WTH is wrong with ATI?!!

[Googer]

Tweak Town Review of the Latest Catalist drivers
http://tweaktown.com/document.php?dType=review&dId=756

 

[leolaw]

i agree that ATI messed up so much
I have a ATI AIW 9800 pro and it just takes too much memory to run in the Windows XP's background

 

[Jeff7]

Originally posted by: MrChad


The 10 minute timeout warning is annoying, but who cares about session cookies? Honestly, there is so much FUD surrounding cookies and companies "tracking" you it's absurd.

I wonder, how many of the people who are concerned about cookies use "shopping cards"?
How many of you employed in retail use a discount card? They're tracking you already.

 

[Tbirdkid]

Drivers, have never been that good from ATI. But then again, they arent known for having good drivers... and its sad, that even though they have horrible drivers, that they still kick the living sh1t out of nvidia. So, i would probably just be happy once you figure out which drivers work for you and move on.
Think of it in a linux point of view. Once you get something up and running good, why screw with it? I know that getting more speed out of a product is what we are all about, but i would think you would want stability too. I dont believe in switching to all new drivers immediately when they come out. I wait a few weeks, for them to work the bugs out, then change if i feel its necessary.
If it doesnt work that well for you, then keep your old drivers and run with it. ATI has never put good drivers out for linux... so i am used to it. Then again, nvidia has never really put good nforce chipset drivers out for linux either... and i run both. Its called, stop being lazy, and work with it. Become smart, not lazy. Feel like its not as good as you want, learn to encode and rework them to make them better. Just my 2 cents.
Hope it works out for ya...

 

[L00PY]

Originally posted by: FreshPrince
when they came out with catalyst 5.3, it screwed up my dell 2405fp. I had to go back to 5.2 for everything to work. they just came out with 5.4...you would think they fixed this problem!

nope, it's still messed up, and I had to go back to 5.2

Not to mention, when I uninstalled, it screwed my TV Wonder app, and now I can't watch TV on my comp :|

5.3 Cats work fine on my machine and my 2405FPW still works great. I'm also using MMC 9.06 and don't have any major issues. HDTV / TV works fine. Sounds like a problem with your config and not the ATI drivers.

 

[Megatomic]

If there is nothing wrong with the CAT 5.2 drivers then why upgrade to the newer versions? Unless you see a specific fix you need in the release notes there is no reason to try new drivers. IMHO.

That said, yes I did see problems in CAT 5.3 that I didn't have in CAT 5.2. And WTF is up with CCC? Drop that stinking POS ATI, very few actually like it and most of us won't use it.

 

[Lonyo]

Originally posted by: Megatomic
If there is nothing wrong with the CAT 5.2 drivers then why upgrade to the newer versions? Unless you see a specific fix you need in the release notes there is no reason to try new drivers. IMHO.

That said, yes I did see problems in CAT 5.3 that I didn't have in CAT 5.2. And WTF is up with CCC? Drop that stinking POS ATI, very few actually like it and most of us won't use it.

Err, don't use the CCC then...
AFAIK it's optional, so, well, you don't have to use it. Download the other option instead.

 

[FreshPrince]

Originally posted by: L00PY

Originally posted by: FreshPrince
when they came out with catalyst 5.3, it screwed up my dell 2405fp. I had to go back to 5.2 for everything to work. they just came out with 5.4...you would think they fixed this problem!

nope, it's still messed up, and I had to go back to 5.2

Not to mention, when I uninstalled, it screwed my TV Wonder app, and now I can't watch TV on my comp :|

5.3 Cats work fine on my machine and my 2405FPW still works great. I'm also using MMC 9.06 and don't have any major issues. HDTV / TV works fine. Sounds like a problem with your config and not the ATI drivers.

you must be the 1st person I know not to have issues with your monitor...

everyone I've talked to said they saw performance hits...when you drag your window around it doesn't get choppy? mine chops up like crazy and it's just 2D!

 

[CraigRT]

Just use whatever driver works, I never update them unless I have to.
and on that note, I never had a problem with ATi drivers (cept the TV wonder which sucked enormously)

 

[Megatomic]

Originally posted by: Lonyo

Originally posted by: Megatomic
If there is nothing wrong with the CAT 5.2 drivers then why upgrade to the newer versions? Unless you see a specific fix you need in the release notes there is no reason to try new drivers. IMHO.

That said, yes I did see problems in CAT 5.3 that I didn't have in CAT 5.2. And WTF is up with CCC? Drop that stinking POS ATI, very few actually like it and most of us won't use it.

Err, don't use the CCC then...
AFAIK it's optional, so, well, you don't have to use it. Download the other option instead.

That's easy enough today but ATI has stated that they are going to drop Control Panels for the CCC altogether one day. What are you going to do then? What am I going to do then?

 

[Venomous]

Originally posted by: EndGame
It's not the drivers persay..............it's your Dell. I help out a friend whom owns his own shop and work on systems a lot and of course everyone seems to buy Dell if they don't have a custom system built subsequently, Dells are what I work on most of the time.

In the past several months.....since the first of the year really, I've seen more problems with Dell and driver updates......not only ATI and not only Video drivers.....haven't made a solid connection yet, at first we thought it was a conflict with Dell and SP2 and the drivers....but then we had a few work fine. Another possiblity we're looking at is Dell had it's own update and it may be that those whom updated may be the ones having problems.

At any rate, I hope and really doubt that it's ATI.....but who knows. I update all three of my systems each time a driver comes out and never had a problem.....but next time.....watch....everything will go BOOM! LOL! For sure though, use a driver cleaner to completely remove all instances every time! Good Luck!

I doubt its a Dell LCD problem. Its a digital signal for christ sakes. If it wont work on a dell, it wont work on ANY lcd thats digital.

I would reinstall the Dell display driver, reboot and see what happens with their latest driver.

 

[sharkeeper]

That's easy enough today but ATI has stated that they are going to drop Control Panels for the CCC altogether one day. What are you going to do then? What am I going to do then?

There will be hacks so you don't have to use their CRAPPY BLOATED POS! May the CCC find the way of Achille Lauro! :|

 

[rbV5]

Originally posted by: Megatomic

Originally posted by: Lonyo

Originally posted by: Megatomic
If there is nothing wrong with the CAT 5.2 drivers then why upgrade to the newer versions? Unless you see a specific fix you need in the release notes there is no reason to try new drivers. IMHO.

That said, yes I did see problems in CAT 5.3 that I didn't have in CAT 5.2. And WTF is up with CCC? Drop that stinking POS ATI, very few actually like it and most of us won't use it.

Err, don't use the CCC then...
AFAIK it's optional, so, well, you don't have to use it. Download the other option instead.

That's easy enough today but ATI has stated that they are going to drop Control Panels for the CCC altogether one day. What are you going to do then? What am I going to do then?

Use any number of 3rd party utilities (like ATI tray tools) maybe? Since the control panel is still available as an option, whats the issue anyway?

I use CCC on some of my rigs, and it seems to work fine, its not like I spend much time configuring the drivers anyway. Most of the options can be accessed at the system tray as well. My biggest issue was using BNC cables before, but that issue is fixed.

I'm not seeing alot of issues with the Catalyst release drivers these days myself. I'm running X800 XL, AIW 9700pro, 8500le and Xpress 200 ATI graphics, and ATI tuners (including my AIW 9700pro) HDTV Wonder (analog and digital), 2x eHome Wonder PCI tuners and now my Sapphire Theatrix with the ATI 550pro chip. My various rigs use VIA, ATI and Nvidia chipsets, and I have CRT, LCD and CRT based RPTV displays. There are a number of minor issues with every Catalyst release, but few major issues and I've never been more than a driver install away from good driver support for my ATI hardware in Windows. I have on occasion had to resort to using drivercleaner(pro) and start fresh, but I likely change driver sets "far more" than most users.

The "vast" majority of issues are caused by not following the "installation tips" and driver/software release notes...especially with the multimedia products.

 

[Megatomic]

The issue with CCC and Control Panels is not that we have a choice today, it's that we won't have a choice tomorrow. And what if someone were not a fan of using 3rd party utilities (like these tray tools and whatnot)? They will be left with no other option than to use the CCC.

Now, I like ATI hardware and drivers as much as you, but there's no need to gloss over the bad decision ATI made to develop the CCC and do a crappy job of it. Even other CAT beta team agree with me here.

 

[PurdueRy]

I dont' think CCC is as bad as everyone makes it out to be. Is it necessary? No. But is it BAD....eh no. I wish it would load faster but its only taking 5MB of RAM right now, so I could care less. Plus any graphics options I make in games, not usually hardware forced.

 

[bocamojo]

I originally installed Cat 5.4 and MMC 9.06 with my ATI Radeon 9800 AIW and my Dell 2001FP. It worked fine, more or less. However, I soon discovered I coudln't set any kind of scheduling for recording TV shows via MMC, so I went a searchin'. Found that others were also having this issue. Recommendation was to roll back to Cat 5.2 and MMC 9.03. Also had to roll back to remote wonder 2.5. After that, everything was fine, no problems. Not sure what the problem is at this point, but the workaround will work for me. Hopefully, it will be fixed in a future release, and I won't be stuck at 5.2 and 9.03 forever.

 

[Megatomic]

Well, I have tried it. Twice. Once when it first came out and then with CAT 5.1. Both times I found it be hard to use/get used to. And it was harder for me to tune my card using it as I have used the Control Panels for years now.

 

[rbV5]

Originally posted by: Megatomic
The issue with CCC and Control Panels is not that we have a choice today, it's that we won't have a choice tomorrow. And what if someone were not a fan of using 3rd party utilities (like these tray tools and whatnot)? They will be left with no other option than to use the CCC.

Now, I like ATI hardware and drivers as much as you, but there's no need to gloss over the bad decision ATI made to develop the CCC and do a crappy job of it. Even other CAT beta team agree with me here.

I'm not "glossing it over". Actually, IMO, theres no need to make it a bigger issue than it really is. The fact is, it is the users "choice" to install CCC to have access to Catalyst drivers now, or in the future. (Even "if" ATI drops the legacy control panel) If a user refuses to install a 3rd party app for whatever reason, and wont install the manufacturers offering...I guess they better bone up on registry keys and C++ and the windows API, or buy something else

Sure, other beta team members aren't big fans of CCC, they are users just like the users here at AT, and with about as many opinons CCC has greatly improved since its inception, and is nearly transparent at this point. I've not noticed a negative impact on game performance, IMO, much of the negative concerning CCC is completely overblown, especially since it is not required (or even supported in some cases)