ATI releases Vista Catalyst driver to manufacturing

RTM stands for Release To Manufacture and this is what the gamers know as the gold version. This is the version that goes to print and which the big OEMs such as Dell or HP get to install on their PCs.

ATI missed Vista RC2 driver but the new light green company jumped from RC1, Release Candidate 1 to RTM instantly.

The driver has a new feature. Catalyst 3.0 installer now has update option and the driver will figurate out what card do you have, will connect to a data base and check for a new drive and if there is one will suggest you to download it and install it. That way you will always be up to date with drivers.

It is kind of funny to know that the driver itself takes as much as 90MB while the Catalyst control center needs the whole 150MB. This makes 240MB for a driver.

3D preview is still disabled in the new driver, the Overdrive overclocking tool is working and the driver is fully functional. You can tweak and change everything. Unfortunately it is still slow as it takes some time to boot. It takes it some six to seven seconds which is an improvement but bare in mind that the driver doesn't boot a 3D preview game, not yet anyhow and it will end up slower.

The good thing is that the driver looks the same as on Windows XP and you won't have any problems in finding a feature. Here are some of the shots of the driver and the installer.