And we waiting and we waiting ;-)

I went up early today, just to start waiting for nothing it seems. :)

Offical Release Notes

These release notes provide information on the latest posting of ATI's industry leading software suite, CATALYST™. This particular posting updates the ATI Display Driver to version 7.88. This unified driver has been further enhanced to provide the highest level of power, performance, and reliability. The ATI CATALYST™ software suite is the ultimate in performance and stability.

The CATALYST™ 3.4 Release Notes provides information on the following:

Web Content
Desktop product family support
Operating systems supported
New Features
Performance Improvements
Issues Resolved in CATALYST™ Version 3.4
Known Issues
Web Content
The CATALYST™ software suite 3.4 contains the following:

RADEON™ display driver 7.88
Multimedia Center™ 8.5
HydraVision™ 3.2
Remote Wonder 1.5
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Note: These release notes provide information on the 7.88 display driver only. For information on the ATI Multimedia Center™ 8.5, HydraVision™ 3.2, or the Remote Wonder 1.5, please refer to their respective release notes found at: http://ati.com/

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Desktop product family support
The CATALYST™ software suite is designed to support the following ATI desktop product family:

RADEON™ 9800 series
RADEON™ 9700 series
RADEON™ 9600 series
RADEON™ 9500 series
RADEON™ 9200 series
RADEON™ 9100 series
RADEON™ 9000 series
RADEON™ 8500 series
RADEON™ 7500 series
RADEON™ 7200 series
RADEON™ 7000 series
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Note: ATI All-In-Wonder variants based on the above are also supported.

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Operating systems supported
The latest version of the CATALYST™ software suite is designed to support the following Microsoft Windows platforms:

Windows XP
Windows 2000
Windows Millennium Edition (ME)
Windows 98/98SE through the ME driver
New Features
The CATALYST™ software suite includes the following new features:

DIV FULLSTREAM™ Player
The ATI enhanced DIVX player uses the DirectX 9 technology of the RADEON 9500, 9600, 9700 and 9800 Series to deliver amazing quality video

Register My ATI Product
Users can register their ATI product, ensuring users get their 30 free days of customer support

SMARTGART™ enhancements
This feature provides further improvements to system stability

Unified Consumer and Workstation driver
This feature provides improved stability and quicker release of features/drivers

Windows XP Media Center Edition support
ATI is helping to bring the world of entertainment and digital media to the PC

New Color Control Panel
This feature provides new Color Controls, User Profiles, and Hot keys

Performance Improvements
As with most CATALYST™ releases, the performance has increased in many various situations. CATALYST™ 3.4 brings remarkable performance gains to ATI's industry leading DX9 Hardware line-up. Image-enhancing features such as Anti-Aliasing and Anisotropic Filtering now run faster than ever. Here are some examples observed in CATALYST™ version 3.4.

DirectX 9 Performance Improvements
The following is a list of DirectX9 Performance Improvements noticed in the latest release of CATALYST™.

3DMark03 scores are improved as much as 8% across our entire DirectX 9 (dx9) product line
The difficult Mother Nature (dx9) test now runs as much as 20% faster than previous drivers
Anti-aliasing performance in 3DMark03 are improved as much as 15%
Anisotropic Filtering scores for 3DMark03 are up moderately for the RADEON™ 9500 PRO and the RADEON™ 9600 PRO (3-7%), while the RADEON™ 9700 PRO gains a stunning 32% improvement running 8xAF at high resolution
Shader Performance Improvements
The following is a list of Shader Performance Improvements noticed in the latest release of CATALYST™.

ChameleonMark framerates are up as much as 80% on the RADEON™ 9700 PRO
CodeCreatures runs as much as 7% faster in 4xAA and 10% faster with Anisotropic Filtering
Performance Improvements in Direct3D Games
The following is a list of Performance Improvements noticed in Direct3D game in the latest release of CATALYST™.

Anti-Aliasing performance for D3D games such as UT2003 has improved as much as 18%. With Anisotropic Filtering enabled, UT runs as much as 13% faster.
Performance Improvements in OpenGL Game
The following is a list of Performance Improvements noticed in OpenGL games in the latest release of CATALYST™.

Anti-Aliasing performance for Quake Engine games is improved by approximately 5%. Serious Sam shows a 14% improvement on the RADEON™ 9700 PRO and a remarkable 53% performance gain on the RADEON™ 9600 PRO.
Anisotropic Filtering performance for OpenGL games is also improved. The RADEON™ 9700 PRO gains 10% in Quake III. Jedi Knight II runs 11% faster on the RADEON™ 9600 PRO. Serious Sam framerates are up as much as 30% on the RADEON™ 9600 PRO.
Issues Resolved in CATALYST™ Version 3.4
The following section provides a summary of the issues that have been resolved in the latest release of CATALYST™ 3.4. These include:

Resolved Game Issues
Resolved Benchmark Issues
Resolved Software Application issues
Resolved CATALYST™ Driver Issues
Resolved Game Issues
This section provides information on game issues that have been resolved in the latest release of CATALYST™.

The display corruption noticed around the wheels in the game FI Racing Championship is now resolved
The health meter not being drawn in the game Bounty Hunter is now resolved
Texture corruption in the game Combat Flight Simulator 3 is now resolved
The binocular view not displaying properly in the game Project IGI2 is now resolved
Objects flickering in and out of view when playing Deadly Demo is now resolved
The display corruption noticed in Battlecruiser Millennium when placing the mouse cursor over the menu buttons is now resolved
The ground color not displaying correctly when playing the Jurassic Park demo is now resolved
The display corruption noticed when playing Heli Heroes is now resolved
The texture disappearing in the game AirStrike3D is now resolved
The General Protection Fault error appearing when playing Unreal 2; The Awakening is now resolved
The system not responding with playing the game SimCity 4 is now resolved
The system not responding when task switching between an OpenGL game and the desktop is now resolved
Full Screen Anti-Aliasing not being available when playing Anarchy Online is now resolved
The system failing to respond after pressing the ESC key when playing Half-life Counter Strike is now resolved
Resolved Benchmark Issues
This section provides information on Benchmark issues that have been resolved in the latest release of CATALYST™.

The display corruption noticed when running the CodeCreatures benchmark in a system contining a RADEON™ 9200 is now resolved
Resolved Software Application issues
This section provides information on application issues that have been resolved in the latest release of CATALYST™.

The display corruption issue when using the send to DV camera feature found in MovieMaker2 is now resolved
Playing *.rm files using the RealPlayer with Overlay Theater Mode enabled no longer results in screen corruption being displayed on a secondary CRT
TV performance being slow and choppy when running an application in the background is now resolved
Resolved CATALYST™ Driver Issues
This section provides information on CATALSYT™ driver issues that have been resolved in the latest release of CATALYST™.

The display corruption noticed when playing a DVD in TV Theater mode on a secondary display is now resolved
The ATI D3D/OpenGL tab not retaining the correct format when a secondary CRT is connected is now resolved
The display panel's icons disappearing when using an FPD and TV is now resolved
The system not responding after previewing the 3D Liquid Desktop screensaver is now resolved
The overlay pixel duplication noticed when the display resolution is set above 1600x1200 is now resolved
The resolution changing to 640x480 32bpp when checking the optimized format for 480i in the YpbPR settings page is now resolved
The display corruption noticed when a system returns from hibernate mode is now resolved
The blue box border noticed around cached URL addresses is now resolved
The system not responding when hot plugging a DFP monitor is now resolved
A TV connection being falsely detected when booting the system is now resolved
Only half of the image being displayed on an HDTV when outputting from the VGA connector is now resolved
An error message being displayed when attempting to install the display driver from the ATI web site is now resolved
Known Issues
The following section provides a brief description of known issues associated with the latest version of CATALYST™.

When updating to future CATALYST™ releases your current color control panel profiles will be lost. This will be fixed in an upcoming CATALYST release
Playing Quake II with the OpenGL option set to default, and the video mode set to 1024x768 results in the system not responding. This issue will be resolved in a future CATALYST™ release
Playing the game Project IGI2: Covert Strike with a RADEON™ 9700 series card installed in the system results in the ground terrain disappearing and re-appearing as the character is moved. This issue will be resolved in a future CATALYST™ release
The monitor shuts down after booting to the Windows XP service pack 1 desktop with the RADEON™ 9000 Pro installed in the system. This issue will be resolved in a future CATALYST™ release
Running the ATI Tranquility screen saver found at http://www.driverheaven.net, on an ATI RADEON™ 9000 series card, results in the system not responding under Windows XP. This issue will be resolved in a future CATALYST™ release
Running 3D Mark 2001 results in lower than expected test results. This issue is known to occur under all supported operating systems with the RADEON™ 9000 Pro installed. This issue will be resolved in a future CATALYST™ release
CATALYST™ CREW Feedback Program
This driver release incorporates suggestions received through the CATALYST™ CREW feedback program. Please refer to http://apps.ati.com/driverfeedback/ and provide us further feedback.

nice. a huge update
Anti-Aliasing performance for D3D games such as UT2003 has improved as much as 18% <-- means all D3D games? its a bit vague, but still good

Here s the first link:

Dont know yet if powered or build by ATI.

http://pdownload.mii.instacontent.net/at...6c-efg.exe

The display driver included in this package is for Microsoft Windows XP and Windows 2000. This driver may be used with ,
ALL-IN-WONDER 9700 SERIES
ALL-IN-WONDER 9000 SERIES
ALL-IN-WONDER 8500
ALL-IN-WONDER 8500DV
ALL-IN-WONDER 7500
ALL-IN-WONDER VE PCI
ALL-IN-WONDER RADEON
RADEON 9800 SERIES
RADEON 9700 SERIES
RADEON 9600 SERIES
RADEON 9500 SERIES
RADEON 9200 SERIES
RADEON 9100 SERIES
RADEON 9000 SERIES
RADEON 8500 SERIES
RADEON 7500 SERIES
RADEON 7200 SERIES
RADEON 7000 SERIES



This package includes,

Display Driver WXP = 6.14.10.6343

NOTE: If you use the Advanced ATI Control Panel tabs download the corresponding CONTROL-PANEL components from the ATI WEB site.

NOTE: ALL-IN-WONDER and VIVO products require the corresponding TV-CAPTURE-WDM driver components that are available for download from the ATI WEB site.
************************************
B) LANGUAGES

wxp-w2k-radeon-7-88-030430m-008946c-efg.exe contains a display driver with language support for;

English
French
German

************************************
C) PRIOR to USING wxp-w2k-radeon-7-88-030430m-008946c-efg.exe

Be sure to UNINSTALL any previous version of the RADEON display driver prior to installing this version. See the "Un-Install" section for instructions.

************************************
D) USING wxp-w2k-radeon-7-88-030430m-008946c-efg.exe

Overview

There are two phases to the installation of a driver that has been downloaded from the ATI WEB site.

The first phase occurs when you run the wxp-w2k-radeon-7-88-030430m-008946c-efg.exe program.

This phase creates a temporary directory on the system disk and unpacks all the individual files that make up the ATI software bundle.

In the second phase the ATI SETUP program is launched from the temporary directory created in the first phase. ATI SETUP installs the software (from the temporary directory) into the operating system.

Steps

a) You must download wxp-w2k-radeon-7-88-030430m-008946c-efg.exe and save it to a directory on your systems hard disk.
For example C:\temp is a common directory used to initially save a file into.

b) Once you have downloaded wxp-w2k-radeon-7-88-030430m-008946c-efg.exe,
- Close all programs
- Click the START button and select the RUN menu item.
- Click the BROWSE button.
- Browse to the directory where wxp-w2k-radeon-7-88-030430m-008946c-efg.exe was saved.
- Select wxp-w2k-radeon-7-88-030430m-008946c-efg.exe and click OK to run the program.
- Follow the instructions on the screen.

! The individual files will be unpacked and placed into a directory on your hard disk. The default path for this directory is C:\ATI\support\wxp-w2k-radeon-7-88-030430m-008946c-efg\

! After copying the files to the hard disk the INSTALLATION program will launch. You may choose to abort the INSTALL process at this point. (If you abort, no software will be installed into Windows.)


Manual Installation instructions after running wxp-w2k-radeon-7-88-030430m-008946c-efg.exe

- Start Windows.
- Click the START button.
- Click the RUN menu item.
- Click the BROWSE button. Browse to the directory where the files were unpacked after running wxp-w2k-radeon-7-88-030430m-008946c-efg.exe.
(The default directory is C:\ATI\support\wxp-w2k-radeon-7-88-030430m-008946c-efg)
- Select SETUP.EXE and press OK.
- Follow the instructions displayed in the help.


************************************
E) UN-INSTALL

To un-install this software;
- Click START, go to SETTINGS and select CONTROL PANEL.
- Launch ADD/REMOVE programs.
- Select "ATI Display Driver" and then click the ADD/REMOVE button.
- RESTART Windows.

To un-install temporary files from the DOWNLOAD bundle;
- Delete the directory C:\ATI\support\wxp-w2k-radeon-7-88-030430m-008946c-efg\

NOTE: If you unbundled the files into a different directory, simply delete that directory.

************************************
F) ISSUES YOU MAY ENCOUNTER:

VERSION CONFLICTS

When installing Display Drivers or Software a "Version Conflict" message may appear multiple times during the installation.

If you encounter a "VERSION CONFLICT" message while installing this display driver select the "NO" option to proceed.

* Selecting "NO" will ensure that the components of this driver bundle will replace your existing driver components.
* Selecting "YES" will result in a MIX of new and old driver components, which is undesirable.


CONFIRM FILE REPLACE

When installing Display Drivers or Software a "Confirm File Replace" message may appear multiple times during the installation.

If you encounter a "Confirm File Replace" message while installing this display driver select the "YES" option to proceed.

Selecting "YES" will ensure that all the components of this driver bundle will replace your existing driver components.

http://pdownload.mii.instacontent.net/at...6c-efg.exe

The Control Panel...

MMC 8.5 and smartgart uninstaller:
http://www.ati.com/support/drivers/winxp...pt-xp.html

When I tried to run the smartgart uninstaller, the files were already extracted in the directory which leads me to believe that it is included in the 3.4's.

Ive just installed these drivers and got the 9500 to 9700 mod on ok, but how do I get the enhanced Div X performance?

Do I need to install "the Playa", as I am currently runing media player 8 for XP with the 5.3 div x codec (as from the kazaa codec pack).

Incidently is media player 9 ok now (I had lots of trouble with it before playing mp3s in slow speed and stretching mpegs).