Supposed to be some significant performance improvements, especially with cards cranked to high antialiased settings.Anyone have them yet and can report on performance?Best,Joel

I'm a little disappointed Joel as my AquaMark3 benchmark went from around 61 FPS with the 4.8's to around 53 FPS with the new drivers. I read reviews of these new drivers and they stated performance would be better but not for me. I guess it depends on the system. I have the new Dell Next Generation 3 system (P4 925X w/1 gig of memory) and an ATI 800XT with 256 MB of RAM. Other than the small lag in FPS with AquaMark3, I see no other improvements for me. However, FS2K4 with all sliders maxed still rocks at 30-49 FPS (locked at 50 FPS).Ciao,Jim

I dont Think Benchmarking alone tells the truth about these drivers..In any case .. the 4.8's were darned good all round so ill be keeping it as backup just in case.My system specsP4 3.0CRadeon 9800Pro1 gig PC 3200 DDR ram I ran unreal tournament 2004 (4x AA and 8X AF) with the new 4.9's and the increase in frames was obvious .. moved from 30-40's frame range to 40-50 frame range.. Extra 10 frames with no stuttering ... not bad ... Im going to test them with Fs2k4 now..and report laterThe benchmarks (Bragging rights) come last in priorities in my view.. i just run em for running em sake. If you get verifiable extra frames in the games you play and yet lose 300 3dMark03 points are you going to uninstall the Driver ??

When ever I run the older version of the Mad Onion test (dragon and shoot em up one, I would always turn down all of the AA and AF settings to try and test only the drivers. Now that the drivers (settings) seem to be a more important part of the video cards performance, I do not know if that would still be a valid test.With my ATI 9800 pro set to almost all of the max settings, it appears that I am getting fairly consistent high FPS except when it is trying to draw weather. In clear skies over ABQ in the Lear, I have seen 70-110 FPS in the climb but usually 50-60 when the terrain is being rendered. (mountains and airport)With clouds it is still in the 30-40 range. I do have those more friendly cloud textures loaded as the default ones were killers on the FPS.The bottom line is I believe without doing any specific performance test that the Cat 4.9 with their new control panel gives me a very nice image and only just a slight stutter when ATC speaks. The video seems to be more fluid. It took me some time to figure out how to make the "manual" AA/AF adjustments and those seems to work better on my P4 2.8GHz systems than the default settings. (control panel)Also in the older version of the ATI control panel, there were several places where you set your "Monitor/display refresh rate". Now there is only "one" and I am not real sure that the monitor is displaying the correct rate (i.e. 85Hz). When ever I push the test button on my old AOC 9Glr 19" monitor, it tells me I am only running at 60Hz. The flicker is not quite as bad as 60Hz usually is (without any drivers loaded)but I still do not think I am getting the full 70,72,85,90,100 Hz as selected. Any ideas on how to adjust it?Terry

I just went from the 4.8 to the 4.9 (compact 26MB version) and did some before and after testing in FS9 using my favorite saved, processor intensive, testing situation.I did not notice a measurable increase in FPS in Cat. 4.9 (unlike when I upgraded to Cat. 4.8). Perhaps there was a small increase in framerate but I'm not sure, so it is probably safe to say it was about the same.My initial, subjective obsevations are that frame rates were more consistent overall. For example, roll out seemed smoother due to consistent FPS although the stuttering, when it occurred, seemed more prounounced. IQ seemed about the same.

Does anyone think they're getting better AF filtering? I had my set to 8x in Cat. 4.8 but I seem to be getting more bang for the buck at the same setting in Cat. 4.9. I'm getting a good sense of height when I look at the ground textures from the air. Anyone else notice this?

I did notice there was less shimmering in the ground textures.Terry

Hi, i can't help but notice a (small) decrease in fps, around 1 - 2Personally I think the 4.8 are better.

I also see some (small) fps drop. But overall I think things look more fluid. I will keep 4.9 drivers. But I had lots of problem with the new CCC - had to go back to the Control Panel.Michael J.WinXP-Home,AMD64 3500+,Abit AV8, Radeon X800 Pro,WD 36GB Raptor,1 GB PC3200 http://www.reality-xp.com/community/nr/rsc/rxp-higher.jpg

Ditto on the slight Frame drop .. I went back to 4.8 .. The gains mage in UT were very good but 4.8 seemed to be the better all around driver for my system at the moment