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ATI Video Processing Upgrade

Posted by Zonk on from the shinier-all-around dept.

An anonymous reader writes "FiringSquad has a hands-on look at ATI Catalyst 5.13 drivers for the Radeon X1800XL, with a focus on video quality. They say it's the greatest leap in video quality technology for ATI since the original Mach64-VT. They triple their HQV Benchmark DVD scores by adding diagonal filtering, unusual cadence detection, and even noise reduction. On top of the video quality improvements, the new drivers enable ATI's hardware H.264 support as well as hardware transcoding. Best of all, Catalyst 5.13 will be a free upgrade scheduled to be released to the public next week."

3 of 142 comments (clear)

  1. all i have to say is by know1 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    whenever i have used ATI on either windows or linux, something usually made the 3D display prone to being buggy as hell. maybe it's hardware, maybe it's thje driver, but nvidia have always been rock solid for me. maybe this improvement will fix ATI's problems

  2. Re:free drivers? What a country! by hattig · · Score: 5, Informative

    Err, the equivalent nVidia software is $20 to $50, if you had read the article or other comments here. The base drivers are free, yes. The extra features are free on ATI's side, but not free on nVidia's side. Expect nVidia to fight back within a couple of months with better algorithms and free/cheaper software.

    The same site gave nVidia the lead just earlier in the month, prior to these new drivers. Doesn't sound like they're paid off to me. The benchmark scores are how the benchmark defines them, and the site didn't make the benchmark. Your post is just a typical hysterical (and probably fanboy) overreaction that slanders a website that has put a lot of effort into showing what the latest drivers can provide for a user. Pretty sad, really.

  3. Re:V 5.13 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Not really.

    Ati's naming scheme is this: major version number is the last years number (2004=4, 2005=5, 2006=6 etc) and the minor version number is the month. On special occasions the realese special versions, like this 5.13 at the end of the year.

    So, no, the version number says absolutely nothing about the amount of changes. The driver also have a 'real' version number displayed deep down somehwere in the control panel for real version number diehards.