how to get the best of the redeon x1900xt

[eric456]

I bought this card and i was wondering if someone could tell how to get the best graphics out of games from the catalist control, 3D settings. Should i just max everything. I have a 4400 dual amd, 2g ram and 74g raptor.
Thanks

 

[eric456]

Thanks for the reply, but what i was wondering is that in some parts of the 3d settings you can click if i want the application to decide or not, should i click on those boxes, or just max that? would that mess up the games or make them better.

also i can't run all games at max. In Doom3 it wont let me run at the highest setting or use fa at 800*600 res. only at 640*480 res. :x
and in Chronicals of riddick the game doesn't run smoothly after a while at the highest setting.
That's why i was wondering if maybe i changed some things on the 3d settings games would run better.

 

[Vokofpolisiekar]

Well, as a start use every thing in application controlled (CCC). You can leave HQ AF on, aswell as Adaptive AA.

When certain games run, they allow you to adjust AA and AF in game. Sometimes one or both of these can not be adjusted in game. In such cases, go to Catalyst Control Center and enable the one (or both) that is omitted. But do so sparingly, and as basis AAx4 and AFx8 should be more than enough - although many people run AFx16 with little to none performance drop.

In Doom3, change the resolution from 800x600 to 1024x768 or 1280x1024, exit the game and restart. If the problem is something else than just mentioned, then I'm afraid I can't help you - unless you be more specific.

Trust this helps a bit, and do post more questions!

Adios!

 

[radeonninjaxt]

I bought this card and i was wondering if someone could tell how to get the best graphics out of games from the catalist control, 3D settings. Should i just max everything. I have a 4400 dual amd, 2g ram and 74g raptor.
Thanks

The first thing I recommend you to do is get rid of the POS BLOATED CCC! Install only the driver itself and use ATI TRAY TOOL. ATI TRAY TOOL takes far less resorces to run than CCC plus it gives the the ability to have Triple buffering enabled in DX3D 8)

Your system is defenintly not configured properly if you are having trouble running Doom 3 and Riddick. I run those games on highest everything and get a constant 75fps which is the refresh rate of my monitor.

I have the same card as you and I know my way around it about as good as anyone you will come across so let me know if I can help you.

 

[sdrawkcaBgoD]

Why even bother running any game at 800x600? If that's as high as your monitor res can go, you seriously bought the wrong card.

 

[Heyyou27]

In Doom3 it wont let me run at the highest setting or use fa at 800*600 res. only at 640*480 res. :x .

Now max in Doom3, do you mean with 16xAntialiasing enabled? If you're still only using 4xAA and can't play above 800x600, there is something seriously wrong with your system.

 

[radeonninjaxt]

there is nothing wrong with the CCC and i doubt it has anything to do with his problems.

And I never said there was anything wrong with it now did I? nor did I say it was the cause of his problems. :roll: There is no denying however that when compared to ATI TRAY TOOLS it is a bloated pos and not only that it does not give you nearly as many tweaking options as ATI TRAY TOOL. ATI TRAY TOOL is hands down a better utility and anyone that has used both CCC and ATI TRAY will tell you that.

 

[radeonninjaxt]

And its pretty simple to know when to use the let the application decide If the game you are playing has its own option for AA and AF it is usually but not always best to let the application decide and use the ingame options.


Some games however do not have a AA or AF setting and this is when you force it on in the drivers.

 

[radeonninjaxt]

calling it a bloated POS is kinda saying there is something wrong with it and by implication your were tying it to his problem. you are confusing the guy further than necessary instead of offering practical advice. i'll refrain from using the i word.

Half your problem is the fact that you always seem to interperet things people say the wrong way :roll: Me saying it is bloated and is a pos is merely my opinion and to be honest with you it is also a fact when compared to Tray tools. I never said the overall function of the CCC was his problem, those are your words, not mine.

 

[radeonninjaxt]

And I am definently not trying to confuse the guy. He said he wanted the best out of his X1900XT and by pointing him in the right direction with ATI TRAY TOOLS that is what I am doing. He certainly will not get the most out of it with CCC and lack of DX3D triple buffering support. :roll:


CCC is for NUBS like you. ATI TRAY TOOLS are for the enthusiast. You will find that the majority will agree with me so dont even argue about it.

 

[radeonninjaxt]

oh let me ruffle your hair you scamp. little kid thowing a tantrum. adults using reason to argue. kids like you don't want anyone to talk back in case their wrong and their little self centred world falls apart.

tell me this, does this guy seem like an enthusiast to you. would he be asking such simple questions about the CC if he was an enthusiast. i think not so why not leave him with the CCC. triple buffering support aint exactly going to be top of his agenda at the moment is it. he need basic trouble shooting tips on how to find out whats wrong with his system.

look what has happened we are bickering and not actually focusing on the OP.

Please if you ever come to USA let me know, I want to see you call me a little kid to my face and not over the net hiding behind your keyboard and screen :roll: It would be worth spending some time in jail to bitch slap your ass around a bit.

 

[radeonninjaxt]

oh it would be fun to see you try.

LOL yeah im sure :roll:

 

[eric456]

sorry you guys for not replying sooner i went to work after posting and just woke up this moring. didnt mean to cause any prob.
i've read all your post and im interested to see where i can get that ati tray tool, although if its kind of complicated to use i guess i'll stick to the catalyst control, no offense i'm just not that good with comp. As for the games here are the exact prob.

doom 3
game wont let me play at ultra high only high, because everytime i reload the game when i change to ultra high it changes back to high.
game wont let me use antialiasing unless res is 640*480. i do change res. to 1280*1024(which is my mon highest res) put antialing at max but game says reload game for changes to take affect. so when i reload the game, the game is the one that changes my res. to 640 when antialising is on. If i click it off i can have any res. i want. Doesn't make sense to me why game wont let me do this.

riddick
If everything is high, game plays fine at the beggining but then it becomes kind of choppy, its not smooth anymore, its still playable its just kind of anoying, when it kinda freezes than moves kickly.

Farcry
seems to play well, i just haven't max everying, but it does work fine. although a lot of you will disagree with me i really didn't like this game. So i don't plan on playing it again.

I am planning on buying half life, fear, and quake 4. So i wanted to chabge the setting of my card so i can't get the best out of these games.

thanks for all the help

 

[radeonninjaxt]

sorry you guys for not replying sooner i went to work after posting and just woke up this moring. didnt mean to cause any prob.
i've read all your post and im interested to see where i can get that ati tray tool, although if its kind of complicated to use i guess i'll stick to the catalyst control, no offense i'm just not that good with comp. As for the games here are the exact prob.

doom 3
game wont let me play at ultra high only high, because everytime i reload the game when i change to ultra high it changes back to high.
game wont let me use antialiasing unless res is 640*480. i do change res. to 1280*1024(which is my mon highest res) put antialing at max but game says reload game for changes to take affect. so when i reload the game, the game is the one that changes my res. to 640 when antialising is on. If i click it off i can have any res. i want. Doesn't make sense to me why game wont let me do this.

riddick
If everything is high, game plays fine at the beggining but then it becomes kind of choppy, its not smooth anymore, its still playable its just kind of anoying, when it kinda freezes than moves kickly.

Farcry
seems to play well, i just haven't max everying, but it does work fine. although a lot of you will disagree with me i really didn't like this game. So i don't plan on playing it again.

I am planning on buying half life, fear, and quake 4. So i wanted to chabge the setting of my card so i can't get the best out of these games.

thanks for all the help

Eric im sorry to say but you have some really really strange problems going on bud. :?

What video card did you have previously and did you use driver cleaner pro to completely wipe out your old video card drivers before you installed the X1900XT? I have some steps I want you to try out and we will go from there. We are going to do a clean installation of your drivers 8)

1st-completely uninstall your video drivers from add-remove programs.

2nd-use driver cleaner pro to get rid of any left over remains of ATI, it can be downloaded here- http://www.drivercleaner.net/professional.html

3rd- install the 6.4 driver and wdm driver seperatly from ati. REMEMBER ONLY 6.4 DRIVER AND WDM DRIVER! JUST THOSE TWO! you cannot have the whole CCC packadge if you want to use ATI TRAY TOOL.

4th- install ATI TRAY TOOL. http://downloads.guru3d.com/download.php?det=733#download To set up your games with this utility all you need to do is to right click on the shortcut to your games and ATI TOOL will allow you to set up a custom profile for that particular game! 8) This way you dont have to keep changing settings everytime you play a different game. You just have to remember to save your settings.

It wouldnt hurt to do some scans for spyware and viruses if you have not done so already.

 

[radeonninjaxt]

something ain't right i think we can all agree. try far cry(i agree, i hate the trigens) with all your settings maxed and as high a res as you can. i can play it at either 1600 x 1200 or my native 1920 x 1200. i can't remember it it supports widecreen. i could fire it up but i'm too lazy.

if my comp can then so should yours at your highest res.

And this is going to solve his problems :roll:

 

[eric456]

thank you guys for your help again.
i guess i should have mention that its a new comp and the 1900 is the only card ever put on it, and it is running the 6.4 drives. but i will test farcry at the highest res, and also uninstall the drives and reinstall them and intall the ati tool.
sorry i wont be able to get back to you guys till tomorrow though, i have to go to work again so wont try this till tomorrow.
thanks again. hopefully ill fix this comp and have it working like its supposed to.

 

[eric456]

hi, well here is an update, StrangeStranger i,ve played farcry all settings maxed and it seems to play well, no problems at all. are you suppose to see grasses appear in the distance as you walk and see trees get fuller? everything else looks great though.

as far a the drives, in ati web page ive look everywhere but you can,t get the 6.4 drives just by themselfs, they come pakage with the CCC. radeonninjaxt do you think its ok to install the ati tray tool with the ccc, in there web page they say it supports ati contro center.

 

[Datman]

Just scroll down the downloads page to the dial up section to download separately.

 

[radeonninjaxt]

hi, well here is an update, StrangeStranger i,ve played farcry all settings maxed and it seems to play well, no problems at all. are you suppose to see grasses appear in the distance as you walk and see trees get fuller? everything else looks great though.

as far a the drives, in ati web page ive look everywhere but you can,t get the 6.4 drives just by themselfs, they come pakage with the CCC. radeonninjaxt do you think its ok to install the ati tray tool with the ccc, in there web page they say it supports ati contro center.

Yes you can install the 6.4 drivers seperatly, I know this because this is the way I do it and you absolutely do not want to have CCC installed with ATI TRAY TOOL. Ati Control Center is something totally different that ATI TRAY TOOLS and it is really outdated as well so you dont want anything to do with that.

Go here and scroll down to where it says low speed dial up and then install the first driver which is the 6.4 Display driver all by itself and then install the 3rd driver down which is the WDM driver. https://support.ati.com/ics/support/default.asp?deptID=894&task=knowledge&folderID=293

 

[eric456]

sorry you guys for the late reply i was unable to get back to my comp after the morning post. Well today i'm off so i'll be able to put more time into this.
I did uninstall the drives and used that drive cleaner pro. although i hope that thing only uninstall drives because i click on ATI since there was nothing taht said redeon, and it just uninstall a bunch of stuff.
I just install the 6.4 drives without the ccc and install the ati tray tool. No offense but this thing looks complicated to use. there is just so many things you can change, but i don;t know what half of that stuff does. radeonninjaxt how should i set it up to get the best out of my card.

StrangeStranger i don't know how to tell if a game is open gl or directx but aside from the games i mentioned the only other ones i have are dawn or war which plays well with everything max, and battlefield 1942 which is an old game so i don;t think it really matters.

 

[radeonninjaxt]

sorry you guys for the late reply i was unable to get back to my comp after the morning post. Well today i'm off so i'll be able to put more time into this.
I did uninstall the drives and used that drive cleaner pro. although i hope that thing only uninstall drives because i click on ATI since there was nothing taht said redeon, and it just uninstall a bunch of stuff.
I just install the 6.4 drives without the ccc and install the ati tray tool. No offense but this thing looks complicated to use. there is just so many things you can change, but i don;t know what half of that stuff does. radeonninjaxt how should i set it up to get the best out of my card.

StrangeStranger i don't know how to tell if a game is open gl or directx but aside from the games i mentioned the only other ones i have are dawn or war which plays well with everything max, and battlefield 1942 which is an old game so i don;t think it really matters.

The only things in ATI TRAY TOOL that you need to worry about are your typical Antialiasing settings and Anisotropic settings, they work exactly like the ones in the CCC. Remeber to right click on your games icon that you want to configure and ATI TRAY TOOL will let you set a customized profile for each game you own! Its really very simple 8) just dont forget to hit save when your done! One other thing you might want to do is to right click on the ATI TRAY TOOL at the bottom right of your screen and then go into tweaks-then standered tweaks and enable geomitry instancing.

Let me know how things go.

 

[sojrner]

both 1942 and DOW are directX, so that is definitely an issue. Stranger is right in that it seems to be an openGL thing. I would also say that the CCC is not the issue. You can go ahead and get the tray tools if you want, but that is not the issue IMO. Your system could handle a dozen apps twice as bloated as CCC and still run fine. Not trying to start a flame war here but it is something else here. (all defferance to "enthusiasts" aside, ccc works fine and is simple and easy for most ppl to just get it from ati and use it as-is)

You did not say earlier but are your openGL settings all set to application decide in the ccc/tray tools? Once you get whatever drivers you have installed, I would reinstall the games (doom and riddick) and try again w/ the driver defaults. Dont remember what tray tools has for defaults, but if you have totally removed any drivers and reinstalled the current ati ones and just leave the defaults the game should be fine after it is reinstalled. Once proper operation is confirmed then you should tweak on the driver settings.

JMO of course, do what you like w/ it.

 

[clue69less]

(all defferance to "enthusiasts" aside, ccc works fine and is simple and easy for most ppl to just get it from ati and use it as-is)

Not to toss turds on the campfire or anything, but I'm fairly new to Radeon cards and have not been thrilled with CCC. I've been too busy to exhaustively search out FAQ-type stuff about CCC and Radeon but I'm pretty sure I'm not getting the best out of my son's card yet. So I'll do the searching when I get time but if anyone knows of any quality links, I'd appreciate it. In it's defense, CCC does seem to be an easy way to OC the 1900XT.

 

[radeonninjaxt]

(all defferance to "enthusiasts" aside, ccc works fine and is simple and easy for most ppl to just get it from ati and use it as-is)

Not to toss turds on the campfire or anything, but I'm fairly new to Radeon cards and have not been thrilled with CCC. I've been too busy to exhaustively search out FAQ-type stuff about CCC and Radeon but I'm pretty sure I'm not getting the best out of my son's card yet. So I'll do the searching when I get time but if anyone knows of any quality links, I'd appreciate it. In it's defense, CCC does seem to be an easy way to OC the 1900XT.

I get less performance with CCC on my X1900XT than I do when I use ATI TRAY TOOL, granted its not a big difference but the loss is there and I lose about 5fps for any given game and some games are even worse :roll: and I am not the only one that has experienced this either, trust me . I have tested this multiple times using a frame count tester and this reason is why I choose ATI TRAY TOOL. Just about anyone out there in their right mind who has spent some time with both will tell you ATI TRAY TOOL is the best way to go. And for the Overclocking on CCC it sucks when compared to another little overclocking feature called ATI TOOL not to be confused with ATI TRAY TOOL this is a very popular overclocking utility that lets you get the most out of your ATI cards and it does it rather safely.

On stock cooling using this tool I got my X1900XT up too 720mhz core and 815mhz mem, after I modified the cooling a little I managed 760mhz core and 830mem! 8) Also note that this tool lets you adjust the Core and Mem voltages!


Alot of people seem to think I am faulting CCC and that is incorrect. I am simply implying that there is more to be squeezed out of the X1900XT and unfortunatly CCC will hold you back from ever realizing the cards true potential. CCC is fine for people who dont know much about settings and are new to everything but once you get some experience you should ditch it asap and move on to ATI TRAY TOOL. Its really a quite simple interface and the only options you need to be concerned with are your typical AA and AF settings as well as enabeling geomitry enstanceing and using TRIPLE BUFFERING FOR DX3D games! this can make a huge positive impact on some of your games when using V SYNC!

 

[eric456]

well its good to know i wont have to mess too much with the ati tools just the al. and af. and just to let you guys know i just bought quake 4, and i guess its an open gl game since doom 3 is one. i'll make a customize profile once i see what the game options are.
and all open gl settings are now application decided. although i dont know if ill reinstall doom3 and riddick since i played to the end already and they are like 6 disks to install. so im hopping i will be able to play quake 4 at its highest settings now. ill let you guys know in a bit. thanks again for all the help.