How is the Catalyst Control Center now?

S

supastar1568

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jul 19, 2006
Messages
470
I have yet to use this with the Ati drivers as I heard they can slow down your system and such. Personally, I have always used the display driver alone (from Ati) and Ati Tray Tools.

I wouldn't mind trying out the CCC if I find out that it doesn't cause a possible system slow down (or a slower start up)

Thanks
 
It seems the same as ever.
I don't know if it slows systems down, but it takes too long to load up just to change
a quick setting. May as well stick with ATi tray tools.
 
I don't use CCC or ATI tray tools. I never adjusted any of the settings in CCC so I figured I didn't need it. Someone correct me if I'm wrong.

The problem with CCC is that it makes my desktop take twice as long to settle down after booting up. Still seems bloated and slow to me.
 
It takes a good minute or 2 to load the Catalyst stuff at boot time if you have enabled ATI overdrive.
When trying to set AA modes etc and the car animation is running, quite often the animation is corrupt. It also displays a black animation and then crashes.
Its a slow way to set the card up but strangely while its still installed I use it :)
 
I use the Omega Catalyst drivers. They use ATI Tray Tools instead of the CCC, and it uses less resources, is much faster, and has many more features.
 
Stereophile said:
It seems the same as ever.
I don't know if it slows systems down, but it takes too long to load up just to change
a quick setting. May as well stick with ATi tray tools.
Click to expand...

I agree, IMHO it still has a looong way to go, matter of fact, I don't believe it'll ever get to where it wanted to.


I've been a long time ATI user, but NV is my next card unless ATI is far superior, just for the simple fact of not having to use that steaming pile we call *CCC*

Sphere
 
The problem with CCC is that by default it runs like crap. But you can configure the control center to load and respond much faster by changing these settings:


Preferences -> Hide splash screen
Preferences -> Select a skin -> system skin
Display Options -> Use Manual detection only (I must click the Detect Displays button)
3D - any setting with the car 3d click the little x mark at the top right of the screen to disable the animation.

The CCC is still bloated and a bit slow, but I found out that I had problems forcing games like Oblivion to run with HDR and AA when I didn't use CCC. You can get by with classic CP and Ati Tool, but I think Ill stick with the CCC. It is not something I use very often when I have ATi Tool installed anyway. By revision beta 15 you can overclock again, as long as you haven't enabled overdrive in CCC.
 
Immacolata said:
The CCC is still bloated and a bit slow, but I found out that I had problems forcing games like Oblivion to run with HDR and AA when I didn't use CCC.
Click to expand...
Same issue here. Tray Tools quasi-works (for most applications) after some random number display refreshes, but, well, that's not much of a solution.

The CCC is better at "forcing" AA/AF, but I still run into issues where I cannot enable AA or AF through the CCC in any game after launching certain applications. There are still some absolutely horrendous issues in the ATi panel - it simply blows me away that ATi can create such fabulous hardware and still have such issues with their software component.

I use a combination of the CCC and ATi Tool. I've found that the CCC is tolerable so long as you make any adjustments via right-clicking the tray icon and is generally reliable (to a point), but it still takes a significant amount of time to "settle" after booting.
 
I cannot get AA to work in Quake 4. No way. It works fine in Doom 3 however. Bah. Quake 4 is a poor game anyway, I regret buying it :) If I try to force AA in Battlefield 2 with the Ati Tool, it completely removes AA. But if I let CCC manage it, I get my AA. Weird.

For the record, I never found Nvidias forceware controlpanel particularly impressive either. On me GF3 Ti500 I remember it took BEARDS for the panel to show up. For what it is worth, the CCC is pretty easy to understand and configure at least, technical merits of the programming aside.

Now the reason I am sticking with ATI is that games just looks better on them. I am happy to play Oblivion with HRD and AA. Its gorgeous. And my other favourite pastime, Silent Hunter III, looks significantly better on my radeon than my neighbours Geforce 6800.
 
Sphere said:
I agree, IMHO it still has a looong way to go, matter of fact, I don't believe it'll ever get to where it wanted to.


I've been a long time ATI user, but NV is my next card unless ATI is far superior, just for the simple fact of not having to use that steaming pile we call *CCC*

Sphere
Click to expand...

I wouldnt be so sure that NV has a better control panel. The new NV control panel is like everything in windows vista; instead of simple to use navigation, you have to click a large icon, then go to a section where you have to click more things, and then more things, and then you can do what you originally wanted to do. Not to mention that the whole control panel looks like its being rendered in IE7 like a webpage.

You can turn on the classic nVidia control panel, but then it says that you have to use the new control panel if you want to use the new features.

CCC > better than new NV control panel, CCC < classic NV control panel.
 
CCC is still bloatware. I have no idea why they didn't give up on it years ago.
 
yeah it blows me away how with such powerful computers, applications are written to do simple tasks with appalling performance by supposedly world class professionals.
They are crackers!
 
I personally have had no problems with the CCC. Yes, it is slow, but I don't mind it. I would have much preferred if ATi stuck with their older control panel software.
 
ATI should just hire the guys that make ATI Tray Tools and include it with their drivers instead of CCC. That would solve everybody's problems.
 
Get more ram, u will be fine with CCC. :)

I got 2 Gb in my system and loads nicely within 3 sec after log in or around. Not a problem for me, and I do use CCC to oc my X1900XT to XTX speed. Also lock refresh rate as well.
 
RAM really has nothing to do with how quickly the CCC loads. I know a guy with four gigs (for Photoshop work and whatnot), and his load time is still in the arena of 35 seconds. I have half that, two gigs, more than enough for any basic Windows configuration, and I'm stuck for about 30 seconds.

For some reason, some people can achieve these sorts of "mythical" load times. Try as I might, I haven't been able to figure out why, for some, the wait is 3-7 seconds and for others it's 25-35 seconds. There doesn't seem to be any correlation with anything; it's almost as if the software has some random number generator that generates a number within a specific range and performs meaningless hard drive-related tasks for that amount of time. Upon installation of the drivers, this amount of time is determined by the number generator, and then you're pretty much stuck, like some sort of quasi-sadistic game of Russian roulette.

Obviously, no sane organization would do something like this, but this is precisely what it seems like, because I can't find any correlation happening at all.
 
its slow because of microsoft's dot net.. CCC has to wait for that to load before it can do anythign. And it hogging ram up, that because of .net.. ... .net is designed to keep as much stuff in memory , it will only release it when ram is needed.. watch, try this out.. open up CCC and go to a bunch of menus and sections.. CCC will not be using probably 100 MBs of ram.. now, open up a much of software (office, 20 IEs...), the CCC usage will probably decrease becaise .net if freeing up ram for other programs
 
.NET is...well, terrible, and I'm certain it contributes to the load times (nobody would complain if it didn't), but that still doesn't explain the random nature of the load times. For some, three seconds, for others, thirty-five?

I have no issues with any other .NET software I have. When not using the CCC, my hard disk light clicks off a few seconds after logging in, and I can easily launch a number of .NET programs without any arduous thirty second delay. When using the CCC, the hard disk is getting a work-out for a good half-minute and other .NET software takes about as long to initialize as it usually would. For reference, most of the .NET programs I use are based on 2.0 and some are relatively simple.
 
mjz_5 said:
its slow because of microsoft's dot net.. CCC has to wait for that to load before it can do anythign. And it hogging ram up, that because of .net.. ... .net is designed to keep as much stuff in memory , it will only release it when ram is needed.. watch, try this out.. open up CCC and go to a bunch of menus and sections.. CCC will not be using probably 100 MBs of ram.. now, open up a much of software (office, 20 IEs...), the CCC usage will probably decrease becaise .net if freeing up ram for other programs
Click to expand...

You just described the way Windows works overall...
 
The CCC still sucks, as have most recent driver releases from ATI. I'm still running the 6.2s because I get nothing but problems with later drivers. I tried using the 6.8s, but I can't use ATI Tool to OC with it. My system crashes with a pastel colored artifacted screen if I try to OC with the 6.8s not using the CCC. Probably has to do with the useless clock switching process.
 
You might also have problems with your card. Im not sure how much you overclock with 6.8s, but on my setup it is flawlessly running with ati tool 0.25 beta 15. You did upgrade to the new beta right? How hot does it get? dont forget that Atis Overclocker will scale down your clock if the card gets too hot. ATi tool won't so that could explain your artifacting.

I have a 1900XT like you, and I run it at XTX speeds, 650/775.
 
No problems, same as always. CCC is not slow for me, not even close.

krameriffic said:
The CCC still sucks, as have most recent driver releases from ATI. I'm still running the 6.2s because I get nothing but problems with later drivers. I tried using the 6.8s, but I can't use ATI Tool to OC with it. My system crashes with a pastel colored artifacted screen if I try to OC with the 6.8s not using the CCC. Probably has to do with the useless clock switching process.
Click to expand...

So, you dont like CCC, because you cant overclock with a 3rd party software? Hmmm.
 
fallguy said:
So, you dont like CCC, because you cant overclock with a 3rd party software? Hmmm.
Click to expand...

I dont think thats his point at all.
If it works fine for you then lucky you.
No need to crap on people who have less fortune.
 
I don't think he was gloating as much as he was just "chiming in". For some reason, he gets some nice load times, so obviously arduous delays are not always the norm.

But, it does seem obvious that the poster has other issues than just overclocking, fallguy, just as most seem to have some issues here and there.

For me? Hellishly long load times, but otherwise quite peachy. The third party tools just aren't reliable when used in conjunction with the CCC - certainly not ATi's problem.
 
phide said:
For me? Hellishly long load times, but otherwise quite peachy. The third party tools just aren't reliable when used in conjunction with the CCC - certainly not ATi's problem.
Click to expand...

couldn't agree with you more, to me ATi has set a new bar with how drivers should be released and how much effort needs to be put into them, they got the CCC to be really good right now, I used to not install it due to it not freeing up space when i needed it, now the system its on has 2gigs of ram thats not really ever an issue but it is quicker loading, more stable and doesn't seem so bloated :D

The CCC still sucks, as have most recent driver releases from ATI. I'm still running the 6.2s because I get nothing but problems with later drivers. I tried using the 6.8s, but I can't use ATI Tool to OC with it. My system crashes with a pastel colored artifacted screen if I try to OC with the 6.8s not using the CCC. Probably has to do with the useless clock switching process.
Click to expand...

Wouldn't say it sucks because you are having problems OC'ing your card with 3rd party software, since it would probably be in ATi's best interests to keep people from OC'ing cards with any sort of defects what so ever. I can't say your card is going bad since its working fine with an older driver set, but you are the first person i heard on the net complain in some form or fassion regarding the 6.8's
 
I'm in the 5-7 second range. No problem with boot up or opening the control center. Just installed net 2.0 upgraded from 1.1 and load times seem the same.
 
Chernobyl1 said:
I dont think thats his point at all.
If it works fine for you then lucky you.
No need to crap on people who have less fortune.
Click to expand...

I didnt crap on anyone. Please read, before posting.

He said 6.8's were bad for him. Then the only reason he gave, was because they didnt work with a 3rd party overclocking app.
 
CCC works just fine for me. No long load times or memory issues once auto detect is turned off and remove the preview. It is what it is, software.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top