MARKHAM, ON/ Munich, Germany – September 13, 2005 – ATI Technologies Inc. (TSX: ATY, NASDAQ:ATYT) today announced it is the principal graphics provider for Microsoft’s sold-out Professional Developer’s Conference (PDC) in Los Angeles. As a Gold Level Conference Sponsor, ATI provided over 300 ATI Radeon® X850 XT graphics cards to be featured in PCs showcasing Microsoft’s highly anticipated Windows® Vista™ Operating System (OS) at the event.
“Windows Vista is poised to have an enormous impact in the PC market and we are working closely alongside Microsoft to implement optimized driver and hardware support for our top-to-bottom line of discrete and integrated graphics processors,” said Ben Bar-Haim, Vice President of Software Engineering, ATI Technologies Inc. “The look and feel of Microsoft Windows Vista represents the next generation of graphics quality and performance in a desktop operating system.”
ATI supports Microsoft Windows Vista with its current top-to-bottom line of graphics processors. Moreover, ATI’s integrated graphics processors are the only integrated graphics available on the market that currently support Windows Vista requirements. Consumer and commercial PCs and notebooks based on ATI’s Radeon® Xpress™ 200 chipsets with integrated graphics are already widely available today from leading systems vendors and motherboard manufacturers around the world.
Microsoft Windows Vista uses graphics hardware acceleration natively within the OS and makes extensive use of 3D visualization techniques throughout, as well as provides the environment for independent software vendors (ISVs) to write graphics-intensive applications. Microsoft’s new graphics driver standard, known as the Vista Driver Display Model (VDDM) has been designed to radically advance functionality, stability and reliability within the stunning and streamlined new desktop design.
ATI has made VDDM drivers available for its graphic processors to support Windows Vista more than a year prior to the release of the OS with top-to-bottom hardware support including 64-bit. Additionally, ATI’s VDDM drivers were included with the recent Beta 1 release of Windows Vista. With this broad support of the Vista, ATI is providing ISV developers, enterprise customers and OEMs with a stable, feature-enabled and performance-optimized graphics platform for application development and hardware upgradeability. A complete list of ATI hardware which supports Windows Vista can be found online at: http://www.ati.com/developer/windowsvista.html.
ISVs and developers from around the world will have the opportunity to experience first-hand the visually rich features of Microsoft’s forthcoming OS at the conference. The final version of Windows Vista is expected in stores approximately a year from now in time for the 2006 Holiday Season.
