| What are ATI Catalyst Drivers and ATI Radeon Drivers? |
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ATI Technologies, a part of the AMD family, manufactures a variety of computer hardware products including graphics processing units, or GPUs. ATI Radeon is one of their brands of GPUs that has been in existence since 2000. This family of graphics processors has several generations based on the DirectX generation (DirectX 7.0, 8.1, 9.0, 10.1, etc,). Further distinctions between the various ATI Radeon drivers include memory and processor clock speeds, the amount of pixel pipelines, and the HyperZ version.
Like all hardware devices, ATI Radeon cards require device drivers in order to function within the Windows operating system. When installed on a Windows based machine, the ATI Radeon GPU requires a driver package known as ATI Catalyst. This package goes beyond your standard device driver download.
ATI Catalyst is actually a complete utility containing ATI Catalyst drivers as well as an interface (the ATI Catalyst Control Center) where users can adjust numerous graphics settings such as monitor controls, 3D settings, and video options.
With the introduction of ATI Catalyst, ATI committed to providing monthly updates which address known bugs, enhance performance, and add new features. ATI Catalyst takes device drivers to a whole new level offering users greater control over their hardware.
Among the settings that users can readily control using the ATI Catalyst Control Center are:
· Power Settings
· Overclocking
· Hardware acceleration
· 3D settings
· VPU recovery
· HDTV support
· Multiple monitors
Users that don’t need all of the features can also download ATI Catalyst drivers in pieces to better suit their needs. For example, non-broadband computer users or users who don’t need HDTV support can download just the display driver without the Catalyst Control Center and other robust features.
Catalyst 7.1 is a Microsoft-certified driver that was released in conjunction with the release of Microsoft Windows Vista.
ATI Catalyst drivers were developed after the release of the ATI Radeon 8500 series. They support numerous ATI Radeon products including desktop Radeon graphics cards, mobile Radeon graphics cards, All-in-Wonder multimedia cards, and TV Wonder TV tuner cards.
In addition to ATI Catalyst drivers, other “unofficial” ATI Radeon drivers (such as DNA drivers and Omega drivers) exist with claims of performance boosting properties. These drivers are not supported so they may not work as expected. ATI also offers ATI Radeon drivers for other operating systems such as Linux and Macintosh.
ATI Radeon drivers also come in an Open Source (RadeonHD) version. In late 2007, AMD released documentation for open source driver development. These specs remain experimental. ATI Radeon drivers that RadeonHD aims to support include the RV630, M56, M76, and RS690 chipset series.
While the ATI Catalyst driver software puts users in greater control, occasionally ATI Radeon devices need a little help. If the files become corrupt, it may be necessary to reinstall the ATI Catalyst drivers or manually update the drivers. You can download new drivers directly at the ATI website. Simply select your operating system and ATI Radeon GPU card and download the appropriate ATI Catalyst drivers.
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