TRUE TO FORM DAAMIT continues to lead the way with gamer-pleasing regular driver updates, pushing out its July revision to the Radeon Catalyst drivers.

It's now been more than three years since ATI decided to go monthly with its driver revs - a commendable decision given the buggy gaming support of the era - and it's still slightly amazing that the red team manages to keep it up whilst everyone else around them wobbles. And wibbles.

In this latest release the headline performance improvement has to be 3DMark Vantage, particularly given the controversy around it. Using the driver's 'Performance' preset now boosts scores by up to 20 per cent using the 3600 or 3400 cards. Either image quality is about to take a nosedive or the driver demons have worked out how to squeeze some more juice out of some not particularly juicy cards, so stay tuned to see which.

The reset of the Radeon series gets another boost in Company of Heroes with the Direct X 10 path, gaining up to 12 per cent on some maps, Lost Planet picking up 15 per cent in DX10 on some maps and DX9 performance benefits (old school!) in Call of Duty 4 and Lost Planet.

The 8.7 release also makes a tweak to the much-maligned Catalyst Control Center, with more detailed physical graphics card information being displayed.

Nothing revolutionary in here, but a solid release nonetheless.

Pick up the package here. µ