New Catalysts with .NET

[Paddy]

hmm... I'm not convinced with this... it seems to be unnecessary bloat. After all, you could do all of this in the old control panel....The realtime adjustment is funky, but I don't think its worth it.

[Terrafin]

i agree with your paddy... i think its bloat atm too...

heres just a list of some probs with it if people are considering on installing it

1 - its good that they have working game profiles now... but the problem is the new CCC doesnt switch profiles when the exe is loaded, and has to be loaded through a tray icon menu (can be disabled) or a hotkey... taking up more resources, and creating problems when loading games through apps like ASE... but hopefully in a later release the profiles are run when the exe is loaded.

2 - the CCC in a way for me is slow even when the CCC skins ARE disabled... ive heard if you use windows blinds, setting the skin to system default, the CCC is faster... thats if you want the fancy skins.

3 - the CCC takes up 65MB of system RAM when it is open... when closed takes about 10MB. although disabling the skins and maybe disabling the 3d realtime view, using a custom view might bring the hefty 65MB usage down.

4 - the realtime 3D is a bit buggy... (when switching trueform on and off, the Realtime 3D gets all distorted for me) hopefully this gets fixed too...

5 - they have added a stupid splash screen when entering the CCC as well as a flash movie within the CCC to promote the drivers!!! i dunno why they added this hopefully this is just for the first release...

6 - some options such as vsync has been renamed to something more userfriendly?? forget what now... (not at home) and is tucked right away in the CCC that many people would miss it... i think properties -> displays -> right click monitor icon -> properties -> vsync... !

7 - the vsync doesnt work for opengl, (there might be a way around this but i have forgotten atm, see what work does to you! ) hope this is fixed too...

8 - 65MB installation (thats including the net 1.1 plus the sp1 update of net 1.1, plus CCC and drivers) without the 1.1 .net sp1 update results in a windows .net error :|

9 - annoying layout of buttons and views that use a vertical and horizontal scroll bar if text doesnt fit! also if the system text is bigger text overlaps everything and looks like crap.

10 - added a place in the right-click destop menu... but this can be disabled...

all this, that does less than the older CC, except the realtime 3d, and game profiles and skins...

Although i can see it being good once all this has been ironed out... as this is just the first release, but the only bonuses i see are the possible future plugins, such as maybe gpu temp readings, fan controls etc... and also automatic updates may also be smaller downloads, not requiring the full 40MB+ install...

i only installed the new CCC because i like to play around with new software and such, and to check it out for myself... but hopefully with the new CAT 4.9 the CCC will be improved a little too...

Hope this helps some people makin a choice wether to install or not

[Technoid]

Originally posted by Terrafin
Hope this helps some people makin a choice wether to install or not

Yes it have

It stays OFF my machine

[leech]

And to think that all of nVidia's latest drivers have been around 12mb. Matrox's were around 8mb, though they require .Net which boosts the download up quite a bit.

65mb! I've seen linux distros smaller than that!

Leech

[Terrafin]

lol technoid...

and i think its quite large cause the package includes/supports all 25 languages does it not? but still i agree it is pretty big...

ahhh things used to be more simpler with my G400 MAX

[Faramir1966]

Nope....there is only english with this version.
And what i didn´t like about it was that it opens 2 network connections.(that cli.exe)
I decidet quickly to uninstall it

[The PIT]

Yup looks like ATI is falling into the trap off
"hey look it's a one huge file so it's got to be good. It don't matter if it uses loads of memory and has flashing movies. It's big so it's good doesn't matter about the odd bug. Heck XP is one big bug so no one will notice"

Instead off "Okay chaps we need a new control panel so lets make it as small as possible"

Easier to debug if they take the 2nd option.

[leech]

A quick question... (well, maybe not so quick). What is the total amount of space that is required by the FULL older catalyst drivers?

I know ATI used to have the drivers package, then the Control Center, then the WDM for VIVO cards, etc. All in different downloads and you had to install them in the correct order, or they could all screw up... How big were they all together? I doubt they are anything like the 65MB we're seeing here...

Leech

[Marshmallowman]

About 27 mb

driver+ cp + wdm

[Ali]

I think the new CCC includes the Hydravision software as well. It could all build up, but I agree, it does seem like a load of bloat.

The reason for the flash animation is so card makers can put their own branding on the drivers when bundling them with ATI cards. Eg, Gigabyte, Asus, etc.

The two network connections opened are both to localhost, so nothing to worry about. Its just how the CCC interacts with the driver server. Add 127.0.0.1 to your trusted zone in your firewall if there are problems with this.

Im pretty sure Longhorn will require .NET drivers, so Matrox jumped on early to save having to do a redevelopment, and ATI are going on now to get all the bugs ironed out in time. I guess nVidia are working on a set as well somewhere. This is only a guess, as I cant see any other reason to use .NET for drivers.

Ali

[Faramir1966]

No problems with thats.But i just didnt like it.
I like ma system as clean as possible

[The PIT]

Don't need crapavision either.

[leech]

Im pretty sure Longhorn will require .NET drivers, so Matrox jumped on early to save having to do a redevelopment, and ATI are going on now to get all the bugs ironed out in time. I guess nVidia are working on a set as well somewhere. This is only a guess, as I cant see any other reason to use .NET for drivers.

The big question here is.... will Matrox even have a card that will be used by people when Longhorn is out? Seeing the way Matrox has been headed lately....

Leech

[3dfx]

Originally posted by Paddy
hmm... I'm not convinced with this... it seems to be unnecessary bloat. After all, you could do all of this in the old control panel....The realtime adjustment is funky, but I don't think its worth it.

I couldn't agree more ... I hate what they have done with this control panel and I hope it doesn't become standard.