for accelerating computationally intensive visual applications
  • Continued support for both the Core and Compatibility profiles first introduced with OpenGL 3.2, enabling developers to use a streamlined API or retain backwards compatibility for existing OpenGL code, depending on their needs
  • Easier porting between mobile and desktop platforms with full OpenGL ES 2.0 API compatibility
  • Ability to query and load a binary for shader program objects to save re-compilation time
  • Capability to bind programs individually to programmable stages for programming flexibility
  • Higher geometric precision with 64-bit floating-point component vertex shader inputs
  • Increased rendering flexibility with multiple viewports for a rendering surface

2. Support for new ARB extension introduced with OpenGL 4.1:

  • Ability to set stencil values in a fragment shader for enhanced rendering flexibility
  • Callback mechanisms to receive enhanced errors and warning messages

To download the new drivers, head here.

  • jskilnyk
    I'll wait for the 11.1 drivers. They will be out soon.
    Reply
  • FINALLY
    Reply
  • joytech22
    I just downgraded from 2 GTX470's to a single Radeon 6850 because of heat issues that caused the pc to crash..

    More drivers = better from this point onward for me :D
    Reply
  • 17seconds
    The 11.1 drivers have done away with the default "Image Quality Optimizations" that boosted performance at the expense of image quality.
    Reply
  • I won't ever buy another Ati card again. The 2D performance is dreadful and Ati has done little to help this issue. Is as if they think all people do is game. I cannot believe how they throttle back their GPU's in 2D.
    Reply
  • -Fran-
    jescott418I won't ever buy another Ati card again. The 2D performance is dreadful and Ati has done little to help this issue. Is as if they think all people do is game. I cannot believe how they throttle back their GPU's in 2D.
    You're so right, because using the 3D API for 2D rendering is a sin. God will kill a kitten if you even think about it!

    Cheers!
    Reply
  • erraticfocus
    Catalyst 10.12 drivers were out mid december weren't they?
    Why so long to talk it up?
    Reply
  • mikem_90
    jescott418I won't ever buy another Ati card again. The 2D performance is dreadful and Ati has done little to help this issue. Is as if they think all people do is game. I cannot believe how they throttle back their GPU's in 2D.
    Part of it was linked into how they save power if I recall correctly. They power down a large section of the chip and unfortunately 2D acceleration was one part that was effected.

    By the very nature of them realizing their mistake (and probably too late to change silicon), they have an incentive to make newer models better.

    If you keep "never buying a x product again" to every company that does that, I have some lovely cave space to sell you.
    Reply
  • dragonsqrrl
    jescott418I won't ever buy another Ati card again. The 2D performance is dreadful and Ati has done little to help this issue. Is as if they think all people do is game. I cannot believe how they throttle back their GPU's in 2D.If you're referring to the poor hardware acceleration in Photoshop and other Adobe Creative Suite products, I believe that problem was dealt with, or at least minimized, with one of the early Catalyst 10 driver releases almost a year ago.

    I remember being perplexed by the unusually poor performance I was getting out of the HD4200 in comparison to my 7800GT. I originally thought the discrepancy was due to the HD4200 being, well... an HD4200. Toms wrote a good article at the time which confronted this issue, and after a few driver updates my HD4200 performed noticeably better, still not great but CS4 is at least usable.

    What surprised me more then anything at the time was how little attention the problem received, and how long it took to solve, given the maturity of many of the affected GPU's. And as for your statement about gaming, there's probably a good deal of truth to this. There's no way anyone who had just bought a high end HD5000 series card wouldn't have noticed this problem if they actually used Photoshop or AfterEffects for serious productivity, it was very obvious. ATI/AMD also doesn't put as strong of an emphasis on the professional market as Nvidia, so I don't think it's a stretch to say that most ATI cards (and users) are primarily gaming oriented, at least more so then Nvidia.
    Reply
  • murdoc
    dragonsqrrlIf you're referring to the poor hardware acceleration in Photoshop and other Adobe Creative Suite products, I believe that problem was dealt with, or at least minimized, with one of the early Catalyst 10 driver releases almost a year ago. I remember being perplexed by the unusually poor performance I was getting out of the HD4200 in comparison to my 7800GT. I originally thought the discrepancy was due to the HD4200 being, well... an HD4200. Toms wrote a good article at the time which confronted this issue, and after a few driver updates my HD4200 performed noticeably better, still not great but CS4 is at least usable. What surprised me more then anything at the time was how little attention the problem received, and how long it took to solve, given the maturity of many of the affected GPU's. And as for your statement about gaming, there's probably a good deal of truth to this. There's no way anyone who had just bought a high end HD5000 series card wouldn't have noticed this problem if they actually used Photoshop or AfterEffects for serious productivity, it was very obvious. ATI/AMD also doesn't put as strong of an emphasis on the professional market as Nvidia, so I don't think it's a stretch to say that most ATI cards (and users) are primarily gaming oriented, at least more so then Nvidia.
    can you really say that nvidia doesn't care about games as much as ATI when they have tons of games with their logo on it? What about "The way it's meant to be played" slogan that they slap on popular titles? Games get the most attention because most people buy nice graphics cards for games but I think that ATI should also pay more attention to 2D and windows applications.

    With the rise of Nvidia's femi to push tessellation, I think ATI should take a look into this as their cards don't seem to match up against Nvidia in that aspect. Being an avid fan of the 5800 series myself, I think that ATI offers great value for the power it offers but driver improvements are only at its infancy.
    Reply