Justo cuando Microsoft lanza Windows 8 Release Preview, AMD se pone a tono con el lanzamiento liberando los controladores AMD Catalyst 12.6 Beta para Windows 7/XP y Linux, además pone a disposición los AMD Catalyst Windows 8 Feature Preview especialmente diseñados para soportar el hardware gráfico de AMD con esta versión previa de Windows 8. Esto no es todo ya que la compañía también informa que modificará el calendario de lanzamientos mensual de sus controladores gráficos.
En efecto según nos indica AMD, ya no hará más entregas mensuales para ofrecer controladores gráficos Catalyst certificados (WHQL), que a veces aportaban muy pocas mejoras como para actualizar cada mes. Ahora AMD se enfocará en lanzar una versión oficial de sus controladores solo cuando haya mejoras o cambios importantes para los usuarios, los cambios y mejoras menores serán entregadas a los usuarios con versiones «hot fixes» y «preview drivers» o “Beta Drivers” siendo el usuario quien tendrá la decisión final de actualizar o no.
With the release of the Catalyst 12.6 Beta driver, AMD would also like to announce that we are moving away from our Monthly Catalyst release plan. Our goal is to ensure that every Catalyst release delivers a substantial benefit to our end users; as we have today with the release of the Catalyst 12.6a Beta.
We will still continue with the Catalyst naming convention; Catalyst: Year.Month., You just won’t see a new driver every single month. We are confident that this will only benefit the end user; you’ll only need to upgrade to a new Catalyst driver, when it makes sense.
A continuación las novedades de ambos lanzamientos:
Resolved issue highlights of the AMD Catalyst 12.6 Beta
- AMD Radeon HD 7900, AMD Radeon HD 7800 Tri-CrossFire configurations + Eyefinity no longer results in a BSOD when launching a DirectX application
- AMD Radeon HD 7900, AMD Radeon HD 7800 Eyefinity/Multiple Display configurations no longer results in a BSOD when using desktop applications
- AMD Radeon HD 7900, AMD Radeon HD 7800, and AMD Radeon HD 7700 cards no longer hang when system goes to sleep
* Please ensure that your System BIOS is up to date – some occurrences of this issue are related to outdated SBIOS
- Resolves CrossFire scaling issues seen in AMD Catalyst 12.4 with Elder Scrolls: Skyrim CrossFire
- AMD Catalyst Control Center – Overdrive page is no longer intermittently missing
- AMD Catalyst Control Center – GPU Activity gauge is no longer missing
- AMD Radeon HD 7900 CrossFire Configuration – no longer results in system hang after cinematic in Call Of Duty: Black Ops
- Heroes and Generals: Blocky corruption in scenes with smoke effects when run in DirectX 11 mode are no longer experienced.
- Dirt Showdown: Improves scaling for CrossFire configurations using the AMD Radeon HD 6000 Series
- HDMI audio is no longer disabled if the connected HDTV is powered Off/On.
Feature highlights of the AMD Catalyst 12.6 Beta:
Supported Dual Graphics configurations:
AMD Accelerated Processors for Desktop PCs
- AMD Radeon HD 7660D (A10-5700)
- AMD Radeon HD 7560D (A8-5500)
Notebooks with AMD Accelerated Processors
- AMD Radeon HD 7660G (A10-4600M)
- AMD Radeon HD 7640G (A8-4500M)
- AMD Radeon HD 7520G (A6-4400M)
New profiles have been added for the following titles:
- Diablo 3
- Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
- StarCraft 2
- Portal 2
- Call of Duty Modern Warfare
- Call of Duty Black Ops
Descarga:
AMD Catalyst 12.6 BETA (Windows XP/Windows 7 y Linux)
AMD Catalyst Windows 8 Feature Preview Driver