AMD has apparently finally figured out that Catalyst drivers can and should be much better than what we had a chance to see over the last few releases. The next two, Catalyst 10.2 due sometime during this month, and 10.3 due in March should bring some improvements that should have been released a while back and not in next few months, but it's better late than never as they say.

The upcoming Catalyst 10.2, should bring better game performance thanks to game profiles that AMD plans to focus on. These should be provided as a separate executable file on AMD's site that will bring better performance to new games when they come out, rather than to wait for the next Catalyst update. The 10.2 version will also provide better "panoramic gaming" with CrossfireX which will bring higher performance for ATI CrossfireX and Eyefinity combinations.

Catalyst 10.3 will bring some improvements for ATI Eyefinity as well. The update should include the easy-to-use wizard that will allow users to easily adjust layout in order to compensate for monitor bezels, adjust brightness, color and contrast for each display and bunch of other minor customizations.

The one part that makes the Catalyst 10.3 quite important is the attention that AMD plans to give to Mobility series graphics. AMD is apparently working closely with most major notebook manufacturers to ensure broad support and it might mean that we will see more stable notebooks with ATI Mobility HD 2000, 3000, 4000 and 5000 series graphics.

One other note is connected with the 10.3 version of Catalyst that talks about 3D ecosystem. AMD is apparently enabling "third-party middleware" vendors to bring more 3D stereoscopic gaming options to consumers which sounds like meddling in Nvidia's business if you ask us, as that is the part of the market where AMD still hasn't pressed Nvidia.