Introduction

I have to say, the Catalyst 8.12 is one driver set that I've been looking quite forward to; this for a few reasons. The first is that I will get to take my brand new testbed for a nice spin using a host of top ATI based graphics cards.

The second reason is that it was going to be interesting to see how ATI would respond to the ForceWare 180.47 drivers which had a huge focus on giving good performance to a lot of this holiday season's top games.

From a paper perspective, the driver doesn't look like it's going to disappoint with some big promises made. Let's have a look at what ATI say they're going to give us before we get stuck in to the performance side of things and find out for ourselves.

Performance Improvements

The following performance gains are noticed with this release of Catalyst™

3DMark Vantage DX10 - performance gains of up to 5% for Single and

Crossfire mode. Performance gains were noticed on HD46xx, HD4550 and

HD4350.

Call of Duty: World at War DX9 - performance gains of up to 21% for Single

and Crossfire mode. Performance gains were noticed on all Radeon HD48xx.

Crysis DX10 - performance gains of up to 25% for Single and Crossfire

mode. Performance gains were noticed on all Radeon HD4xxx.

Crysis Warhead DX10 - performance gains of up to 13% for Single card

mode and up to 16% for Crossfire mode. Performance gains were noticed on

all Radeon HD4xxx.

Devil May Cry 4 DX10 - performance gains of up to 6% for Single and

Crossfire mode. Performance gains were noticed on all Radeon HD4xxx and

HD38xx.

Fallout 3 - performance gains of up to 15% for Single card mode.

Far Cry 2 DX10 - performance gains of up to 10% for Single card mode and

up to 57% in Crossfire mode. Performance gains were noticed on all Radeon

HD4xxx and HD38xx.

FEAR DX9 - performance gains of up to 6% for Single and Crossfire mode.

Performance gains were noticed on Radeon HD4870X2 and HD4870.

Hellgate: London DX10 - performance gains of up to 6% for Single card

mode and up to 10% for Crossfire mode. Performance gains were noticed on

all Radeon HD4xxx.

Left 4 Dead DX9 - performance gains of up to 10% for Single card mode and

up to 5% for Crossfire mode. Performance gains were noticed on all Radeon

HD4870 series.

Lost Planet Colonies DX10 - performance gains of up to 10% for Single and

Crossfire mode. Performance gains were noticed on all Radeon HD4xxx and

HD38xx.

Prey OGL - performance gains of up to 15% for Crossfire mode. Performance

gains were noticed on Radeon HD4870 1GB products, HD46xx,

HD45xx.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky - performance gains of up to 10% for Crossfire

mode. Performance gains were noticed on all Radeon HD4xxx and HD38xx.

Unreal Tournament 3 DX9 - performance gains of up to 18% for Single

card mode and up to 15% in Crossfire mode, especially in cases where AA is

enabled. Performance gains were noticed on all Radeon HD4xxx and

HD38xx