ATI's Catalyst v7.3 drivers have officially hit the web. There are a boatload of fixes for both Vista and XP integrated into this release, in addition to a number of performance enhancements for X1000 series cards. Here are some of the more interesting details:
OpenGL CrossFire Support Under Windows Vista
Catalyst 7.3 introduces OpenGL CrossFire support for the entire ATI Radeon X1000 product series under Microsoft Vista. Users will see significant performance gains in a number of applications when running in CrossFireTM mode under Windows Vista.
CrossFire Enhancements for Windows Vista
Catalyst 7.3 includes CrossFire enhancements for Windows Vista that enable the Alternate Frame Rendering (AFR) CrossFire rendering mode by default, enabling performance benefits for all AFR compatible applications immediately (including newly released applications that have not been officially profiled for CrossFire). Future Catalyst releases will add further CrossFire performance gains once new applications have been profiled specifically for CrossFire.
Performance Improvements
Dark Messiah Might and Magic performance improves 12.5% or greater on all Radeon X1000 series configurations when running in CrossFire mode under both the Windows XP and Windows Vista operating systems. Larger gains of 60% or more can be seen on high end products.
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32-bit and 64-bit flavors for both Vista and XP are available on AMD's ATI driver page.
Marco Chiappetta
Marco's interest in computing and technology dates all the way back to his early childhood. Even before being exposed to the Commodore P.E.T. and later the Commodore 64 in the early ‘80s, he was interested in electricity and electronics, and he still has the modded AFX cars and shop-worn soldering irons to prove it. Once he got his hands on his own Commodore 64, however, computing became Marco's passion. Throughout his academic and professional lives, Marco has worked with virtually every major platform from the TRS-80 and Amiga, to today's high end, multi-core servers. Over the years, he has worked in many fields related to technology and computing, including system design, assembly and sales, professional quality assurance testing, and technical writing. In addition to being the Managing Editor here at HotHardware for close to 15 years, Marco is also a freelance writer whose work has been published in a number of PC and technology related print publications and he is a regular fixture on HotHardware’s own Two and a Half Geeks webcast. - Contact: marco(at)hothardware(dot)com
