Catalyst is not installed. AMD Catalyst Control Center - what is it, why is it needed and how to work with it

So that the computer user can configure how the image generated by the system and applications, video card developers supply special programs along with drivers for their equipment. In the case of AMD ATI graphics cards, the corresponding software is called . However, despite the fact that the company makes significant efforts to ensure that the user does not experience problems with their software, glitches may still occur in its operation. So at one point the user, when trying to open CCC, may see the following message: “The AMD Catalyst Control Center cannot be started at the moment.” Let's figure out what to do in this case.

Reasons why AMD Catalyst Control Center may not start

There may be several reasons why AMD Catalyst Control Center is currently not starting. Most often, the corresponding problem is caused by outdated drivers. In this case, the conflict can be caused not only by the video card driver, but also by other equipment (for example, the motherboard), since AMD by and large focuses on the latest hardware and software.

The second most common cause of problems starting AMD Catalyst Control Center at the moment is blocking some program components by antivirus. Many anti-spyware programs do not work perfectly, and therefore they can quarantine files that are completely harmless, but important for the operation of the system.

The third reason is incompatibility of the software with the operating system. Some users, after reinstalling Windows, do not download the latest drivers, but install them, for example, from the CD that came with the video card. If the corresponding software was developed, for example, for Windows 7, and the user’s computer already has Windows 10, then there is a possibility that it will not work correctly on it.

And the last reason: corrupted program files. It is possible that some components were accidentally removed or the corresponding sector of the hard drive was damaged.

How to resolve Catalyst Control Center failure to start

To fix the message “AMD Catalyst Control Center cannot be launched at this time,” you should try to reinstall the driver by downloading its new version from the official AMD website. To do this you will need:

Go to the website SUPPORT.AMD.COM;
In the “Drivers and Support” section, select your operating system version;
Download the software by clicking on the “Download” button;
Start the installation process.

In most cases, there is no need to remove old drivers first. The installer will do this himself, replacing the old software with new software. However, if you still want to clear the system of relevant programs in advance, then do the following:

Go to the “SYSTEM_DISK:\Program Files\ATI\CIM\Bin” folder and open the “Setup.exe” file;
In the window that opens, select “Delete”;
Click “Next”, and then “Finish”;
Restart your computer;
After that, install new drivers.

If the appropriate steps do not help fix the error “AMD Catalyst Control Center cannot be started at this time,” then try updating the drivers for all devices. It would also be a good idea to look into your antivirus and see what files it has quarantined. If there are AMD CCC components there, you will need to remove them from there.

A clean installation of Windows, as well as the installation of new hardware components in a PC, almost inevitably ends for the user with the need to search for and add drivers for various devices to the system. A video card, as one of the most important components of modern computers and laptops, requires the installation of components to be able to function properly almost in the first place. Owners of Radeon graphics adapters can hardly worry about this issue, because a powerful and functional tool has been created for them - AMD Catalyst Control Center.

Download and update AMD drivers via Catalyst Control Center

We can say that AMD Catalyst Control Center (CCC) is designed mainly to maintain the performance of video cards based on the AMD graphics processor at the proper level, which means that installing and keeping drivers up to date must be done using this software without any problems. In fact, this is true.

The CCC installer is now called Catalyst Software Suite. It cannot be downloaded from the official website for modern powerful video card models - the developers have created a new application for them: AMD Radeon Software. Use it to install and update video card software.

Automatic installation

The driver package for Advanced Micro Devices graphics adapters is included in Catalyst Control Center and all the necessary components are added to the system when installing the application. In order to install the video adapter driver, just follow a few simple steps.

Download the AMD Catalyst Control Center installer from the official website of the manufacturer in the technical support section. To obtain the required driver version, you need to determine the type, series and model of the graphics processor on which the video card is based.

After this, you will need to indicate the version and bitness of the operating system you are using.

The final step is to expand the tab and select Catalyst Software Suite.

After the Catalyst installer has been downloaded, we launch the installation.

The initial stage is the unpacking of the components necessary for the installer to work according to the path specified by the user.
After unpacking, the Catalyst Installation Manager welcome window will automatically launch, in which you can select the language of the installer interface, as well as the Control Center components that will be installed along with the drivers.

The CCC installation program “can” not only install the necessary components, but also remove them from the system. Therefore, a request for further operations appears. Press the button "Install",

which will bring up the following window.
To begin the automatic installation of graphics adapter drivers and the Catalyst Control Center software package, set the installation type switch to "Fast" and press the button "Further".

If you are installing AMD drivers and software for the first time, you will need to create a folder into which the components will be copied. The directory will be created automatically after clicking the button "Yes" in the corresponding request window. You will also need to accept the terms of the License Agreement by clicking the appropriate button.

Before starting the file copying procedure, the system will be analyzed for the presence of a graphics adapter and its parameters for installing the latest version of drivers.

The further process is fully automated,

you just need to wait for the installation to complete and click the button "Ready" in the final installer window.

The final stage is a system reboot, which will begin immediately after pressing the button "Yes" in the request window for the operation.

After the reboot, you can check whether the driver is present in the system by opening "Device Manager".

Driver Update

Software is developing at a fairly serious pace and AMD video card drivers are no exception. The manufacturer is constantly improving the software and therefore you should not neglect updates. In addition, Catalyst Control Center provides all the possibilities for this.

As you can see, despite the importance of drivers in the functioning of Advanced Micro Devices video cards, installing and updating them using Catalyst Control Center turns into a simple procedure, which usually does not cause difficulties even for novice users.

Good day, ladies and gentlemen, acquaintances, readers and other individuals! Let's try today configure video card.

You and I have already talked a lot about drivers, from this to all sorts of and all sorts of other differences. Today we will continue this topic and talk about more detailed settings.

We will talk about fiddling with driver settings using the example of AMD Radeon (ATI) video cards using the utility built into them. Here we won’t talk about temperatures (because we talked about it), overclocking a video card (because we talked about it) and fan speed (because we also talked about it), but we’ll look at the functionality of the software included in the kit and a bunch of different settings (which , including in games-applications).

By the way, even if you have a card not from this manufacturer, you should read the article in order to know and, by analogy, be able to configure all sorts of anisotropic filtering, anti-aliasing, morphological sampling and filtering, triple buffering and much more.

So, key to start, let's move.

Introductory verbiage

Attention ! Here and further, part of the meaningless (water) text, when updating the article, was saved insofar as there is a lot of it and there is no desire to completely rewrite (or delete) for various reasons, and the original author of the text was different. Keep this in mind. For the rest, the content will help you (it is clickable).

I think I’m not lying if I assume that many who read the project’s website, no, no, and even sin in their free minute to sit down with their favorite game in order to plunge into the colorful world of virtual reality.

But this is not a problem; our wishes (the hardware under the hood of a PC) do not always coincide with the system requirements of newly released toys. But you still want to play the game, and not just anyhow, but to even have something move and say on the screen, and not slow down and lag. What to do in this situation?

With every release of a modern toy, shouldn’t you buy a new hardware for your computer, and, in particular, as the most important component of modern video games? I don’t know about you, but I have no desire to give my hard-earned money for just 1-2 hours of virtual pleasure a week.

At first glance, it may seem that there is no way out other than throwing money into the hardware, but there is one, and it’s very free and quite effective, and it’s called setting up the video card drivers for maximum performance. From you, as a user, all that is required is straight hands :) and this note.

So, good gentlemen, let's start squeezing all the juices out of our video camera by setting up its hardware. First of all, I would like to say that this particular article will be dedicated to users who have a video card from AMD under the hood of their PC, i.e. Radeon workers. However, those readers who cast their votes for NVIDIA don’t have to worry either, we’ll prepare an even more delicious article for you.

Actually, let's get to the point.

Introduction to the topic and article

Due to the fact that the article is periodically updated and kept up to date (as far as possible), but is not completely rewritten, here you can find two versions of the described drivers and settings for.

One of them talks about “old” drivers for the corresponding cards and software, as well as for the internal layer and interface (sometimes you can get to it on certain systems, types of drivers, etc.), i.e. we’re talking about which you can see above.

The second version (under a different subtitle) describes the visual and logical appearance of the newer version, namely AMD Radeon Software (aka, at different times, Crimson, Crimson Relive, etc., etc.). You can see it below (clickable):

One way or another, regardless of the type of software used (both the first and the second are just the driver environment), the settings (by which we mean the same samples, shader cache, anisotropic filtering and much more), in their semantic content , are similar and they play a key role.

Therefore, the latter are included in a separate subheading, the content after which is the most general (including for all video cards) and relevant.

Video card driver settings separately from versions and interfaces

What you need to understand here (and further) before setting up:

If you cannot tell the difference by eye, then you do not need to set the maximum value for anything or look for which one is better, etc., etc., because it will be letters for the sake of letters, numbers for the sake of numbers, and so on;
If everything works quickly and you don’t encounter any corners or irregularities, then you simply don’t need any higher values;
If everything works slowly, then and only then is it worth fiddling with the settings, methods, degrees and methods;
What is slow and fast, angles and roughness, everyone decides for themselves, because it depends on the resolution of the monitor, its response speed, the application and subjective feelings (to some, “ladders” seem to be the norm, to others, on the contrary, 16X MSAA is not enough).

Now about the settings themselves.

Anti-aliasing mode

defines the levels, degree and method of smoothing surfaces in 3D applications:

Eliminates ladders (corners) on screens of various models;
A driver (not in an application) usually has three global values: use application settings, enhance them, or override them;
When overriding and improving, it allows you to select the degree of anti-aliasing (2X, 4X, 8X, etc., etc., in particular values like 2xEQ, etc.) on which quality and performance directly depend (stronger anti-aliasing -> requires more resources ->
In the applications themselves (not the driver), you can often (for some time now) choose a method (type, option, method, call it what you want) - SSAA, MSAA, CSAA, NFAA, FXAA, DLAA, MLAA, SMAA, TXAA and so on;
The difference in degrees and methods can be quickly and easily found in search engines (preferably in an image search) or you can determine it by eye in one application or another.

Smoothing method

Defines the method (technology, type, option, method, call it what you want) that is used for smoothing:

Conventionally, it has three gradations (in the driver settings): multiple sampling, adaptive sampling, redundant sampling (application settings are described above);
The quality and performance directly depend on the method (stronger anti-aliasing -> requires more resources -> if there are not enough of them, then less performance);
It is recommended to use the adaptive option, but change it if there are performance problems and/or insufficient anti-aliasing when using degrees smoothing.

Morphological (not to be confused with anisotropic) filtering

An additional method for smoothing and filtering an image. “Little known”, rarely used, redundant:

Theoretically, it should improve image quality, but in practice it often has a negative impact on performance at the cost of questionable anti-aliasing improvements;
Very crookedly speaking, it deals not so much with smoothing, but with blurring the final image and its additional filtering. After applying the methods described above, for a more complete understanding (I’m not sure that you need it), you can try reading (English);
For the above reasons, as well as due to the often rather negative consequences (loss, brakes, etc.), it is worth leaving it turned off (in fact, it has two positions (on-off).

Anisotropic filtering mode

Improves the quality of textures and images in general by filtering texture images on surfaces that are very (and not so) tilted relative to the camera:

The driver (not in the application) usually has two global values: use application settings or override;
As in the case of anti-aliasing, we can have 2X, 4X, 8X, etc., which determines the quality of filtering;
The principle is based on using several copies of the same texture with different details and constructing the number of texels (the minimum unit of texture of a three-dimensional object, if you like - a texture pixel) along the viewing direction and averaging their color. Places a heavy load on video memory (requires high throughput, which in turn is determined by );
Since certain years (from about 2007) it has almost no negative effect on performance, but has a positive effect on image quality, which is why X16 and older are used everywhere.

Surface format optimization

As in the case of morphological filtering, this is an additional filtering method, only in this case, not anti-aliasing, but textures.

Theoretically, like anisotropic filtering, it should improve image quality by additionally filtering textures;
Practically (and visually) it is noticeably small; the effect on performance is usually questionable, but it may affect stability. It is recommended to avoid using this setting again.

Wait for vertical update (aka vertical sync, aka V-Sync)

Synchronizes the frame rate (FPS) with the monitor refresh rate:

The driver (not in the application) usually has four global values: always disabled, disabled (unless specified by the application), enabled (unless specified by the application), always enabled;
In rare cases, it allows you to avoid rare, fast, visually unnoticeable “strips” that seem to break the image into two components that flow quickly and are even familiar to some (some do not encounter them at all or do not notice them);
Sold by marketers as a miracle of miracles, increasing image smoothness and everything else;
In fact, by limiting FPS (especially if it is lower than the frame rate of the monitor as such) it usually has a negative impact on performance with extremely dubious benefit;
Statements about reducing noise, energy consumption, etc., by limiting performance to this value, are far-fetched, because in the modern world and under normal conditions, the video card itself changes frequencies, power consumption, rotation speed and much more, without artificial restrictions. Double V-Sync is generally nonsense, but that’s not what we’re talking about now;
In connection with the above, it is recommended to always keep it switched off. If you really, by eye, in this particular game-situation-configuration see a visual benefit after turning it on and off, then turn it on.

OpenGL triple buffering (and more)

Exaggeratedly, it is an input/output buffer that speeds up the speed of access to generated data:

Frames are drawn at a frequency lower or higher than the screen refresh rate, the finished ones (generated by the equipment before they were requested back by the program that sent them for generation) are placed in a buffer (storage, so to speak), and the next frame is sent for calculation, thus reducing the delay + the program does not need to poll the hardware to receive screen update events and the algorithm can be freely executed as quickly as possible;
Accordingly, there is double buffering (this is usually used), there is triple (exactly what we are describing now), double uses two buffers, triple uses three (maybe more, but this no longer makes a noticeable difference);
Dual: If the system has two buffers, A and B, it can display buffer B while simultaneously forming a new image in buffer A, but must wait for the buffers to change due to the delay in image generation;
Triple: If the system has three buffers: A, B and C, it does not need to wait for the buffers to change. It can display buffer B, forming an image in buffer A, a little more detail.
What to do: it’s worth turning it on, despite the restrictions.

Shader cache

Allows you to store compiled shaders in a cache, which can sometimes significantly speed up processing, reduce the load on the CPU and GPU, operating immediately with ready-made data without unnecessary compilation and taking it from storage.

There is a value "off" or " optimized by AMD" (in other cards the setting may not exist, be called differently or enabled by default) - disabling it is often not recommended, as this allows you to achieve smoother video without unnecessary delays in rendering, i.e. leave the optimized or enabled position. .

Tessellation mode and tessellation itself

This is the thing responsible for the global improvement of the picture. At a basic level, it is a method of breaking polygons into smaller parts.

Applying tessellation to a rough model (on the left) allows you to create a smoother model (in the same picture, but in the middle), using displacement maps (in the same picture, but on the right) gives the characters cinematic level realism.

Within the driver there are three options: AMD optimized, use application settings and override application settings;
Most often it’s worth leaving as is, but more often, if for some reason the FPS in a game with lower requirements (with a more powerful card) is small, and there are also strange slowdowns, freezes (freezing) and drawdowns where they shouldn’t be, here it makes sense to use application settings and/or even manual override mode;
Override allows you to set levels from 2x to 64x and higher, or disable it altogether. The level sets the same crushing and directly affects the performance and quality of the picture. With this value, it makes sense to play with this parameter if something goes wrong. Yes and so too.

Energy efficiency

Allows you to chew an order of magnitude less energy at the cost of lost productivity:

Turn it off if you need performance. Perhaps that's all that's worth saying here.

Frame rate control

Allows you to select and set a frame rate limit in the application, supposedly, as in the case of vertical synchronization, to add smoothness to the video sequence.

In fact, few people need it and why, except in cases of the opposite - when the application artificially (by settings that cannot be changed) limits the frame rate, here you can try to override this value with a slider, which allows, in rare cases, to remove this limitation and work at full (or the value you specified).

Perhaps, from the general settings, this is all that is worth knowing. Let's go through the interfaces of specific software, as well as Overdrive and Wattman.

How to configure a video card using "old" software - Catalyst Control Center

During the process of installing/updating drivers (or, if you have already bought a ready-made PC with a pre-installed OS), in addition to the module itself, which is responsible for displaying pictures on the monitor screen, an additional module called Catalyst Control Center (ACCC).

This software shell is a control center for working with video adapters and allows you to perform any manipulations with both the settings of the card itself and the connected monitor.

By default, ACCC rests in the tray on the desktop as a small icon (see image).

However, for some reason you may not find the control center icon in the standard place, then in order to start working with ACCC you need to update your drivers for your video card.

This can be done in different ways, but I prefer to do this using a special free utility from AMD called amddriverdownloader (old name).

For those who don’t know, this is a technology for automatically detecting (searching and detecting) the latest versions of drivers from the manufacturer. Its advantages are that it is understandable, convenient, free, and automates the process of searching and downloading drivers. The disadvantages are that it does not always do it correctly, like any automated system.

Thanks to this, you no longer need to go to the manufacturer’s website, search for the desired video adapter model, and enter your OS and bit depth. You simply download the utility, run it at any time and it itself determines whether there is anything new based on your firewood and downloads the required distribution to your PC. So, to start working with ACCC, we update the drivers through the utility by going to the official website in the Download section and clicking on “Download”.

After downloading, you launch the standard installation of firewood, along with which you will receive our hero of the occasion today - the control center. To enter it, you need to right-click on the icon (red-gray AMD) of the desktop tray and click on the corresponding inscription.

Essentially, ACCC is nothing more than a user interface for installing, configuring and accessing the functions of AMD Radeon video cards and AMD hybrid processors. This application provides video settings to adjust display settings, display profiles and picture quality.

ACCC plays a very important role in the functioning of your video card and allows you to add the necessary fps (parrots) in games. That is, with it you can run a game or application that is initially more demanding on the characteristics of your PC at a quite decent flying level and, in particular, video cards.

Note:
ATI Technologies, known for producing computer processors, developed the Catalyst Control Center (CCC) to complement the Radeon line of video cards. The utility became available for the first time on R series video cards. After AMD acquired ATI, the utility began (in the old version) to be called .

Immediately after launching the center, click on the “Options” button (above the question mark) and select the item – “ Expanded View” (see image). Thus, we move to a more advanced mode with more settings and a more convenient interaction interface.

In the parameters tab you may also be interested in the item “ Enable taskbar menu” – is responsible for whether or not to display the tray icon and “ Restore factory settings” – rollback to clean settings, in case you changed something in optimization :).

Also, by clicking on the question mark, you will call up extensive help on the control center, where you can study all the settings of the utility up and down.

So, as the name of the utility suggests, " Control center" - it acts as a hub for all options and functions related to the AMD graphics card. By launching ACCC, users have access to various functions:

Desktop management;
Setting up digital panels/display;
Setting up video picture parameters;
Setting up 3D applications;
Performance management, AMD OverDrive - CPU and GPU overclocking.

Let's look at the main points of the settings and go through the most important tabs of the AMD Catalyst control center.

The first thing I would like to draw attention to is the point “ Desktop properties" in the drop-down menu “ Desktop management" It allows you to change the size, screen refresh rate, color quality and rotation of the desktop.

Here we are interested in the settings under the numbers (1, 2, 3). It is necessary to set (if they were automatically determined incorrectly) the correct resolution, bit depth (color quality), screen refresh rate, and also set the orientation (landscape or portrait).

To do this, you need to get the documentation (specification for the monitor) and find there the values of the first and third characteristics in the section “ Technical parameters of the monitor”.

There are many settings here and all of them, to one degree or another, are responsible for the beauty of the image, i.e. brightness, color, contrast and similar parameters. It must be said that in most cases the standard center settings are quite satisfactory and do not require any special custom adjustments.

Therefore, it is better not to change them, because changing one will lead to a disruption of the overall balance and a change in a bunch of related parameters. In other words, even small modifications can lead to the image “floating away”. Useful settings for us here will be the “Quality” tab: video quality and deinterlacing.

We need to set the following checkboxes (see image):

"Dynamic Contrast" is an automatic brightness adjustment depending on the picture on the monitor. Responsible for better display of rapidly changing scenes, for example, when watching movies or playing dynamic games.
“Deinterlacing” is the removal of interlacing or the “comb effect” when watching a video. If we exaggerate, then the comb effect is the moving apart of a moving object, i.e. when on the monitor screen there are two frame fields at once, offset relative to each other. Deinterlacing eliminates this effect.

Also, for a smoother video playback process, you need to check the “frame change detection” box in the video stream when using deinterlacing.

In the “Video” tab there are other settings that deserve our attention and these are:

AMD Steady Video – stabilization of shaky images;
Global video quality;
Accelerated video conversion.

If your home video is shaking (as if after a big day :)), then you need to check the box next to AMD Steady Video. Setting “ Global video quality” –> “Force smooth video” allows you to ensure smooth playback of the video stream without dropping frames. Let's put a tick there.

Setting “ Accelerated video conversion” allows you to connect the resources of your graphics equipment to the video conversion process. Check the box “ Enable hardware acceleration”, if you often encode videos using various players and want to speed up this process.

So, now let’s jump over the two points “Games” and “ performance” and let’s look at the “Information” tab. Actually, there is nothing unusual here, standard information from the manufacturer.

On the AMD home page tab, we are interested in the “Check for driver updates” item, which allows you to download the latest drivers to your computer, i.e. update their version and the Catalyst control center core itself.

In order for the “woodpile” to load, you need to click on the blue arrow and the driver update process will start.

The next two tabs are “Programs” and “ Hardware devices" They provide an opportunity to learn in detail about the system’s hardware devices, graphics adapter, and generally obtain information about the system (the “ button System Information”).

We've sorted out the basic setup. Let's now take a look at the performance and overclocking options that live in the OverDrive section.

OverDrive in the "old" version of AMD driver software

If you are an avid gamer and own a video card from AMD, then you have the right to count on some increase in its power completely free of charge. The optimal and correct setting will help you squeeze out the treasured fps in games and add speed in various 3D applications. There are two settings responsible for this in the control center: “ Performance” and “Games”.

Let's look at them in more detail and start in order.

AMD OverDrive technology is a development by AMD, designed to overclock a video card and graphics processor at the driver level. To start using it, you must read and accept the terms of the license agreement (see image).

I think the question is frozen on your lips: “ What can AMD OverDrive do and how is it useful for me as a user?" I answer, she:

It has sets of preset parameters for beginners and overclocking enthusiasts. You can easily select a pre-configured memory profile to achieve optimal DDR3 memory performance. You can also manually control performance settings from the BIOS and create custom profiles for specific applications;
Through automatic frequency adjustment makes overclocking even faster and easier;
Allows you to control fan speed to improve performance;
Allows you to control all your performance settings, including memory clock speed, voltage and timings.

After accepting the license terms and warning that if you are weak, it is better not to overclock (:)), the following window pops up.

Here you can play with the settings and add parrots to applications. This method works as follows. We change any of the parameters by several units, go into the 3D application, launch the FPS meter, and if there is an increase in parrots and everything works stably, then we leave these parameters. Otherwise, we roll back to the default parameters (key E) and change the parameters more carefully until we find a stable-increased combination of settings.

Note:
For the changes to take effect and affect system performance, you must check the “ Enable Graphics Drive”.

These are the results (in performance gains) I was able to achieve simply by playing with the video card settings and (to a lesser extent) processor frequencies.

The default settings were as follows:

...and the number of fps in the game Metro Last Light Redux (1080p resolution, very high settings) was:

And here’s what they were changed to (on the map):

...and the number of FPS in the game Metro Last Light Redux with the same graphics settings is:

In total, we have 41 versus 44 - quite a decent result for a couple of movements with the settings of the card and (to a lesser extent) the processor. If you sit carefully and also twist the processor properly, then you can definitely knock out 5-7 extra parrots.

Note:
In addition to the video card, you can also overclock the processor using AMD OverDrive. However, it must be from AMD.

As you hopefully remember, there is still one more item on the agenda: setting up 3D applications. To start working with them, go to the corresponding ACC menu:

We see the attachment “ System parameters”, and in it there is a table with two columns: “Features” and “Settings”. At the bottom you can add a gaming application (the “Add” button) in .exe format and set the graphics parameters for a specific game (application), i.e., the so-called profile.

You set the local settings (smoothing, filtering, sampling and everything else) based on what is written below, i.e. in the first half of the article under the appropriate subtitle.

How to configure a Radeon video card using the "new" software - AMD (ATI) Software (Crimson and beyond)

If you have a brand new card, the latest system and drivers, then most likely you already have the latest version of the software installed to work with driver settings. It is much more visual, concise and contains very few tabs ( Games, Video, Relive, Display and System), each of which allows you to control the video card in an extremely clear way.

The "Games" section is responsible for managing the basic performance settings that are listed above, that is, in the first half of the article under the appropriate subtitle.

The "Video" tab is responsible for setting color, brightness and contrast for video and everything that accompanies it. There are several preset profiles, the result of which is visible, as they say, on the fly (start the video and point the mouse at the profile).

Relive, if installed, allows you to capture video and manage the settings that go with it. We won’t comment on anything here, since that’s not what we’re talking about here.

The "Display" section allows you to manage resolution settings, change the color temperature of the monitor, so to speak, programmatically, set ultra-high resolution, scaling, etc.

The last section, which is called "System" and contains the tabs "Overview", " Software" and "Hardware", will help you find out the current driver version, frequencies, name of the video card, its detailed characteristics and some of the computer parameters.

As you can see, everything here is much more concise and convenient.

Setting up Wattman in the “new” version of driver software from AMD (ATI)

In the games section there are two subsections, one of which is responsible for global settings, the second for deeper ones (overclocking), which, the section, is called (at the time of updating the article) Wattman, which replaced Overdrive.

If you decide to overclock and change frequencies, then go to this section and agree with the warning, which tells you that everything you do is done at your own peril and risk, you may lose your warranty, etc. (in general, read the text ).

Next you will see a large sheet (you can stretch the window with the mouse), the first section of which is responsible for monitoring the state (frequency, temperature, cooler speed, etc.) over time (i.e., at the first start it may be empty, you should wait).

The second section allows you to change frequencies simply and quickly by pulling the slider to the desired percentage and, at the same time, seeing how this affects different states and voltages. The voltage can be set manually, but this is strongly not recommended. The percentages should be increased slowly (preferably 1% at a time), after each of which, test the video card for stability for a long time, trying to achieve the maximum increase with maximum stability.

The third section similarly adjusts the values for memory frequency and memory voltage (which should also not be changed manually if you are not an experienced overclocker), thereby overclocking it too. It is worth overclocking the parameters one by one (separately the frequency and separately the memory), and then try to link them together, because one depends on the other (see).

The last section allows you to control the rotation speed of the cooling system coolers, depending on the temperature (right side) and within a given speed range (RPM) (from minimum to maximum + acoustic limit).

This is probably all that is worth knowing and can be known here. We still recommend managing speed and overclocking through Afterburner, a detailed article on this topic.

Well, that’s probably all the settings that can be tweaked to improve the “flyability” and better “performance” of 3D applications.

So that you can get a clearer picture of all of the above in your head, I will give a general reminder, a reminder called “ How to improve graphics performance for games?”:

Today we have fully understood the topic of setting up video card drivers. I am sure that now each of you will be able to do this correctly and, if necessary, squeeze extra parrots out of your graphic babies :)

As always, if you have any questions, additions, thoughts, etc., you are welcome to comment on this post.

PS: Thanks to team member 25 KADR for the original existence of this article

Catalyst Control Center is software released by AMD that is designed to manage and configure video cards (AMD brand only). This software is a single control center that does not require additional work programs and includes all the necessary tools.
The Catalyst Control Center program allows you to fine-tune the video card's operating parameters and monitors driver updates, which it downloads and installs automatically from the official AMD website. If you own an AMD video card, then you just need to download this program to properly configure and increase the performance of your video card for comfortable work.

Unfortunately, this software is no longer released and supported. In December 2014, AMD released a major update to the Catalyst Omega drivers, and almost a year later decided to permanently abandon the previous brand, which it had used for thirteen years. Thus, the Catalyst Control Center program is no longer supported since 2015, in its place a new software was released, Radeon Software Crimson Edition, which is still relevant today and has a set of the latest drivers with more advanced functionality.

Many people continue to use Catalyst Control Center to configure their video cards, since this program has a very simple and intuitive interface with all the necessary tools.

Main functionality:

Performance tuning.
Desktop management.
Performance settings for working and watching videos.
Configuring switching between two GPUs.
Gaming performance tuning.
Video card power management.
Driver update.
Notification about innovations in updated drivers.
General information about the video card.
CPU frequency control.
Control and configuration of more than one monitor.

Due to the constant updating of drivers for its video cards by AMD, it was necessary to adjust the parameters of its video card for optimal and maximum performance with different programs and games, which is exactly what you need the Catalyst Control Center program for.

This software can help you even if you have a fairly old video card; the program will help you properly configure the video card and achieve optimal performance with programs and slightly increase FPS in games.

This application independently monitors all changes in updated video card drivers and notifies the user about this.

Catalyst Control Center will also help you connect and configure 2 or more monitors to one or more video cards.

You may have encountered that the monitor is dim and does not convey colors and contrast very well; using this program you can adjust these parameters yourself, bypassing the standard monitor settings.

Having understood the full meaning and functionality of the Catalyst Control Center program, you can clearly understand that if you own a computer or laptop built on the AMD platform, you simply need to install this application in order to use it to configure and control your computer or video card.

Installation

First, we need to download this software from the official website, for this follow the link:

https://support.amd.com/en-us/kb-articles/Pages/latest-catalyst-windows-beta.aspx#

In the window that opens, click on the link that corresponds to the version and bitness of your operating system, after which the installation package will be downloaded. This software is suitable for Windows 7/8/8.1/10 operating systems with X64 and x32 bit depth.

After you have downloaded Catalyst Control Center, run the installer and go through all the installation steps. When selecting the installation type, select “Quick installation”. With this option, the installer will check whether the drivers for your video card are installed and install the Catalyst Control Center software itself.

After the installation is complete, restart the computer and launch the program.

When you first launch the program, it can take quite a long time to launch, so we must be patient and wait.

This completes the installation of the Catalyst Control Center software.

Checking for video card driver updates

Catalyst Control Center independently monitors driver updates for your video card. In order to check the update and driver version, go to the “Information” menu and select “Software Update”.

In the tab that opens, click “Check for updates.” If updated drivers are detected, a window will appear asking you to download from, click the “Download Now” button and the program will automatically download and install them.

Tune performance to your requirements

The first thing you need to do when you first start it is change the standard window view to an expanded one. This can be done in the Options menu, which is located in the upper right corner. In the drop-down menu, select the “Advanced View” option.

This way, all the configuration tools in this program will become available to us.

It is worth remembering that if you are using a computer that is completely built on the AMD platform, then you must have 2 graphics cores, built-in (built-in video core in the processor) and discrete (video card). In this case, when configuring the system through the Catalyst Control Center program, the parameters marked “Energy Saving” will apply to the video core built into the processor, and all parameters marked “High Performance” will apply to the discrete video card that is connected to the PCI express slot.

Settings for viewing videos and photos

In order to configure the operation and color rendering of your video card when watching movies, you need to open the “Video” section and go to the “Color (energy-saving graphics adapters)” tab, check the settings in the “Custom” section.

After that, use the tools to adjust the picture to the parameters that you like best.

Next, in the “Video” menu, select the next tab “Quality (energy-saving graphics adapters)”. In this window, we remove all checkboxes from all items except “Deinterlacing”, so as not to overload the GPU and increase the number of FPS when watching high-quality 2K and 4K video.

The next step in setting up video and photo viewing options is the “AMD Steady Video” section in the “Video” menu. This function allows you to stabilize shaky video that was filmed while moving. This option will reduce the degree of video jitter for comfortable viewing, but it will also put an extra load on the graphics adapter, so I advise you to deactivate this option if your video card is low-power.

As for the “Color (High-Performance Graphics Adapters)” and “Quality (High-Performance Graphics Adapters)” sections, we set the parameters in the same way.
And at the end of setting the parameters for viewing videos and photos, in the “Accelerated video conversion” section, check the “Enable hardware acceleration” checkbox. This option will allow you to relieve the graphics processor when playing high-format videos, or when editing and creating videos using special programs.

Setting up for games

In order to adjust the performance of your video card in games, you need to go to the “Games” menu and adjust the 3D graphics settings in applications one by one. To do this, we need to open the sections “3D Application Settings (Energy-Saving Graphics Adapters)” and “3D Application Settings (High-Performance Graphics Adapters)”; in fact, in these sections we configure graphics in games for different models of video cards.

It is worth noting the “AMD Radeon Dual Graphics” section; this option was developed by AMD specialists and, provided that your computer is based on the AMD platform, allows you to enable multiple graphics processors to work together to improve graphics quality and performance. I advise you to enable this feature, as it significantly increases the performance of the video card in games and applications that require accelerated graphics processing.

System Performance Tuning

In order to adjust the performance of the entire system, we need to open the “Performance” menu and select “CPU Power”. If you are using a computer, then set the processor frequency to the maximum value. If you are the owner of an AMD-based laptop, then you should approach this setting more subtly, since we will have 2 options for adjusting the processor frequency.

From battery. This parameter should be configured taking into account that when setting the maximum parameter, the battery discharge rate will increase, since the processor will consume more electricity. Therefore, if you want to extend the battery life of your laptop, do not set it to the maximum value.
Connected. This parameter can be set to the maximum value to increase CPU performance if your laptop is connected to the network and is not using battery resources.

Switching between these modes occurs automatically. Please note that the processor temperature may increase with these settings.

As for the “AMD OverDrive” item, this parameter allows the Catalyst Control Center program to independently examine all overclocking options for your central processor and accept the most suitable ones to increase performance. Also, in some versions of AMD OverDrive drivers, you can control the rotation speed of video card or laptop coolers. I advise you to disable this option and manually configure these parameters in the “CPU Power” section described above.

Power Settings

In this section, you can fine-tune the power settings for laptops, namely power consumption when using the laptop from the network or from the battery. If you are the owner of a computer, then I advise you to set such parameters as “PowerPlay”, “Global switchable graphics parameters” to “Maximum performance”. When choosing such parameters, the system will not save energy.

If you have discrete and integrated graphics from the same AMD brand, then when you use the “Maximum Performance” setting, the system will always play graphics from the discrete video card. If you select another option, then the system will switch between two video cards to save power, which can have a bad effect on gaming performance, but will increase battery life.

Let’s take a closer look at the “Switchable graphics settings” item. In this section, you can configure specific performance settings and the use of the desired graphics core separately for each installed application on your computer. Thus, for games or applications that play high-definition video, you can set the “high-performance” parameters, and for applications that do not require good graphic processing, and in order not to overload the system once again, you can set the “Energy Saving” parameter, which will tell the system to use for These applications have a built-in video chip.

When you use the Application Monitor feature, located in the Switchable Graphics Adapters Application Monitor, you can set the graphics adapters to automatically switch between applications.

We looked at the parameters in which it is possible to configure the performance of your video card to the maximum value. As for the remaining sections, this will be briefly described below, since their settings will not affect system performance.

Reasons and solution for Catalyst Control Center not starting

There may be several reasons why Catalyst Control Center stopped starting. Let's look at common causes and methods for solving them.

Outdated drivers. One of the reasons that the program has stopped starting may be outdated drivers, as a result of which there is a conflict between the Catalyst Control Center and the video card drivers and it cannot be launched. The solution to this problem may be updating the drivers; to do this, go to the official AMD website and install the latest version drivers for your video card.

Incompatibility. The same reason that startup does not occur may be an incorrectly installed version of the Catalyst Control Center software.
The solution to this problem is to remove and install the correct software that is suitable for your operating system. To do this, check the bitness and version of your Windows OS, then go to the official website and download the version that suits you.

Antivirus programs. The reason could also be that Catalyst Control Center is blocked by antivirus programs.
The solution to this problem may be to temporarily disable your antivirus program or add Catalyst Control Center to the exclusion list.

Damage to program files. You may have mistakenly deleted some files in the Catalyst Control Center program directory, or your antivirus program may have done this for you. Also, do not discount the possibility that the hard drive sectors were damaged.

The solution for this reason may be to completely uninstall and reinstall the software.

If the startup problem could not be resolved and the error “AMD Catalyst Control Center cannot start at this time” remains, then you should update all drivers in your Windows OS.

How to remove this software

To remove AMD Catalyst Control Center, you should use a standard Windows tool.
To do this, open the control panel. To open the control panel, press the Win+R key combination and in the “Run” line that opens, enter the “control” command.

In the control panel window that opens, click on “Uninstall a program.”

Find the Catalyst Control Center program, right-click on it and select “Change” from the drop-down menu.

In the installation wizard that opens, select “Quick removal of ALL AMD software components” and click next.

We wait for the removal to complete, after which we restart the computer.

Conclusion

After reading this article, you have become familiar with AMD software, the AMD Catalyst Control Center. With this program, you can make the most effective settings for your video card to improve performance in games or when watching high-format videos and films. The big advantage of this program is the ability to configure the system using more than one GPU.

As of today, AMD Catalyst Control Center is no longer supported by AMD due to the release of the new Radeon Software Crimson Edition, which adds new features and configuration tools. But even after this, many continue to use it, since it has a very convenient and intuitive interface with a set of all the necessary tools.

If you are the owner of an old AMD video card and want to run applications that require high graphics processing, then you should resort to adjusting the video card parameters through the AMD Catalyst Control Center to improve performance.