ATI releases a CATALYST driver for a beta DirectX version...

[CougTek]

ATI has release the CATALYST 3.0 driver for its Radeon 9xxx cards, but it requires DirectX 9.0 in order to work. Problem is : DirectX 9 is supposedly as mature as Prof...err, I mean not even stable enough to be considered a Release Candidate. The best part of the joke is : the CATALYST 3.0 is WHQL-certified. Just another thing to tell you how serious Microsoft is about its certification program.

I won't even provide links for downloading either the CATALYST 3.0 or DirectX 9.0 (I know, there's already another thread about the later). I feel sorry for people with the Windows Update feature set to automatic.

 

[honold]

windowsupdate only automatically applies critical updates, not optional ones or drivers

it also takes some time before whql drivers propagate to the site

 

[CougTek]

Firingsquad compared the performances of various ATI cards using the CATALYST 2.5/DirectX 8.1 against the CATALYST 3.0/DirectX 9.0. The only place where there was significant improvements was for the Radeon 9500 (non-Pro) under Quake III with 4xAA. Otherwise, there was no real difference to speak of.

IMO, it doesn't worth it to jeopardize your system's stability for so few.