New Features
This release of Catalyst introduces an enhanced version of ATI Overdrive for the ATI Radeon HD 2600 Series and ATI Radeon HD 2400 Series. Users can now Over-clock both GPU engine and graphics memory clock speeds in Crossfire mode (and over-clock single ATI Radeon graphics accelerators as well). This version of ATI Overdrive also includes a new stress test application to verify any over-clocking speeds users may have configured (either manually or through the auto-tuning tool) on their ATI Radeon graphics accelerators.

Performance Improvements
* Lost Planet DX10 with anti-aliasing improves 11% or greater on Radeon HD2900XT products
* Radeon HD2600 and Radeon HD2400 (single and CrossFire) show improvements of as much as 6% in 3DMark 2006 and 3DMark 2005
* Serious Sam 2 with HDR enabled improves as much as 14.5% on Radeon HD2900, Radeon HD2600 and Radeon HD2400 products

seems like boys at ATi do read these forums

I'm not an AMD GPU user and that still looks exciting! If we compare these to the launch drivers that's one hell of a lot of performance gain!

ati will bring more performance to new cards that is for sure

ATi driver team strikes again...

but this time they seem to have missed the target abit since its less then rock solid or even usable on both x1950pro and on 9800xt which makes me wonder what the heck went on there you could say the 9800xt might not be on the top of their testing list but x1950pro should still be pritty high. the only thing that might make a difference in my case is that both cards are AGP so for now back to 7.7 till next driver comes out so it seems ...

summary: as many times impressive list of buf fixes and tweaking but buttom line screweee set, after clean install and reboot you might get normal desktop but games wont start or and crash, or after reboot missing desktop icons and weird screen refreshes, after another restart 4bit display mode is activated and CCC error shows up. reinstall of the driver doesnt change crap...

As always nice job

I must say I'm a bit concerned...

I decide to try the update feature of the new drivers. All installed well. I started my game as always and went to my usually server. It was like I was playing in water, all swishy and slow, not jittery like lag but, but fluid like. Couldn't aim at all. Oh, and it visually didn't look as good.

Unistalled Everything, and then reinstalled as new install. Went to the game server and had same problem. I decided to adjust visual properties in the CCC. It didnn't help.

Remembered having this problem before with recent previous installs and uninstalled the CCC. Everything went back to being perfect. Crisp clear picture, fast rate, solid!

I have had this problem with CCC for a while. I always have to uninstall it, then reinstall it a couple times and not use it. With the exception of setting a custom refresh rate, if I adjust the 3d properties at all it muddies everything up.

Question: Do these drivers benefit older cards, like my 9600 pro, performance wise? I realise it has some Vista fixes that were needed, but do I need to continue looking for performance gains through updating the driver? I see no performance gain in this new driver for my card.

OS - WIndows Vista
Game - RTCW: Enemy Territory - Mod - True Combat: Elite

This 7.8 driver isn't meant for a 9600,but for new gen gpu,DX10 ones.
I'm using the first drivers of the year 2007..don't remember the name..
But it's the best for my old gen card

I'm not sure what the problem is with your AGP X1950 Pros then.

I'm using a B/B ATI X1950 Pro 256 MB PCIe card and have been using the 7.8 Betas for a couple of weeks now. I installed the official 7.8s and have no complaints so far.

What kind of errors are you getting?

Looks like us old AGP users got hit on this one. I'm not sure it has to do with my X1950 Pro AGP.

Among your problems you might notice under SMARTGART that the AGP Fast Writes etc get switched to OFF and you cannot turn them ON. This might be the main reason for the problems I guess.

They are very poor with my AGP X1950 Pro as well, from missing desktop icons to smart gart just wanting to constantly reboot my PC, a steaming pile of a driver set indeed these are.

Hey Dytre,
i guess they have a problem with their agp module specially with the cards that use PCIE2AGP bridge with this set and like ive said after a clean driver install the driver seems to be workin but when starting a 3d game lets say UT2K4 the game wont load and the driver will crash ur hang. another symptom would be missing desktop icons when their names appear but no icon picture and windows display seems to be halted and then resumes with a couple of refreshes to the screen (by its self) when no driver crash is reported...
didnt try the smartgart yet because i didnt have much time to mess with that since its my bro's rigg and i have a test tomorow so i changed back to 7.7 to make sure it worked and then back to 7.8 and finally back to 7.7 for now...
i guess nothing is perfect.... i have rarely had problems with their drivers and its not as if i was missing the hardware last couple of years (9200pro,9550,9500pro,9700pro,9800xt,x1950pro). Cheers ...

Well, it does appear that the AGP users have been hit pretty bad with this set.

In some ways, it makes sense to me that, at one point or another, drivers have to stop being made for ALL of the various and asundry versions of video cards that are out in the public. And, sometimes I wonder if the problems are due to the drivers mis-identifying the card that's installed.

Anyway, I'd say if the 7.7s work, stick with them for the time being and hope for the best on the next release. (Notice, I didn't say 'hold your breath' though. )

I did not realise that my video card would be out dated in a few months when I bought it at Best Buy early this year. I upgraded from a geforce 2 GTS to play BF2 ... lol.

I don't know about such things as smart guart or whatever, but I do know that without the CCC, I am playing TC:E at max quality with no problems. Maybe the smart guart thing has to do with the CCC? What are the alternatives to CCC, because I'm running bare now?

BTW, My 9600/ x1050 or whatever, is in the list of supported video cards for this driver. Plus, we agp users need vista support as well.

Same here, my X1950 Pro is 6 months old and driver support has been pants for it since day one to be honest, i was with Nividia for the last 7 years, now i remember why.

Well, it seems that you guys are right about the AGP issues, and I will contact AMD and let them know. They have a lot of good lads there, and I’m sure they will come out with something sooner or later. Don’t even compare them with Nvidia, atleast they aren’t spamming hardware sites with legal threats. Minwhile, you can try to submit bug reports via their Catalyst Crew Feedback Program.

I appreciate your efforts with this, thanks.

One other thing i have noticed as well (although this could be down to my PC) is if i do a reboot i lose my AGP and everything reverts back to PCI mode (even with the NGO drivers this happens) but if i power off and back on the AGP comes back as normal with NGO and with the smartgart cycle using Omega or Cat drivers.

Thanks Regen.

BTW, I am extremely happy overall with my ATI and would not consider a switch back.

I can't imagne how fun it is to use the "top-of-the-line" stuff.

I agree with ya there but I sure would appreciate FAIR WARNING from ATI before I (and thousands of other users) spend numerous hours installing the new drivers, then installing the old drivers, then installing the new drivers to see if the problems went away, then searching the internet to see if other users are experiencing the same problem, then running utilities to clean out drivers, then installing the new drivers again, then trying to tweak the new drivers to run properly ETC. ETC ETC LOL

I'm sure numerous other tech heads probably have even reinstalled their OS to get the drivers to work properly

So far the driver works fine with my settings. I never used CCC, instead only installed the driver & ATi tray Tool from Ray Adams.

Get in, us AGP moaners are on The Inquirer LOL Catalyst 7.8 proves a mixed bag

I know exactly what you mean!

I think my point is that it's got to be very difficult for the driver developers to keep track of all the different cards on the market, make sure the drivers recognize each one, etc.

At some point of time, hopefully not too soon!, it would seem that there would have to be a cutoff for certain cards like they did with the pre-DX9 cards.

Ok read the thread about 7.8 AGP problems and find out how "good" these guys are .

pump up
If that driver so good,NGO planing on some optimized driver ?
Or no chance?

I have a Radeon X1950Pro PCIe and have no problems. In fact, my performance in Quake Wars improved a good bit, now my FPS never drops below 30 except in some of those damn laggy interiors.

Any news on the AGP front yet? Any whispers about it being fixed in 7.9?

Nothing I have heard through the grapevine yet Bro but hope so

Cheers mate. TBH Bioshock seems to run ok without any of the problems the older cats seem to cause but i would still like to give it a shot with a newer driver

Understood M8 and sure others feel the same way ... its a serious issue and sure they are working on it as we speak