For AMD Radeon HD 5000, HD 6000 and HD 7000 Series users, Microsoft has certified today’s AMD Catalyst 13.1 release as “compatible with Windows 8.” With this driver, these products offer full support for WDDM 1.2, which is an updated model for graphics drivers that Microsoft has developed to ensure smooth performance and wide compatibility in their new operating system.

The AMD Catalyst software suite 13.1 contains the following:

• AMD display driver version  9.012
• HydraVision for Windows Vista and Windows® 7
• Southbridge/IXP Driver
• AMD Catalyst Control Center version 9.012 / AMD Vision Engine Control Center version 9.012

Build Info:
DriverVer=12/19/2012, 9.012.0.0000
9.012-121219a-151592C-ATI
Catalyst: 13.1
CCC: 2012.1219.1521.27485
D3D: 9.14.10.0945 
OGL: 6.14.10.12002
OCL: 10.0.1084.4
Sign Date: January 11-16 (Microsoft WHQL)

FEATURE HIGHLIGHTS OF THE AMD CATALYST 13.1:

AMD Catalyst Control Center:  New 3D settings and profile management user interface: 

AMD Catalyst 13.1 features a newly designed 3D application settings page, designed to allow users to more easily adjust and control their 3D settings on a per application basis.

Performance Highlights of AMD Catalyst 13.1 (vs. AMD Catalyst 12.10):  Includes all of the performance improvements found in AMD Catalyst 12.11 Beta 11

• Performance gains seen on the entire AMD Radeon HD 7000 Series:
• All game were tested at high / extreme / ultra levels
  • Enhanced performance in Far Cry 3 (up to 25% with 8xMSAA, SSAO enabled @ 1600p, and up to 15% with 8xMSAA, HDAO enabled @1600p) (AMD Catalyst 12.11 CAP2 must also be installed)
  • Enhanced AMD CrossFire™ scaling performance in Call of Duty Black Ops 2
  • Up to 10%-15% more performance in Battlefield 3 in most cases
    • • More than 20% in certain missions and sequences (Comrades)
  • Up to 7% more performance in Metro 2033
  • Up to 10% more performance in DiRT Showdown
  • Up to 8% more performance in Sleeping Dogs
  • Up to 12% more performance in Civilization V
  • Up to 10% more performance in StarCraft II
  • Up to 8% more performance in Sniper Elite: V2
  • Up to 5% more performance in Max Payne 3

AMD Catalyst Mobility 7970M performance for AMD Enduro™ technology supported platforms has been  improved for DirectX® 9, DirectX 10 and DirectX 11 applications:

• • 3DMark® 06 – Up to 6%
  • 3DMark Vantage – Up to 15%
  • 3DMark 11 – Up to 12%
  • AvP – Up to 11%
  • Battlefield 3 – Up to 25%
  • Call of Duty: Black Ops – Up to 13%
  • Crysis 2: Up to 45%
  • DiRT Showdown – Up to 62%
  • ETQW – Up to 8%
  • Hard Reset – Up to 8%
  • Just Cause 2 – Up to 90%
  • Mafia 2 – Up to 40%
  • The Chronicles of Riddick – Up to 4%
  • Shogun 2 – Up to 56%
  • StarCraft 2 – Up to 25%
  • Skyrim – Up to 45%
  • Sniper Elite V2 – Up to 60%
  • Tom Clancy’s HAWX – Up to 56%
  • Unigine Heaven – Up to 33%
  • Wolfenstein – Up to 9%

Resolved Issues for the Windows 8 / Windows 7 Operating Systems:

This section provides information on resolved known issues in this release of the AMD Catalyst 13.1 software suite.

• A sporadic system hang encountered with a single AMD Radeon HD 7000 Series GPU seen on X58 and X79 chipsets.
• An intermittent hang encountered with AMD Radeon HD 7000 Series GPUs in an AMD CrossFire + Eyefinity setup.
• Missing fonts in XBMC
• No video found in Media Player Classic Home Cinema when using full or half floating point processing
• Skyrim lighting (missing a lighting pass) for the AMD Radeon HD 7900 Series
• Skyrim cloud corruption experience in various in game locations
• A  hang playing Dishonored on the AMD Radeon HD 6000 and AMD Radeon HD 5000 Series
• Engine and memory clocks running too high when the GPU is idle.
• GPU activity runs at lower values than expected seen on the AMD Radeon HD 7870.
• Corruption seen in Darkness 2 and Carrier Command when using AMD CrossFire configurations
• Adobe Premier  Pro CS6 may fail to launch
• Hang experienced with AMD Crossfire and Eyefinity enabled on X58 and X78 chipsets
• Corel PaintShop Pro X3 – Hangs at the “Initializing Command Manager” window
• Company of Heroes 2 – display corruption experienced when AA is enabled in the AMD Catalyst Control Center
• Cyberlink  Powerdirector  10 crashes intermittently.
• Company of Heroes : Tales of Valor – Flickering experienced when AA is disabled
• Max Payne 3 – Flickering experienced in DirectX 9 mode with forced AA enabled
• Cyberlink PoweDVD 10 – crashes intermittently
• VLC - Green texture corruption seen in 720p MPEG2 video clips
• Black screen encountered when “Alternate DVI mode” is enabled in the AMD Catalyst Control Center
• Green display corruption seen in Skype webcam video