Cat 7.2 is out

[Tony DiMarzio]

http://ati.amd.com/support/drivers/xp/radeonx-xp.html

Some highlights:

New Features -

* Catalyst 7.2 introduces a brand new version of the Catalyst Control
Center for Windows XP. The new Catalyst Control Center delivers a number of
significant enhancements:
* Significant performance gains; Catalyst Control Center start-up time
has been substantially reduced, and overall responsiveness has improved.
* Reduced system resource usage
* New 3D preview which significantly improves the ability for users to
understand the benefits of enabling the many Catalyst features of their ATI
Radeon graphics accelerator
* Increased stability
* Native 32 and 64-bit support

Performance Improvements -

* Open GL performance improves for all ATI Radeon X1000 series products.
Gains of up to 25% in Doom 3, 48% in Quake 4 and 21% in Prey can be seen on
a variety of ATI Radeon X1000 cards. These performance gains are noticed
under the Windows Vista operating system.

Will try them out tonight and see if the CCC claims are true.

 

[First of One]

"Installing an ATI Radeon X1900 CrossFire Master and X1900 slave under
Windows XP may result in AA settings failing to be retained when rebooting
the system. "

WTF?

 

[JamesH]

CCC might be better but on my system Games crash or have no color. My
problem in 7.1 so they havent fixed the bug. HIS 1950 CF Edition, VF900
cooler.

 

[Tony DiMarzio]

Hmmm... the wording says "may result". I wonder if this is one of those bugs
with a very random occurrence that they decided "better safe than sorry" to
add to the known issues list. Only way to tell is to try it, and I don't
have a CF setup

 

[First of One]

No color? This is unusual. Are you gaming on a normal monitor or outputting
to a TV?

 

[JamesH]

Normal monitor, even the 3D display in ATI Tool was colorless. I tried
everything I could to make it work, with and without CCC, ATI Tool, same
results. I went back to the drivers on my install CD and all is okay now.

 

[First of One]

Well, rebooted a couple of times and the AA settings are holding. You are
probably right.

The improved performance of CCC is definitely noticeable, though. Loading
time is now on par with the old Control Panel.

 

[Tony DiMarzio]

Also, it's really nice to not have 3 different running CLI.exe processes any
more

Now, ATI needs to provide a way (maybe a checkbox in the CCC gui) to
effectively disable the MOM.exe (the CCC monitoring process that they
introduced along with these CCC improvements). Then we'd only have 1
process, CCC.exe, running for ATI driver support and nothing else.

 

[Ken Maltby]

Also, it's really nice to not have 3 different running CLI.exe processes
any more

Now, ATI needs to provide a way (maybe a checkbox in the CCC gui) to
effectively disable the MOM.exe (the CCC monitoring process that they
introduced along with these CCC improvements). Then we'd only have 1
process, CCC.exe, running for ATI driver support and nothing else.

Wonder if Angel is listening?

 

[Tony DiMarzio]

Wonder if Angel is listening?

I don't know. Does he even still browse these forums? What alias does he
use?

Tony

 

[Prince Lee]

Aren't the Video and 3D sections in the control center suppose to animate
like in 7.1? I mean seeing actual video when working with the Video settings
and moving 3D scenes while adjusting video sections?

-P

 

[First of One]

In "Expert" mode they should get rid of the 3D preview altogether. (If you
don't know what AA is, use the "Novice" mode.) The preview content accounts
for the majority of CCC's disk- and memory-usage.

 

[Ken Maltby]

I don't know. Does he even still browse these forums? What alias does he
use?

Tony

I don't know either. He has a web cam shot of himself up
at his http://www.omegadrivers.net/ site. ( I always pictured
him a little slimmer.)

 

[JamesH]

Aren't the Video and 3D sections in the control center suppose to animate
like in 7.1? I mean seeing actual video when working with the Video
settings and moving 3D scenes while adjusting video sections?

-P

How much actual detail can you see in an animation? I for one can't see
much, but a still image I can focus on a small area and watch it get better
or worse. I then trust it to do that in animated/moving scenes..

 

[First of One]

BTW, why do you even have CCC installed? With ATi Tray Tools, there is
really no justification for CCC unless you have a Crossfire setup.

--
"War is the continuation of politics by other means.
It can therefore be said that politics is war without
bloodshed while war is politics with bloodshed."

Also, it's really nice to not have 3 different running CLI.exe processes
any more

Now, ATI needs to provide a way (maybe a checkbox in the CCC gui) to
effectively disable the MOM.exe (the CCC monitoring process that they
introduced along with these CCC improvements). Then we'd only have 1
process, CCC.exe, running for ATI driver support and nothing else.

 

[Tony DiMarzio]

After a while I just got used to it. I'm happy with it enough to not even
bother changing. Also, it's been kind of fun (maybe that's the wrong
wording...) watching the CCC software mature over time. Switching over to or
trying ATI Tray Tools has been on my list of things to do, but I've been
holding out on doing so until CCC makes me because it lacks a certain
feature or contains a certain bug that puts me over the top. That hasn't
happened yet though.

One of these days I'll get around to trying ATI Tray Tools again. I was
actually using it a long, long time ago. Probably right around its first
beta.