AMD Catalyst 13.1 Drivers Now Available to Download

Posted 01/18/2013 at 9:40am | by Paul Lilly

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New graphics drivers from AMD boosts performance in Far Cry 3 and other games.

Ever since Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) ditched its monthly schedule for Catalyst driver updates, it's been a big guessing game for Radeon graphics card owners as to when a new release would be available. If you fall into that category, then you'll be pleased to know that there's a new driver update available to download, Catalyst 13.1. The latest drivers bring about the usual assortment of bug fixes and performance improvements across a variety of titles.

Glancing over the Release Notes, Catalyst 13.1 increases framerates by up to 25 percent in Far Cry 3 for all Radeon HD 7000 Series owners. Battlefield 3 is said to run up to 20 percent better in some instances, while several other titles boast double digit percentage gains, such as Civilization V (12 percent), DiRT Showdown (10 percent), and StarCraft II (10 percent).

There are a couple of known issues related to Catalyst 13.1. One of them applies to Windows 8 users, who may find that Sleeping Dogs fails to launch in certain configurations. The other has to do with Windows 7 setups, in which Total War: Shogun 2 may flicker when the quality settings are set to Medium.

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