Valve & AMD to provide automatic Catalyst driver updates via Steam

Valve® and AMD Team Up to Provide Gamers with Easy ATI Catalyst? Driver Updates on Steam | Business Wire

Good strategy from AMD.

Thankfully, this will include mobile users.

 

smooth. i think i'll still install them myself though.

 

Hopefully it doesnt make a mess of your registry, im on 10.8 and CCC says 10.7 ..... great ....

 

When they rolling this out, because right now im having some big issues with updating my graphics driver ='(

 

Here's AMDs PR:

 

this is great, too bad am switching to Nvidia next month

 

it depends how it's implemented.
if it's like the current installs of physx and directx i'd say it's going to be more of a nuisance more than anything else. as a seperate install like a game it would be alright.

 

Since it's Steam, I hope these won't be required to play your games like patches are. On my desktop, installing 10.7 rendered my entire computer unusable (BSOD on bootup, always happened) but 10.8 works fine.

 

Steam already has my computer thinking it has a DX10 GPU thanks to those annoying DirectX installs which I don't even need. Now it can potentially disable my switchable graphics? :/

 

What if I don't want the latest drivers? Am I going to be nagged about it every time I launch Steam or a game contained therein?

 

this.


there best be an option to disable these updates if you don't want them

 

Especially when the update causes your entire computer to not function

 

well my steam has just updated, and it seems to have added in the Steam Menu button in the top left there is the option 'Update AMD Video Drivers'

Hopefully that will be it and you can pick and choose when.

 

The "Check for Video Driver Updates" is just a link to AMD's driver page right now.

 

It looks like this is the case, so that's good. We can still update/downgrade the old fashioned way. I guess it remains to be seen if we end up getting "locked out" of new game releases if we're not running a specific driver set. That would be my only remaining concern.

 

As long as it's voluntary (ideally, for each available update, a popup window saying it's available with the option to not show it again), I have no problem with this.

 

I really doubt that. They're targeting the people who never upgrade their drivers or know that they can, or know when a new release comes out. There are a lot of people like that, and it'll give them better performance and compatibility. Valve has been pretty much aligned Good as far as Steam and games are concerned.

 

Yes, please remember that many people who use steam may not be the most computer savvy as the steam survey reveals not all that many upgrade that often so this is probably aimed at making sure people don't have problems in games that might be fixed with a driver update.

Steam already checks what driver version you are using IIRC and will mention it, this is just a logical step in making sure gamers have the easiest experience.

 

Yeah, AMD would be shooting themselves in the foot (not that they haven't before) because nVidia users wouldn't be restricted. I'm sure it's just for convenience, which is a good idea IMHO.

 

isn't 10.9 out? i saw something about it being out in Asus forum.

 

ATI/AMD's site still shows 10.8 as the latest as of this post.

 

ok i read further in asus forum.. its for desktops