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home > articles > software > ati catalyst 5.9 performance analysis
ATI Catalyst 5.9 Performance Analysis
Author: Shane Baxtor SUMMARY: Yesterday ATI released their latest Catalyst driver for users of Radeon graphics cards. The new driver promises plenty of bug fixes but what about performance? Read on as we take a look at the new Catalyst 5.9 drivers compared against the pervious version to see if it's worth upgrading from a performance prospective. We'll be comparing the drivers on a Radeon X550, X700 and X850XT.
Editor: Cameron Wilmot
Category: Software
Published: 22nd September 2005

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Introduction

As we come to the end of another month we see another Catalyst release make its way to our inbox from ATI. As always we will do our normal comparison of the latest release to the previous – in this case the 5.8.


Sapphire Technology RADEON X850 XT Platinum Edition



We have made some changes to our test system (for instance, X300 ditched and replaced with X550) but we will have a close look at that in just a minute. For now let’s have a quick look at what the latest drivers bring as far as performance and fixes go.


Release notes from ATI

From ATI:

Issues Resolved in Catalyst™ Software Suite 5.9

  • Battlefield 2: The game no longer exits to the Windows desktop after the game logo is displayed
  • Endorphin: Running the application under Windows XP no longer results in hesitation being noticed during simulation or playback
  • Max Payne 2: Erratic mouse pointer behavior is no longer noticed within the game's menu after a short time period of game play
  • MU: Opening a chat window and playing the on-line game no longer results in Hesitation being noticed when pressing the Enter key
  • Silent Hunter 3: Enabling all video options within the game and setting the particle density to 100, along with setting Anti-Aliasing to 6X and Anisotropic Filtering to 16x, no longer results in display corruption on the left portion of the display
  • Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic 2: Running the Dantoonie level of the game no longer results in hesitation being noticed
  • Terminator 3: The game no longer fails to respond and a VPU Recover message no longer occur after loading the game character
  • The Catalyst Control Center no longer displays blank pages when quickly exiting and re-launching the Catalyst Control Center while hot-plugging or hot-unplugging a CRT display device
  • Installing an All-in-Wonder into a system containing an ATI Radeon Xpress 200 series and an ATI Theater 550 Pro no longer results in loss of signal error message when setting the country region to Sweden
  • HDTV support may still be displayed within the control panel with ATI products that do not support HDTV
  • Connecting two display devices using the DVI and CRT connectors on a system containing an ATI Xpress 200 results in the system failing to resume when entering standby state
  • Catalyst Control Center: The Overdrive Automated Clock Configuration Utility may continue running even after the user selects apply or cancel in the utility's confirmation window
  • Connecting two display devices using the DVI and CRT connectors on a system containing an ATI Xpress 200 no longer results in the system failing to resume when entering standby state. Further details can be found in topic number 737-19538
  • Catalyst Control Center: Connecting a TV as the only display device to an ATI Radeon X300/X600 series no longer results in the Signal Format found in the Adjustment page of the TV Properties being labeled as Unknown
  • Three of the four ATI entries found in the Add or Remove Programs for Windows XP Japanese version, are no longer displayed in English
  • The Catalyst Control Center shortcut is now removed when selecting to uninstall the ATI software driver
  • Catalyst Control Center: The Overscan slider bar now displays a Minimum, Medium and Maximum setting for All-in-Wonder SCART boards
  • WDM version numbers are no longer documented in the Information Center of the Catalyst Control Center for ATI products that do not support WDM drivers
  • An intermittent error message is no longer experienced when selecting all of the aspects within the Catalyst Control Center quickly
  • The limited account user no longer has the ability to add a short cut for the profile manager in the system tray
  • Overdrive settings no longer revert back to the default setting when connecting a secondary display device and enabling extended desktop mode
  • Moving the slide bar found in the Adjustments aspect of the Catalyst Control Center are now restored to their pervious levels when clicking the discard button
  • A horizontal shifting issue when using the capture application is now resolved
  • Changes to the audio settings are now retained after a system reboot when using the ATI Theater 550 Pro
  • Resuming from suspend mode no longer results in the audio level returning to its default value
  • Poor quality of static texture and scrolling text when watching live TV on system containing an ATI All-in-Wonder X800 series product is no longer noticeable
  • Catalyst Control Center: The hot-key list is now dynamically populated to reflect the enable/disable status
  • The Use Manual Detection Only translation for traditional Chinese is now correct
  • The Overscan/Underscan option found in the Catalyst Control Center has now been translated properly for the Russian language
  • The ability to navigate within the Catalyst Control Center while a confirmation dialog box for the Catalyst Control Center is displayed is no longer possible
  • The Apply button is now available when making a change to 3D aspect page in the Catalyst Control Center
  • Intermittent launch failures of the Catalyst Control Center is now resolved
  • Connecting two display devices to the Radeon X700 using the DVI and CRT connectors no longer results in display corruption being noticed when booting Windows XP
  • Connecting an HDTV and a CRT display device followed by disabling the CRT and rebooting the system no longer results in the HDTV failing to display an image and the CRT becoming active again
  • HDTV support no longer fails to be detected properly after connecting a CRT and TV to the ATI Radeon Xpress 200 series
  • Display corruption is no longer noticed on the secondary display device when disabling extended desktop mode
  • Setting Anti-Aliasing to 4x in the Catalyst Control Center no longer results in a blank window or an error message being displayed when launching Java plug in
  • Hesitation is no longer noticed during the opening cinematic of Madagascar when rotating the display device by 180 degrees
  • Display corruption is no longer noticed when running the Codecreatures benchmark when the FrameBuffer is set to 64MB on system containing an ATI Radeon Xpress 200 series
  • An extraordinarily long delay is no longer noticed when resuming from an S3 state
  • Overlay corruption is no longer noticed when turning off the primary display device in systems containing an ATI Radeon Xpress 200 series
  • The display resolution options of 800x600 and 640x480 mode are no longer available within the Display Manager aspect after rotating a desktop that is rotated by 90 or 270 degree
  • Running 3D billboard under XP and having the application window display on the left side of the primary display, no longer results in the 3D screen image staying on the left side when dragging the application to the right side of the display device
  • A black screen image is no longer displayed when entering a full screen DOS prompt when using an ATI Radeon 9800 XT under Windows XP
  • The Windows XP Professional x64 Edition operating system no longer prompts the user for confirmation of the un-install of ATI Parental Control when running the ATI un-attended un-install
  • Entering standby mode under the Windows XP operating system no longer results in display corruption being noticed or the operating system failing to respond
  • Display corruption when using the TV-Out composite setting has now been resolved for the ATI Radeon Xpress 200 series
  • Video corruption is no longer noticed when playing a DVD under Windows XP MCE
  • Live TV no longer appears choppy when using and ATI Radeon X300 and two ATI Theater 550 Pro tuner cards and outputting to PiP in PowerCinema
  • Video jitter is no longer noticed when playing back video using overlay with DXVA
  • The German language control panel text no longer appears truncated when using 96 DPI

    Again this month ATI has included a ton of bug fixes so it would be wise to upgrade your drivers without even seeing the performance numbers yet.


    Sapphire Technology RADEON X850 XT Platinum Edition



    - You can read the full release notes documentation from ATI here

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