Friday, January 30, 2009

AMD Catalyst 9.1 Software Suite Available for Download

Brings performance enhancements and fixes a number of issues

After much anticipation, it appears that the Sunnyvale, California-based chip maker AMD has finally released the new Catalyst Suite Version 9.1, providing Radeon graphics card users with the latest display drivers and the well-known Catalyst Control Center. As with almost all driver releases, the new Catalyst Suite version 9.1 comes to fix a number of known issues and provide a higher level of power, performance and reliability.

According to the release notes, the Catalyst Software Suite 9.1 will provide users of Radeon graphics cards with the Radeon display driver 8.573, the HydraVision for both Windows XP and Vista operating systems, the HydraVision Basic Edition, designed only for Windows XP, the Southbridge/IXP driver and the new Catalyst Control Center 8.573. The new Catalyst drivers offer support for both the 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Microsoft's Windows Vista and also for the company's latest Radeon graphics cards.

The new Catalyst Suite is now available for download for both the 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Microsoft's Windows XP and Windows Vista operating systems. Here are the links for AMD's new Catalyst 9.1 Software Suite:

ATI Catalyst Software Suite for Windows XP 32-bit

ATI Catalyst Software Suite for Windows XP 64-bit

ATI Catalyst Software Suite for Windows Vista 32-bit

ATI Catalyst Software Suite for Windows Vista 64-bit

What is rather interesting is that the new set of Radeon display drivers doesn't include support for ATI's Radeon HD 4850 X2 graphics card. Apparently, AMD has decided to provide users with a separate set of drivers, for this card specifically. The download links for it are also available, for both Windows XP and Vista operating systems.

Soon after the new drivers were made available, users have been quick to upgrade to the latest version. On that note, it appears that some of the first problems have already been reported on AMD's forums, with one user claiming that he has encountered issues related to AMD's multi-GPU CrossFire feature.

It is still early to say if the issues are actually related to the new drivers, but we will try to keep you posted as soon as more details become available.