AMD has now rolled out the version 10.6 Catalyst drivers which work with Radeon HD 2000, HD 3000, HD 4000 and HD 5000 series desktop cards and Radeon HD 3000 and HD 4000 series IGPs, and bring more features as well as performance enhancements.

The highlights of this driver release include:

New features

- GPU acceleration of H.264 video content using Adobe Flash Player 10.1
- Video De-blocking support
Reduces blocking artifacts seen in low-bit rate video during playback (for users of Radeon HD 5000 series cards)
- Mosquito noise reduction
Reduces mosquito noise seen in highly compressed progressive video, during playback (for users of Radeon HD 5000 series cards)
- Official support for OpenGL 4.0 and OpenGL 3.3 (OpenGL 4.0 supported by Radeon HD 5000 series only)

Performance improvements

- 3DMark Vantage
Overall scores improve up to 5% on a single ATI Radeon HD 5970

- Batman: Arkham Asylum
Performance improves up to 5% on CrossFire ATI Radeon HD 5800 series cards
Performance improves up to 10% on CrossFire ATI Radeon HD 5970 configurations

- Aliens vs. Predator DirectX 11 Benchmark
Performance improves up to 4% on CrossFire ATI Radeon HD 5800 Series cards
Performance improves up to 10% on CrossFire ATI Radeon HD 5970 configurations
Performance improves up to 3% on CrossFire ATI Radeon HD 5700 Series cards

- Company of Heroes - DX10
Performance improves up to 7% on CrossFire ATI Radeon HD 5800 Series cards
Performance improves up to 5% with single card and CrossFire ATI Radeon HD 5970 configurations

- Crysis Warhead
CrossFire performance improves by up to 7% on ATI Radeon HD 5000 Series cards

- DiRT 2 - DX9
Performance improves up to 10% on single card ATI Radeon HD 5800 Series cards
Performance improves up to 10% on single card ATI Radeon HD 5970 configurations
Performance improves up to 4% on single card ATI Radeon HD 5700 Series cards

- The Chronicles of Riddick - Assault on Dark Athena
Performance improves up to 15% on CrossFire ATI Radeon HD 5800 Series cards
Performance improves up to 13% on CrossFire and single card ATI Radeon HD 5970 configurations
Performance improves up to 8% on CrossFire ATI Radeon HD 5700 Series cards

- Unigine Tropics
CrossFire performance improves by up to 8% on ATI Radeon HD 5000 Series cards

- World in Conflict
Performance improves up to 6% on CrossFire ATI Radeon HD 5800 Series cards
Performance improves up to 8% on CrossFire and single card ATI Radeon HD 5970 configurations

- Wolfenstein
Performance improves up to 18% on CrossFire ATI Radeon HD 5800 Series cards
Performance improves up to 18% on CrossFire and single card ATI Radeon HD 5970 configurations
Performance improves up to 11% on CrossFire ATI Radeon HD 5700 Series cards