AMD has updated the March Catalyst release, version 10.3, with a WHQL certification from Microsoft. The certification assures that the driver operated correctly on hundreds of system configurations and further takes Catalyst 10.3 out of beta status.
The list of Eyefinity improvements, performance enhancements and Windows 7 fixes have been reproduced below. For a list of changes specific to Windows Vista or Windows XP, refer to the Catalyst 10.3 release notes (PDF):
ATI Catalyst™ support for ATI Mobility Radeon™ Premium Graphics solutions
- This release of ATI Catalyst™ introduces support for the production version of Windows® 7 and Windows® Vista for notebooks featuring the ATI Mobility Radeon™ HD 2000 Series, ATI Mobility™ Radeon HD 3000 Series, and ATI Mobility Radeon™ HD 4000 Series, and ATI Mobility Radeon™ HD 5000 Series of products.
- Supported by most major OEM and ODM notebook manufacturers.
ATI Catalyst Control Center – ATI Eyefinity technology enhancements
- Multiple ATI Eyefinity Groups
- Create more than one ATI Eyefinity group from multiple displays.
- Display Bezel Compensation
- Easy-to-use wizard shows users how to adjust their display layout to remove the pixels occupied by their display bezels.
- Per-Display Color Adjust
- Individual Color, Brightness and Contrast controls.
- Improved Display Configuration switching
- Support for ATI Eyefinity groups and the ATI Catalyst™ Control Center profile manager.
- Easy to toggle between cloned and extended desktop modes.
ATI Catalyst™ support for 3D Stereoscopic glasses
- AMD has updated it’s Direct3D (Quad buffer support) driver to enable 3rd party middleware vendors such as iZ3D to output stereo L/R images at 120 Hz (60 Hz per eye).
Performance Improvements
The following performance gains are noticed with this release of Catalyst™ 10.3:
- 3DMark Vantage
- Overall scores increase by up to 8% with ATI Radeon HD 5000 graphics products
- Overall scores increase by up to 4% on ATI Radeon HD 5800 Series products and up to 3% on ATI Radeon HD 5000 Series products
- Aliens vs. Predator
- Overall performance increases 5% on ATI Radeon HD 5000 Series products
- Battleforge
- Improves up to 8% on ATI Radeon HD 5000 Series products
- Improves up to 3% on ATI Radeon HD 4800 Series products
- Call of Duty: World at War
- Improves up to 2% on ATI Radeon HD 5800 Series products
- Improves up to 6% on ATI Radeon HD 4800 Series products
- Company of Heroes
- Improves up to 6% on ATI Radeon HD 5000 Series products
- Improves up to 3% on ATI Radeon HD 4800 Series products
- Crysis and Crysis Warhead
- Improves up to 6% on ATI Radeon HD 5000 Series products
- Improves up to 2% on ATI Radeon HD 4800 Series products
- Devil May Cry 4
- Improves up to 10% on ATI Radeon HD 5000 Series products
- Improves up to 6% on ATI Radeon HD 4800 Series products
- DiRT 2
- Improves up to 30% on ATI Radeon HD 5970 graphics products
- Improves up to 20% on ATI Radeon HD 5800 Series and ATI Radeon HD 5700 Series products
- Improves up to 10% on ATI Radeon HD 4800 Series products
- Enemy Territory: Quake Wars
- Improves up to 5% on ATI Radeon HD 5800 Series products
- Improves up to 3% on ATI Radeon HD 5000 Series products
- Improves up to 2% on ATI Radeon HD 4800 Series products
- Far Cry 2
- Improves up to 6% on ATI Radeon HD 5000 Series products
- Improves up to 4% on ATI Radeon HD 4800 Series products
- Left 4 Dead and Left 4 Dead 2
- Improves up to 3% on ATI Radeon HD 4800 Series products
- S.T.A.L.K.E.R. – Call of Pripyat Benchmark
- Improves up to 10% with Anti-Aliasing enabled on ATI Radeon HD 5000 Series products
- S.T.A.L.K.E.R. – Clear Sky
- Improves up to 2% with ATI Radeon HD 5970 graphics products
- Improves up to 2% on ATI Radeon HD 5800 Series products
- Resident Evil 5
- Improves up to 5% on ATI Radeon HD 5000 Series products
- Improves up to 3% on ATI Radeon HD 4800 Series products
- Tom Clancy’s H.A.W.X.
- Improves up to 15% with ATI Radeon HD 5970 graphics products
- Improves up to 20% on ATI Radeon HD 5800 Series products and ATI Radeon HD 5700 Series products
- Improves up to 3% on ATI Radeon HD 4800 Series products
- Unigine Tropics
- Improves up to 5% on ATI Radeon HD 5000 Series products
- World in Conflict
- Improves up to 5% on ATI Radeon HD 5800 Series products
- Improves up to 3% on ATI Radeon HD 5700 Series products
- Improves up to 5% on ATI Radeon HD 4800 Series products
- Wolfenstein
- Improves up to 4% on ATI Radeon HD 5000 Series products
- Improves up to 4% on ATI Radeon HD 4800 Series products
Resolved Issues for All Windows Operating Systems
This section provides information on resolved issues in this release of the ATI Catalyst™
Software Suite for Windows. These include:
- Canvas area no longer appears black for third display while creating a 3×1 or 1×3 Eyefinity group.
- Catalyst Control Center: Avivo Video controls will now retain its value instead of changing to ‘0’ upon being disabled.
- Hotplugging a HDMI display while Catalyst Control Center is open no longer causes the HDTV Standard Modes box not to appear.
Resolved Issues for the Windows 7 Operating System
This section provides information on resolved issues in this release of the ATI Catalyst™
Software Suite for Windows 7. These include:
- Flashing no longer visible in “Shattered Horizon” game with CrossFire enabled.
- Saturation value for a hotplugged digital display will no longer intermittently be set to ‘0’ by default.
- Enabling detail enhancement no longer causes dynamic contrast to stop functioning.
- Catalyst Control Center system tray now displays the proper number of physical adapters.
- Force EDID override now displays options above 85 Hz.
- Resolutions no longer missing in Catalyst Control Center Graphics Desktop Properties with CV connected and displays in extended mode.
- Forced anti-alias now functions properly in “The Saboteur” game.
- Refresh rate changes no longer revert back to 60 Hz (default) when “Enable GPU Scaling” is enabled under Digital Panel Properties attributes.
- “Aliens vs. Predators” game now loads properly when run in DirectX 11 mode on DirectX 9/10 graphics cards.
- Mouse cursor no longer disappears on cloned displays after swapping the displays in primary and extended cloned mode.
- Displays no longer goes blank on some of the ports after display is hot-unplugged and then hotplugged back.
- Media Center no longer displays corruption when viewing DVB-T content.
- Forced AF now works properly in “Empire: Total War” and “Napoleon: Total War.”
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