In its final set for 2009, AMD has just released the Catalyst 9.12 drivers for XP, Vista and W7 in both 32 and 64-bit flavours.

Catalyst 9.12 brings support for DirectCompute 10.1 using Radeon 4700/4800 series cards in both single and Crossfire configurations as well as OpenGL 3.2 extension support across the full range of cards going back to the HD 2000 series.

Only a couple applications are mentioned as far as performance improvements go. These include :-

3DMark Vantage - overall performance improves as much as 9% on ATI Radeon HD 5800 and ATI Radeon HD 5700 series products. GT1 - Jane Nash performance improves as much as 15% and FT4 - GPU Cloth improves up to 15%

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. - Call of Pripyat - Performance improves as much as 6% on single card configurations

Further to that are the usual array of bug fixes; this time for PowerDVD, WinDVD, IL-2 Sturmovik: Forgotten Battles, Res Evil 5 and Tom Clancey's HAWX.

Quick to follow is also a hot fix for the 9.12 drivers which AMD reports will allow CrossFireX configurations to work with Eyefinity display setups as well as introducing audio output capabilities in conjunction with DisplayPort connectivity.

Another addition with the hot fix is GPU acceleration support of OpenCL when used with ATI Stream SDK v2.0 on Radeon 4000 series and newer cards. There's also a bunch more bug fixes for popular game titles included here.

The official 9.12 drivers can be obtained here, and the hot fix here folks.