catalyst 9.9 released

[hclarkjr]

link
release notes

 

[nyker96]

why they release a new one every few weeks? seems as soon as I update catalyst a new one comes out. but they don't seem to change anything for my 4850 at least.

 

[SlowSpyder]

Originally posted by: nyker96
why they release a new one every few weeks? seems as soon as I update catalyst a new one comes out. but they don't seem to change anything for my 4850 at least.

They release a new driver every month or so... it seems that the new drivers typically just fix some known bugs and generally they seem to improve performance for multi-GPU setups. If your current drivers are working fine, you don't have to update, but it's nice that the new drivers are there if you want them.

 

[bryanW1995]

I think keys mentioned this earlier, you should never upgrade if everything is working perfectly. The only exception I can think of would be if you had strong reason to believe that you would gain a significant performance improvement in one or more games that you play a lot. I don't remember the last time I had to upgrade my drivers other than new card installs in fact.

 

[Jesusthewererabbit]

I upgrade Cats twice a year, or whenever I do a format. It seems to work well for me.

 

[Mem]

Originally posted by: bryanW1995
I think keys mentioned this earlier, you should never upgrade if everything is working perfectly. The only exception I can think of would be if you had strong reason to believe that you would gain a significant performance improvement in one or more games that you play a lot. I don't remember the last time I had to upgrade my drivers other than new card installs in fact.

I having been updating every month for the last few years now, not like you get any issues or need to be a brain surgeon to install them ,also remember bug fixes are in drivers so by not updating drivers you miss out on those bug fixes, especially if you don't update often.

Yes I installed 9.9s no issues as usual.

 

[Phynaz]

Originally posted by: nyker96
why they release a new one every few weeks? seems as soon as I update catalyst a new one comes out. but they don't seem to change anything for my 4850 at least.

Why do you install new drivers every few weeks?
If you're not having any issues leave them alone.

 

[dguy6789]

"Task switching between the desktop and a game in progress no longer has a visible delay (7-10 seconds)"

That sounds awesome.

Edit: Confirmed that alt tabbing is significantly improved on Vista.

 

[cusideabelincoln]

Originally posted by: dguy6789
"Task switching between the desktop and a game in progress no longer has a visible delay (7-10 seconds)"

That sounds awesome.

Edit: Confirmed that alt tabbing is significantly improved on Vista.

Oh wow, I totally didn't catch this the first time around. I think it's time to upgrade from 9.4s.

 

[Sylvanas]

I always update my drivers every month. It's good to have all the big fixes and performance improvements at my disposal so I am sure my games are running as best as possible. It's not hard to update.

 

[Yukmouth]

You should never be scared to install new Cats, ATI has done well keeping each revision functional as the previous release.

I'm not a fan of the Control Center though.

 

[Rafael]

A little off, but Catalyst 9.9 released on 9/9/09?!
Nice!!!
And I installed 9.8 2 days ago when my 4890 arrived!!! Time to change.

 

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

Originally posted by: Rafael
A little off, but Catalyst 9.9 released on 9/9/09?!
Nice!!!

this

 

[Davegod]

are people still enabling adaptive anti-aliasing? I thought it was a no-brainer but I see it is disabled by default? (I have a 4850, playing TF2, L4D and not much else atm).

ps. I take it TF2 timedemo sucks a a benchmark. I ran it on my 9.3's and got 99fps/13variability & 174/10 on another demo; then on these 9.9's I get 145/14 & 189/13... then ran again and got 205/12 & 217/12...

 

[bryanW1995]

Originally posted by: Mem

Originally posted by: bryanW1995
I think keys mentioned this earlier, you should never upgrade if everything is working perfectly. The only exception I can think of would be if you had strong reason to believe that you would gain a significant performance improvement in one or more games that you play a lot. I don't remember the last time I had to upgrade my drivers other than new card installs in fact.

I having been updating every month for the last few years now, not like you get any issues or need to be a brain surgeon to install them ,also remember bug fixes are in drivers so by not updating drivers you miss out on those bug fixes, especially if you don't update often.

Yes I installed 9.9s no issues as usual.

If you're not having any issues right now, why would you want to risk CAUSING one? Don't get me wrong, as mentioned I could see installing them for performance reasons, but otherwise I think that you're just asking for problems. By the way, I used to install eveyr single cat release like clockwork, but eventually I just, well, stopped doing it, and I never had a problem after that.

 

[Mem]

Originally posted by: bryanW1995

Originally posted by: Mem

Originally posted by: bryanW1995
I think keys mentioned this earlier, you should never upgrade if everything is working perfectly. The only exception I can think of would be if you had strong reason to believe that you would gain a significant performance improvement in one or more games that you play a lot. I don't remember the last time I had to upgrade my drivers other than new card installs in fact.

I having been updating every month for the last few years now, not like you get any issues or need to be a brain surgeon to install them ,also remember bug fixes are in drivers so by not updating drivers you miss out on those bug fixes, especially if you don't update often.

Yes I installed 9.9s no issues as usual.

If you're not having any issues right now, why would you want to risk CAUSING one? Don't get me wrong, as mentioned I could see installing them for performance reasons, but otherwise I think that you're just asking for problems. By the way, I used to install eveyr single cat release like clockwork, but eventually I just, well, stopped doing it, and I never had a problem after that.

Why would installing drivers cause problems?..Your PC won't blow up or throw a fit,infact as I have previously stated I always update my video drivers and have yet to have any issues,sure there is a very very small chance but its so small its nothing to worry about,infact over the years of driver updating I have proved the point ,so proof is in the pudding as they say.

Remember new drivers have bug fixes and other possible new features like support for new models,new control panel etc...and sometimes performance increases.


One more minor point, updating drivers in Vista and Win7 is more robust then XP etc... so chance of sometime going wrong is very small,don't forget its very simple and fast to uninstall/change a video driver if you are not happy with it.



Looking forward to 9.10s .

 

[MarcVenice]

AMD claims that installing the latest Catalyst could bring 30% performance boosts compared to a Catalyst version from let's say a year ago. They were probably exagerating, but I reckon you could easily get a 20% boost in some games compared to drivers that are a year old, or maybe even six months. The same holds true for Nvidia's drivers.

Personaly I upgrade when I feel like it. If the few games I play aren't getting a performance boost, I sometimes skip it for a month.

 

[bryanW1995]

Originally posted by: Mem

Originally posted by: bryanW1995

Originally posted by: Mem

Originally posted by: bryanW1995
I think keys mentioned this earlier, you should never upgrade if everything is working perfectly. The only exception I can think of would be if you had strong reason to believe that you would gain a significant performance improvement in one or more games that you play a lot. I don't remember the last time I had to upgrade my drivers other than new card installs in fact.

I having been updating every month for the last few years now, not like you get any issues or need to be a brain surgeon to install them ,also remember bug fixes are in drivers so by not updating drivers you miss out on those bug fixes, especially if you don't update often.

Yes I installed 9.9s no issues as usual.

If you're not having any issues right now, why would you want to risk CAUSING one? Don't get me wrong, as mentioned I could see installing them for performance reasons, but otherwise I think that you're just asking for problems. By the way, I used to install eveyr single cat release like clockwork, but eventually I just, well, stopped doing it, and I never had a problem after that.

Why would installing drivers cause problems?..Your PC won't blow up or throw a fit,infact as I have previously stated I always update my video drivers and have yet to have any issues,sure there is a very very small chance but its so small its nothing to worry about,infact over the years of driver updating I have proved the point ,so proof is in the pudding as they say.

Remember new drivers have bug fixes and other possible new features like support for new models,new control panel etc...and sometimes performance increases.


One more minor point, updating drivers in Vista and Win7 is more robust then XP etc... so chance of sometime going wrong is very small,don't forget its very simple and fast to uninstall/change a video driver if you are not happy with it.



Looking forward to 9.10s .

Interesting point about vista/7. I use vista at work and on my laptop, but gaming pc is still xp pro. even with as great as win 7 reputed to be, I suspect it will be several years before I need to upgrade to a 64 bit os. Honestly, I'm so happy with xp pro that I might even dump it into my next build. I think that I still have 4 years of support from MS, so that might be my limit.

 

[Mem]

Originally posted by: bryanW1995



Interesting point about vista/7. I use vista at work and on my laptop, but gaming pc is still xp pro. even with as great as win 7 reputed to be, I suspect it will be several years before I need to upgrade to a 64 bit os. Honestly, I'm so happy with xp pro that I might even dump it into my next build. I think that I still have 4 years of support from MS, so that might be my limit.

This is off topic however Vista and Win7 performance in gaming is up there with XP and in a few cases even faster link. .

 

[Clinkster]

Originally posted by: dguy6789
"Task switching between the desktop and a game in progress no longer has a visible delay (7-10 seconds)"

That sounds awesome.

Edit: Confirmed that alt tabbing is significantly improved on Vista.

Yeah, once I read that, I updated in a heartbeat.

 

[TridenT]

FAAAAAIIIIIIIIIILLLLLLLLL

I have to format because these drivers totally fucked my system. :| I did driver sweeper... Uninstalled... safe mode driver sweeped.. nothing was there... Everything, did it all.. STILL FAILING! :| Argh, I hate you ATI.

So great... Now I have to freaking format for the 9000th time because of shitty ATI drivers.

Why can't they EVER freaking learn to make BETTER installers?

 

[ElFenix]

Originally posted by: Jesusthewererabbit
I upgrade Cats twice a year, or whenever I do a format. It seems to work well for me.

you format twice a year?

 

[TridenT]

Originally posted by: ElFenix

Originally posted by: Jesusthewererabbit
I upgrade Cats twice a year, or whenever I do a format. It seems to work well for me.

you format twice a year?

He's crazy. I average like format once a month or every two or three months, probably. I can't go a year without formatting... That's madness..

 

[Chaotic42]

Originally posted by: TridenT

Originally posted by: ElFenix

Originally posted by: Jesusthewererabbit
I upgrade Cats twice a year, or whenever I do a format. It seems to work well for me.

you format twice a year?

He's crazy. I average like format once a month or every two or three months, probably. I can't go a year without formatting... That's madness..

Why? What are you doing to your poor computer?

 

[error8]

Originally posted by: TridenT

Originally posted by: ElFenix

Originally posted by: Jesusthewererabbit
I upgrade Cats twice a year, or whenever I do a format. It seems to work well for me.

you format twice a year?

He's crazy. I average like format once a month or every two or three months, probably. I can't go a year without formatting... That's madness..

I format once a year, sometimes maybe it can pass even longer then that, between formats. I use to do it at 6 months time, when I was using XP, but for some reason, Vista seems to live much longer in good health on my computer.