• Catalyst 10.8 WHQL drivers for Radeon graphics cards bring OpenGL ES 2.0 support, no OpenCL still

    AMD has just released their Catalyst 10.8 WHQL drivers for Radeon graphics cards onto their hosting site at Akamai. To grab them a little ahead of time, just follow these links and don't forget to include this as a referrer URL first otherwise you'll only get a leech error: http://game.amd.com/us-en/drivers_catalyst.aspx




    Also new are the Catalyst Application Profiles for use with AMDs Catalyst AI, overriding some game-specific quirks, improving framerate (sometimes at the expense of image quality) or adding welcome features like anti aliasing to blockbuster games like Starcraft 2.



    If you don't want to go throught the hassle and can wait just a little longer, here's the official download-site over at AMDs.

    Update 26.08.:
    Here are direct links without having to go through Akamai:





    New in this driver release are a few performance improvements in the single digit-percent range for Far Cry 2, Left 4 Dead 2 and Stormrise. Also, you now can enable the Avivo quality improvements for Internet Video as well as your favourite local flics.

    The really big thing though is the support for Open GL ES 2.0 for all supported graphics cards in this driver release, HD2400 and up, that is. This allows you to experience 3D-content in your favourite supporting web browser via WebGL.

    No word in the release notes though about the other open standard called OpenCL. Probably you still need to follow the procedure outlined below.

    Background and useful links regarding AMD Catalyst driver
    If you are into open standards as AMD is, you won't mind installing the Ati Stream SDK 2.1 (tested good with Catalysts 10.2 - 10.4 as of Aug. 1st 2010) to get support for OpenCL 1.1 on the following Radeon HD models:
    5970 (single gpu only), 5870, 5850, 5830, 5770, 5750, 5670, 5570, 5450. But there's a small catch. In order to get OpenCL 1.1 working, you need as of now a special driver called Ati Catalyst 10.7 Update Driver for OpenCL 1.1 Support, which you can download here:Beta support for OpenCL 1.0 is available for Radeon HD 4890, 4870 X2, 4870, 4850 X2, 4850, 4830, 4770, 4670, 4650, 4550, 4350. The general support in the Stream SDK 2.2 is true as well for the corresponding FirePro and Radeon Mobility variants.
    • Ati Stream SDK 2.2 Windows XP 32 bit
    • Ati Stream SDK 2.2 Windows XP 64 bit
    • Ati Stream SDK 2.2 Windows 7/Vista 32 bit
    • Ati Stream SDK 2.2 Windows 7/Vista 64 bit
    • Ati Stream SDK 2.2 Linux 32 bit (openSUSE 11.2, Ubuntu 10.04/9.10, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.5/5.4)
    • Ati Stream SDK 2.2 Linux 64 bit (openSUSE 11.2, Ubuntu 10.04/9.10, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.5/5.4)
    For all you part-time historians and archivars, AMD keeps their old drivers for quite a while at their site.AGP owners get a hotfix
    Also, there's the special page for the now inofficial AGP-versions of the drivers. God knows why they're not worthy of a WHQL-sign any more (my guess it's cost-related…). Anyway, here they are:Legacy Driver for Radeon 9500/9700 series to X1950 series
    For all you brave souls hanging onto your trusty Radeon 9x00, X300, X550, X600, X700, X8x0, X1K, X2100 and Radeon Xpress Integrated Graphics, there's hope. Sometimes, when the stars' constellations are aligned just right, a new driver for the officially no longer supported graphics chipsets is spawning at the following sites:Overview about supported standards and functionality
    And now for the "GPU-Tech.org added value", I am promising to deliver. Here's the supported standards and tech for most of the recent desktop Radeon cards (with Catalyst 10.7 drivers) - something that's not very well documented on the web, not to speak of being crammed into one single place.

    Radeon HD 5970 (Cypress based):
    • DirectX 11 (Compute Shader 5.0, 4.1, 4.0) and lower,
    • OpenGL 4.0
    • OpenGL ES 2.0
    • OpenCL 1.1 (single-gpu mode only; with Stream SDK 2.2 and the special OpenCL 1.1 driver installed)
    • Ati Stream
    • Double Precision (at 1/5th speed), FMA (at 4/5th speed), triangle-setup at full speed
    Radeon HD 5870/5850/5830 (Cypress based):
    • DirectX 11 (Compute Shader 5.0, 4.1, 4.0) and lower,
    • OpenGL 4.0
    • OpenGL ES 2.0
    • OpenCL 1.1 (with Stream SDK 2.2 and the special OpenCL 1.1 driver installed)
    • Ati Stream
    • Double Precision (at 1/5th speed), FMA (at 4/5th speed), triangle-setup at full speed
    Radeon HD 5770/5750 (Juniper based):
    • DirectX 11 (Compute Shader 5.0, 4.1, 4.0) and lower,
    • OpenGL 4.0
    • OpenGL ES 2.0
    • OpenCL 1.1 (with Stream SDK 2.2 and the special OpenCL 1.1 driver installed)
    • Ati Stream
    • FMA (at 4/5th speed), triangle-setup at full speed
    Radeon HD 5670/5650/5570 (Redwood based):
    • DirectX 11 (Compute Shader 5.0, 4.1, 4.0) and lower,
    • OpenGL 4.0
    • OpenGL ES 2.0
    • OpenCL 1.1 (with Stream SDK 2.2 and the special OpenCL 1.1 driver installed)
    • Ati Stream
    • FMA (at 4/5th speed), triangle-setup at full speed
    Radeon HD 5450 (Cedar based):
    • DirectX 11 (Compute Shader 5.0, 4.1, 4.0) and lower,
    • OpenGL 4.0
    • OpenGL ES 2.0
    • OpenCL 1.1 (with Stream SDK 2.2 and the special OpenCL 1.1 driver installed)
    • Ati Stream
    • FMA (at 4/5th speed), triangle-setup at less than full speed
    Radeon HD 4890/4870/4850/4830/4730 (RV770/790 based):
    • DirectX 10.1 (Compute Shader 4.1, 4.0) and lower,
    • OpenGL 3.2
    • OpenGL ES 2.0
    • OpenCL 1.0 (with Stream SDK 2.1 installed)
    • Ati Stream
    • Double Precision (at 1/5th speed)
    Radeon HD 4770 (RV740 based):
    • DirectX 10.1 (Compute Shader 4.1, 4.0) and lower,
    • OpenGL 3.2
    • OpenGL ES 2.0
    • OpenCL 1.0 (with Stream SDK 2.1 installed)
    • Ati Stream
    • Double Precision (at 1/5th speed)
    Radeon HD 4670/4650 (RV730 based):
    • DirectX 10.1 (no Compute Shader though) and lower,
    • OpenGL 3.2
    • OpenGL ES 2.0
    • OpenCL 1.0 (with Stream SDK 2.1 installed)
    • Ati Stream
    Radeon HD 4550/4350 (RV710 based):
    • DirectX 10.1 (no Compute Shader though) and lower,
    • OpenGL 3.2
    • OpenGL ES 2.0
    • OpenCL 1.0 (with Stream SDK 2.1 installed)
    • Ati Stream
    Radeon HD 3870/3850 (RV670 based):
    • DirectX 10.1 (no Compute Shader though) and lower,
    • OpenGL 3.2
    • OpenGL ES 2.0
    • no OpenCL
    • Ati Stream
    • Double Precision (at 1/5th speed)
    Radeon HD 3650 (RV635 based):
    • DirectX 10.1 (no Compute Shader though) and lower,
    • OpenGL 3.2
    • OpenGL ES 2.0
    • no OpenCL
    • Ati Stream
    Radeon HD 3470/3450 (RV615 based):
    • DirectX 10.1 (no Compute Shader though) and lower,
    • OpenGL 3.2
    • OpenGL ES 2.0
    • no OpenCL
    • Ati Stream
    Radeon HD 2900 XT/Pro/GT/OEM (R600 based):
    • DirectX 10 (no Compute Shader though) and lower,
    • OpenGL 3.2
    • OpenGL ES 2.0
    • no OpenCL
    • Ati Stream
    Radeon HD 2600 XT/Pro (RV630 based):
    • DirectX 10 (no Compute Shader though) and lower,
    • OpenGL 3.2
    • OpenGL ES 2.0
    • no OpenCL
    • Ati Stream
    Radeon HD 2400 XT/Pro (RV610 based):
    • DirectX 10 (no Compute Shader though) and lower,
    • OpenGL 3.2
    • OpenGL ES 2.0
    • no OpenCL
    • Ati Stream