Does the ATI Catalyst Control Center Suck?

[Fike]

I recently upgraded my AGP card to an ATI X850 Pro. It improved my system performance in games, but I hate the Catalyst Control Center. I preferred the Nvidia driver interface.



Does anyone else have experience with the Catalyst Control Center causing problems?



...and the requirement of having to download and install .NET is really annoying. I don't know why they picked such an unfriendly development environment for end users.

Perhaps part of my problem is the need to have both .net 1.1 and 2.0 installed on my machine simultaneously.

eh...who cares. I think I am going to uninstall the catalyst control center anyay.

 

[BassBomb]

I miss the original nvidia control panel.... the new one is too hard to use compared to the old one

i cant seem to find where to change from GMT AUTO fixed aspect etc anymore (in the new control panel)

 

[evolucion8]

Originally posted by: Fike
I recently upgraded my AGP card to an ATI X850 Pro. It improved my system performance in games, but I hate the Catalyst Control Center. I preferred the Nvidia driver interface.



Does anyone else have experience with the Catalyst Control Center causing problems?



...and the requirement of having to download and install .NET is really annoying. I don't know why they picked such an unfriendly development environment for end users.

Perhaps part of my problem is the need to have both .net 1.1 and 2.0 installed on my machine simultaneously.

eh...who cares. I think I am going to uninstall the catalyst control center anyay.

What I really like the most in the Catalyst Control Center is when you set the Anti Aliasing mode and doesn't even work, that issue really piss me off :|. That's why I just install the drivers, the WDM for the VIVO and I use ATi Tray Tool, it is great.

 

[Aikouka]

Originally posted by: BassBomb
I miss the original nvidia control panel.... the new one is too hard to use compared to the old one

i cant seem to find where to change from GMT AUTO fixed aspect etc anymore (in the new control panel)

I don't like the new control panel either. I wish they'd stop creating that cryptic piece of junk and fix their 8800 series drivers.... I would love to be able to play a video AND a game at the same time without my computer locking up.

 

[Fike]

Originally posted by: evolucion8

What I really like the most in the Catalyst Control Center is when you set the Anti Aliasing mode and doesn't even work, that issue really piss me off :|. That's why I just install the drivers, the WDM for the VIVO and I use ATi Tray Tool, it is great.

Why do they even let you set those things in the driver? I thought that the game was supposed to set those parameters. Wouldn't the game's setting override any driver setting configured in windows. What a waste fo time!

I also use the ATI tool to manage my card. It seems much better than the catalyst control center.

 

[andy04]

Its the worst nightmare :| Once I upgraded to .NET Framework 2.0 and the damn thing crashed :| It has lots of stupid features and is really bulky. When I want to do something like connect a TV it just drives me crazy. All useless stuff and the thing you want to use are very difficult to get to...

Its a peice of Junk

 

[brikis98]

i personally never install CCC... i'm not a huge fan of the interface, but the bigger issue is that it doesn't recognize my monitor properly (fw900) and sets its max resolution to 1600x1200, w/o giving any way to change that max.

i usually just install the latest ATI drivers and grab ATI Tray Tools (3rd party software) to do all the tweaks i need and more (incl. setting the max resolution much higher)...

 

[Cookie Monster]

CCC is slow. Like really slow and its a memory hog.

 

[cmrmrc]

really? I have never had big problems with CCC except maybe the fact that it takes about 10s to load up.

 

[rbV5]

i personally never install CCC... i'm not a huge fan of the interface, but the bigger issue is that it doesn't recognize my monitor properly (fw900) and sets its max resolution to 1600x1200, w/o giving any way to change that max.

I've used FW900 monitor drivers for quite some time, so I know they work properly if installed. If you are using BNC cables (BNC cables don't support DDC), or if your EDID info is incorrect, you can set the max refresh rate and Max resolution within CCC by unchecking "Use Extended Identification Data (EDID) or driver defaults" and placing the proper Maximum values in the drop down lists. That will enable you to use any of the supported refresh r/resolution settings.

Why do they even let you set those things in the driver? I thought that the game was supposed to set those parameters. Wouldn't the game's setting override any driver setting configured in windows. What a waste fo time!

Driver settings overide in-game settings. Game settings may not support the driver settings you wish to run.


I've done alot of testing with CCC, I've not seen it affect gaming performance or cause game crashing. The biggest issue I've consistently observed is how slowly the GUI loads, beyond that it is well laid out and works well.

3rd party tools exist that make it pretty much optional.

 

[Cookie Monster]

Yeah, the biggest problem with CCC is the time it takes to load. The slower your ram and hard drive is, the more time it takes to load. Literally sometimes over 10~20 seconds. (DDR333 and 5400rpm doesnt go well together)

 

[CP5670]

I have had an ATI card for seven months and still have never used CCC at all. Tray Tools FTW.

 

[hemmy]

I would use ATI Tray Tools instead of the CCC, but it causes issues with certain games for me

Call of Juarez wont event start when ATT is loaded
The mouse doesn't work in game when ATT is loaded

When i kill the process everything works fine so i manage with the Tray Icon that comes with the drivers

 

[40sTheme]

Psst... Omega drivers.... 3d control panel.... far superior to CCC.

 

[n7]

I don't really mind CCC too much aside from its retarded loading time.

I haven't found any alternatives that i can use to set up portrait mode on my secondary display, so unless that changes, i don't have much choice.

 

[Avalon]

Originally posted by: n7
I don't really mind CCC too much aside from its retarded loading time.

I haven't found any alternatives that i can use to set up portrait mode on my secondary display, so unless that changes, i don't have much choice.

Yep. I also found anything that wasn't CCC was lacking in the secondary display/TV department.

Although I do find the initial load times annoying.

 

[Munky]

I hate CCC also, so I just use Ati Tray Tools instead. I've had no issues with it at all.

 

[rickn]

I've never had a problem with it. with each new catalyst it seems to get a bit speedier opening up. for me it take around 3 to 4 seconds to open.

 

[flexy]

Originally posted by: Fike
I recently upgraded my AGP card to an ATI X850 Pro. It improved my system performance in games, but I hate the Catalyst Control Center. I preferred the Nvidia driver interface.



Does anyone else have experience with the Catalyst Control Center causing problems?



...and the requirement of having to download and install .NET is really annoying. I don't know why they picked such an unfriendly development environment for end users.

Perhaps part of my problem is the need to have both .net 1.1 and 2.0 installed on my machine simultaneously.

eh...who cares. I think I am going to uninstall the catalyst control center anyay.

i only looked at CCC once, that is, under Vista on my Vista partition. (My main OS is still XP).

I am with ATI cards for years...i only use the drivers without the CCC/CP and use ATT (Ati Tray Tools) which does everything (and more)...no need for CCC at all.

 

[bunnyfubbles]

Another vote for ATI Tray Tools here. Can do what the CCC can do and then some and all without the bloat.

 

[BFG10K]

You can speed up CCC by doing the following: don't install any skins for it, disable 3D preview and disable monitor detection on startup.

Also use the tray icon to change settings as much as possible and you won't need to load the GUI at all.

 

[xtknight]

I'm yearning for CCC back after trying the new NVIDIA control panel. CCC isn't bad at all, stop complaining! I feel like I'm playing whack-a-mole trying to find options in the new NVIDIA control panel. The goal is to restrict you as much as possible and put any useful functions into randomly rotating sentences on the left rather than just having a list of pertinent one-word settings.

I would rather edit conf files than use it. But actually I use RivaTuner (nHancer is another possibility) to adjust any of my settings now. I don't see why they needed to make it all 'pretty'. They also changed some of the quirks in it (adjusting overlay adjusts ALL video now (by default) using some really nasty hack I'd rather not have).

 

[Brian48]

I tend to feel the same way. After trying nVidia's new control panel, CCC is not that bad at all.

 

[CP5670]

I would rather edit conf files than use it. But actually I use RivaTuner (nHancer is another possibility) to adjust any of my settings now. I don't see why they needed to make it all 'pretty'. They also changed some of the quirks in it (adjusting overlay adjusts ALL video now (by default) using some really nasty hack I'd rather not have).

I also used to use Rivatuner and nHancer exclusively, even when Nvidia was on their old control panel. I can't understand why both of the GPU driver teams release control panels like this. I have hardly seen anyone who actually likes them, only that some people tolerate them and others don't. It's almost like the companies are trying to outdo each other on who has the crappiest one.

 

[VirtualLarry]

I stopped upgrading my ATI Cats at 5.12, because I wanted to avoid the overhead of .Net and the CCC. Unfortunately, I seem to have some issue with the gamma ramp being "too dark" in many games including UT and WoW, so I've been thinking lately of upgrading.

Has anyone else seen this problem, and was it fixed in newer drivers?