Radeon owners running the Windows 8 Consumer Preview might want to take advantage of a timely update from AMD. Among other improvements, the release notes mention full support for Windows 8's WDDM 1.2 (Windows Display Driver Model), including native Stereo 3D support for full screen and windowed gaming, optimized screen rotation and power consumption, as well as improved sleep and resume performance.
The update also allows folks on Windows 8 to use AMD's various display features, such as Eyefinity, CrossFire and Overdrive. It supports most recent graphics card families from HD 5000 to HD 7000M, but 7000 series desktop cards aren't supported. The release notes say that a future Catalyst version will add support for Radeon HD 7700 and 7900 series parts in "the coming weeks," though a specific date wasn't cited.
Download Catalyst Driver 8.93.7 RC10 (release notes)
Desktop/Mobile: Windows 8 32 and 64-bit
It's worth noting that the R295 driver Nvidia released a couple weeks ago also supports Windows 8, though we're not sure to what extent. Some users claim v295.73 WHQL only provides basic functionality without support for features such as Stereo 3D, CUDA, PhysX and OpenCL. If true, we assume Nvidia will enable those components soon enough. Gamers using other versions of Windows should grab the update regardless.
Download GeForce 295.73 WHQL (release notes)
Desktop: Windows XP 32-bit | Windows XP 64-bit | Windows Vista/7 32-bit | Windows Vista/7 64-bit
Mobile: Windows Vista/7 32-bit | Windows Vista/7 64-bit
The commercial success of Windows 8 remains to be seen, but people seem interested in Microsoft's latest operating system. In a tweet this afternoon, the company announced that a million copies of the Consumer Preview have been downloaded (no mention of unique users, though -- I downloaded two copies myself). Because Microsoft didn't release download stats for Windows 7's beta, it's hard to draw comparisons.
