Valve and AMD have signed a new partnership that will allow AMD's ATI Catalyst graphics drivers to be supplied via the Steam platform.

This means that not only will Steam update itself and all your games as it has been doing so seamlessly for the past few year, it'll also take a peek at what driver your running and, if need be, chuck you some fresh new ones to bring everything nicely up to date.

The new deal comes into effect as of today, with the release of ATI Catalyst 10.9 drivers - the first driver set to be supported by Steam. AMD has, however, discontinued support for DX9 updates, so if you're on slightly older hardware you won't be in on this party.

As AMD recently announced, the ATI brand will soon be no more, as the firm plans to ditch the iconic GPU branding. AMD will hold onto the Radeon and FirePro brands for now but they'll be transitioned to the AMD brand when the next-generation Radeon GPUs appear later this year.

"In five short years, Valve has evolved the Steam platform to become the preeminent destination for easy and fast access to the latest games and online multiplayer play, offering new features to gamers and to developers, taking PC gaming to new heights - and new audiences. This evolution of PC gaming means exciting times for PC gamers, and today's announcement is another step in that evolution," says the presser.

Amen to that.

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