AMD 13.9 WHQLs out, drops support for Vista 64bit?

[Elixer]

http://sites.amd.com/us/game/downloads/Pages/radeon_win8-64.aspx

http://support.amd.com/us/kbarticles/Pages/AMDCatalyst13-9WINReleaseNotes.aspx

RESOLVED ISSUES

Severe flicker in Far Cry® 3 game cinematic that may continue into gameplay.
BSOD crash when enabling CrossFire in the AMD Catalyst Control Center after installing a third AMD Radeon HD7790 graphics card.
BSOD crash in Windows 8 when display turns off (idle/sleep mode).
AMD Catalyst Control Center crash after creating an Eyefinity Group.
Disappearing mouse cursor in Windows 8 after completing the AMD Catalyst Driver installation and rebooting the system.
Cyberlink PowerDVD stop working with a pop-up error message during playback of a Blu-Ray movie under Power Saving mode.
When Dual Graphics is disabled within AMD Catalyst Control Center, the secondary display connected may not enable.
Frame drops experienced during playback of interlaced Blu-Ray content when all visual quality settings are enabled in AMD Catalyst Control Center.
Significant game performance slowdowns when moving the mouse cursor in World of Warcraft using DirectX 9 rendering mode.
Anti-aliasing and anisotropic filtering settings saved within created AMD Catalyst Control Center application profiles do not apply correctly.
Windows 8 Metro applications experience very low FPS when Dual Graphics is enabled in the AMD Catalyst Control Center.

These are the first WHQL drivers that drop support for Vista 64bit people, and there is no mention of why anyplace.
Before, they would offer vista/win7/win8 installer.

 

[Shmee]

hmm, odd. I also noticed it absent form 13.10b

 

[escrow4]

Naturally, who even uses Vista anymore? You have 7 and 8, both solid, both worth supporting. XP and Vista belong in the bin. They've been replaced.

 

[nurturedhate]

When Vista was released the X1950 XTX was ATI/AMD's top card. The Nvidia just released G80. Vista is long in the tooth.

 

[Elixer]

Naturally, who even uses Vista anymore? You have 7 and 8, both solid, both worth supporting. XP and Vista belong in the bin. They've been replaced.

It can be argued that vista (w/SP2) is better than win 8, but, that is beside the point.
The driver model is the same as on win 7 & 8, so, there wouldn't be a reason not to support vista.

XP is a different story, and the kernel isn't even remotely the same.

There are still issues with the last WHQL they released, and it only makes sense for them to fix the outstanding issues before dropping support.

 

[lamedude]

Vista is WDDM 1.0, 7 is 1.1 and 8 is 1.2. Not very different but must be different enough.

 

[mikeymikec]

nvm

 

[adnank77]

Does it solve the stuttering issue in multi-monitor setups ?

 

[nenforcer]

Vista came out in what, October 2006? That's less than 7 years of GPU support and even less considering almost no ones (especially nVidia's) drivers worked right away.

Vista still supports DirectX 10.0, 10.1 and 11.0, I don't see why they would drop support.

 

[Spjut]

AMD really shouldn't drop support for Vista. It just makes them look cheap.

 

[hclarkjr]

should also be mentioned that this is the first official driver for windows 8.1

AMD’s first logo certified driver for Windows 8.1

 

[Shmee]

Does it solve the stuttering issue in multi-monitor setups ?

I don't think so. notes say it does not include the frame pacing fixes seen in 13.8 and 13.10 betas. Also, even 13.10 doesn't support eyefinity frame pacing yet, it is still a WIP.

 

[ViRGE]

I thought it was a typo, but sure enough checking the INF files there isn't a file with entries for Vista (NTamd64.6.0). How weird. I can see them dropping XP, but Vista's a bit early yet.

 

[nemesismk2]

I thought it was a typo, but sure enough checking the INF files there isn't a file with entries for Vista (NTamd64.6.0). How weird. I can see them dropping XP, but Vista's a bit early yet.

it's probably just down to numbers such as windows xp is used by 40% of computer users, windows 7 at 45%, windows 8 at 6% and vista is at 4%. I do agree that Windows XP will be next though.

 

[ViRGE]

it's probably just down to numbers such as windows xp is used by 40% of computer users, windows 7 at 45%, windows 8 at 6% and vista is at 4%. I do agree that Windows XP will be next though.

They didn't post XP drivers either. So it looks like they in fact discontinued both.

 

[Braxos]

Vista was a OS that you had to opt out when it was on his highs, if you use it now then sorry but there are better OS out there even XP and W2k are better.

 

[taq8ojh]

Anyone can explain what does "logo certified" mean? I can't google anything about that, but it seems like WHQL, because by passing those tests, products are certified with a Windows logo or something.

 

[SlowSpyder]

Vista was a OS that you had to opt out when it was on his highs, if you use it now then sorry but there are better OS out there even XP and W2k are better.

I think Vista gets a bad reputation from when it first came out. I used it for some years after drivers caught up and the first service pack came out. I would have never bothered moving to Win7 if it wasn't for AMD selling me a 7970 with no working Vista drivers, even though Vista was listed as supported.

I bought the card at launch, the drivers came out a few months later if I remember correctly, but I wanted to use my shiney new video card so I went to Best Buy and got a 120GB SSD and Win7. And that is how your $500 video card upgrade becomes a $800+ system upgrade... on a PhII machine.

 

[railven]

Ohhh finally they fixed the issue of AA/AF settings not sticking in profiles? That's good.

Is this driver newer or equal to 13.10b? So far 13.10b has been the best driver I've ever used for WoW, well minus the fact I have to set AA settings globally haha.

 

[Braxos]

For my taste ME VISTA 98 95 WIN8 XP NT W2K WIN7 WIN3.11 the order from ..... to better. And 3.11 wins all since it is the first one that moved ppl from keyboard dos to mouse OS.

3.11 one to rule them all

 

[tg2708]

how do i know its installed when i have 13.10 beta?

 

[alexruiz]

The list of improvements is marginal to be honest, and I am assuming those improvements are using cat 13.4 as baseline, meaning that indeed this driver release is more for marketing (Win 8.1 ready!!!) rather than for fixing issues. Are the 13.6b and 13.8 fixes included, not counting CF and frame pacing? Doesn't seem like it.

The secondary display issue hopefully fixes also the CCC having a mind of its own and reverting to "extended desktop" despite that "duplicate" had already been selected.

I was expecting a major release given the fact that 13.4 was released almost half a year ago but it seems it is fluff more than substance (win 8.1 ready!!)

 

[Phynaz]

AMD really shouldn't drop support for Vista. It just makes them look cheap.

Are you running Vista with an AMD video card? Which card?

 

[blackened23]

AMD really shouldn't drop support for Vista. It just makes them look cheap.

From what I can tell, they did release a vista driver but it is still beta and not WHQL. 13.10 beta was linked as well for Vista.

 

[Phynaz]

FYI, according to Techreport, these are NOT a frame pacing driver!