Why is 12.1 Catalyst not acceptable?

[VectorRoll]

Well I tried my old 3DMark Vantage and it did not accept my 12.1 Catalyst driver, so I went ahead and downloaded the latest one offered from AMD which is 12.3 Catalyst.
I also took the time to go ahead and just get 3DMark 11 as well. So I just tried 3DMark 11 and it to did not accept my driver but this time it was the 12.3 Catalyst. So after looking at the acceptable drivers I saw it said 12.2 Catalyst is acceptable.

So I have to ask, why was 12.1 not acceptable? I can understand if 12.3 was not as it may be to new for it to have been fully tested by FutureMark and approved. But 12/1 Catalyst is old. So why was it not accepted when I rand my earlier test?

[Jarnis]

Could you post a link to your result showing this. 12.1 should be acceptable but unfortunately it seems AMD sometimes releases several versions of drivers under one "monthly" name. So I'd need to know the exact "internal driver version" which would show on the result pages.

So.. links to results, please.

[VectorRoll]

This is my 3DMark Vantage score with the 12.1 Catalyst.
http://3dmark.com/3dmv/4039786

This is my 3DMark 11 score with the 12.3 Catalyst.
http://3dmark.com/3dm11/3256156

I may roll back my driver to the 12.2 Catalyst since I have not tried it yet. i need to test a few things. I had a Crash last night in BF3 and could not tell if it was the Catalyst driver or the Windows HotFixes for my new FX-8150 CPU. I installed both before it so I need to test and see which may help. First though I need to play a few more games and see if I crash again. So that is where I will be for the next hour or two. :)

[Jarnis]

Your 12.1 catalyst score has this driver version listed;

Driver Version: 8.930.10.0

Catalyst 12.1 is internally 8.930.0.0 - this appears to be some kind of hotfix/special release. We'll investigate with AMD what's the exact story.

As for 12.3, (internal 8.951.0.0), it should be approved and we'll investigate what is causing it to show unapproved for your result.

Edit: 12.3 shows as 8.950.0.0 in our approval database. Not sure what 8.951.0.0 is.. perhaps another hotfix driver? Will also investigate...

[VectorRoll]

Thanks for the reply and looking into it. :)

[Jarnis]

Thanks for the reply and looking into it. :)

8.951.0 is now also approved. However, the other one you had is a beta/hotfix and won't be approved.

12.4 catalysts that were released yesterday will be approved soon, possibly as early as tomorrow but it could also be next week. They are in the approval process.