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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Bluefront - Monday, September 6, 2004 - link
So is this new control panel of any use to a non-gamer? Will it have any benefits to people who use AIW cards for their multi-media capabilities?bobbenedetti - Sunday, September 5, 2004 - link
On my computer with Windows XP SP2 CCC stumbles through half a dozen errors on startup delaying startup of my antivirus and messenger.Way too much overhead for what it does.
I deleted it.
HermosaBeach - Sunday, September 5, 2004 - link
Questsion - I downloaded the new full package (driver and new CCC) on Sept 3. It was 42 MB. I then uninstalled my old 4.8 with the old control panel, rebotted, and then installed the new one. My control panel still looks like the old one ? Is there something I have to do to get the control panel to switch to the new looking skin ? I would like to try out the anti-aliasing and AF demo.Dave
Reflex - Saturday, September 4, 2004 - link
val - I have serious difficulty believing your claims. Nearly every programmer I know would laugh silly at what your saying. Yes there is a place for ASM, however there is also a reason we developed higher level languages.As for the 'driver' taking up more memory...well, who cares if it does not impact performance in any way, shape, or form, which is my point. Memory management means more than memory footprint these days. Its part of the point of .NET. You can go on about how its not asthetically pleasing to you to see a driver taking up so much, but when it comes down to it, its an argument of what you 'like' rather than any valid complaint about the driver or its performance impact on your system.
val - Saturday, September 4, 2004 - link
last but not least, little more time you spend will save lot of time of all users of your applications.val - Saturday, September 4, 2004 - link
And to your examples, i am not student anymore, i must not write again what was already written. But thinking in ASM makes you better programmer. Not like you see in many C codes, where many users are not thinking about how each function will take long time to execute (for example usage of timer related code or string related code in many games in main thread, no use for binary search where it is possible, no use of hash search where it helps,...).Valerie
val - Saturday, September 4, 2004 - link
JarredWalton: i am ASM programmer, and trust me or not it takes no longer time. I do not write whole program in ASM, but nearly all executive functions. In fact, the programming of alghoritms is not easier in C/C++ because functions are more or less same. Many functions you have not in C at all or it is too complicated to use (SSE,...). C is easier for OS related code, and so on.For example I wrote SD card reading/writing for PIC whole in ASM, you cannot do it faster in C, only searching and installing compiler will take you longer. Same with my other projects. Just write the frame in C, executive functions in ASM. What C have what ASM not?
JarredWalton - Saturday, September 4, 2004 - link
"assembly code is not about to debug ten years, it is about to write code for same time but write it good."That sounds like something a person who has never written assembly would say. My ASM experience amounts to one class. The final project was a stinking bubble sort algorithm! Sort 10000 integers using a bubble sort. God, I could write that up in C in about an hour, probably less.
Well, that simple project took roughly two weeks of my life, and I was probably the best ASM programmer in the class. Half of my time in the computer lab was spent helping other people figure out why the hell their computer kept crashing every time they ran their code. (Ah, the joys of the old Mac OS with no protected memory....)
If you still don't get it, read that again. A BUBBLE SORT algorithm took two weeks to write in assembly! Granted, I was a programming neophyte back then, but I doubt anyone could write and debug an ASM routine to do a bubble sort in less than a day (without copying/reusing existing code).
Sure, it was fast when it was done, but I could have written a quick sort algorithm in C in less time that would have been much faster due to the use of a better algorithm. If you think writing a bubble sort in ASM would be hard, try writing a quick sort....
val - Saturday, September 4, 2004 - link
Reflex: i agree with you and i will not complain about usage of game, office or photoshop, but drivers?! Resident services and applications must be small!val - Saturday, September 4, 2004 - link
assembly code is not about to debug ten years, it is about to write code for same time but write it good.And memory usage hurts performance, because many applications are checking how much memory is available before they will alocate it. And i do not like swapping.