How do you force 85Hz refresh on Catalyst 10.3 drivers?

[Martimus]

I just updated my drivers to Catalyst 10.3 in Windows XP Home edition (32-bit), and now my monitor is stuck at a 60 Hz refresh rate. Even though I set it to 85 Hz in CCC and in properties, it is still refreshing at 60 Hz. Just looking at the screen for 10 seconds starts to give me a headache, so this is unacceptable.

Is there anyone else with a CRT that had this problem, and managed to fix it? If so, please let me know what I need to do. My system specs are listed in my signature.

 

[Martimus]

I found this on Tweakguides.com:

Refresh Rate Fix

Windows XP and Windows 2000 have an issue in which the screen Refresh Rate – the number of times per second your monitor redraws the image on the screen - resets to 60Hz (60 times per second) for every resolution by default whenever you install a new graphics driver. This is far too low for CRT monitors, as most of them can easily exceed this refresh rate, especially at lower resolutions. Most people notice a flickering effect with a 60Hz refresh rate, and it is indeed very unhealthy for your eyes (which can detect differences up to 200Hz or more) to view for long periods. Note that this does not apply to LCD monitors which use a different refresh method, and so are fine at 60Hz.

Each time you install a new Catalyst driver, you will have to override this tendency for Windows to default to 60Hz. There are two simple ways you can do this, and the choice is up to you as to which you use:

In the ATI Catalyst Control Center instead, select the 'Displays Manager' item, and then at the bottom of the page you can select a refresh rate higher than 60Hz (if supported) for particular resolutions. Make sure you don't select a refresh rate beyond your monitor's capabilities as this will result in an 'out of frequency' error and can damage your monitor. Alternatively you can use the '3D Refresh Rate Override' option under Display Options - see the Catalyst Control Center section for details.

However the best method is to use a Refresh Rate fix, such as Refresh Force. Download this small utility and run it (launch ReForce.exe). This is the foolproof method. Just click the 'Auto Populate' button and it will detect the correct maximum possible refresh rates for each supported resolution on your monitor. You can also view and manually change the refresh rate for any resolution (be careful to make sure your monitor supports the new refresh rate entered though!), and even specify additional display resolutions. Click the Apply button and the fix is done. It won't run again at startup, or sit in the background, it just changes some registry settings. You will need to use this utility again every time you install a new driver, so keep it handy.

http://www.tweakguides.com/ATICAT_4.html

I am going to try out this reforce utility, and hope it isn't malware of some sort. I'll post here if it works.

EDIT: It did NOT work. I don't know what I am going to do at the moment. Maybe rolling back the driver to the last one I used will work. I think I last updated the driver about a year ago though.

 

[Martimus]

Ok, I figured out how to get it to work.

I went under monitor properties, and manually set the maximum resolution and refresh rate. I was then able to change the refresh rate in the Display Manager portion of CCC. It works fine now at 85Hz.

 

[tweakboy]

You should try ATI TRAY TOOLS from www.guru3d.com

if your having those refresh rate problems... gl