If you are an AMD graphics card user there is an updated driver available for you today with the release of Catalyst 9.12.  There aren’t a lot of performance changes in this driver (only 3DMark Vantage and STALKER: Call of Pripyat are noted) but there are some nice feature additions:

ATI Catalyst support for DirectCompute 10.1 
This release of ATI Catalyst provides full support for DirectCompute 10.1 for the ATI Radeon HD 4800 Series, ATI Radeon HD 4700 Series for both single card and ATI CrossFireX supported configurations.

OpenGL 3.2 extension support
This release of ATI Catalyst provides support for OpenGL 3.2 extension support on the ATI Radeon HD 5800 Series, ATI Radeon HD 5700 Series, ATI Radeon HD 4000 Series, ATI Radeon HD 3000 Series and ATI Radeon HD 2000 Series.    The following is a list of OpenGL 3.2 features and extensions added in ATI Catalyst 9.12:
Support for OpenGL Shading Language 1.50.
BGRA vertex component ordering (GL_ARB_vertex_array_bgra).
Drawing commands allowing modification of the base vertex index (GL_ARB_draw_elements_base_vertex).
Shader fragment coordinate convention control (GL_ARB_fragment_coord_conventions).
Provoking vertex control (GL_ARB_provoking_vertex).
Seamless cube map filtering (GL_ARB_seamless_cube_map).
Multisampled textures and texture samplers for specific sample locations (GL_ARB_texture_multisample).
Fragment depth clamping (GL_ARB_depth_clamp).
Geometry shaders (GL_ARB_geometry_shader4).
Fence sync objects (GL_ARB_sync).
Transform_feedback2
texture_cubemap_array

Interestingly, there is going to be a hotfix 9.12 driver that includes some last minute additions that the AMD crew didn’t get in before sending it off for Windows certification.  More than likely, readers of PC Perspective are going to comfortable with this release available here.  This driver is the first to bring Eyefinity support to CrossFire configurations using not only the Radeon HD 5970 but the HD 5800 series and 5700 series as well!  Just in time for the holidays…

ATI Catalyst 9.12 Hotfix adds Eyefinity CrossFire X support finally! - Graphics Cards 2
Eyefinity at work on Batman: Arkham Asylum – Click to Enlarge

Support for the OpenCL GPU component of the ATI Stream SDK v2.0
The ATI Catalyst 9.12 hotfix release provides full support for GPU acceleration of OpenCL when used in conjunction with the ATI Stream SDK v2.0.   This feature is supported on the ATI Radeon  HD 5970 Series, ATI Radeon HD 5800 Series, ATI Radeon HD 5700 Series, ATI Radeon HD 4000 Series and the AMD FireStream 9200 Series of products. For more information about ATI Stream technology and OpenCL, please visit http://www.amd.com/stream.

Support for ATI CrossFireX on Eyefinity configurations
The ATI Catalyst 9.12 hotfix release provides ATI CrossFireX support on Eyefinity configurations, allowing users to take advantage of their additional GPUs for increased gaming performance when driving high resolution Eyefinity display groups
Supported on the ATI Radeon HD 5970 Series, ATI Radeon HD 5800 Series, and ATI Radeon HD 5700 Series

Support for DisplayPort audio
The ATI Catalyst 9.12 hotfix release adds support for DisplayPort audio for DisplayPort panels

Fixes for the following issues:
Resident Evil 5 – Performance drop during the opening cinematic
Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 – Performance drop observed with a supported  ATI CrossFireX configuration when using the thermal scope  
Wheelman – Game freezes while loading the game menu
Flashing in various OpenGL titles – City of Heroes, Enemy Territories: Quake Wars, Riddick
Heaven benchmark (DirectX 9 mode) – Grass flickers and white boarders observed around the edges
ATI Radeon HD 5970 Series,  ATI Radeon HD 5800 Series, and ATI Radeon HD 5700 Series – issue with HDMI: DTS-HD and Dolby True-HD not working properly with certain receivers
The desktop mouse cursor becomes enlarged at random when using Windows 7

If you are curious about AMD’s Eyefinity technology and how it works with a CrossFire solution, be sure to check out our Radeon HD 5970 review for more information and benchmarks!!