ATI has finally decided to release a newest version of its Catalyst driver pack, the Catalyst 9.1. The new Catalyst 9.1 supports almost all cards since the 9500, R300 model time and the only new feature is the full OpenGL 3.0 support.

ATI's Catalyst 9.1 comes with v8.573 graphics driver. The new driver pack does fix a lot of bugs and issues but unfortunately we can't see any performance gains noted in the release notes.

According to the tests over at Ati-forum.de website, there is some gain in Crysis, FarCry 2 and 3DMark Vantage, but nothing serious as you get just a single frame per second more. The more interesting fact is that the power consumption was a tad bit higher with a new driver.

You can download the new Catalyst 9.1 here and you can check out the release notes here. We are happy to report that it fixes some of the instabilities that we had with 8.12 drivers. 

Update:

The new Catalyst 9.1 also brings some interesting new features to Linux platforms, including Hybrid CrossFireX support for AMG 780G/780D and an ATI Radeon HD 3400 and ATI Radeon HD 2400 series graphics accelerator, support for Ubuntu 8.10, MultiView support under Linux, as well as the full OpenGL 3.0 support with all the OpenGL 3.0 extensions listed in Catalyst 9.1 release notes.