AMD 12.2 Pre Cert's are out. and new CAP's

[Zargon]

AMD Catalyst™ 12.2 Pre-Certified Driver

Last Updated
2/16/2012

Article Number
GPU-151

The AMD Catalyst™ 12.2 Certified driver (It is the same driver as the Catalyst 12.2 Pre-Certified, but will be officially Microsoft® certified) will be posted in late February or very early March 2012.
Feature highlights of the AMD Catalyst 12.2 pre-certified driver:

Windows 7 and Windows® Vista® support for the AMD Radeon™ HD 7900 Series and AMD Radeon HD 7700 Series
•
Enables support for Windows 7 64-bit/32-bit and Windows Vista 64-bit/32-bit

•
Windows XP support will be made available in AMD Catalyst 12.4


Super Sampling Anti-Aliasing is now available for DirectX® 10 and DirectX 11 applications
•
Supported on the AMD Radeon HD 7900 and 7700 Series

•
Users can now enable Super Sample Anti-Aliasing and Adaptive Anti-Aliasing through the AMD Catalyst Control Center for DirectX 10 and DirectX 11 applications

•
Applications must support in game Anti-Aliasing for the feature to work (Forced on Anti-Aliasing through the Catalyst Control Center is not supported for DirectX 10 and DirectX 11 applications)


AMD Eyefinity 2.1 technology enhancements
•
Custom resolutions – users can now choose from a much larger set of display resolutions for their AMD Eyefinity configurations

•
Dynamic Configuration Changes: Switching between different display configurations (when physically plugging/un-plugging displays) will occur automatically by loading the appropriate profile

•
HydraVision enhancements: The Windows Task bar can now be moved and resized based on users preference

•
Profile Manager improvements: Users can now create multiple Display profiles, enabling users to seamlessly switch between various AMD Eyefinity and Display Configurations

12.1 CAP 3

AMD Catalyst Application Profiles

0.5 MB

12.1 CAP 3

2/15/2012






Description:

This release of AMD Catalyst™ delivers support for the latest AMD CrossFireX™ profiles in a separate executable file ensuring users have access to the absolute latest set of profiles installed on their PC.

New profiles added to this release:

- Alan Wake - Improves CrossFire performance

- Syndicate – Improves both single GPU and CrossFire performance

- Darkness 2 – Improves CrossFire performance

- Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning – Improves CrossFire performance for the AMD Radeon HD 6000 Series to avoid negative scaling at low resolutions

- Natural Selection 2 – Fixes shadow map flickering issue seen with CrossFire enabled

 

[FiLeZz]

downloading now for my eyefinity setup and my 7970's

 

[ViRGE]

The certified drivers will be posted in late February or early March? It sounds like 12.2 may miss February then, in which case there's a slight bit of irony since this a leap year.

 

[VulgarDisplay]

Are 7900 series cards supported by these or not? When you enter your hardware info it brings these up, but the supported cards don't show the 7900's in the list.

It also says it adds SSAA support to 7900 cards in dx10 and 11. Not very clear if these work for 7900 cards or not.

 

[Zargon]

Are 7900 series cards supported by these or not? When you enter your hardware info it brings these up, but the supported cards don't show the 7900's in the list.

It also says it adds SSAA support to 7900 cards in dx10 and 11. Not very clear if these work for 7900 cards or not.

not clear? its like the 4th line

Windows 7 and Windows® Vista® support for the AMD Radeon™ HD 7900 Series and AMD Radeon HD 7700 Series

 

[moriz]

do these have proper support for application profiles? both the 12.1RC and 12.3RC cannot properly apply application profiles. to change AA/AF settings, i have to do it manually per game.

 

[VulgarDisplay]

It says that SSAA in DX10 and DX11 is supported on the 7900 series, but the actual release notes do not list 7900 and 7700 series GPU's as being officially supported.

 

[blackened23]

They are officially supported in this release. If you go to the AMD download page and use the dropdowns to select your GPU, this download comes up.

 

[djnsmith7]

Update from AMD

Please note that AMD Radeon HD™ 7900 users should keep using the 8.921.2 RC11 driver found here (the 12.2 preview does not support the AMD Radeon HD 7900 Series):

Late night update

 

[djnsmith7]

not clear? its like the 4th line

VulgarDisplay actually has a valid point & I saw the same thing, which is why I linked the update above. The 7900's never did appear on the supported GPU list, even though the 12.2 Preview clearly stated they were supported. I hope AMD gets their stuff together soon.

 

[ViRGE]

Update from AMD




Late night update

That's for the 12.2 preview driver. The 12.2 pre-certified driver is apparently different.

 

[djnsmith7]

I don't know if the Pre-Certified driver is better suited for the 7900 series or not, but the reference to the HD 7900 series is missing in the Release Notes, just as it was with the 12.2 Preview Driver, yet still has the same reference.

Windows 7 and Windows® Vista® support for the AMD Radeon™ HD 7900 Series and AMD Radeon HD 7700 Series

AMD Catalyst™ 12.2 Pre-Certified Driver

12.2 Pre-Certified Release Notes

 

[Tempered81]

That's for the 12.2 preview driver. The 12.2 pre-certified driver is apparently different.

yeah it's different. This "12.2 pre-certified driver" looks to be exactly the same as the 12.3 RC driver linked yesterday http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2226617 :

Build Info:
DriverVer=02/14/2012, 8.950.0.0000
8.95-120214a-133662E-ATI
Catalyst: 12.3
D3D: 7.14.10.0894
OGL: 6.14.10.11554
CCC: 2012.0214.2218.39913

 

[proci]

Anyone running it with eyefinity? the only difference I noticed was that bezel correction is a lot easier to find. However, I don't see the "much larger set of resolutions" the documentation is talking about.

They also fixed the presets functionality, which was broken in 12.1 (with multiple screens).

 

[KingFatty]

Anyone running it with eyefinity? the only difference I noticed was that bezel correction is a lot easier to find. However, I don't see the "much larger set of resolutions" the documentation is talking about.

They also fixed the presets functionality, which was broken in 12.1 (with multiple screens).

So, is there *anything* documented about the larger set of resolutions?

I just don't see any way to learn about it, there doesn't seem to be any fine print to sift through, nothing but ambiguous marketing talk... what about the actual details, anything?

 

[moriz]

can anyone confirm that application profiles (not for crossfire, for game settings) are not working? mine are completely non-functional. in fact, every time i reboot, all the ones i saved disappear.

 

[jpeyton]

I'm going to wait on this one; when I installed the 12.2 preview, I got a blue-screen every hour or so in MW3 and BF3 on my CrossFireX setup.

I rolled back to the 12.1 certs and played for 8 hours straight with no issues.

 

[Chiropteran]

These drivers are really nice for bitcoin mining. Gained a few free mhash.

 

[thilanliyan]

These drivers are really nice for bitcoin mining. Gained a few free mhash.

On which card(s)?

 

[Chiropteran]

On which card(s)?

5830, at 900mhz core, 300mhz mem, undervolted to 1.01v, 50% fan

Using latest diablominer, with -v 2 -w 256

I was getting 261mhash with 12.1

With 12.2, I am now getting 280mhash

This is just a single GPU system, an ancient pentium 4.

I don't really have time right now to update my drivers in my other boxes, but I'll post the results when I do.

 

[thilanliyan]

5830, at 900mhz core, 300mhz mem, undervolted to 1.01v, 50% fan

Using latest diablominer, with -v 2 -w 256

I was getting 261mhash with 12.1

With 12.2, I am now getting 280mhash

This is just a single GPU system, an ancient pentium 4.

I don't really have time right now to update my drivers in my other boxes, but I'll post the results when I do.

Thanks for the info. I'm running 2 6950s at ~345MH/s. I'll upgrade as well and post my results later.

 

[ddarko]

I don't know if the Pre-Certified driver is better suited for the 7900 series or not, but the reference to the HD 7900 series is missing in the Release Notes, just as it was with the 12.2 Preview Driver, yet still has the same reference.



AMD Catalyst™ 12.2 Pre-Certified Driver

12.2 Pre-Certified Release Notes

It was a proofreading mistake, the sort that's become really common at AMD. They didn't have the 7900 or 7700 series listed in the chart but there was a separate note below the chart that said:

NEW FEATURES

Windows 7 and Windows Vista support for the AMD Radeon HD 7900 Series and AMD Radeon HD 7700 Series
Enables support for Windows 7 64-bit/32-bit and Windows Vista 64-bit/32-bit.
Windows XP support will be made available in AMD Catalyst 12.4.

And since you posted, AMD has revised the release note to add the 7900 and 7700 series to the chart. So now, the 12.2 pre-certified drivers are DEFINITELY for the 7900/7700 series!

I'm going to wait on this one; when I installed the 12.2 preview, I got a blue-screen every hour or so in MW3 and BF3 on my CrossFireX setup.

I rolled back to the 12.1 certs and played for 8 hours straight with no issues.

Wait for the official WHQL release? If so, not sure it's worth waiting since the 12.2 pre-certified drivers are what's been sent to Microsoft for WHQL certification. Barring a catastrophic bug being uncovered, the official WHQL drivers will be exactly the same as the pre-certified so if these don't fix your problem, then you may have to wait for interim hotfixes or March. I do think the 12.2 pre-certified are much more stable than the 12.2 preview so they may work for you.

And as Tempered81 points out above, the 12.2 pre-certified are the same as the 12.3 RC drivers from February 14/15. If you installed the 12.3 RC, it doesn't look like there's any need to install the 12.2 pre-certified.

 

[djnsmith7]

I'll probably give these a try later tonight if others have had positive results.

Thanks for the update.

 

[proci]

So, is there *anything* documented about the larger set of resolutions?

I just don't see any way to learn about it, there doesn't seem to be any fine print to sift through, nothing but ambiguous marketing talk... what about the actual details, anything?

Well, the documentation says they will be available, but there is no specific information. I am using three monitors (the ones on the side mismatch the middle one) and it would be really nice to have the same functionality as in softTH, which had a much greater functionality. The only problem is that softTH is really a pain to use and is DX9 limited. So I was really looking forward for the new functionality... which is apperently isn't there. Or at least I can't find it.

 

[thilanliyan]

Made no difference to my BTC mining, but I was already using the AMD APP SDK from a previous driver which was supposed to be much better for mining than some of the more recent releases.