CANADIAN FIRM ATI was obviously itching for Microsoft to say DirectX 9 was ready.
The firm said it is the only graphics vendor to support DirectX 9 in both software and hardware with its Catalyst software suite, which supports the Radeon 9700 Pro and a number of its other products.
The Catalyst 3.0 drivers are WHQL certified for a series of products and can be downloaded from its site now.
It also said that it had released the Radeon SDK which documents DirectX 9 and the Microsoft High Level Shader Language.
It announced support for HSLS from Fox Interactive, Valve, Ubisoft and Ion Storm.