ATI’s 8.12 Catalyst Driver Gets Released

ATI today released their brand-new 8.12 Catalyst driver, right on schedule. This isn’t a usual driver release, though, because it not only packs in performance boosts in certain titles, but it also is the first to include ATI’s AVIVO video encoder tool, which is set to directly compete with Badaboom on the NVIDIA side, and while this first release has a few small issues, it’s also free, while Badaboom costs $30. Good value here all-around.

In case you haven’t checked out our latest graphics card article yet, I have to ask… what are you waiting for? Two weeks ago, we took a look at NVIDIA’s GTX 260/216 and pit it against ATI’s direct competitor, the HD 4870 1GB. At that time, NVIDIA won the round fair and square, but thanks to pricing changes, and also performance boosts with ATI’s new driver, the playing field is about even, depending at how you personally look at things. I recommend reading it if you are in the market for a killer mid-range offering.

According to the release notes, thirteen games should see a performance increase with the latest driver. ATI promises a 13% increase for Crysis Warhead (we saw 1%), 15% for Fallout 3 (we saw exactly that), and 10% in Far Cry 2 (we saw 7%). Although S.T.A.L.K.E.R: Clear Sky and UT III was used in our tests in the latest article, we didn’t benchmark them the first time, so we don’t have a comparison there.

Regardless, none of that is too important, since drivers are free, and if you own a recent ATI card, it will be worth the upgrade. For those still on the fence about which new mid-range card to choose, be sure to check out our article!

From the performance aspect, ATI made some nice improvements with their 8.12 driver, and they’re reflected here. Although the HD 4870 1GB didn’t manage to overtake NVIDIA in every test, they did catch up in some, and even overtook in a couple. Those couple being Crysis Warhead and Fallout 3. We also saw some great performance in non-holiday titles as well, which included S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky and Unreal Tournament III. In fact, we found that ATI performed better on all the non-holiday titles used here.

Source: ATI HD 4870 1GB vs. NVIDIA GTX 260/216 896MB: Follow-Up