AMD recently announced that they are teaming up with Valve to release driver updates for their ATI Catalyst graphics drivers through steam. Steam users will now be able to automatically detect and install driver updates from the Steam client.
According to Steams most recent hardware survey ATI commands 87% of the DirectX 11 gaming market and the Radeon 4800 series cards hold the highest percentage of users surveyed.
Jason Holtman, director of business development at Valve said, "Valve is extremely pleased to be working with AMD to provide automatic driver updates for AMD"s leading edge products on Steam. PC gamers demand the most of their gaming hardware and providing these updates automatically will help ensure those playing via Steam are playing at optimal performance."
AMD has been working hard to improve their image in the gaming market and have labeled this project part of their AMD Gaming Evolved initiative which they say ,"represents our deep commitment to PC gamers, PC game developers, and the PC gaming industry to deliver innovative technologies, nurture open industry standards, and to help the gaming industry create the best possible gaming experience on the world’s best gaming platform—the PC."
This is the first time Steam will be used to distribute drivers, if the project goes successfully hopefully other manufacturers will start working with Steam as well. Using an application most gamers already have installed as a centralized application to keep track of driver updates stands to benefit everyone greatly.