New Catalyst Control Center is up

not too good experience with ccc here eihter. ATi shouldn't have released it in this state IMO.

Reaction time is sometimes horrible. Alot of little things which are not quite right yet.

For me it is really important that i can change AA,AF,Vsync etc as fast as possible with as less clicks as possible and the ccc just does not improve over the old cp which is a plain disapointment. Changeing the 3d settings directly through the system tray would be the solution. No need to load the complete ccc(whch takes some time) when i only want to change AA or AF

Profiles are nice but they didn't get those quite right either. If i use a profile for a appl. then the a settings should only be for that particular appl. and not for every application outside the profile

 

I don't know, I'll have to slap my MX back in sometime and have a look. Mind you you won't have that issue with HL2/mods as they have AA and AF controls in game. HL2 is a special case as CS:S is intentionally light on detail, but for the majority of games I think it's a good thing. One profile automagically enabling for all my Q3A mods gets my vote. How hard can it be for ATI to add that level of functionality as an option?

Indeed, surely the issue is with the way I click my mouse.

I doubt it's repeatable, I don't think I've had any identical lockups yet. And yes, I have .NET 1.1 SP1.

 

To an extent, I'll agree. The profiles provide more of what I want than RadLinker's in that one can set colour settings as well as 3D settings, but there is the flaw that after the linked program is ended, the settings remain the same as the profile's. Ideally, exiting the program should restore the settings to what they were previously. As it is, I either have to have a profile for every app or I have to setup a "default" profile and selected whenever I want the settings restored.

 

Lots of reasons starting with 'Why should they?'

 

You can create a new profile that's not associated to any specific application, but just behaves as a container for "global" settings.
If you've done that you have two "global" settings containers and can (relatively) quickly switch between the two. You can obviously fully emulate ATI's profile behaviour in this way, if it suits your needs.

 

With the latest version of radlinker you can adjust red green and blue gamma and thus overall gamma on a per application basis. So it has some basic colour settings functionality.

The whole point of profiles is for them to activate and deactivate transparently when playing particular games so ATIs approach seems to miss the point. You need to check whether the executed executable is still running and revert to default settings when it closes for true per app settings.

Why didnt they just license radlinker and noobify it :?

 

Perhaps because a lot of people realise nvidia does it properly.

Whatever comments people make a splash screen you cant turn off and a memory footprint are serious issues for a graphics card driver from any company.

 

Have you installed .NET SP1? That seemed to improve the lag for me, and even the boot time.

If you leave it in the no preview mode when you exit it will open up on that when you restart – still probably quicker than clicking through all the tabs and sub menus you had to do with the old cp.

Better than not having them at all though, yes?
Anyway, the profile only needs to change the elements that you require for that particular application – if you have a game then you only change the settings that relate to that 3D game, can leave you 2D settings as the default and only save the 3D elements that change for that game – if you start your games from profile shortcuts then only the 3D elements are changing for each and each are getting their own settings. You can always create default profiles as well.

 

Whatever for? This stuff is handy.

I don't think there are hotkeys, but it's just a few clicks away. And leaving the Nvidia panel open doesn't eat your CPU.

Really. You know, sometimes it is possible to just give credit where credit is due if the competitor has a better solution. :?

 

Seems like someone over at Rage3d has got trackmania, x2 and c&c to work. They even posted a video of trackmania!

http://www.rage3d.com/board/showpost.php?p=1333149465&postcount=448

 

I asked this question in the news forum thread, but so far nobody can answer it, so I'll try again here.

Pray tell, what is the difference between running the "Doom3.exe" and running a CCC-generated Doom3 profile? I actually launch my profiles from the systray list, which doesn't even require a double-click... (You can run a profile from the systray without having to open the CCC, or likewise from an assigned hotkey, from the Profiles menu, or from a desktop shortcut, and you can create the profile to operate from any of those separately or all of them together, or in your own combinations, if you choose.) You can key the profile to run your program from any file or shortcut you currently use to run the program without a CCC profile. Please explain this fundamental difference to me as I'm having trouble understanding it.

You still have to hand edit your program preferences in the nVidia driver interface, right? And you have to do that for each and every program in advance, right? So how is this different from the work required setting up a CCC profile for each and every program? You guys have totally lost me here as it is difficult to understand the complaint.

Also, I note that I've had none of the problems you're reporting thus far with the CCC program itself.

 

Yes, it's great for things like shader subs and other performancing-enhancing, below the radar "optimizations"... nVidia loves app detect... (What the company hates is the "user detect" that usually follows.)

Running the CCC for awhile now I can cheerfully report my cpu intact and uneaten... (BTW, there's no need to even open the CCC to run a game profile.)

Well, considering the fact that the nVidia cpanel isn't remotely designed to be a programmable interface on the order of CCC in the first place, direct comparisons are futile (the correct comparison there is with the old Cat cp, imo.)

 

The point is once your profile is created, it's totally transparent. No extra shortcuts. I use Ati Tray Tools for this. When I start COD it activates my OGL 4xAA 8xAF profile. When I exit the game, it restores my previous settings. All completely transparent and much easier.

 

OK, but I launch my games through the CCC profile list in the systray menu--no extra shortcut involved (use of a custom shortcut is optional.) It's completely transparent, of course. The only difference is that when I leave the game and drop back to the desktop, my resolution settings are the same as I configured in the profile, *if* I configured a different resolution, that is. If desired in a profile you can leave off the displays manager, of course, and simply restrict your profile settings to 3d settings, if you run the game set internally to its own resolution settings.

In what ways is what you suggest "much easier"? Seems an equal amount of work, to me. The *method* of setting up and running nVx and CCC game profiles seems different, certainly, but I can't see that it's "much easier," either way.

 

Some significant differences exist in different ways of approaching the issue of application and settings interactions and associations.

The current way that ATI implements things is a settings profile that can be activated by a hotkey, link, or tray program menu selection, and that can optionally launch an application upon profile activation.
The simple observation here is that this is not the complete set of useful functionality or tedium removal, it is a subset. I don't know how such a simple observation can be ignored, and don't think it is useful to spend time discussing how other implementations might have issues.

For example:
How this implementation varies in capability and convenience from nVidia's applying a profile when it detects an application, and the limitation of their implementation of that, I don't know. Nor do I particularly care outside of recognizing that nVidia (and ATi) deserves credit for whatever flexibility and functionality they offer, and credit for what they implement better.

How it is different than what can be done by a mechanism that can recognize an application and then apply a profile is what I care about. I'll try to describe how by covering what it has and what is missing, and the significance I see in each.

...

Profiles require creation for each set of settings. The major implementation impact on convenience is in what the mechanics of the solution allows you to do with settings once you've created them. Along with this, the ease of the creation process itself impacts convenience each time you create a profile (which is multiplied by how many profiles you are required to create by your needs and the limitations of the said mechanics of the solution).

For the current ATI methodology, you have a limited set of options for activating the created profiles:

• Bind it to a hotkey to use the settings.
• Create a link file to use the settings.
• Activate it from the tray menu.

You also have a limited set of options for associating this to specific programs:

• Press the hotkey for the settings you wish for the program you wish before running the program.
  After creating a hot key scheme and memorizing, this further requires thought before running a program each time if you have more than one set of settings.
• Run the shortcut that activates the settings for the program (or pick from the tray icon list) before running the program.
  After creating a place to conveniently find the icons, if not using the tray icon, this requires thought and additional graphical navigation before running a program each time if you have more than one set of settings.
• Create a shortcut that activates the settings and then runs the program, for each unique program, which you can then use to replace the program in however many places you have for activating the program.
  This requires replacing program execution in each place you might execute it from, for each application you do this for, but then it can be forgotten about for applications already done. Unless another new place is introduced for some reason.

These offer some usefulness, but there are prominent missed opportunities as well.
On a basic level, what it misses is having a mechanism for associating a single created profile to multiple specific applications, and all the interface interactions and user tasking this could bypass. Preferrably, an implementation of this mechanism would be able to recognize path as well as executable name, and perhaps offer wildcard rule based application matching rules for both elements.

At a minimum, this removes some steps to managing profiles for limited usage of the profile feature.
Functionally, it can remove more, and the workload removed is magnified by how many different uses you find for different settings profiles
Some things that come to mind:

• Manually going through and adjusting created profiles to modify the settings you want to use (because one profile can be preserved as a single "concept" that can be adjusted once and apply to all applications you associated the "concept" with, automatically).
• Allows you to forget about activating it for all methods of launching an application once you've made the association, and therefore transparently integrates with any other method of application launching and preserves their ability to offer transparency (like a game server browser that configures itself for newly installed games).
• Makes it easier to change settings, because you can do it by switching concepts (that you have the luxury of naming as suits you) instead of having to navigate the graphical settings, or remembering to use a different hot key or profile each time you run it if not using a profile that launches an application and the associated workload for managing that.
• If, at some point, more useful and significant settings options are offered, or defaults are changed for whatever reason, the burden for the change in the profile system is minimized instead of maximized.

This is a start to the benefits of adding this mechanism, which basically reflect that there are ways to avoid mandating extra effort for having more usages for settings profiles, ones that the current functionality doesn't offer.

Note that I said "adding", not removing uniquely useful parts of the exisiting functionality. This is purely improvement.

...

The current functionality of the CCC interface components seems to be obviously lacking, with more significant, and quantifiable, impact on convenience in using its featureset than general slider/gui element organization improvements. If the latter is significant enough to be addressed, why not the former as well?

The major benefit already delivered by the CCC is a more capable platform for improving that functionality, and exposing that possibility to 3rd party development (i.e., the SDK). But the sooner that potential is realized the better, and I certainly hope ATI will offer some improvement here while we wait for 3rd parties to develop something that takes this start further.

 

My posts are constantly being deleted, without any notice or any reason given. I have an idea who it is, but this time I sort of had a feeling and made a PDF file of the page. I'm gonna try to contact someone more responsible or bring this issue up on some other site.

I read my post again and couldn't find anything that possibly violates the general on-line forum rule. Also compared to your vocabulary ("bitching", "nVidiot", "f*ck", etc.), my langage is extremely modest. I'd like to know who deleted my post and why.

Of course this post will also be saved via PDF or HTML and will be submitted as a proof, here or somewhere else.

You should really stop this.

lop

 

Posts complaining about fanboy posts are jast as tedious, if not more so, than the fanboy posts themselves. As I posted in the site feedback forum there is an implicit rule of "adding value", which constant negative posts about other posters doesn't add any value - postively debating a subject can provide useful posts, negatively bashing others and the forum invariably won't.

So, when you post, consider "What value am I adding?".

 

the device properties window in displays manager doesnt show up here....i can select the option but nothing happens.

 

I got that when I just installed the standalone CCC. I uninstalled control panel and drivers, and reinstalled from the all in one driver/CCC archive, and it seemed to work straight away.

 

One of the things I've noticed that I think needs addressing is that not only does cli.exe need to be running for the CCC to function (which doesn't in itself bother me), but I noticed last night that if I use my software firewall to block all to-and-from communication with the Internet while playing a single-player game--which is habit for me (the systray menu command with Zone Alarm is "stop all Internet activity")--then the CCC doesn't work--the functions I set are no longer forced, even though cli.exe is running and the CCC appears to operate normally.

Last night I noticed it when playing a DX game in which I had set the CCC to force refresh-rate override to "same as desktop." Instead of the 100Hz refresh I had expected at 1152x864, I got 60Hz. It's not only the undersired refresh rate that's the problem, but the fact that it throws off my monitor presets so that the image doesn't fill the screen as it does at the proper refresh. As soon as I restored the firewall to allow Internet access (presumably for cli.exe), and after a log off-and-on to WinXP SP2, the same game ran properly at 100Hz with all of the CCC settings enforced. This leads me to believe that the people who have reported difficulty with the CCC not enforcing their settings have either shut down cli.exe, or like me in some fashion have blocked its access to the Internet.

At the very least, the CCC should be able to detect this condition and inform the user that the CCC will not operate unless cli.exe is both running and allowed Internet access. Since not all the machines on which the CCC is installed will be connected to the Internet continuously for one reason or another, I think ATi needs to structure it to run in the event that cli.exe cannot access the Internet (as is true for the standard cp.) I think this will have to be done if the CCC is to replace the standard cp eventually.

Don't forget that the PM will also create a custom shortcut from which a profiled game can be launched (unless you are including this in "link.") Also, am unsure of what you mean by "tedium removal."

So you are comparing the extant CCC functionality to a theoretical app-recognition mechanism, then, and not specifically to the nVidia app-recognition mechanism as has been mentioned in the thread? If so, then would it be fair to say that your further comments simply go to suggestions towards CCC function expansion and improvement?

Yes....

Again, by "link file" I'm assuming you mean a CCC-generated shortcut ? (I left out normal game shortcuts as generated by game installs since the CCC PM does not have to "create" those.) Or, did you mean something more?

• 
  
  But isn't this why the hotkey approach is but one of several options available for that purpose? IE, if the hotkey "memorization" approach proves too challenging for some, then other GUI-related options exist which accomplish the same thing, right?
  
  
  
  Yes, it does "require thought and additional graphical navigation" ...which is why as you note you can run from the systray profile list instead of from a collection of desktop shortcuts. If you have difficulty navigating the "systray" profile list--a list which the user must himself create--then doesn't it seem likely that use of the basic Windows GUI itself would also be problematic for such a user?... I mean, if you can navigate the Windows GUI sufficiently to run a browser or a game then it seems such objections as you point out are probably moot.
  
  Or, is your theoretical app-detection system powered entirely by telepathy so that "graphical navigation" around the GUI isn't required?...
  
  To interject here, I don't think it's a profitable idea really to list the distinct methods of running a profile as if no other methods exist, since the whole reason for offering multiple approaches is exactly so you aren't limited to a single approach. Right?...
  
  

Right, but again I'm having difficulty understanding how this differs from the normal GUI command requirements for successfully operating Windows...?

First of all it's puzzling to me in the extreme how you might imagine that the sort of "wildcard" scheme you propose might be simpler and less complex to set up than the existing mechanisms you've complained a bit about above... If anything yours seems much more complex to me.

Isn't it possible, though, that this condition exists for the profile manager because it is constructed around a much different premise than the one you suggest? That is, the profile manager assumes the user intends to handle his profiles as he handles his games--that is, individually?

In regards to the theoretical app-detection scheme you've hypothesized "can" do what you've indicated here, I can only point out that AFAIK the extant nVidia game-profile driver app-detection mechanism handles games and their profiles individually, too...

Again, I find none of the "steps" as you've characterized them above to be more complex than your "wildcard" suggestion...

One word that does not come to my mind when considering the current CCC profile creation structure is "workload"... Heh, come on, D... I think you are exaggerating the CCC status quo and vastly underestimating the "thought" and "workload" relevant to your wildcard suggestion.

• 
  
  Well, it seems to me that you can currently do that by using simple edit function in the profile manager for a profile you might wish to extend to multiple games--just load in the profile you wish to associate with your games, change its name, change its run-file link, and save the profile. Repeat over and over again until all the games you wish are covered with the original, single profile you started with. Certainly doesn't seem taxing to me.
  
  
  But I think the flaw in this approach is that after generating multiple like profiles for a number of games as I suggest above, it doesn't seem likely to me that you'd then want to go back and change them all simultaneously. If you find it advisable to change the settings for game A, in other words, it doesn't follow that you'd want to make the same changes for games B,C, & D necessarily at all. I mean, "different strokes" for "different games" is what a profiles manager is all about, right? People play games individually, not in simultaneous groups, so I don't see that maintaining individualized profile management is a poor, or unduly taxing, approach at all.
  
  

OTOH, if you find that your universal settings break down and aren't what you wish to apply to a particular group of games, then you have to return to treating them individually anyway, right? I think you are making too much out of your one-size-fits-all model, because the entire concept behind these PM's is that one size does not fit all.

The simplest way to assign the same profile to a group of games, of course, I think, would be not to use the profile manager at all... Instead, the nomal forced CCC settings would serve as your "concept," and while set that way, would be enforced for every game you ran under your current CCC settings, right? So you could change your "concept" every time you changed your global CCC settings (which is the way it's done now with the old cp without the use of profiles.)

How to automate the "concept" approach? Simple: create a profile for "4x FSAA, 16xAF," for instance and save it in the profile manager. Create another for "4x FSAA Temporal, 8x AF" and save it in the pm as a profile. Rinse and repeat ad infinitum until you've covered all of the "concepts" you wish to address, and then when you desire invoke them through the systray profile list--and then run your games. This would provide an added advantage if you assign a hotkey to all of your concept profiles, since you could ostensibly change them on the fly while running various games. Just a thought...

I'm not sure if I agree with this entirely at this stage. It's clear to me that you're focusing on how the structure of the CCC might be changed to better correlate with the ways in which you wish to accomplish your tasks, as opposed to you really investigating the current functionality of the CCC interface in relation to how you can adapt to it in order to accomplish the same tasks (As I mentioned in the "concept" suggestion above.).

Well, considering the programmable nature of the CCC beast, I don't have any doubt that such improvements will be forthcoming. Even though I don't think at this point I'm ready to agree with your points, D, I did find them interesting and thought-provoking.