What is catalyst driven

ATI Display Driver--catalyst driver

ATI is currently one of the two major independent graphics manufacturers (has recently been acquired by AMD), its drive has a very long history, in fact, the previous ATI driver did not have a specific name, only version number, around June 2002, in order to counter the Nvidia side of the "Detonator" series Drive, ATI took out the "Catalyst Catalyst" This name, the implication has a faster reaction speed, from this catalyst became ATI display driver pronoun, that is, from this time ATI adopted a popular monthly version of the catalyst-driven strategy, and continued to date.

Early versions of the catalyst driver still followed the previous driver version number mode, which is directly using the 2D driver version number, for example: 4.13.01.9039, as its major version number. However, this naming method has many drawbacks, inconvenient memory, not easy to distinguish between versions, and as the driver package in the integration of the drive type more and more, including: 2D display driver, D3D driver, OpenGL driver, etc., the use of the 2D driver version number alone as the major version number is outdated.

So in August 2002, ATI adopted a new version number naming method, released a catalyst-driven version 2.1, which belongs to the 2-series Catalyst Drive, and then launched 3 Series, 4 series, 5 Series ... until the newest 9 Series Catalyst Drive, the so-called 2, 3, 4, 5......9 system, ATI is divided by year, that is, the 2-series drive represents the 2002-year driver version, while the following numbers represent the month, for example, Catalyst 9.9 represents the September 09 driver version. Currently a full version of the Catalyst Drive consists of several components, the catalyst-driven version 6.5 as an example, the specific contents are as follows: Driver packaging version 8.252, 2D driver version 6.14.10.6614, D3D driver version 6.14.10.0399, OpenGL driver version 6.14.10.5819, control center version 1.2.2314.20337.

ATI Catalyst Driver is now a very popular integrated installation mode, that is, a driver to support a number of series of hardware products, the latest version 6.10 drive specific support

Radeon 9500/9550/9600/9700/9800/x300/x600/x700/x800/x850/x1300/x1600/x1800/x1900 Series video card

Note: Support for Radeon 9500 and above model cards is not available from the Catalyst version 6.6, and ATI can be seen as a means of promoting graphics upgrades. for using Radeon 7000/7200/7500/8500/9000/ 9200 Graphics users, 6.5 catalyst driver will be the final version, but these users do not have to disappoint, after all, now the new driver is only for the latest graphics to provide optimization, for the old model graphics card upgrades do not upgrade the driver performance will not have any changes.

Starting with Catalyst 9.4 in April, only dx10/10.1 Radeon HD 2000/3000/4000 series HD graphics cards can enjoy a monthly formal drive treatment, while the DX9 era Radeon 9000/xx00/x1000 series desktop graphics and partial integration, The frequency of driver updates for professional graphics cards will be slowed down from one month to quarterly, but AMD is guaranteed to provide them with an emergency hotfix drive if needed, in which case the catalyst 9.3 becomes the last driver to support the dx9/dx10/dx10.1 graphics card at the same time.

AMD wrote in the new driver update Note: For 9.3.1 and subsequent driver updates that support DX9 old cards, they will be limited to bug fixes without any new features or performance improvements. In fact, this is not difficult to understand, as of the catalyst 9.3 for the DX9 frame of the graphics card, whether the new features or performance improvements have been more perfect, continue to optimize the effect is not obvious, and only need to fix some bugs, then the next driver will be completely around the dx10/ DX10.1 Frame Graphics expansion. Although there is no big surprise, but AMD continues to fix bugs for old card, the introduction of bug revision driver, such a practice is not easy, it is worth affirming.

　ATI Display Drive--catalyst Control Center

and driven by the development process, and its supporting Control Panel program due to the needs of different periods of time, has evolved a number of different versions, let us first look at a group of pictures.

and the Catalyst 2.1 supporting the Control Panel program, belonging to a very early version.

The mature version, known as the "classic" control Panel, there are still many people love, but you can see that its display interface and the previous version of a small difference.

At present, the catalyst-driven standard control center, the appearance of the effect is very good, but also because of the large amount of resources and other reasons such as controversy.

After reading the previous set of pictures, we have a basic review of the three-generation Control Panel program, but because the first version of the panel program is old, and has no practical value, so we will focus on the following two versions. There is a "classic" of the second generation Panel program early in the 4 series Catalyst-driven release has been available, and its concise interface, practical functions, less resource utilization and other factors have been popular among many users. The Times in progress, everything in the update, in September 2004, ATI took out a carefully planned Catalyst control Center 1.0.1607.245 official version, compared with the previous version of the Panel program, the new control center appearance changes very large, the function is also stronger, it really gives a refreshing feeling. Starting with the Catalyst version 4.9, each catalyst drive is divided into 3 versions, the pure driver version-includes only the most basic drivers, excluding any control Panel program, complete (CP) version-integrated classic Control Panel program driver version, complete (CCC) version-integrated English Catalyst Control Center version. However, after the launch of the control center is not a Fengshun, due to the existence of slow startup, memory consumption, slow response, easy to crash, the need for Microsoft. NET Framework support, and so on, many users have been accused of the use of control center, and still adhere to the classic Control Panel. After about 10 several versions of continuous improvement and improvement, the control center has a certain change, so from the Catalyst 5.12 version, ATI officials do not provide a separate version of the General Control Panel program and the integration of the General Control Panel program driver version, thereby increasing efforts to promote its control center version.

The current version of the Catalyst driver only provides a pure driver version and the full (CCC) version of the two versions, however, due to the integrity (CCC) version of the integration of the English version of the control center, so we provide a separate Simplified Chinese version of the control center download, so that users can choose to download the pure driver version + Chinese version of the control center combination.

and Catalyst 6.10 release at the same time the latest Catalyst Control Center Simplified Chinese version, support Radeon 9500/9550/9600/9700/9800/x300/x600/x700/x800/x850/x1300/x1600/x1800/ X1900 Series video Card

　　ATI Display Driver--mobile version of the Catalyst driver

ATI has always attached great importance to the notebook graphics card business, its production of Mobility Radeon series graphics card in the notebook area occupy a certain market share, but the early ATI official does not provide a public version of mobile graphics driver, but will be driven to the various notebook manufacturers, It is then released by the notebook manufacturer, which creates two problems:

1. ATI monthly release of the new Catalyst driver, but notebook manufacturers often do not make timely updates.

2.2. Some notebook manufacturers in the release of the new version of the driver will be for their own products to make some corresponding changes to the driver, the result is that a vendor-issued driver cannot be used on another product, even with the same display chip, such as IBM's ATI display driver, which cannot be used on Dell's notebooks.

To address these issues, in the case of ATI mobile video card users have two options:

1. Choose to use modified version of the driver, the disadvantage is that the stability of the public version of the driver.

2. Select the DH mod tool for the official release of the catalyst driver for the desktop to make changes, the drawback is that the INF file will be modified, resulting in Microsoft WHQL certification failure.

As the notebook market continues to warm up, with a growing number of laptops and a growing focus on laptop-driven users, ATI has been in a timely position to target mobility during July 2005 Radeon Series graphics card launched 5.7 Public version of the mobile Catalyst driver, and also maintained a monthly version of the Catalyst Strategy, monthly and desktop version of the catalyst driver released together. This is a benefit for notebook users who use ATI graphics cards and will not be bothered by the need to find a new driver.

The latest mobile version of the Catalyst Driver 6.10 official version for WinXP, suitable for ATI days Mobility Radeon 9600/9700/9800/x300/x600/x700/x800/x800 Xt/x1300/x1400/x1600/ X1800 Series Mobile Graphics