Windows® 7 will be available October 22nd and Microsoft engineers are still hard at work putting the finishing touches on Windows® 7 to make sure it will be the best Windows OS with AMD platforms yet. Here are some of the features we are excited about.

■DirectX® 11. At Computex in Taipei, Taiwan, AMD Demonstrated World’s First Microsoft DirectX® 11 Graphics Processor. Highlights include:

◦Compute Shader 5.0
•Enables developers to use the general purpose computing abilities of a DirectX 11 GPU
◦Tessellation:
•Enables the creation of highly realistic and high performance 3D models
◦Multi-threading
•Enables improved performance in CPU bound situations
■Windows XP Mode. Any currently-shipping AMD Athlon™, AMD Phenom™, AMD Phenom II™, AMD Turion™ or AMD Opteron™ processor will include the AMD-V™ feature necessary to benefit from Windows® XP Mode in Windows® 7
■Drag-and-drop Transcode. AMD will be fully supporting the Drag and Drop transcoding application using ATI Stream technology when Windows 7 releases
■Multi-core performance. Windows 7 was made for multi-core CPUs like our AMD Phenom II Quad-Core processors for desktop and our AMD Turion Ultra Dual-Core processors for notebooks

ATI Video Converter

■ATI Catalyst™ 9.7 introduces support for the ATI video converter under Windows 7 32-bit and Windows 7 64-bit
■Using ATI Stream technology, owners of ATI Radeon™ HD 4800 Series and ATI Radeon™ HD 4600 Series of graphics cards can take advantage of this video conversion tool (found in ATI Catalyst™ Control Center Basic View) to achieve substantial performance improvements when transcoding video files


ATI Catalyst™ Software Suite
We are pleased to announce that our ATI Radeon™ Windows 7 driver has received Windows Hardware Quality Lab (WHQL) certification on the first day of the certifying program.

■WHQL certification sets a high bar for quality and reliability, and is considered essential by many home and business users.
■WHQL certification demonstrates our ability to deliver the stability, incredible 3D game performance and smooth multimedia playback needed in order to help bring the new features of Windows 7 to life.
■As a testament to our ongoing commitment to reliability and stability, we are the only graphics hardware company in the world delivering monthly WHQL-certified graphics driver updates.
■ATI Catalyst™ 9.7 delivers a superior Windows 7 experience:
◦Great gaming performance - superior performance compared to Windows Vista for single GPU, and multi-GPU configurations
◦Leadership in Innovation - support for all the Windows 7 WDDM 1.1 features and ATI Catalyst™ features on the ATI Radeon® HD 4000, HD 3000 and HD 2000 Series of GPUs
■AMD's alpha DirectX ® 11 driver has been sampled to key game developers
■AMD's first official DirectX® 11 ATI Catalyst™ driver will be made available when Windows 7 launches.


For users of ATI Radeon™ HD 2000, HD 3000, and HD 4000 series products, the ATI Catalyst™ software suite delivers:

■Industry-leading driver stability and reliability.
■Full WDDM 1.1 WHQL certified support under Windows 7.
■Scheduled performance and new feature innovation every month.
■Enablement of ATI Stream technology for general purpose GPU (GPGPU) computing on supported graphics cards.


"We are happy to have AMD as one of the first hardware vendors to achieve the Windows 7 logo for their WHQL drivers. As we turn the corner on the path to Windows 7 general availability, we are pleased to have AMD on board."
-- Jon DeVaan, Senior Vice President Windows Core OS Division, Microsoft
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