catalyst 11.5 released with new and improved controllpanel plus 11.5a hotfix

hclarkjr

Lifer
Oct 9, 1999
11,375
0
0
http://www2.ati.com/DRIVERS/11-5_vista64_win7_64_dd_ccc_ocl.exe
http://www2.ati.com/DRIVERS/11-5_vista32_win7_32_dd_ccc_ocl.exe
http://www2.ati.com/DRIVERS/11-5_xp64_dd_ccc_ocl.exe
http://www2.ati.com/DRIVERS/11-5_xp32_dd_ccc_ocl.exe

https://a248.e.akamai.net/f/674/203...catalyst_11.5a_hotfix_8.85.6rc1_win7_may5.exe
https://a248.e.akamai.net/f/674/203...atalyst_11.5a_hotfix_8.85.6rc1_winxp_may5.exe

AMD's driver department seems to long for a prolonged vacation this year, so they bolted down the new Catalyst Driver Suite 11.5 WHQL in record time in the first third of the month already and uploaded them on their servers. The announcement on their download site should be live any minute now. According to packaging and Catalyst Control Center timestamp, this WHQL-Driver for all HD-Radeons (yay! finally) capable of DirectX 10, 10.1 or 11, was finalized only two weeks after the official Mjölnir-Release.

Unfortunately, this release can not compete in astonishing number in terms of performance increases with Mjölnir also, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. AMD's software engineers seem to have concentrated on fixing bugs and adding a new and improved control panel for the video section - I have a side-by-side comparison below (it's almost like I've had a hunch…).

And now for the „GPU-Tech.org added value”, I am promising to deliver. Here's the supported standards and tech for most of the recent desktop Radeon cards - something that's not very well documented on the web, not to speak of being crammed into one single place. http://www.gpu-tech.org/content.php...ngs-new-Video-Control-Panel-plus-11.5a-Hotfix

The AMD Catalyst software suite 11.5 contains the following:
  • AMD display driver version 8.85
  • HydraVision™ for Windows® XP, Windows Vista® and Windows 7
  • Southbridge/IXP Driver
  • AMD Catalyst Control Center version 8.85

Important ! Caution !

  • The AMD display driver and the AMD Catalyst Control Center can be downloaded independently of each other. However, for better stability and performance AMD recommends that both components be updated from the same AMD Catalyst release.
  • The AMD Catalyst Control Center requires that the Microsoft® .NET Framework SP1 be installed for Windows XP and Windows Vista. Without .NET SP1 installed, the AMD Catalyst Control Center will not launch properly and the user will see an error message.

Notes.

  • When installing the AMD Catalyst driver for Windows operating system, the user must be logged on as Administrator or have Administrator rights to complete the installation of the AMD Catalyst driver.
  • These release notes provide information on the AMD display driver only. For information on the ATI Multimedia Center, HydraVision, HydraVision Basic Edition, Remote Wonder™, or the Southbridge/IXP driver, please refer to their respective release notes found at: http://support.amd.com/.
  • ATI Eyefinity™ technology gives gamers access to high display resolutions. As pixel count grows, the graphics horsepower required to drive the displays at a reasonable frame rate can increase dramatically. Depending on the game and system configuration, users may notice texture corruption and reduced frame rates when running games in multi-monitor Eyefinity modes.
  • Windows Driver Model (WDM) drivers are no longer bundled in the AMD Catalyst software suite. The WDM drivers install bundle can be downloaded independently through the AMD website
 
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Red Hawk

Diamond Member
Jan 1, 2011
3,266
169
106
Well that was quicker than the wait between 11.3 and 11.4. I wonder why? I'll get around to installing this on my laptop later.
 

ImDonly1

Platinum Member
Dec 17, 2004
2,357
0
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Quick question... do you need the 11.5 to install 11.5a? or does the 11.5a have everything and can update from old versions too?
 

happy medium

Lifer
Jun 8, 2003
14,387
480
126
according to the release notes they do http://support.amd.com/us/kbarticles/Pages/AMDCatalyst115ReleaseNotes.aspx

ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3200 Series of Products

The following notebooks are not compatible with this release:
•Any notebook launched after this driver release
•Switchable Graphics enabled notebooks using Intel® chipsets.
•Toshiba® notebooks (please contact the notebook OEM for driver support for these notebooks)
•Sony® VAIO® notebooks (please contact the notebook OEM for driver support for these notebooks)
• Panasonic® notebooks (please contact the notebook OEM for driver support for these notebooks)

I have an Acer , looks like I'm good.

edit: the windows 7 link is broken.
 
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happy medium

Lifer
Jun 8, 2003
14,387
480
126
installed the 11.5 drivers and hot fix on my Acer laptop with hd3200 graphics. Played some Left For Dead, all seems fine. Windows 7 64 bit.
 

mingsoup

Golden Member
May 17, 2006
1,295
2
81
Installed 11.5a driver only and saw a 3% increase with AVP. Look like good drivers. Plus! they supposedly get rid of cursor flicker I've been seeing in Cataclysm since 11.4.
 

Bateluer

Lifer
Jun 23, 2001
27,730
8
0
Damn, just installed 11.4 too. Guess it doesn't much matter, as I have a 4870 and a 5670 in these machines. I need upgrades!
 

QuantumPion

Diamond Member
Jun 27, 2005
6,010
1
76
Installed 11.5a driver only and saw a 3% increase with AVP. Look like good drivers. Plus! they supposedly get rid of cursor flicker I've been seeing in Cataclysm since 11.4.

Nice, it took them 2 years but they finally got around to it. o_O
 

Red Hawk

Diamond Member
Jan 1, 2011
3,266
169
106
I've never installed an AMD hotfix before. Should I just install the hotfix and ignore the main release?
 

busydude

Diamond Member
Feb 5, 2010
8,793
5
76
I've never installed an AMD hotfix before. Should I just install the hotfix and ignore the main release?

AMD Catalyst™ Driver 11.5a Hotfix Feature:

  • Includes performance optimizations and resolves various quality issues for the upcoming release of Brink™
  • Resolves transcoding video lagging issues seen when converting multiple H.264 clips to MPEG2 Blu-ray video
  • Resolves the intermittent mouse cursor lag issue seen by some users
  • Resolves intermittent flickering issues seen in the following applications in a system using an AMD Radeon™ HD 6000 series graphics card with DDR3 memory and running in DirectX® 9 mode:
    • Civilization 5
    • Dead Rising 2
    • Fallout 3
    • Mafia 2
    • NBA 2010
    • ShenGuiChuanQi
    • Starcraft 2
    • Warcraft III
    • World of Warcraft

If you think this may benefit you, go ahead. Otherwise, just install 11.5..
 

Red Hawk

Diamond Member
Jan 1, 2011
3,266
169
106
I don't mean should I install it, I mean how do I install it. I installed the main 11.5 release first, and when I downloaded and installed 11.5a, the install manager said that the graphics drivers were up to date.
 

dust

Golden Member
Oct 13, 2008
1,328
2
71
Damn, just installed 11.4 too. Guess it doesn't much matter, as I have a 4870 and a 5670 in these machines. I need upgrades!

I didn't see any improvement for my former 4870CF setup past 10.4. With that driver also the Metro and Borderlands felt somewhat smoother than with previous drivers but I never bothered to check with Fraps if that was true. It is likely that the subsequent drivers did nothing for the 48xx series.
 

Mistwalker

Senior member
Feb 9, 2007
343
0
71
I don't mean should I install it, I mean how do I install it. I installed the main 11.5 release first, and when I downloaded and installed 11.5a, the install manager said that the graphics drivers were up to date.
This is why AMD's terminology sucks, what they call 'hotfix' drivers are basically beta releases--they are a complete driver package, not an additional add-on you install on top of the official release.

Basically you need to go through the whole uninstall -> optional use of Driver Sweeper in Safe Mode -> install routine.
 

GaiaHunter

Diamond Member
Jul 13, 2008
3,657
245
106
Basically you need to go through the whole uninstall -> optional use of Driver Sweeper in Safe Mode -> install routine.

Do you really do that?

I've been using a 4850 for 2 years, updating basically every month, always doing the express install without problem (although to be fair I did a couple of fresh windows installs due to either going from vista-> 7 or just because I changed some piece of hardware). I've been also using a 6850 since this January and no problems either.
 

Mistwalker

Senior member
Feb 9, 2007
343
0
71
Do you really do that?

I've been using a 4850 for 2 years, updating basically every month, always doing the express install without problem (although to be fair I did a couple of fresh windows installs due to either going from vista-> 7 or just because I changed some piece of hardware). I've been also using a 6850 since this January and no problems either.
I basically just express installed for a year or so with no problems either, but then started having intermittent "driver service has stopped responding" messages that resolved with a clean install. Also, you occasionally see posts from users with similar issues that go away once they sweep old files away.

Probably fine 90% of the time but I'd definitely recommend Driver Sweeper if you use hotfix releases, they tend to have trouble updating to normal version packages and vice-versa because the version numbers sometimes conflict.

Better safe than sorry IMHO, it only takes a few minutes. :)
 

Lepton87

Platinum Member
Jul 28, 2009
2,544
9
81
Has any tech site already run those drivers trough test suite? I've got a suspicion that these are another drivers that ever so slightly lower performance on 5 series. If they can improve performance on 6 series(VLIV5) why on earth can't they do the same for 5 series. Those two series share the same VLIV5 underlying architecture. At the very least they should try not to lower performance on the older cards. I hate planned obsolesce.
 

hdfxst

Senior member
May 13, 2009
851
3
81
Installed the 11.5 and no problems so far,except they seem to be more sensitive to overclocking.I started getting vpu recovery errors and had to back the memory down to 1180
 

formulav8

Diamond Member
Sep 18, 2000
7,004
522
126
I installed this morning via auto-update and I really do like the interface. Its quite nice. :thumbsup: