ATI Catalyst is a utility software driver package for several ATI products for several operating systems. The Catalyst software was instituted after the release of the Radeon 8500. This driver development paradigm at ATI promised monthly driver updates which included performance enhancements, bug fixes, and new features. As of 2007, the Catalyst driver package typically included ATI Catalyst Control Center, an interface for manipulating many of the hardware’s functions, such as 3D settings, monitor controls, video options, among other things. It also offered a small 3D preview, allowing the user to see how changes to the graphics settings affected the quality of the rendered image.
Catalyst allows for adjustments to the Radeon card as well as for showing information about the card itself and the software data. There are three modes for the control center: simple, advanced and wizard modes.
