ATI Technologies Inc. has recently released an updated version of its March 2002 ATI Retail Update for Mac OS. The new installer fixes a problem some users noted with Apple’s release of Mac OS X 10.1.4.
Intended specifically for ATI’s own line of retail graphics cards for the Mac, the March 2002 ATI Retail Update for Mac OS provides enhancements to a wide variety of Radeon and RAGE-128 based retail graphics cards, including the Radeon 8500 Mac Edition, Radeon 7000 Mac Edition, RAGE Orion, Nexus 128 and Xclaim VR 128.
According to various sources, the new update provides enhanced performance especially for users of Radeon graphics hardware and 3D games. The update may also function for users of Macs equipped with ATI’s graphics hardware installed as original equipment (OEM) installed by Apple. Bear in mind, however, that Apple and ATI provide separate support for their respective products; installing ATI’s retail update for use with your stock Apple graphics card, even if it’s made by ATI, may have unintended consequences that neither ATI nor Apple are prepared to support.
Although the update is labeled for March, it did not appear in general distribution until April. Following the release of Mac OS X 10.1.4, users discovered that they could not get the driver installer to run correctly — it appeared to work, but system drivers necessary to activate certain aspects of the cards failed to install properly. This update — released yesterday, according to ATI’s Web site, corrects that problem.
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