New ATI Driver UI: The Catalyst Control Center
by Derek Wilson on September 2, 2004 6:00 AM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
Final Words
ATI got on the right track when they started the Catalyst series of drivers, and we are seeing the first big steps beyond the Catalyst driver with the Catalyst Control Center. The 3D preview alongside each setting is nothing short of revolutionary in terms of making very complex functionality intuitive. Whenever we have to go back and explain Anisotropic filtering and Antialiasing, we have difficulty getting across exactly what the settings mean visually, even if we can communicate exactly what's going on in the hardware. Perhaps we should write a little java script to have the AA or AF setting change on an image when a slider is moved the next time we need to go there.The profile manager is very functional, and very powerful. Making the actual profile the focus (rather than the executable for which it is intended) allows for more freedom and a cleaner feel. Overall, the interface is very clean and intuitive.
We are not a fan of skinned windows, rather preferring consistent look and feel to unique window shapes and decoration, but this is admittedly a preference issue. There is a kind of "windows-ish" skin included in the CCC, but it doesn't do as good a job as we would like (it's just off enough to fit in worse than the default skin). But on the upside, users can create their own skins as ATI uses Stardock for skinning.
We only have a few real complaints with the Catalyst driver and Control Center combo right now. We really want to see the option to adjust how much trilinear filtering that it does. It would also be nice to have the option of setting anisotropic filtering to always use trilinear. As far as the Control Center goes, we would like to see the option to run a lower profile, non- .NET version, for those out there who know exactly what they want and don't care for all the bells and whistles. Perhaps ATI could continue to offer their current control center with future drivers and offer users a choice (with the default being the new CCC). We would also like the default skin to be a standard Windows XP skin that actually looks like WinXP. Currently, the Catalyst Control Center only works with R3xx and R4xx based cards, but upcoming versions will support older hardware as well.
Our final thought is that the Catalyst Control Center fits in very well with what consumers need from a graphics driver UI in order to get the most from their card. The features offered are well suited to both new users and seasoned GPU aficionados. Now, all we need is for ATI and NVIDIA to take some cues from each other and come out with something like a "ForceALYST" that combines the low level and extensive control of ForceWare with the intuitive, easy-to-use UI of the Catalyst Control Center.
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MaxisOne - Thursday, September 2, 2004 - link
Oh WE WILL get a clue... and get a Nividia 6800GT... under NO circumstances is MS.net going on my system.. When Longhorn comes out thats a diff story but right now theres a choice and i have a radeon 9800 pro right now ... but i wont hesitate to switch when its in my interest.mlittl3 - Thursday, September 2, 2004 - link
Oh, no...ATI has updated their control panel and it requires a heftier download. I thought 100 years from now I will be able to download a 5 MB file size of catalyst driver 3.0 for my ATI Radeon XXX4008000+ XT Super Duper Platinum Edition with a 56k modem (extreme sarcasm).Give me a break people. 50% of internet users have broadband in this country which means a 50 MB download is like 20 seconds. Every company updates their drivers and control panel to something new and guess what, Longhorn will probably have .NET built in no matter how much you hate it. Get broadband, get a clue and stop complaining.
DEMO24 - Thursday, September 2, 2004 - link
I havent figured out why the writer wants a XP skin so much. The one on the utility looks good and the XP ones are exactly beautiful. Not really sure how thats a disadvantage but alright.daniel1113 - Thursday, September 2, 2004 - link
Just so you all know (including whoever wrote this review), the ATI skins can be disabled and the default system skin enabled.Ardan - Thursday, September 2, 2004 - link
Oh man, this isn't required use is it?I'll have 1GB of RAM before I get the 9800 Pro that I want (from MSI, of course), but if this is something that they want people to use from now on, then i'm probably going to sit and wait for a 6800 later on instead.
starjax - Thursday, September 2, 2004 - link
http://ati.com/support/drivers/winxp/radeonwdm-xp....the actuall downlaod of the catalyst 4.8 drivers with display driver, contral panel, catalyst control center, and capture wdm driver is only 41 megs. 26 megs with out ccc. the ccc download only is 19 megs.
Da3dalus - Thursday, September 2, 2004 - link
How is the new profile management "simple and elegant"? It may be an improvement over the current control panels (almost non-existant) profile management, but it still appears overly complex and unintuitive.Is it even possible to use the profiles together with something like The All-Seeing Eye (my favourite server browser)?
The nVidia way of handling application-specific profiles just seems much easier and less of a hassle to use.
It's a nice initiative from ATI, the control panel does need updating, but the end result is disappointing :(
Jeff7181 - Thursday, September 2, 2004 - link
By the way... it can be found in the same area you normally get drivers on ATI's site. It's not worth it though... especially if you're on 56k.kuljc - Thursday, September 2, 2004 - link
Yeah so like #6 said... where and when can we get this? I tried looking at ati's site, but with my SUPER FAST 56k I gave up.Also didn't read anywhere or maybe just missed it, but would it be ok to run older cats w/ this? For those of us who have the standby screen problem.
Reflex - Thursday, September 2, 2004 - link
Many people do not seem to understand modern memory management. The amount of memory an application uses really dosen't matter much anymore unless it is truly obscene(Photoshop), what matters more is how that memory is managed. 60-70MB means nothing if that memory can be cleared at a whim for other applications, and it sounds like Ati has implemented it properly since they claim that it will.Run some benchmarks. It is unlikely that this application will slow down any other application on your system. If nothing else is slowed down by it, then what does it matter how much memory it takes up?