Taming the Catalyst Control Center

[Chode]

Part of this is experimentation, part of it is from other forums and guides, but here is another guide on this.

The Catalyst Control Center...pretty, but resource hog central. I don't know what everyone thinks, but in my opinon 50 megs of memory usage while idle is just disgusting.

There are some things you can do to help though...

1) Install the Catalyst Control Center (CCC)... or if you have it installed already, go to step 2.

2) In Regedit go to

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run

3) Delete the ATICCC (CLI.EXE) entry. This is used to initialise your computer to run the CCC, and is run on boot. This increases boot time, and memory usage. Unfortunately, the CCC WILL NOT RUN in this current state, unless you keep following the rest of this guide.

If you are using Windows XP Home, go to step 4. If you are using Windows XP Professional, go to step 5.

4) (XP Home only) Extract the contents of the attached file Taskkill.zip into c:\windows\system32. I promise you this is not a virus or malware, but feel free to scan it in whatever way you like.

5) Extract the contents of the attached ccc.zip file to your desktop.

6) Restart your computer

7) Now run the CCC.bat file on your desktop. When you get a message "Now open the CCC, and press any key when finished", you can open your CCC through whatever means you like. Tweak around, change your settings, etc. Whilst the control panel is open, leave the command prompt window opened by the bat file alone.

8) When you close your CCC, go back to the command prompt window left open by the batch file and hit any key inside it. And you're done. Check your task manager, the CCC is no longer swallowing all of your memory.

For the curious, here is the batch file and what it does:

@echo off
echo Running the CCC runtime component...
call "C:\Program Files\ATI Technologies\ATI.ACE\runtime.bat"
echo Now open the CCC, and press any key when finished
pause > nul
taskkill /F /IM CLI.exe
taskkill /F /IM Preview.exe

To break it up into analysis:

@echo off
echo Running the CCC runtime component...
call "C:\Program Files\ATI Technologies\ATI.ACE\runtime.bat"
echo Now open the CCC, and press any key when finished

This part will initialise your computer for the running of the CCC, and notify you when you can open it.

pause > nul
taskkill /F /IM CLI.exe
taskkill /F /IM Preview.exe

This part will await for a keypress, and will then force the closing of any proccesses named CLI.exe and Preview.exe, which of course means that the CCC is unloaded from memory.

Conclusion:

Now when you wish to open the Catalyst Control Center, you must follow these exact steps:

1) Run CCC.bat

2) Open the Catalyst Control Center

3) Close the Catalyst Control Center

4) Press any key inside the Command Prompt Window

Enjoy (Y)

Credit To:

xgman

GoatICE

Further Reading:

ATI Catalyst Tweak Guide

Rage3D

Edited April 5, 2005 by Chode

[kaffra]

thanks for the tip, just curious how much does it reduce mem usage to?

don't know what everyone thinks, but in my opinon 50 megs of memory usage while idle is just disgusting

[Chode]

thanks for the tip, just curious how much does it reduce mem usage to?

585728768[/snapback]

0MB.

Instead of having the resident memory programs that are needed for the Control Center open all the time, it only starts them when the control center is needed, and closes them when you are done with the control center.

[ANova]

The CCC uses .net framework, which means it gives up memory when anything else asks for it. I don't consider it to be much of a hog personally and I've never seen it take more then 10 MB when closed though I do think the startup time is terribly slow; again that's because of .net.

[Chode]

The CCC uses .net framework, which means it gives up memory when anything else asks for it.  I don't consider it to be much of a hog personally and I've never seen it take more then 10 MB when closed though I do think the startup time is terribly slow; again that's because of .net.

585728847[/snapback]

What you're saying is right, but on my machine it used a solid 60 megs when closed and on another machine closer to 200! :blink:

[ANova]

What you're saying is right, but on my machine it used a solid 60 megs when closed and on another machine closer to 200!?:blink::

585729085[/snapback]

:blink::

Hmm.

[fegul]

It's using 10mb for me right now, but I have seen it get pretty high for no apparent reason before. Good guide though!

[Lumiplaty]

Why not just get the drivers without CCC? :huh:

[Chode]

Why not just get the drivers without CCC?  :huh:

585732015[/snapback]

Because the standard Control Panel has no controls for A.I. settings, and if memory serves me no control for enabling/disabling geometry instancing.

And heck, I'm going to go to hell for saying this, but not only is the CCC prettier but it is easier if you're converting from NVIDIA to use.

[Toxicfume Veteran]

I decided to try the CCC again with the Catalysts 5.3. The most horrible experience ever. It was utterly slow, enabling or diswabling each option would lag it like hell...even just moving thwe window around a little would cause serious slwness. I just uninstalled it and went to the normal non CCC version.

[Chode]

I decided to try the CCC again with the Catalysts 5.3. The most horrible experience ever. It was utterly slow, enabling or diswabling each option would lag it like hell...even just moving thwe window around a little would cause serious slwness. I just uninstalled it and went to the normal non CCC version.

585735342[/snapback]

If you ever get the urge to install the CCC again, the quick fix for the terrible window lag is to go to Preferences > Select a Skin > System Skin. Doesn't look as pretty, but runs so much better.

[ANova]

Disabling the preview also increases speed and startup time.

[Bhav]

why use CCC when you could just use the ATI Control Centre that does exactly the same thing.

the CCC just looks flashy. it's totally unnecessary.

[Chode]

why use CCC when you could just use the ATI Control Centre that does exactly the same thing.

the CCC just looks flashy. it's totally unnecessary.

585741246[/snapback]

The two different driver releases are:

1) Catalyst Control Centre (CCC)

2) Control Panel

The control panel lacks the sometimes handy preview window, control for A.I. and the option to enable/disable Geometry Instancing.

[nekrosoft13]

I decided to try the CCC again with the Catalysts 5.3. The most horrible experience ever. It was utterly slow, enabling or diswabling each option would lag it like hell...even just moving thwe window around a little would cause serious slwness. I just uninstalled it and went to the normal non CCC version.

585735342[/snapback]

i tried it twice

first time when it just came out, and second time also with 5.3, and i'm never using it again

[funnyperson1]

The CCC is a resource hog, when closed on my machine it used 50MBs, and when open it used close to 120MB. I promptly uninstalled it and used the Control Panel version. Imho its a shame that Ati can't allow full control from the control panel.

I might try the CCC again when I get 1GB of ram (currently on 512), but for now 120MB is more than I want to give up.

[Hypoxiaicon]

I decided to try the CCC again with the Catalysts 5.3. The most horrible experience ever. It was utterly slow, enabling or diswabling each option would lag it like hell...even just moving thwe window around a little would cause serious slwness. I just uninstalled it and went to the normal non CCC version.

585735342[/snapback]

LoL.

Same here.

Think ill stick with the ATi Control Panels.

[aharding]

I tried the Catalyst Control Center when 5.1 came out and it is probably the slowest loading program on my PC including all my games. Takes about a year to open up and the skin in my opinoin doesn't even look that nice. From now on I'm using the standard control center.

Nice guide :)

[Chode]

Nice guide  :)

585765140[/snapback]

Thank you :)

It may interest people to know that post format, I went back to the Control Panel instead.

[Synomenon]

Does this work with the latest Catalyst (Catalyst 5.8)? I always have 2 cli.exe's running and some other ATI stuff. Also whenever my PC starts up, the screen flashes black for a second or two and that's very annoying.

[Synomenon]

I just read some of those websites that show what some common startup programs do and it says one of the cli.exe's is for the ATI hotkey poller and that is safe to disable. The other cli.exe (the one with -runtime right after it) is for something else more complicated (don't remember what) and that shouldn't be disabled.

[theyarecomingforyou]

The CCC is absolutely awful - 30 seconds to load is just ridiculous. On shutdown I often get a ".NET Broadcast Window" error, or something to that affect - it delays shutdown by about 10-15 seconds. :no: ATi really need to get their act together, esecpially considering they will stop the CP version soon.

[laz]

Tweakguides usually has a guide on this thats updated with every catalyst release. It's great to read through the guide closely once, and the next time around it'll be much quicker. There are some services that can be disabled, and a reg tweak that takes out the CCC option in the context menus. It's also got a good walkthrough for cleaning out previous driver installations (although the current ATI uninstaller works like a charm). Plus great explanations for each of the options in there (with advanced ones for Rag3D tweaker too). There's quite a few more that I can't remember right now... :D

[Synomenon]

I deleted the registry key, but when I click on the "ATI CATALYST Control Center" option on the context menu when I right click on the desktop, the Catalyst Control Center still opens. Also, when I click on "ATI Catalyst Control Center" in the "ATI Catalyst Control Center" in the start menu, the Catalyst Control Center Still opens.

I was under the impression that after deleting that registry entry (shown at the beginning of this thread), the Catalyst Control Center would not run unless that .bat file was run first.

[DOGglee]

drivers + ati tray tools is more than enough for me :)