AMD's graphics division ATI has released the September monthly update to the Catalyst drivers series for the Radeon graphics cards. The new Catalyst 8.9 version brings to users the first support for the OpenGL 3.0 standard since the Khronos Group recently took the lid off it at SIGGRAPH. ATI's competitor NVIDIA announced about a month ago the release of a beta version of its GeForce drivers, also featuring OpenGL 3.0 support.

“This release of Catalyst introduces OpenGL 3.0 extension support. In upcoming Catalyst releases AMD will continue to expand its support for OpenGL 3.0 extensions,” is stated in the driver's release notes. The company also says that this is the first phase of the OpenGL 3.0 support, and lists a series of extensions supported by the 8.9 version of its drivers.

Other new features brought by this Catalyst release include OverDrive support for QUAD CrossFireX configurations. This enables users to overclock each graphics accelerator’s engine or memory speed when the QUAD CrossFire configuration is enabled, either through manual control or through an automated auto-tuning utility.

The Catalyst Control Center has been enhanced with a new display mode support. According to the release notes, the 8.9 version of Catalyst comes with “1080p @ 50Hz custom mode support for HDTVs for the ATI Radeon HD 4000 Series, ATI Radeon HD 3000 Series, ATI Radeon HD 2000 Series, and ATI Radeon X1000 Series of products.” Also, users are enabled to make customized configurations for the 1080p @ 50Hz modes to best fit their display.

Beside the new features, the Catalyst 8.9 release brings the usual fixes and enhancements for the Windows XP and Windows Vista Operating Systems.

The new ATI Catalyst 8.9 Software Suites are available for download on Softpedia.com as well, both for Windows XP (32-bit and 64-bit) and Windows Vista (32-bit and 64-bit). Those interested in other packages released with the new version can find them among our latest drivers additions.