Here’s an unofficial way of improving your graphics performance

Nov 16, 2012 16:04 GMT  ·  By

If you own a Radeon HD7900 series graphics card, you are in luck. A new modded version of the AMD Catalyst 12.11 Beta 7 is out, and is said to have some added features.

As confirmed by the release notes, the driver package version is 9.01.8-121112a-149575E-ATI, Catalyst Version 12.11, Direct3D Version 9.14.10.0942, OpenGL Version 6.14.10.11990 and Catalyst Control Center Version 2012.1112.1529.27747.

But enough with the numbers, let's get to the fixes.

The modded driver adds HydraVision 4.2.242.0 and AMD Avivo Codec. Temporal AA, High Quality AF, Geometry Instancing, LOD option and Adaptive Anti-Aliasing Quality Slide are unlocked (the last of them may be buggy, so don't expect too much from it).

The driver includes again the atipdlxx.dll and atipdl64.dll, the two files that should offer better support with 3rd party tools.

The “Update Driver” option is enabled in the Catalyst Install Manager, while ULPS (Ultra-Low Power State, a power saving function) is disabled. What ULPS does is put your graphics adapter on idle when your computer idles, therefore reducing energy consumption.

Some users claim that disabling it increases the framerate in games.

This is not an official release. Benchmark3D deserves the credit for the driver.

The link below will take you to a page where you can download the modded drivers. Be advised, this driver is not a stable release, so use with caution.

Benchmark 3D AMD Catalyst 12.11 Beta 7 - 7900 Modded Driver