AMD releases Catalyst 11.11 drivers, adds Flash 11 support

AMD has issued a new release of its Catalyst graphics card drivers, bringing the package up to version 11.11. Where last month's 11.10 release was all about Battlefield 3 and Rage performance tweaks, today's highlights include support for Flash Player 11 and its Stage 3D architecture for hardware accelerated graphics rendering, which Adobe says will enable a new class of console-quality games and immersive apps on browsers.

According to the release notes, the new Catalyst 11.11 drivers enable GPU accelerated Stage 3D API and Stage 3D applications across all Radeon HD GPUs as well as A- and E-series APUs. Besides this the new Catalyst release includes updated versions of AMD's display driver, Hydravision for Windows XP through Windows 7, Southbridge/IXP driver and the AMD Catalyst Control Center/AMD Vision Engine Control Center.

Desktop: Windows XP 32-bit | Windows XP 64-bit | Windows Vista/7 32-bit | Windows Vista/7 64-bit
Mobile: Windows Vista/7 32-bit | Windows Vista/7 64-bit

As far as bug squashing is concerned AMD mentions it fixed an issue with corrupted images and textures in Rage, corrected bezel compensation for Far Cry 2, fixed screen tearing while moving a window on the desktop in Clone or Eyefinity mode, fixed a black screen issue when extending displays, fixed random crashing of Homefront when Crossfire is enabled, and fixed another crashing issue in DC - Universe Online.

Check out AMD's full release notes for more details about the update, including supported hardware and known issues that are yet to be resolved, or hit the appropriate link below to download AMD's Catalyst 11.11.

AMD releases eight new Athlon II processors

AMD is announcing eight new additions to its Athlon II desktop microprocessors line today. The new chips are aimed at mainstream computer users looking for bargains on new PCs during the holiday season and include two quad cores (the X4 2.3GHz '605e' and 2.2GHz '600e'), four triple cores (the X3 2.9GHz '435', 2.7GHz '425' and 2.3GHz '405e') and two dual core processors (the X2 2.8GHz '240e' and 2.7GHz '235e').

They are all made using a 45-nanometer production process and consume either 45 watts or 95 watts of power -- energy efficient variants carry the 'e' denominator. AMD intends these new Athlon II processors to compete against Intel's midrange line of CPUs, including the Core 2 Duo E7000 series or E8000 series, with prices ranging from $69 to $143. The chips are compatible with both Socket AM3 and Socket AM2+ motherboards.

Heavyweights such as Acer, Dell, HP and Lenovo are all expected to launch products in the coming weeks, with AMD promising media oriented PCs featuring reduced heat and noise across the board and sleeker designs.