AMD has just announced a new and improved version of its ATI Catalyst Linux display driver, available for both x86 and x86_64 architectures. ATI Catalyst 9.1 introduces final and stable support for the Ubuntu 8.10 Linux operating system, full OpenGL 3.0 support, Hybrid CrossFire support and Multiview support.

While the support for Ubuntu 8.10 is now in a mature stage, the newly introduced support for Hybrid Graphics delivers to its AMD 780G/780D and ATI Radeon HD 2400/3400 owners a substantial 3D performance boost. But, the most important feature of ATI Catalyst 9.1 is the full support for OpenGL 3.0. The following OpenGL 3.0 extensions have been added in ATI Catalyst 9.1:

· ARB_framebuffer_object · ARB_half_float_vertex · ARB_texture_rg · EXT_texture_array · EXT_texture_integer · EXT_transform_feedback · NV_conditional_render · WGL/GLX_create_context (for new 3.0 contexts) · GLSL 1.3 · ARB_color_buffer_float · ARB_vertex_array_object · EXT_draw_buffers2.

Last but not least, ATI Catalyst 9.1 allows users to render applications using single or multiple GPU configurations with individual displays. The following graphics cards are supported by the Multiview feature: ATI Radeon 2000 and 3000 series. The Multiview settings can be found in the "Display Properties" tab of the Catalyst Control Center. For more details about the resolved/known issues in this release, take a look at the official release notes in PDF format.

Requirements:

· X.Org 6.8, 6.9, 7.0, 7.1, 7.2, 7.3 or 7.4 · Linux kernel 2.6 or higher · glibc version 2.2 or 2.3 · Support for POSIX Shared Memory (/dev/shm) is necessary for 3D programs · The following packages should be installed on your system: XFree86-Mesa-libGL, libstdc++, libgcc, XFree86-libs, fontconfig, freetype and zlib.

Supported operating systems:

· Red Hat Enterprise Linux · Novell SUSE Enterprise Linux · Ubuntu 8.10.

Detailed installation instructions can be found here, in PDF format.

Download the ATI/AMD Linux Display Driver 9.1 right now from Softpedia.