Hi all,Guess I was correct on the release date, now let's see if the performance claims live up to expectations.The ATI Catalyst 5.6 drivers have been released. Download Them here:http://www.ati.com/Or here:http://downloads.guru3d.com/download.php?id=18Regards,JoeGrab My FREEWARE Voice recognition Profiles here:[a href=http://library.avsim.net/esearch.php?CatID=fs2004misc&DLID=58334]Cessna 172 Voice Profile[/a][a href=http://library.avsim.net/esearch.php?CatID=fs2004misc&DLID=60740]FSD Avanti Voice Profile[/a].You will need the main FREEWARE Flight Assistant program to use it, get it here:[a href=http://library.avsim.net/esearch.php?CatID=genutils&DLID=39661]Flight Assistant 2.2[/a]

Just tried them out with Farcry and FS9, no difference at all in FPS. A little increase in score in 3Dmark05.Lomac should should see some increase in FPS though.OHN

Thanks for the heads up, I almost always get better performance and looks with the OMEGA's. But maybe I will give in if people say they are good. The visual quality of the last drivers from omega could have looked a little sharper

What I always look for in new CAT drivers is actually stutter or the lack of it? I never really expect an increase in FPS but I'm pleased when the drivers allow for a good overall stutter-free smoothness because I think that matters much much more than actual FPS rates.

I've been running the 5.6 suite for about an hour. I guess that the 5.5/5.6 driver suites are running my X800XT at peak as I see no real-world difference in performance. That is not bad, in a word, for with either of the above, I am most satisfied with cloud rendering full out and running at 30 FPS most times of the simulation. Ever since the 5.2 package, I am blown away by the 3D cloud rendering. It really is now, like you are not flying virtual.Way to go ATI, way to go.....Cheers!Mitch R.

How's the image quality? I was concerned that the claimed performance increase might come at some cost to visuals.Joel

I'm using ATI's latest 5.6's. I think my performance could be a little better with the correct settings. I'm getting stutters, jerkiness. I have my MB Bios AGP set at 128, and FS9 Texture_bandwidth set at 400. In ATI Ctrl Pnl I have AA=4x, AF=8x, Texture Pref and MipMap Detail Level at High Performance. I have just about all my FS9 sliders at max. In FS9 I have ren to tex & transform and lighting checked and trilinear filtering, MIP mapping quality set at 4 and Hardware-rendering lights set at 6. Are there any suggestions?W Brown"Some people are alive only because it's illigal to kill them"

You haven't stated your system specs, or more impotantly, your videocard but perhaps changing TEXTURE_BANDWIDTH_MULT= to 200 will reduce the stuttering. Having it set to 400 can, and most likely has, increased the stuttering you now have.

I'm sorry I forgot to mention my system info. I'm using XP pro, Intel 3.4 EE processor, 1 gig Corsairs PC 4200TWIN memory, ATI x800 XT Platinum. I'll try reducing texture_bandwidth_mult to 200 and see what happens.W Brown"Some people are alive only because it's illigal to kill them"

I think these are the best drivers I have used to date. Too early to tell but I think my problem of crashing at 8x GP has been fixed with these. But too early to tell.