ATI install and the extra garbage......

[Braveheart]

Just installed a new 256 mb ATI Radeon 700x Pro video card. Of course the the factory (recommended) install of the driver also included a miriad of other stuff. Could someone help understand what I am able to safely remove and still have the video card run games. Below is a list of the installed things, I know I need the display driver, is anything else really necessary? All I want to do is play the game.Thanks

ATI Catalyst Control Center
ATI Control Panel
ATI Decoder
ATI Display Driver
ATI Hydravision
ATI Multimedia Center
ATI Problem report Wizard
ATI Remote Wonder 2.5

[Gwill]

I say just install the driver.

[miramis]

Depends on how old the provided driver is.  If the latest Ati drivers have issues with certain games, try the card manufacters generic ones instead. 

[Hegelian]

The Decoder may be for DVD playback, but I am not sure. Hydravision has something to do with multiple displays; while I use two displays myself, I've never used Hydravision. The Multimedia Center appears to be for the All-In-Wonder boards (with integrated TV tuner).

The things you need are the drivers themselves and either the Control Center or Control Panel; these give you access to the advanced driver settings. The Catalyst Control Center is a resource hog that requires Microsoft's .NET Framework; mostly it just hides the driver settings behind a fancy 3D interface. The only thing you don't get with the Control Panel that you do get with the Control Center is ATI's overclocking utility, but I don't think that is available for X700 boards anyway.

If the driver CD includes the Control Panel, this is clearly an old drivers set (the one that was current when the X700 was a new product, presumably). My advice would be do download the latest driver set from ATI, install the drivers only, and then install the Control Panel from the CD (or you could get the last version of the Control Panel from ATI's Web site; I believe Catalyst 5.8 was the last version that included the Control Panel). ATI claims that the Control Panel is not supported by more recent drivers, but I use it with the 6.4 drivers with no problems.

It appears you have already installed the drivers. If you did not uninstall the previous drivers before installing the new ones, you should probably uninstall both (using Add/Remove Programs) and then reinstall just the ATI drivers and Control Panel. I recommend getting the latest driver set from ATI's Web site, even if your board is from one of ATI's partner manufacturers (Sapphire, PowerColor, etc.).

If the X700 replaced an integrated graphics controller, you should go into the BIOS and disable the integrated graphics.

You can search MATY for more information on uninstalling and installing graphics boards (there's no reason for me to type it all again).

[Braveheart]

Thanks for all the ehelp. I uninstalled everything except the ATI Display Driver and all seems to be working fine. My factory driver version is 6.14 and it is working very nicely. Appreciate all the help. Tracy

[jsalemi]

My factory driver version is 6.14 and it is working very nicely.

Do upgrade at least to the 6.5 version -- I have the same card you have, and as of the 6.3 release, the 3D rendering in the sims is very noticeably  better, and there's a bit of a performance boost as well. Definitely worth the upgrade.  You can find them on the ATI site, or even better, use the modified version found at http://www.omegadrivers.net/.

I noticed that the 6.7 drivers are out now, but I haven't tried them yet, so I can't vouch for how they work with TS2.

[Braveheart]

Thanks jsalemi, I just tried the 6.8 and it seems a bit glitchy. The game is a little choppy and a few graphic oddities. I would like to try the 6.5 version but I can't find the download link. Every link to the 6.5 just leads me to the 6.8 (newest release) Could someone post a direct link for me. Please and thank you.

[Brynne]

I had a lot of problems with the 6.8. I was getting BSODs constantly, and the culprit was ati3duag.dll, one of the drivers for the 6.8 set. I had to reroll back and haven't had that problem, since.

[Braveheart]

What version are you using now Brynne?

[Brynne]

I just rolled back to the ones that came installed with my card, which is an ATI Radeon Mobility 9700. I'm not really happy with it because it gets weird when I put the texture or lights settings on high, but at least it's not crashing on me. 

[jsalemi]

Thanks jsalemi, I just tried the 6.8 and it seems a bit glitchy. The game is a little choppy and a few graphic oddities. I would like to try the 6.5 version but I can't find the download link. Every link to the 6.5 just leads me to the 6.8 (newest release) Could someone post a direct link for me. Please and thank you.

You can find older ATI drivers here: https://support.ati.com/ics/support/default.asp?deptID=894&task=knowledge&folderID=293. You may need to click on 'Previous Drivers' in the menu on the left to get to the archive. Just page through until you find the ones you want (the 6.x series are on the third page).

As for the Omega version, you can find the 6.5 version on this page: http://www.omegadrivers.net/archive.php

[Sleepycat]

My factory driver version is 6.14 and it is working very nicely.

Do upgrade at least to the 6.5 version -- I have the same card you have, and as of the 6.3 release, the 3D rendering in the sims is very noticeably  better, and there's a bit of a performance boost as well. Definitely worth the upgrade.  You can find them on the ATI site, or even better, use the modified version found at http://www.omegadrivers.net/.

I noticed that the 6.7 drivers are out now, but I haven't tried them yet, so I can't vouch for how they work with TS2.

I wanted to thank you also    I was also using the 6.14 drivers (with no problems) but yesterday after reading your post I went and downloaded the 6.5 ones and installed them and then played for many hours as usual 

[Braveheart]

Could someone clarify for me what the difference is between the ATI drivers and the 'modified omega versions'. Thanks

[Brynne]

I think the omegas are optimized for gaming, aren't they?

[KittKitt]

I think the omegas are optimized for gaming, aren't they?

Yes.  They're also 3rd party drivers, which means they aren't made by ATI.  This can sometimes be rather problematic, but from everything I've heard, the guy who maintains the Omega set is pretty good about ensuring proper compatability and all that.

I have a Geforce myself though, so I can't vouch personally.

Omega About Page (If you're truly curious)

-Kitt

[Brynne]

I use the Omegas because they update much more often than Ati does, and Ati no longer updates drivers of laptops, anyway.

[ElfPuddle]

I just updated my vid. card, and spent the weekend trying to fix BSODs. I still have some testing to go before I announce whether or not I've fixed the driver issues, but the 6.14 seems to be working better than the 6.3 ...so far. *knocks on wood*

[simposiast]

I have an ATI Radeon card that hates the sims.  It works fine for everything else, but when playing the sims it plays for a while, then I get a black screen and a message saying 'lost signal', and the only way to get out of it is to switch the power off.  I haven't worked out what the problem is yet, but it's aggravating that the sims works fine on my laptop and not on the computer I bought for playing games on!

[ElfPuddle]

Yep, that's the issue I've been working on. When I figure it out, I'll share the info. If you solve yours before I do, please share!

[Sleepycat]

if it matters, I used the 6.14 drivers for over a year and had no problems running TS2 or anything else


and so far the 6.5 drivers are working fine for me

[Hegelian]

if it matters, I used the 6.14 drivers for over a year and had no problems running TS2 or anything else

and so far the 6.5 drivers are working fine for me.

I also use the 6.5 drivers with no problems. None of the more recent drivers offer anything significant for my X800 GT0, so there's no reason for me to update at this time. Someone mentioned problems with the current 6.8 drivers, so I'm holding off, altough I suspect that may be a machine-specific problem.

I have an ATI Radeon card that hates the sims.  It works fine for everything else, but when playing the sims it plays for a while, then I get a black screen and a message saying 'lost signal', and the only way to get out of it is to switch the power off.!

This sounds to me like a hardware problem. Do you run any other applications that stress your hardware—3D games, CAD apps, or Photoshop? If not, then I would suspect:

1)  inadequate or failing power supply
2)  failing or damaged graphics board
3)  failing or damaged motherboard

Is this the graphics board that came with the PC?

I just updated my vid. card, and spent the weekend trying to fix BSODs. I still have some testing to go before I announce whether or not I've fixed the driver issues, but the 6.14 seems to be working better than the 6.3 ...so far. *knocks on wood*

Have you cleaned out all vestiges of earlier drivers? Are you sure?    Does your PC have integrated graphics, and if so, have you disabled the integrated graphics in the BIOS?

As a general note, I would mention that the current (and recent) driver releases from ATI do not cover every Radeon board.

Not Supported: 

Radeon® 9250 series
Radeon® 9200 series
Radeon® 9000 series
Radeon® 8500 series
 Radeon® 7500 series
Radeon® 7200 series
Radeon® 7000 series

 
But you should have at least a Radeon 9550 to play TS2 anyway.   

[ElfPuddle]

Yes, it was an integrated, and I thought I'd cleaned it all out. Apparently not, and that's what I'm working on. If only I could skip school and work on it! Dratted kids actually doing their homework so I have stuff to grade. [/whine]. It also doesn't help that the first non-CD driver I installed was the 6.8. That sucked, so now I'm trying to roll it back, so I have double the work of uninstalling and cleaning. Next time, I may not do this on my own.

[KittKitt]

Yes, it was an integrated, and I thought I'd cleaned it all out. Apparently not, and that's what I'm working on. If only I could skip school and work on it! Dratted kids actually doing their homework so I have stuff to grade. [/whine]. It also doesn't help that the first non-CD driver I installed was the 6.8. That sucked, so now I'm trying to roll it back, so I have double the work of uninstalling and cleaning. Next time, I may not do this on my own.

May wanna give this a try Elfie.  I've never used it myself, but I'm pretty much a techie-geek so stuff like this is pretty natural for me.  I've had many friends who swear by it though.

Driver Cleaner (Pro is free and supports ATI)

-Kitt

[ElfPuddle]

Thanks, KittKatt. I appreciate the advice.
(God/Goddess/es know I'm really good at some things, and really not good at others.)

[Hegelian]

Yes, it was an integrated, and I thought I'd cleaned it all out.

Have you disabled the integrated graphics in the BIOS? You need to do that.