AMD has released the final version of Catalyst 10.4 after two previews this month. Catalyst 10.4 offers several news and beside performance improvements in S.T.A.L.K.E.R. – Clear Sky with Radeon HD 5900/5800/5700 cards there is also improved video support on several points. Catalyst 10.4 brings support for H.264 Level 5.1, a video standard rarely used but enables playback of extreme High Resolution video (4K x 2K).
AMD has been criticized for not supporting DXVA, which changes with the update for H.264 Level 5.1.
Broader compatibility aside it also takes advantage of the GPU when transcoding video. ATI Video Converter has a simple drag-and-drop interface in Windows 7 and can be used to transcode files for playback on other devices, e.g. media players or mobile phones. Performance will be optimized but there are also many formats to choose from, MTS and WMV9 Complex profile interlaced being two of them.
The new drivers can be found at AMD’s website.
