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New Features

Catalyst™ 8.6 introduces the following new features:

* OpenGL Adaptive Anti-Aliasing Custom Filters support
* OpenGL CrossFireX™ (QUAD) support - 3 or 4 GPUs in CrossFire™ mode
* Catalyst Install enhancement - No reboot required after Catalyst upgrade install

OpenGL Adaptive Anti-Aliasing Custom Filters support

This release of Catalyst™ introduces Adaptive Anti-Aliasing Custom Filters support for OpenGL applications for the ATI Radeon™ HD 3000 Series, ATI Radeon™ HD 2000 Series of products. Using the Edge Detect Custom Filter, users can enable 12X and 24X Anti-Aliasing. Selecting 4X Anti-Aliasing plus selecting the Edge Detect filter delivers the equivalent of 12X Anti-Aliasing. Selecting 8X Anti-Aliasing plus selecting the Edge Detect filter delivers the equivalent of 24X Anti-Aliasing.
OpenGL CrossFireX™ (QUAD) support - 3 or 4 GPUs in CrossFire™ mode

This release of Catalyst™ introduces CrossFireX™ QUAD support for OpenGL applications. Users with any combination of a ATI Radeon™ HD 3870, ATI Radeon™ HD 3850, and ATI Radeon™ HD 3870 X2 graphics accelerators running with 3 or 4 GPUs will be able to run in CrossFireX™ QUAD mode (when used in a CrossFireX™ compatible PC).

Users are also able to run in CrossFireX™ QUAD mode while running in extended desktop mode on the Windows Vista desktop.

Performance Improvements

The following performance gains are noticed with this release of Catalyst™.

* 3DMark Vantage:10 to 15% gains across all Radeon™ HD 3xxx and HD 2xxx products, with larger gains in specific cases.
* Call of Duty 4: Performance increases across all Radeon™ HD 3xxx and HD 2xxx products, with gains as large as 35% in specific maps.
* Call of Juarez DX10: Performance increases between 2 and 9% across all HD 3xxx and HD 2xxx products
* Company of Heroes (DX10 version): Performance increases between 4 and 10% across HD 36xx and HD 34xx products.
* Lost Planet (DX10 version): Performance increases by 1 or 2 fps across all HD 3xxx and HD 2xxx products, creating in some cases up to 20% increase.
* Lost Planet (DX9 version): Performance increases between 2 and 20% across all HD 3xxx and HD 2xxx products
* Prey OpenGL: 3-5% gains across HD 3xxx and HD 2xxx products.
* Quake 4 OpenGL: Up to 8% increase across all HD 3xxx and HD 2xxx products.
* Shadermark 2.1: Minor improvements across all HD 3xxx and HD 2xxx products, with the largest gains appearing on HD 3650 (up to 9%)
* ViewPerf 10: Substantial performance improvements across several of the sub-tests, with the largest gains in ugnx (up to 55%), catia (up to 17%) and tcvis (up to 10%) across all of the HD 3xxx and HD 2xxx products.

Note: Before proceeding with your driver installation we suggest you make sure you are installing the latest version available and for the appropriate model/revision and Operating System. We strongly suggest following 'readme' instructions for installing drivers when available. Often restarting your system will be necessary for the new driver to become active and start functioning properly.

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