AMD Catalyst 10.5 Drivers Now Available

AMD has released its Catalyst 10.5 driver suite to the public, which now support 120Hz displays for the ATI Radeon HD 4000 and HD 3000 series. ATI Overdrive has also been enhanced, delivering full support for overclocking functionality on supported HD graphics cards, AMD said.

The latest driver package also resolves a handful of issue across a variety of Windows platforms, including:

• Battlefield 2: Badk Company maps no longer takes unusually long to load (all Windows OSes)
• Alt-Tabbing to desktop and back into Mass Effect 2 game no longer causes the display to go black (Windows 7)
• HBR (high bit-rate) audio now functions properly (Windows Vista)
• Resident Evil 5 now launches properly with a HDMI display connected to an AGP card (Windows XP

Driver Download
Release Notes (PDF)

Nvidia Beta 256 Drivers Now Available for Download

We're not sure why exactly Nvidia chose to make the leap from version 197 to 256 for its latest drivers, but whatever, designation aside, the first beta release for the 256 driver-set is available now, and it includes a whole bunch of goodies.

Release 256 are the first drivers to incorporate Blu-ray 3D acceleration for the PC (see here for system requirements), just in time for the first 3D Blu-ray movie due out June 1st, Nvidia says. The new driver also includes new settings in the Nvidia Control Panel for 3-way SLI customers that enable 48x SLI Anti-aliasing (96x for 3-way GTX 400 series PCs).

You'll find a lot of buzz words accompanying Release 256, including CUDA 3.1 and OpenGL 4.0 support, as well as a new SLI and PhysX configuration page. What you won't find, however is support for Nvidia's 3D Vision Surround, which the GPU chip maker promises to include in the second release targeted for the end of June.

Driver Download (includes notebook platforms)