The new software package offers H.264 hardware acceleration, support for ATI CrossFire for the ATI Radeon X1800 GPUs as well as support for the HQV video benchmark.

H.264 Hardware Acceleration

Catalyst 5.13 software suite introduces H.264 hardware acceleration for the ATI Radeon X1800, X1600, and X1300 product line. H.264 is advanced video coding that provides significant reduction in bit-rate compared to standards such as MPEG-2 and MPEG-4. The ATI Radeon X1800, X1600, and X1300 products provide hardware acceleration for the playback of high-definition content that is encoded using H.264. Using the Catalyst software suite 5.13, along with the Cyberlink H.264 decoder available from http://www.ati.com/technology/h264.html provides H.264 hardware acceleration.

ATI CrossFire Support for the ATI Radeon X1800

The Catalyst 5.13 software suite is the first Catalyst to provide ATI CrossFire support. CrossFire support is available when an ATI Radeon X1800 CrossFire Edition product is installed with another Radeon X1800 product.

HQV Video Benchmark Support

The Catalyst software suite 5.13 introduces full support for the HQV DVD Benchmark. These driver tweaks provide a better DVD image quality, and higher benchmark scores.

Issues Resolved in Catalyst Software Suite 5.13:

- F.E.A.R: Slow game performance is no longer noticed when using CrossFire.
- The Video Preview no longer fails to change to its default settings when swapping the display mappings using the Catalyst Control Center.
- Attempting to stretch the display horizontally using the Catalyst Control Center, no longer results in the horizontal stretch mode failing to be applied unless the display is stretched vertically first.
- The PowerPlay option found in the Catalyst Control Center no longer defaults to the enabled state after initial install of the display driver for systems containing an ATI Radeon Xpress 200 series product.
- Auto-detect no longer fails to be applied as the default setting for the Deinterlacing option when first entering the Video aspect page of the Catalyst Control Center. Currently the option is set as Weave.
- Catalyst Control Center: Attempting to extend the desktop display when using a CRT, TV and DFP display devices no longer results in display corruption being noticed on the primary display adapter.
- Attempting to set the CRT as the primary display device after hot-plugging a DFP display device and enabling extended desktop mode, no longer results in the CRT failing to be set as the primary.
- Catalyst Control Center: Entering the Overdrive aspect and changing the GPU setting to 509 and the memory setting to 505 no longer results in color corruption and the Windows XP operating system rebooting.

For additional information see ATI's release notes.

The Catalyst software suite 5.13 contains the following:

Radeon display driver 8.203
Multimedia Center 9.08
HydraVision 3.25.0006
HydraVision Basic Edition 3.25.9006
Remote Wonder 3.02
WDM Driver Install Bundle
Southbridge/IXP Driver
Catalyst Control Center Version 5.13

Downloads:

Catalyst 5.13 WinXP/2K

Windows XP Professional x64

ATI also announced today the All-In-Wonder 2006 PCI Express Edition multi-function video card, equipped with a TV tuner. ATI said that the card is currently available for $200.

Based on the Radeon X1300, the card opeartes at 450MHz/800MHz and uses a 256MB GDDR3 memory.Shader Model 3.0 and Avivo are also supported.

This new video card allows consumers to play games, listen to FM radio and watch/record/pause live TV. Adobe Premiere Elements 2.0 is bundled with the product to help edit videos.