4.2 Drivers

[Biohazzard56]

Why does Ati release pointless drivers every 2 weeks?

[dscytherulez]

They aren't pointless, there are numerous fixes in 4.2 and very good performance boosts for lower endcards such as the radeon 9000 pro.

Boosts included up to 15% in UT2003.

[Biohazzard56]

I havent noticed a bit of diffrence but thats probably just my luck with drivers, they dont increase performance at all (i have 9600XT)

[Rbstr]

AIt just seems to be on the ball with thier drivers more, going for lots of drivers enhancing a little every time. Where Nvidia tends to do big jumps, like like going form the 53.04 to the new 56.55's

[dscytherulez]

The performance boost was only on the low end cards, to help them keep up with the new ones. There shouldn't have been much if any with a radeon 9600XT, but there were some bug/compatability fixes in some games and such I think.

[NoSurrender]

they make fixes for everyone bio. They dont go OMFG BIO NEEDS FPS IMPROVEMENTS!!! no they go hmm well theyres probelms with so and so and i know we can increase preformance by doing such and such

[Biohazzard56]

Usually in the release notes they say 20% increase in blah blah blah, it doesnt say on lower end cards. I dont see any improvments

[MidnightDave]

well im running omega drivers off of the 4.1 I think should I bother to upgrade?

[Biohazzard56]

How are the omegeas im curious in trying them out

[GreyFox]

What's the difference between the Omega and DNA drivers? Which are the best?

[Fragmatic]

Please Please PLEASE fix the overdrive issues I have with my Sapphire 128mb 9600XT Fireblade.

If not, I'm taking the card back and getting a BBATI 9800Pro/XT

[dscytherulez]

Usually in the release notes they say 20% increase in blah blah blah, it doesnt say on lower end cards. I dont see any improvments

Um, yes it does...and to clarify this:

Performance Improvements
As with most CATALYST� releases performance has increased in various situations. This release of CATALYST� provides performance gains to the ATI DX8 product family. These products include the RADEON� 9200, 9000, and 8500 series. Performance gains are noticed throughout the following software:

Framerates in Unreal Tournament 2003 are up by as much as 15%
A performance gain of between 5 and 10% is noticed in Aquamark3
A performance gain of between 2-3% is noticed in ShaderMark scores
Framerates in Halo are up 3 to 4%
A performance improvement of 2% is noticed in Tomb Raider

And also, there are some major game bug fixes:

Resolved Game Issues
This section provides information on game issues that have been resolved in the latest release of CATALYST�. These include the following:

Launching the game Tron 2.0 under Windows XP no longer results in the game failing to respond after the game introduction is loaded
Launching the game Line of Sight: Vietnam and setting the graphics option to 800x600 16bpp no longer results in the game failing to respond when selecting a new game
Running the game Armed and Dangerous under Windows XP with an ATI RADEON� 9200 series installed no longer results in the display image appearing corrupted when selecting Storm the Base mission in the game
The game Half-Life is now displayed properly under Windows XP when the game resolution is set to either 320x240 or 400x300
Playing the game Serious Sam 2 under Windows XP with an ATI RADEON&tdrade; 9500/9800 series installed no longer results in the game failing to run when the game option is set to OpenGL
Playing the game Unreal Tournament 2003 under Windows XP with an ATI RADEON� 9600 series installed no longer results in texture corruption being displayed on the flag surfaces in the DM-Tokara Forest
Selecting the Optimum Quality setting in D3D control panel no longer results in a frozen frame when launching the game HALO
Setting the resolution in the game SpyHunter to 1280x1024 along with having the Use Recommended Settings slider set to balanced in the ATI 3D tab no longer results in some background images being missing while the game is loading
Setting the display option to 640x480 or 800x600 in the game Splinter Cell no longer results in the game menu flickering
Returning to the main menu in the game Counter-Strike no longer results in the game's refresh rate reverting back to 60Hz when resuming game play

[RagingSpeedhorn]

The Omega 4.1's screwed my system so I went back to the Omega 3.9's.