NEW ATI Catalyst 5.7 Released

15 Jul, 2005 at 11:31am ET Article published in Tech

ATI has released a new set of Catalyst drivers for its Radeon line of graphics cards. Go grab ’em while they’re hot! It also looks like there’s a new Catalyst Uninstaller file available as well.

Download: [link=http://www2.ati.com/drivers/5-7_xp-2k_dd_24085.exe][b]ATI Catalyst 5.7[/b] (2000/XP)[/link] (10.6MB) – [b]ATI Catalyst 5.7 + CP[/b] (2000/XP) (25.1MB) – [b]ATI Catalyst 5.7 + CC[/b] (2000/XP) (33.6MB)
Download: [b]ATI Catalyst 5.7 + CP[/b] (XP64) (25.3MB) – [b]ATI Catalyst 5.7 + CC[/b] (XP64) (42.5MB)
View: [link=http://www2.ati.com/drivers/Catalyst_57_release_notes.html]Release notes (2000/XP)[/link] – Release notes (XP64) – [link=http://www.rage3d.com/board/showthread.php?threadid=33630746]Cataylst removal guide[/link] – [link=http://www.short-media.com/download.php?d=178]ATI Catalyst Uninstaller[/link]

Source: ATI

Comments

15 Jul 2005 ~ 11:38am shwaip Release notes claim large performance gains for 64/128MB video cards.
15 Jul 2005 ~ 12:00pm mmonnin Oh wow yeah!

5-15% gains in 3DMark05 on some products
20-60% gain in Far Cry Regulator across multiple settings
25-60% gains in Half-Life 2 at 1600x1200 4xAA 8xAF
40-60% gains in UT2004 at 1600x1200 6xAA 16xAF
50-100% improvement in Comanche4 at 1600x1200 6xAA 16xAF
50-200% gains in certain ShaderMark tests at high resolution

I think I will test the 3dmark one later tonight. I have a X700 Pro 128MB card.
15 Jul 2005 ~ 2:44pm DanG I will give 3d mark a go tonight when I get home on my x800xl. I know I am at 4847 on the 5.6's.
15 Jul 2005 ~ 10:53pm mmonnin 3dmark01
5.6 17470
5.7 17817
1.9% increase

3dmark03
5.6 6754
5.7 6751

0% increase

3dmark05
5.6 2859
5.7 2941

2% increase.

Neglible increase on all benchmarks.
16 Jul 2005 ~ 12:06pm DanG 5.6 3dmark 05 4847
5.7 3dmark 05 4836

Decrease in my situation...
16 Jul 2005 ~ 12:24pm mmonnin Not really, just about anything could cause that decrease.
16 Jul 2005 ~ 1:03pm Thrax True decreases are calculated over an average of 20-30 runs. I suspect you only ran one.. And really, moving the mouse to the right could make you lose nine points.
16 Jul 2005 ~ 3:19pm RWB I am about to run some tests myself, but I'll have to reinstall the 5.6's since I have them tweaked and with the CC which I ambeginning to hate becuase of the HUGE memory it needs to run and test both under default conditions with just the CP.
17 Jul 2005 ~ 9:49am mmonnin I installed the CC with 5.7 and it said I need to be an administrator to modify the settings so it wont open. And there are no extra tabs under the video options either.
17 Jul 2005 ~ 6:20pm RWB OK well only 3D Mark 05 yeilded any real results in pointage, but due to not being able to change the resolutions or anything, I got only a 200 point increase, whereas 3D Mark 03 yeilded only a few points.

But Half Life 2 Stress Test(in CounterStrike) showed the real gains...

Half Life Stress Test 110.21FPS Default Settings 5.6
Half Life Stress Test 110.81FPS Default Settings 5.7

Half Life Stress Test 15.53FPS Max. Res. and Settings 5.6
Half Life Stress Test 28.13FPS Max. Res. and Settings 5.7

I have yet to try BF2, but have a party to attend so later tonight I'll test it out. But I am excited to find out what gain I'll get.
17 Jul 2005 ~ 11:39pm RWB BF2 showed noticable differences as well with High Detail settings, 2x AA, and 1600x1200 Resolution.

All this being on my Radeon 9800XT(not at XT speeds, the OC is 402/361). Athlon 3000+ @ 2100MHz(410MHZ Memory), 1GB PC3200 CAS 2.

General stuff, yet I am very happy to say I can play with these detail settings now, though I might take off AA so it's a bit smoother. All driver settings are default.
18 Jul 2005 ~ 8:55am GHoosdum Wow, another step in the right direction for ATI - putting out a new driver revision that increases real-world performance instead of just benchmark performance.
20 Jul 2005 ~ 2:42am jediwillow I have the same problem as mmonnin in when I installed the new catalyst control center it said that I need to be an administator. So it does not load up. I have used all previous versions of the control center since its inception and never had any problems previously...so I installed the control panel version of the driver instead...
Any ideas as to why this happened on this version (5.7)..??
20 Jul 2005 ~ 7:22am mmonnin No idea, uninstalled and reinstalled CP.
20 Jul 2005 ~ 8:41pm jediwillow yeah I uninstalled, rebooted & reinstalled the 5.7 drivers a couple of times...with no luck. I think it might have something to do with ATI Tool, I uninstalled this program a couple of weeks ago & have been checking various blog sites & a few mentioned that ATI Tool has an administrator check when installing ATI drivers etc.
So maybe when I uninstalled ATI Tool it left that admin check thing in the registry. Maybe its time for a fresh instal of WinXP...
20 Jul 2005 ~ 11:21pm mmonnin Hmmm I have ATI Tool Installed now. I am not sure if I installed it before or after 5.7.