AMD releases WHQL drivers for Windows 8 RTM – Catalyst 12.8

AMD has released Catalyst version 12.8 drivers to the web which as usual work with Windows XP/Vista/7 but are also WHQL certified for Windows 8, supporting the new WDDM 1.2 driver model.  The drivers are available for Radeon models starting with the HD 5000 series and upwards. Drivers supporting earlier cards will appear later this month. The drivers have Direct 11.x support and include numerous Windows 8 features:

AMD’s first logo certified driver for Windows 8 production featuring support for the DirectX 11.1 and the new WDDM 1.2 driver model:

1. Target-Independent Rasterization (TIR): TIR is a new rendering path that enables superior anti-aliasing in Direct3D driver applications.
2. Native Stereo 3D Support: Windows 8 natively supports stereoscopic 3D gaming and videos via compatible applications.
3. Unified Video API: Video playback has been integrated into the DirectX 11 API, enabling simultaneous video and gaming content. Transcoding performance may also be improved for supporting applications.
4. Optimized screen rotation for rotation aware devices.
5. Improved sleep/resume performance.
6. Optimized GPU power consumption.
7. Support for AMD features
8. AMD Eyefinity
9. OpenCL™
10. OpenGL
11. UVD
12. AMD Dual Graphics / AMD CrossFire™ Technology
13. AMD Overdrive
14. AMD Catalyst Control Center / Vision Engine Control Center

The full release notes are here, downloads for 64bit system are here and downloads for 32bit systems are here.

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