No information about the package are available on the page, except for the drivers that are included in the download. The AMD Catalyst Accelerated Parallel Processing (APP) Technology Edition contains the standard display driver, ATI integrated driver and Catalyst Control Center just like the Catalyst Software Suite. It contains in addition to that the OpenCL Driver which is available as an individual download as well. The size of 16.4 Megabytes is exactly the difference in Megabytes between the standard driver package and the technology edition.

So what’s OpenCL then?

OpenCL (Open Computing Language) is a framework for writing programs that execute across heterogeneous platforms consisting of CPUs, GPUs, and other processors. OpenCL includes a language (based on C99) for writing kernels (functions that execute on OpenCL devices), plus APIs that are used to define and then control the platforms. OpenCL provides parallel computing using task-based and data-based parallelism. Its architecture shares a range of computational interfaces with two competitors, NVidia’s Compute Unified Device Architecture and Microsoft’s DirectCompute.

OpenCL gives any application access to the Graphics Processing Unit for non-graphical computing. Thus, OpenCL extends the power of the Graphics Processing Unit beyond graphics (General-purpose computing on graphics processing units). OpenCL is analogous to the open industry standards OpenGL and OpenAL, for 3D graphics and computer audio, respectively. OpenCL is managed by the non-profit technology consortium Khronos Group. (via)

There aren’t a lot of applications for standard users. ATI’s developer showcase shows a lot of scientific programs though. Currently, it is safe to say that the OpenCL driver is not needed by the majority of users. This might change in the future.

Do you have additional information about the AMD Catalyst Accelerated Parallel Processing (APP) Technology Edition or the OpenCL driver? Let everyone know in the comments.

Up until now, this had to be done manually. Gamers had to check the website of their video card manufacturer to see if a new driver has been released since the last driver installation.

A new driver then had to be downloaded and installed manually.

Today AMD announced that they have started adding ATI Radeon video card driver updates to the popular Steam gaming platform.

This new form of distribution makes sense, considering that gamers are the prime group of users who benefit from regular driver updates.

How does it work? Steam users can check for ATI Radeon driver updates by clicking on Steam >Update AMD Video Drivers.

steam amd driver update

Steam will then check if an updated video card driver is available, and prompt the user to download the video driver update.

steam video driver updates

The Install Now button triggers the installation of the drivers on the system. This installation is automatic with no option to customize it. The version that gets downloaded seems to be a universal installer, with a size of over 100 Megabytes. The largest driver at the official AMD Driver site has a size of less than 60 Megabytes.

Users with a slow Internet connection may want to consider that it will take them almost double the time to download the drivers from Steam.

The driver distribution on Steam cannot be automated at this point. Users still need to regularly check for updated drivers in the menu mentioned above, to find out if they are running the latest drivers.

It would be nice if the updates could be automated, for instance by moving the drivers to the Steam library to use Steam’s standard way of updating, which can be set to be completely automatic.

Still, the availability on Steam is a big step for AMD, as it brings the latest drivers directly to a large group of gamers. It does not get a lot more comfortable than this.

AMD acquired ATI four years ago and pledged to preserve the brand at the time.  Now though, market research for the company has suggested its own brand is well known enough to take over.

The move will see the Radeon and Firepro names continuing but all new graphics cards released from the end of this year will carry the AMD branding instead.

ATI was founded in 1985 and began its life making integrated graphics chipsets for IBM and Commodore.  It was bought by AMD in 2006 for $5.4bn.  This is a deal which hit AMDs finances heavily and is only now beginning to bear fruit.

ATI has done well in the last couple of years as rival nVidia have struggled with their new Fermi technology to make cards that rival the latest Radeons.  Only recently have nVidia begun to ship cards that truly compete with with ATI’s best.

Source : PC Pro

Put in the CD that was supplied by Sapphire and started the installation only to be greeted with a “Zero Display Service Error” during video driver installation. All additional tools and programs installed fine though. Back to the low resolution desktop I began a search on the Internet for a solution. I tried firing up a web browser but discovered that my Internet connection was not working. Rebooted the computer once, checked the System Control Panel to find an yellow exclamation mark next to the video card entry.

The properties of the video card were displaying another error message: “Code 12: This device cannot find enough free resources that it can use”. I experienced those situations a lot back in the days of Windows 95 when two hardware devices were sharing the same resources.

I combined that the possibility was high that my network card and video card were sharing the same resources. Radical solution was to remove the network card from the system to see if that was the cause. What can I say, Windows XP booted fine and offered me the usual choice of resolutions. Last step was to put the network card into a different PCI slot.

I read about two dozen forum threats and posts about both error messages and none posted this solution. Hope this helps a few users who are experiencing the same problems (I know many are from the Google searches that I conducted).

The guide will walk you through creating a 2D and 3D video card profile that will automatically switch the fan speed and the clock speeds of the video card depending on the application that is running on the computer. This generally means low clock and fan speeds in 2D mode and normal (or even faster) clock and fan speeds in 3D mode.

The program that can do all of that is called Rivatuner. It is compatible with both ATI and NVIDIA video cards. The advantage of using Rivatuner is that the software can do everything that we need and works both in 32-bit and 64-bit editions of Windows XP and Windows Vista.

Please note that the clock and fan speeds are valid for the Geforce 8800 GTS video card that was used in the test and that the values for other video cards might differ. There is however a general pattern to it which will be explained.

1. We are going to create the following two profiles:

2D Mode: Low Fan Speed, Low Core Clock, Low Memory Clock
3D Mode: Fan Speed that cools the video card sufficiently, Default Core Clock and Memory Clock speeds. Advanced users could overclock if they like.

2. Configuring Settings:

Before we can start to apply the profiles we need to make sure that we can set the clock speeds and fan speeds to lower values in 2D modes. This is done by clicking on the Power User tab and locating the following entries:

RivaTuner \Overclocking \Global

• MaxClockLimit: 200
• MinClockLimit: 15

RivaTuner \Fan

• MinFanSpeedlimit: 10

The first two values in Overclocking \Global enable a wider range of clock speeds that can be configured in Rivatuner while the second sets the minimum fan speed of the video card fan to 10%. The default without that setting would be 25%. Restart Rivatuner afterwards so that the changes can take effect.

3. Configuring core and memory clock profiles for 2D and 3D modes

Open the System Settings menu of Rivatuner by clicking on the icon next to customize next to Driver Settings in the lower half of the main window and selecting the leftmost icon in the appearing icon pane.

The System Tweaks window will show up displaying Core, Shader and Memory clock speeds. The first profile will be the 2D mode. Remember that we need low settings for core and memory clock in that mode which will save power, reduce video card temperature and allows to reduce the fan speed because of this. The effect is a power saving, low temperature and low noise profile.

The value depends on a few factors and it is probably a good idea to start with relatively high clock speeds and reduce them further if no problems are experienced. A minimum core and memory clock of between 200 to 250 should be the goal for the 2D profile.

After setting the clock speeds check the Apply Overclocking At Windows Startup box. Hit Apply at the bottom and save the profile under Overclocking Profile Settings. (2D Profile)

Now do the same for the 3D clock speeds. A click on Defaults will load the default speeds for the video card. Make sure the Startup Settings box is unchecked. Click Apply again and save the profile. (3D Profile)

4. Configuring the fan speeds for the two profiles

After creating the two clock speed profiles for 2D and 3D mode we have to create a fan profile for each mode. The fan setting can be loaded by clicking on the icon next to Customize under the Target Adapter area of the main interface and selecting the first icon of the icon row called Low-Level System Settings.

We start by defining the fan speed for the 2D profile. A click on Enable low-level fan control will provide access to the fan speed settings. Select Fixed from the check boxes and move the slider to the left. Clicking Apply will change the fan speed to the selected value. It’s a matter of listening to the fan and selecting a fan speed level that is barely, if at all, audible. A value between 10-20% should be perfect for most video cards and ears. You should not set it to low unless you keep an eye on the temperature levels of the video card.

Check the Apply Fan Settings At Windows Startup box, hit apply and save the profile. (2D Fan).

Now do the same for the 3D profile. A click on Defaults will load the fan speed defaults again. Select a Fixed fan speed value that you are comfortable with, apply the changes and save the profile. (3D Fan)

5. Monitoring System Settings That Reveal 2D or 3D mode

We have created two clock speed and fan speed profiles and set the low clock and low fan speed profiles to load at Windows startup. If you keep the settings this way the 2D settings will be loaded in 3D mode because Rivatuner does not know when to change the profiles. You would have to change them manually whenever switching from 2D to 3D or vice verse.

What we do know is to configure hardware monitoring which will give the profile launcher the information needed to change profiles automatically.

Hardware monitoring is another icon in the Target Adapter icon row that appears when clicking on the icon next to Customize. The Hardware Monitoring display will open. A click on Setup in the lower right corner opens the settings which allow us to define additional values that should be monitored.

There are a few options to distinguish between 2D and 3D mode. One is to monitor Hardware Acceleration which is unfortunately also triggered in some 2D applications. A hardware acceleration of 0 means that it is off and would trigger 2D mode while a hardware acceleration of 1 would mean it is turned on and would trigger 3D mode. Another option is to monitor the Framerate instead which is always 0 in 2D mode.

You can enable one or both settings in the Data Sources menu in the lower half of the menu. A click on the checkmark in front of the name of the source will activate the monitoring of the source. A click on OK will close the setup window. Now find the Hardware Acceleration graph in the Hardware Monitoring window.

An icon is displayed next to the Hardware Acceleration name. A click on it will check the hardware acceleration continuously. A new icon will appear in the system tray. Right-click that icon, select Setup and check the Run At Windows Startup entry. Now that we have done that it is time to configure the profile switcher.

6. Configuring the Profile Switcher

Before we can schedule the profile changes we have to create two launcher items. Selecting Laucher from the main tab and clicking on the green + icon will initiate that. Select Regular item from the next menu.

Enter a name (2D / 3D) and check the Associated overlocking profile and Associated fan profile boxes. Select the corresponding profiles created earlier. You should have a 2D and a 3D launcher item afterwards in the main Launcher window.

Now it is finally time to configure the Scheduler. A click on the Scheduler will load a window that resembles the Launcher tab. A click on the green + will open the menu were we can configure when to change from the 2D profile to the 3D profile.

Give the task a name, select the 3D profile from the list of profiles under Name and select Run Task on hardware monitoring range event under Schedule. Pick Hardware Acceleration as the Data Source and select a range from 1 to 1. A click on OK will save the new scheduled event.

Now create another scheduled event for automatically switching from the 3D profile to the 2D profile. All settings remain the same except for the profile which obviously has to be the 2D profile and the range for the hardware acceleration setting which has to be 0 in both cases.

Conclusion:

We have created two profiles which switch automatically from 2D to 3D and 3D to 2D profiles. The 2D profile will make use of a low noise fan, low power consumption and lower temperatures while the 3D mode will use the default video card settings to ensure that all 3D applications function properly with decent framerates.

If you have any questions about the procedure feel free to ask. Please note that Rivatuner will automatically start with Windows when setting this up this way.

Once a 3D application is started the fan starts spinning faster to be able to cool the video card. RivaTuner users may use several other settings in the program to overclock their video card or create custom settings for certain applications. I’m personally using it only to reduce the fan speed but hardcore gamers who need every fps they can get will find the overclocking settings as useful.

To be honest, I did not check all the settings that you may alter in detail but it looks really complex and complete. From refresh rate to AGP transfer rate, everything seems to be at place and accessible if you need to tweak a certain value.

All you need is to know the name of the old card, the name of the new card and the freeware Driver Cleaner Professional. Don’t get irritated by the professional, it is completely free to use. Download the freeware and install it. The next step is important. The first thing to do would be to use the uninstall option in Windows to remove everything that could be left from the old drivers.

The best way to run Driver Cleaner Professional would be right after you have uninstalled the old drivers and applications but still have the old card connected to your system. Just start Driver Cleaner and choose the name of the drivers that you want to remove. You can for instance choose a general name like ATI or Nvidia which removes all information about those drivers on your system.

Another option would be to choose a specific driver, like ATI WDM and remove that one only. The program removes all references in the registry and all drivers that are stored on the system.

If the new card is already connected to your system you might run into troubles if the card is from the same company. I suggest you still delete all references and install the newest drivers after you have rebooted your machine.

Update: Driver Cleaner Professional is no longer free software. The developers are now charging for the program. See Remove Old Windows Drivers for a free alternative.