What's New in the ATI Catalyst 10.9 Drivers

Earlier this week we learned that Valve was helping to make driver updates easier by putting the latest ATI Catalysts on Steam. The first version to support this is Catalyst 10.9.

Besides being available on Steam, other changes to the 10.9 version include:

Performance improvements:

  • STALKER: Call of Pripyat Benchmark – depending on the model, screen resolution, anti-aliasing and whether you are using ATI CrossfireX™ technology, here’s an example of some performance improvements we’ve noted in our labs:
  • up to 20% on ATI Radeon™ HD 5870 graphics
  • up to 12% on ATI Radeon™ HD 5770 graphics
  • The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena
  • up to 4% on ATI Radeon™ HD 5770 graphics
  • up to 5% on ATI Radeon™ HD 5850 graphics
  • up to 6% on ATI Radeon™ HD 5970 graphics

ATI Catalyst™ Application – Updated ATI CrossFireX™ Profiles

  • Aliens Vs. Predator – Profile update
  • Battlefield: Bad Company 2 – Profile update
  • F1 2010 – Profile update
  • Kane & Lynch 2 – New profile

Resolved issue highlights:

  • UVD clocks will now return to normal speeds after switching from High Definition  to Standard Definition content
  • Flickering is no longer visible while running 3D games on HDMI displays with QuadCrossFireX™ enabled
  • Mesh corruption is no longer visible in “The Chronicles of Riddick 2: Assault onDark Athena” when SSAO in-game settings are set to “high”
  • ATI CrossFireX™ now functions properly, and in-game Anti-Aliasing can now be enabledin “StarCraft II”
  • Adobe® Flash Player will no longer display green screen after resume from sleep
  • Negative ATI CrossFireX™ scaling on “Final Fantasy-XIV” no longer occurs
  • Intermittent performance drops no longer observed with hardware cursor enabled in “World of Warcraft” game running in extended mode

Resolved issue highlights:

  • UVD clocks will now return to normal speeds after switching from High Definition  to Standard Definition content
  • Flickering is no longer visible while running 3D games on HDMI displays with QuadCrossFireX™ enabled
  • Mesh corruption is no longer visible in “The Chronicles of Riddick 2: Assault onDark Athena” when SSAO in-game settings are set to “high”
  • ATI CrossFireX™ now functions properly, and in-game Anti-Aliasing can now be enabledin “StarCraft II”
  • Adobe® Flash Player will no longer display green screen after resume from sleep
  • Negative ATI CrossFireX™ scaling on “Final Fantasy-XIV” no longer occurs
  • Intermittent performance drops no longer observed with hardware cursor enabled in “World of Warcraft” game running in extended mode

If you're not grabbing them off Steam, you can get them directly from AMD here.

Marcus Yam
Marcus Yam served as Tom's Hardware News Director during 2008-2014. He entered tech media in the late 90s and fondly remembers the days when an overclocked Celeron 300A and Voodoo2 SLI comprised a gaming rig with the ultimate street cred.
  • sargentchimera
    Grrr, just updated to 10.8 from 10.4 a couple of days ago... Idk if i need these anyways since they affect 5870s and below, not 5970s, unless they forgot to list them...
    Reply
  • sabot00
    A 5970 is 2 5870s, so you got extra hurt.
    In addition Crossfire & SLI always get the biggest improvements.
    Reply
  • Spanky Deluxe
    Still no darned PLP Eyefinity support. :(
    Reply
  • Demonslay335
    sargentchimeraGrrr, just updated to 10.8 from 10.4 a couple of days ago... Idk if i need these anyways since they affect 5870s and below, not 5970s, unless they forgot to list them...
    up to 6% on ATI Radeon™ HD 5970 graphics

    And has anyone else noticed there's a duplication of the 'Resolved issues highlights' section?
    Reply
  • eklipz330
    I love how they added the STEAM feature.

    but personally, i like downloading my drivers manually...
    Reply
  • Spore
    It's funny to me how most recent driver updates from both Nvidia and ATI have updates to Chronicles of Riddick. I just started playing through it and noticed this error yesterday and grudgingly accepted it. Neato.
    Reply
  • nforce4max
    Great they are going what Nvidia has done for years... Cheating drivers hidden dragon.
    Reply
  • jefe323
    sabot00A 5970 is 2 5870s, so you got extra hurt.In addition Crossfire & SLI always get the biggest improvements.
    its actually two 5850s...
    Reply
  • jojesa
    When they say "Flickering and corruption are no longer visible"...did they fixed or found a way to hide it.
    Reply
  • dEAne
    oh I'm waiting for this too.thanks tom.
    Reply