Download Driver For ATI Catalyst 10.6

AMD has new Catalyst drivers ready and as usual the month and year of release make up the version number. The drivers are available for Windows XP, Vista and 7, with separate downloads for 32bit and 64bit environments. The new drivers are suitable for all Radeon models from the HD 2400 series; older maps rely on the 9.3 release. As usual, at the bottom of this posting are the direct links to the pages with the available downloads.

AMD recently supplied the CrossFireX profiles no longer only with the driver, but also as loose download, so that updates can be offered more quickly. New in version 10.6 is hardware acceleration for version 10.1 of Adobe Flash, support for OpenGL 3.3 and 4.0, and several performance improvements. Of course, we also see the usual list of bug fixes, followed by a collection of issues that are already known, but are still being worked on.

New Features

GPU acceleration of H.264 video content using Adobe Flash Player 10.1

• AMD GPU acceleration of Adobe Flash Player 10.1 delivers smooth high definition video playback and reduces system resource utilization
• Adobe Flash Player 10.1 can be accelerated on notebook and desktop platforms featuring AMD graphics including:
  • ATI Radeon HD 5000 and ATI Radeon HD 4000 series
  • ATI Mobility ATI Radeon HD 400 series (and higher)
  • ATI Radeon HD 3000 series integrated graphics (and higher)

Video De-blocking support

• Reduces blocking artifacts seen in low-bit rate video during playback
• Supported on the ATI Radeon HD 5000 Series of products

Mosquito noise reduction

• Reduces mosquito noise seen in highly compressed progressive video, during playback
• Supported on the ATI Radeon HD 5000 Series of products

Official support for OpenGL 4.0 and OpenGL 3.3

• ATI Catalyst 10.6 delivers official support for OpenGL 4.0 on the ATI Radeon HD 5000 Series
• ATI Catalyst 10.6 delivers official support for OpenGL 3.3 on the ATI Radeon HD Series

Performance Improvements

The following performance gains are noticed with this release of Catalyst 10.6:

3DMark Vantage

• Overall scores improve up to 5% on a single ATI Radeon HD 5970

Batman: Arkham Asylum

• Performance improves up to 5% on CrossFire ATI Radeon HD 5800 Series products
• Performance improves up to 10% on CrossFire ATI Radeon HD 5970 configurations

aliens vs. Predator DirectX 11 Benchmark

• Performance improves up to 4% on CrossFire ATI Radeon HD 5800 Series products
• Performance improves up to 10% on CrossFire ATI Radeon HD 5970 configurations
• Performance improves up to 3% on CrossFire ATI Radeon HD 5700 Series products

Company of Heroes – DX10

• Performance improves up to 7% on CrossFire ATI Radeon HD 5800 Series products
• Performance improves up to 5% with single card and CrossFire ATI Radeon HD 5970 configurations

crysis warhead

• CrossFire performance improves by up to 7% on ATI Radeon HD 5000 Series products

DiRT 2 – DX9

• Performance improves up to 10% on single card ATI Radeon HD 5800 Series products
• Performance improves up to 10% on single card ATI Radeon HD 5970 configurations
• Performance improves up to 4% on single card ATI Radeon HD 5700 Series products

The Chronicles of Riddick – Assault on Dark Athena

• Performance improves up to 15% on CrossFire ATI Radeon HD 5800 Series products
• Performance improves up to 13% on CrossFire and single card ATI Radeon HD 5970 configurations
• Performance improves up to 8% on CrossFire ATI Radeon HD 5700 Series products

Unigine Tropics

• CrossFire performance improves by up to 8% on ATI Radeon HD 5000 Series products

World in Conflict

• Performance improves up to 6% on CrossFire ATI Radeon HD 5800 Series products
• Performance improves up to 8% on CrossFire and single card ATI Radeon HD 5970 configurations

Wolfenstein

• Performance improves up to 18% on CrossFire ATI Radeon HD 5800 Series products
• Performance improves up to 18% on CrossFire and single card ATI Radeon HD 5970 configurations
• Performance improves up to 11% on CrossFire ATI Radeon HD 5700 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:

• “Battlefield 2: Bad Company” maps no longer takes unusually long to load
• Assigned hotkeys are now retained for “Desktops & Displays” after Catalyst Control Center restart

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:

• “The Chronicles of Riddick 2: Assault on Dark Athena” no longer displays white pixel corruption on walls while playing the “Pitch Black” stage with Super Anti-Alias ​​and in-game Anti-Alias ​​enabled
• Corruption no longer visible during “Bioshock 2” gameplay in DirectX 9 and DirectX 10 mode with CrossFire enabled
• Booting the operating system without displays connected no longer causes CrossFire to become disabled
• Grass and crops are no longer rendered randomly at unusual locations in “Battlefield 2: Bad Company” game scenes
• Blank/static display no longer observed after loading a game in “TimeShift” with Super Anti-Alias ​​and CrossFire enabled
• Enabling Tessellation no longer causes “Unigine Heaven 2.1” to stop functioning
• Graphical settings can now be adjusted to higher values ​​in “Grand Theft Auto 4: Episodes from Liberty City” with Crossfire enabled
• Under Multi-GPU configuration with Crossfire enabled, setting both “Shaders Quality” and “Post-Processing Quality” to “Enthusiast” no longer causes frame rate drops in “Crysis Warhead” DirectX 9 game

Resolved Issues for the Windows Vista Operating System

This section provides information on resolved issues in this release of the ATI Catalyst Software Suite for Windows Vista. These include:

• Toggling from window mode to fullscreen mode now functions properly in “Assassin’s Creed” game with DirectX 10
• Toggling between desktop and “Battlefield: Bad Company 2” game no longer causes flickering under Multi-GPU configuration
• Desktop corruption no longer visible while playing SD/Blu-ray content with display set to 120Hz refresh rate
• [Catalyst Control Center] Video basic color controls in the “All Settings” page can now be applied and will not shift to default values
• Disabling CrossFire for the first time no longer causes the “Contrast” value to change to zero in Catalyst Control Center – Display Properties Color page
• Flashing texture corruption no longer visible during game play for “Company of Heroes: Opposing Fronts”

Resolved Issues for the Windows XP Operating System

This section provides information on resolved issues in this release of the ATI Catalyst Software Suite for Windows XP. These include:

• Desktop corruption no longer visible while playing SD/Blu-ray content with display set to 120Hz refresh rate
• “Age of Empires” online game no longer displays error and becomes unplayable when the strategy button is clicked

Known Issues Under All Windows Operating Systems

The following section provides a summary of open issues that may be experienced under the Windows operating system in the latest version of Catalyst. These include:

• OpenCL 1.0 conformance tests have not been run with this version of the ATI Catalyst Driver Suite in conjunction with the ATI Stream SDK v2.1. If you require an OpenCL 1.0 conformant driver, we recommend that you install the ATI Catalyst 10.5 Driver Suite

Known Issues Under the Windows 7 Operating System

The following section provides a summary of open issues that may be experienced under the Windows 7 operating system in the latest version of Catalyst. These include:

• Drag and Drop transcoded H264i content may showing deinterlacing lines
• “Desktop Window Manager has stopped working” error may appear after driver installation on specific cards and will not be enabled until after restart
• [Catalyst Control Center] Customized Avivo video settings may revert to default values ​​after resuming from sleep/hibernation during SD or Blu-ray playback
• Blank screen may be observed when flashlight is turned on in “The Chronicles of Riddick 2” with Screen Space Ambient Occlusion enabled
• Green texture corruption may be observed when resolution/video settings are changed in “Metro 2033” game in DirectX 10 and 11 mode on some cards
• Drag and Drop transcoded H264i content may experience audio and video synchronization issues when viewed on some devices

Known Issues Under the Windows Vista Operating System

The following section provides a summary of open issues that may be experienced under the Windows Vista operating system in the latest version of Catalyst. These include:

• Performing bezel compensation on 3×2 Eyefinity configuration may cause the bezel group (resolutions) to go missing

Known Issues Under the Windows XP Operating System

The following section provides a summary of open issues that may be experienced under the Windows XP operating system in the latest version of Catalyst. These include:

• “Age Of Empires: The Rise of Rome” may terminate abruptly and display error message when the diplomacy button is clicked
• Minor frame drops may be observed while viewing HD interlaced content

The following downloads are available:
ATi Catalyst 10.6 for Windows XP (32bit)
ATi Catalyst 10.6 for Windows XP (mobility)
ATi Catalyst 10.6 for Windows XP (64bit)
ATi Catalyst 10.6 for Windows XP (Media Center Edition)
ATi Catalyst 10.6 for Windows Vista (32bit)
ATi Catalyst 10.6 for Windows Vista (64bit)
ATi Catalyst 10.6 for Windows 7 (32bit)
ATi Catalyst 10.6 for Windows 7 (64bit)
ATi CrossFireX Application Profiles

Version number	10.6
Release status	Final
Operating systems	Windows 7, Windows 7 x64, Windows XP, Windows XP x64, Windows XP Media Center 2005, Windows Vista, Windows Vista x64
Website	amd
Download	http://blogs.amd.com/play/2010/06/16/ati-catalyst%E2%84%A2-10-6-driver-%E2%80%93-what%E2%80%99s-new
File Sizes	45.50MB – 72.60MB
License type	Freeware