[glock19owner]

Not sure if this is old news or not...just came across this on a search for 8.12 beta drivers...

Take it for what its worth:

Link

11/13/2008

"AMD is set to release a free software giving Set to Release ATI Radeon owners a new way to run demanding computing tasks faster.

The company plans to release for download a free ATI Catalyst driver update that instantly unlocks new ATI Stream acceleration capabilities already built into ATI Radeon graphics cards.

ATI Stream is a set of hardware and software technologies that enable AMD graphics processors (GPU), working in concert with the system?s central processor (CPU), to accelerate applications beyond just graphics.

ATI Stream-enabled software titles for entertainment, gaming and productivity are being released or are under development by independent software vendors (ISVs) including ArcSoft and CyberLink.

To give users immediate benefit from ATI Stream, AMD also plans to release in December a free downloadable version of its ATI Avivo Video Converter utility. According to AMD, this application enables transcoding of HD video up to 17 times faster than with the CPU alone, in tests performed using an ATI Radeon HD 4850 graphics card.

"ATI Stream is one of the best examples of the power of Fusion, and today?s announcement is the first major step in taking this important new technology mainstream," said Rick Bergman, senior vice president and general manager, Graphics Products Group, AMD. "For the millions of people that have already purchased an ATI Radeon HD 4000 series graphics card, this is one more way we?re saying thank you and helping them get more out of their investment. For those who haven?t yet, it?s one more reason for them to go online right now and buy one."

The next ATI Catalyst release is version 8.12. AMD has begun distributing a beta version to its hardware and software technology partners for testing, with the final version scheduled to be released for download on or around December 10.

Once installed, the driver package automatically turns on the ATI Stream acceleration capabilities within ATI Radeon HD 4000 series graphics cards. This will have the immediate effect of allowing any ATI Stream-enabled application to run faster.

Users can then download and install the free ATI Avivo Video Converter. In tests performed using this utility, AMD was able to convert an hour of video to a portable player format in about 12 minutes. Combined with one of the recent ATI Radeon HD 4000 series graphics card offerings, the ATI Avivo Video Converter helps deliver video conversion at up to twice the speed of competing solutions, at just over half of the suggested retail price.

ArcSoft plans to provide an update in December to its TotalMedia Theatre application that will includes ArcSoft SimHD, a new type of post processing technology that allows consumers to experience close-to-HD viewing of standard definition content.

CyberLink has also optimized its video editing software, PowerDirector 7. PowerDirector provides a set of features and functionality for capturing, editing and distributing HD video. The updated version, which is scheduled to be released in Q1 2009 will include ATI Stream accelerated video conversion, featuring performance and functionality exceeding that of the Avivo Video Converter."

(Complete copy of post above...no hyperlinks this way )

[redrumy3]

also would like to add that ati 8.12 will be performance drivers as well to compete with nvidia 180.48 drivers

Click Me If You Want To

ATI Catalyst driver 8.12 should be available on December 10th and it will bring optimization for the titles that Nvidia has a right to gloat about.

We managed to find out that some of these optimizations are also going to wait for the next Catalyst 9.1 which should probably come sometime next year. The optimizations are going to influence both single board and CrossFire configurations and the only issue is the titles for which Nvidia apparently had more time to optimize than ATI.

Nvidia's GTX 260 216 currently beats ATI in Call of Duty 5, Dead Space, Fallout 3, Far Cry 2 and Left 4 Dead, and these are five titles that Nvidia likes. According to our info, the GTX 260 216, at least the overclocked one from EVGA, outperforms HD 4870 by up to 67 percent, in Dead Space at least. In Far Cry 2 and Fallout 3 the gap is much smaller, as GTX 260 216 is 22 and 10 percent faster.

All of this means that ATI will certainly be back with its HD 4870 card, but the performance increase is still unknown, as the 8.12 is still not available for beta testing, but we will get back to you as soon as we manage to get some new info.

[Rattle]

i dont see how nvidia can be so much faster in cod5, because in cod4 ati rapes, and its not much different gfx wise. Looking forward to these drivers for cod5, 8.11 are working wonderfully for me though in cod5 aside from some water glitches here and there.

[ziggo0]

The engine changed a little bit from CoD4 to CoD5...that little bit of code could easily break any of ATi's optimizations.

[xtkxhom3r]

wow this is interesting so in other words instead of encoding with the cpu now were going to encode with the gpu right? if this works like it says it does i wonder how it would scale with 2 4870's

[Rattle]

i dont think it uses 2 gpus to do that, i may be wrong.

[rallyfan1986]

Will this only work with ATI's video converting software? or will any video converting software be able to use this?

[xtkxhom3r]

only software that is designed to use ati's stream acceleration

[rallyfan1986]

Originally Posted by xtkxhom3r

only software that is designed to use ati's stream acceleration

so thats pretty much nothing?

[Neural Net]

Originally Posted by rallyfan1986

so thats pretty much nothing?

Same as CUDA then.