[swaaye]

You know, I've just had enough.

I honestly am starting to think about not buying ATI cards simply because they can't bother to create a control panel that has automated game profiles. I use this on NV cards all the time. And before you blurt out "ATI TRAY TOOLS!", hear that I would much rather have this functionality in the OEM CP! Make the damn thing as useful as NVIDIA's already! Why is this not seem as a critical feature by ATI software engineers? Is it NV patented or some such nonsense?

The boundaries between sanity and infuriated craziness are blurring, here, I tell you. Between nHancer and NV's CP, using a GeForce is bliss compared to setting up a Radeon for multiple games.

Oh, and I'm also still very sick of ATI CCC making the Windows login process take 2x longer. NVIDIA's current CP doesn't seem to be much different than bloated, slow, and not-all-that-useful-really CCC, but it sure does load a lot faster.

[Albuquerque]

Don't notice any login speed differences on my Vista rig...

Nevertheless, I still agree with you: one of the scant few things I miss about my 7950GT card was the control panel options per-game. And like you, I just really don't want to install ATI Tray tools.

[vazel]

Well on my nVidia card I find using nHancer much more convenient than from within the driver panel(mainly because nHancer lets you access the hidden AA options).

[Davros]

im going to upset everyone now...
i yearn for the day we dont have profiles because they arnt needed

[vazel]

Originally Posted by Davros

im going to upset everyone now...
i yearn for the day we dont have profiles because they arnt needed

??? How so? I use them all the time. Old games look nice with 8xs or 16xs AA and 16xAF. Newer games have to have their AA/AF toned down and that's where profiles come in really handy.

[swaaye]

Originally Posted by vazel

Well on my nVidia card I find using nHancer much more convenient than from within the driver panel(mainly because nHancer lets you access the hidden AA options).

The nHancer author relies on NVIDIA's automated profiles for his app. I saw him comment somewhere that he'd do something for ATI, but since their CP doesn't do profiles, he can't really do it the same way.

http://forums.slizone.com/index.php?showtopic=598#

Sorry, no ATI compatibility. Not that I wouldn't like to implement something for ATI, too, but they're not supporting automated profiles at all, so an application like nHancer isn't very usefull for ATI cards at the moment.

[Davros]

what i mean is it would be great if we could setup everything from within the game

[kyleb]

That would take a lot of game patching.

[ShaidarHaran]

Originally Posted by Davros

im going to upset everyone now...
i yearn for the day we dont have profiles because they arnt needed

I'll second that. Damn mutli-GPU rendering...

[Silent_Buddha]

Originally Posted by Davros

what i mean is it would be great if we could setup everything from within the game

That would be ideal going forward.

Going backwards though, it's nice to replay some older games and force extreme levels of AA and AF.

With DX10+, I see no reason for game devs NOT to include AA and AF options in game. Especially with DX 10.1.

I may update my ban on buying and playing games to include games that don't include those options in game in the future. :P Rather than just banning games that can't have AA/AF applied either in game or though the CP.

BTW - I just can't see ATI ever dedicating significant resources to putting in user definable per game automatically applied profiles. ESPECIALLY with AMD at the helm, and their focus on the general consumer. User defineable profiles being an enthusiast feature that most computer users wouldn't know what to do with. And for some that do like me, just plain don't want to bother with.

IMO - It'd be nice, but personally, I'd prefer if their limited developement resources were dedicated to other areas.

Regards,
SB

[swaaye]

They already wasted plenty of resources making CCC as annoying as it is. It's too bad they didn't go "all the way" with it. Just another way they are deficient to NV right now, as far as I'm concerned. One can actually get better feature control out of ATI Tray Tools than CCC most of the time. It lacks in some areas though and is rarely updated.

NVIDIA recently improved their app profiles. Now, with 174.74, instead of the huge list of apps/games you get a list that only shows what you've run on your PC. They refine their control panel. They've even re-implemented custom resolutions now. ATI has never had that. CCC hasn't changed much since it was gloriously forced upon ATI users. Other than getting minutely faster, and I'm not sure why I just used "fast" in this sentence because what CCC does to login time is anything but.

[Humus]

Originally Posted by Silent_Buddha

With DX10+, I see no reason for game devs NOT to include AA and AF options in game.

Well, if I was the sole producer of a game I might release it without AA and AF options. I don't think AA and AF necessarily have to be user choices. It could be an artistic choice. I'd release it with AA and AF always on (of course I'd only enabled AF on textures where it makes sense). Maybe I'd let the user select between 4x and 8x AA for performance reasons. But I guess you're more concerned about having no AA and AF.

[Davros]

Originally Posted by Humus

Well, if I was the sole producer of a game.

Or a fireworks screensaver...


speaking of ccc what was the point og going to dot net exactly, seems to of brought no benefits

and as for nvidia ive just got beta 174.74 and finally they have a "only show games found on this computer" setting, its just a shame it doesnt work very well it misses a lot of games that i have installed, i can add them manually but then in going to have to profiles for each game it cant find. And i wish it would let you delete the default profiles

lastly there is a profile for x29.exe - what the bloody hell is that ?

[swaaye]

The NV panel seems to get detect games once you've played them. I bet it only adds the games it recognizes.

I'm liking it because I don't have to scroll through a few hundred game names now.

[Humus]

Originally Posted by Davros

Or a fireworks screensaver...

Oh FFS, just rename DeferredShading.exe to DeferredShading.scr and be happy!

[Silent_Buddha]

Originally Posted by Humus

But I guess you're more concerned about having no AA and AF.

Smile, I guess I was clear about it. Jaggies do more to ruin a gaming experience than pretty much anything else. I don't even count bad gameplay as being nearly as annoying as jagged edges or "crawling" jaggies as I approach multiple parrallel lines (stairs for example).

Heck, if all devs want to force AA on 100% of the time, I'm all for that move. I just cannot stand and will not play (with the exception of VG. Damn, my friends and their peer pressure. :P) any game anymore that cannot have AA applied.

Regards,
SB

[Silent_Buddha]

Originally Posted by swaaye

CCC hasn't changed much since it was gloriously forced upon ATI users. Other than getting minutely faster, and I'm not sure why I just used "fast" in this sentence because what CCC does to login time is anything but.

I must be one of the few people that find using CCC is far faster than using the old control panel. 1 click and I'm at my settings. Versus, click - click - click - click - click (right click desktop, click properties, click settings, click advanced, click multiple tabs), ok now I'm at my settings. :P

And yeah that half second longer delay in booting to my desktop is going to kill me. Oh wait nevermind. Since Vista actually has a working sleep/standby mode, I never have to reboot. Instant on in the mornings. What a wonderful thing.

However, I have to agree that ATI Tray Tools is much nicer for those that want to tweak everything. And from what I hear has great profile support. None of which are things I care about using anymore. Guess, it's a sign that I'm getting old. And a sign that Nvidia is more focused on pleasing the enthusiasts while ATI is more focused on making things easier for the mainstream.

I'm honestly not sure at this point if ATI will again focus on the enthusiast sector over the mainstream sector again.

Regards,
SB

[swaaye]

Originally Posted by Silent_Buddha

And a sign that Nvidia is more focused on pleasing the enthusiasts while ATI is more focused on making things easier for the mainstream.

I use both CCC and NV's CP regularly and I would never say CCC is superior to the NV CP. I think NV's layout is more effective, honestly, and it's definitely faster.

Originally Posted by Silent_Buddha

I'm honestly not sure at this point if ATI will again focus on the enthusiast sector over the mainstream sector again.

Yeah they are changing, that's for sure. I am wondering if they will ever be at the top again. The way things are changing is reminiscent of Matrox post-G400, IMO.

[Valzic]

Originally Posted by Silent_Buddha

I'm honestly not sure at this point if ATI will again focus on the enthusiast sector over the mainstream sector again.

Regards,
SB

I agree.

Was there not a statistic in news a while ago that stated 96-97% of all CPU's bought were $200 or less? It would be interesting to see what the statistics are for GPUs. The mainstream market is what AMD is targeting for at this time for its CPUs (whether or not intentionally) and that may have a bearing on where AMD focuses its graphics.

It may be that it may never be the top end again baring substantial changes to multi-GPU interaction moving away from AFR.

[Blazkowicz]

profiles are why I've avoided ATI for a while. I have to have my defaults (4x/16x, vsync off - I'm on CRT) and tune according to games (usually app control for AA in newer/modern ones, 2x, 8xS or 16xS for some - sometimes, very rarely 2xQ; Vsync on with or without triplebuffering in select games)

the alternative is manually changing settings before launching a game, who wants to do that?
even before running on nvidia I had a launcher tool for my voodoo 5 in the systray where I'd launch my games from with carefully tuned settings (including gamma with a 0.01 step, which nvidia sadly isn't able to do).

I tried Ati tray tool a bit on another PC, it might be nice but I hate the UI. Tray icon should be exceptional, has to really be useful and contain only quickly needed stuff, it should never be the only available UI of a program in my opinion.

[frameavenger]

Originally Posted by swaaye

The NV panel seems to get detect games once you've played them. I bet it only adds the games it recognizes.

TWINTDP advantage?





Sorry swayee

But, What`s the real problem about Profile Manager in CCC? Slow, bad options, poor options, no detect games or what more?

[Davros]

I have a question about nvidia profiles
test drive unlimited has a profile, but does not show up when i select "only show profiles for games installed on this computer"

so when i play test drive does it infact use the profile ?

[swaaye]

Originally Posted by Davros

so when i play test drive does it infact use the profile ?

Well, do you notice your settings in the game? I only used forced AF in that one. It has AA settings in-game.

If you just switch to "view all profiles", they work just like with any older driver revision. Oblivion wasn't showing up on my Vista machine's NV CP so I had to access it that way.

[swaaye]

Originally Posted by frameavenger

But, What`s the real problem about Profile Manager in CCC? Slow, bad options, poor options, no detect games or what more?

It has no profile manager.

[Althornin]

Originally Posted by swaaye

It has no profile manager.

Maybe I don't understand what you mean, but it certainly does have a profile manager...

And that profile manager can absolutely be used to make shortcuts that load certain graphics card settings and run a specific game.

So what exactly does it not do?