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To Catalyst or Not TO Catalyst...

S

shantd

Gawd
Joined
Aug 2, 2008
Messages
665
Hey gentlemen. I just got my card from tigerdirect, settled on the MSI 6970, cost me $354 including shipping. I was kinda worried about noise and cooling on these but having played for about an hour, the fan hasn't gone above 54% and it's not loud so I'm pretty happy with this. Thanks again to everyone who helped me decide on this card.

Onto my question: After finishing my install, I've got the MSI Afterburner utility loaded as well. It seems to handle the fan as well as overclocking. Should I install CCC anyway? If so, which version? I must say, it's hard looking at the MSIAB Gui after having gotten used to CCC...maybe that makes it worth it alone...I just don't want to complicate matters loading more drivers than necessary. What do you guys think?

One more question...in the device manager, it shows my driver as being version 8.850...should I update it to the current version, or is it a situation where if it ain't broke don't fix? Thanks much,

Shant
 
CCC controls your driver settings. It's not simply an overclocking control panel.

The only reason you shouldn't install CCC is if you use something like ATi Tray Tools. Wanting to use Afterburner has nothing to do with whether or not you should use CCC. Two different topics.
 
Terpfen said:
CCC controls your driver settings. It's not simply an overclocking control panel.

The only reason you shouldn't install CCC is if you use something like ATi Tray Tools. Wanting to use Afterburner has nothing to do with whether or not you should use CCC. Two different topics.
Click to expand...


This.

I actually even use both CCC and RadeonPro....which...I guess may not be recommended :confused: Since it's similar to ATI Tray Tools.

RadeonPro only offers me control of the 3D settings though. I still need CCC for things like overscale (htpc) and for changing the settings for video.
 
Have fun being stuck with the atrocious video settings AMD makes standard if you choose not to install the CCC.
 
I see...well that's why it says 'noob' next to my name. ;)

Just tried to install CCC and the utility won't pop up. Tried both 11.6 and 11.5, restarted the computer each time, and still nothing. Anybody run into this? In the task manager, it shows that CCC.exe and MOM.exe are running, just no GUI. Any ideas? Thanks...
 
Nobody? Surely many of you have ran into this before. I right click on the desktop and select "Catalyst Control Center" and nothing happens. I did some google searches, people are saying to uninstall, delete all ati folders, and reinstall...but that's no good.
 
Well I just got my msi 6970 lightning yesterday.
I'll see if my amd catalyst cp comes up tonight when I get home.
I would think your problem is running XP ~_~
Don't really see why you would run a state of the art video card in such an old operating system but that's just me.
 
Afterburner and CCC don't always work well together. Unless you plan on bumping clocks/voltage higher than CCC allows, you probably don't need to use it.
 
eizen said:
Well I just got my msi 6970 lightning yesterday.
Click to expand...

I'm jealous, I really wanted that lightning as well but it would've cost another $50 and I was already $50 over budget as is. Let me know what your lightning idles at, as well as how hot it gets after an hour of gaming. Mine idles at around 55c and gets into the high 80s and even low 90s after sometime gaming, which is what I was worried about. I haven't done any over-clocking, though my room is pretty hot.


eizen said:
I'll see if my amd catalyst cp comes up tonight when I get home.
I would think your problem is running XP ~_~
Click to expand...

Nah, CCC runs fine on XP, been using it for a couple years now without a problem. The issue arose because I uninstalled all my drivers in order to prepare for the 6970. Apparently, the uninstaller doesn't clear everything out which confuses the OS when you re-install. So, when you uninstall your current drivers, make sure you leave CCC in there (assuming you already had it installed). Uninstall your display driver separately, but leave CCC alone. You can always update it.

eizen said:
Don't really see why you would run a state of the art video card in such an old operating system but that's just me.
Click to expand...

I had very bad luck with Vista, so I decided to wait and see what happened with Windows 7. I will install it soon, I've got a dual boot setup. I just need to figure out the best way to install Win7 over my Vista partition without screwing anything up. Not looking forward to re-installing all my games on Win7 though...:mad:
 
CCC contains the display drivers along with other utilities like PowerTune, GPU video transcending, CFAA and MLAA, and other specific GPU stuff. Always download the newest one from AMD. If you don't care to use the control panel you can use the display drivers a la carte though I think you give up on adjustability by doing that.

BTW Windows XP is limited to DX9, in other words you're not getting the best possible image quality, and you're getting diminishing returns on that $350 investment.

Android spell check FTL.
 
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Good info, thank you. Now it's just a matter of figuring out how to get around this issue. I'm surprised more people haven't experienced the problem I'm having. Anyone who has ever tried to uninstall CCC and then install it again later should have run into the same thing. Perhaps I should try a driver cleaner...
 
shantd said:
Good info, thank you. Now it's just a matter of figuring out how to get around this issue. I'm surprised more people haven't experienced the problem I'm having. Anyone who has ever tried to uninstall CCC and then install it again later should have run into the same thing. Perhaps I should try a driver cleaner...
Click to expand...

Driver cleaners cause more problems than they fix.
 
Terpfen said:
Driver cleaners cause more problems than they fix.
Click to expand...

Well how else do you recommend cleaning out all the ati drivers? Apparently the only way to get CCC panel up and running is by wiping everything related to it completely off the system, and then re-installing. I tried deleting all the folders related to ati, even tried going into the registry and deleting ati keys as was suggested on another forum. Only thing I haven't tried is a driver cleaner. I have to think they should be safe if used sparingly.
 
Check AMD's web site - IIRC they have some custom cleaner/uninstaller available - check their forum area.
 
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