The Unofficial ATT Tweaks Thread

[Decane]

***Brief FAQ***

What is this thread for?
- The purpose of this thread is to serve as a general reference for people who wish to learn more about/discuss the Standard and Advanced Tweaks in ATI Tray Tools, as well as the various tweaks scattered throughout the OpenGL and Direct3D sections. I encourage anyone and everyone with any amount of experience with ATT's tweaks to share their experiences in this thread.

Do the tweaks discussed here really improve performance?
- They do on lower end/mid-range video cards, but not much on higher end cards. The tweaks discussed here are really more to do with ensuring maximum compatibility than performance, and their main purpose is therefore to increase stability. Granted, if you go fiddling with the wrong settings and/or don't know what you're doing, you'll probably end up doing more harm than good, defeating the purpose of tweaking. This is why it's important to read this guide with great care, and not just enable the tweaks I have enabled.

But my drivers are already stable, I just want more performance!
- In this case, you should try modded drivers. Omega and DNA are the most popular, but there are also others you can try, such as NGO, DHzer0Point and WarCat. These drivers generally improve performance by quite a bit, while still maintaining a good level of image quality and stability. And what's best, you can still implement the tweaks discussed here even if you have a modded driver installed. Do note however that modded drivers are not supported by ATI, and ATI is therefore not responsible for any potential damage which may occur to your system as a result of using modded drivers, and neither are the developers of the drivers.

Enabling these tweaks had no impact on performance! Explain!
- The performance improvements are case-sensitive.

***General Tweaks***

Anisotropic/Trilinear Filtering Optimizations: These are texture filtering optimizations which you can use to improve performance in games where Trilinear filtering and/or Anisotropic filtering is enabled. Enabling these will have the most profound effect on performance with slower graphics cards, and might result in a very slight image quality drop, though this shouldn't be noticeable in most cases. For best performance, both of these should be ticked.

Sources:
TweakGuides.com: ATI Catalyst Tweak Guide
Guru3D Forum: Triple Buffering and Anisotropic Filtering Optimization.


From my experience, these optimizations do not improve performance. This is somewhat expectable however, as my GPU does not take a very large performance hit from AF as it is. If you own an X1650-series card or lower, enabling both of these may improve performance by up to 10-15% depending on the game and the resolution you're running the game at (a higher resolution constitutes more pixels to be sampled, increasing the performance hit from AF, and thus also proportionally increasing the potential performance improvement brought about by the optimizations). Generally, the older your card is, the more benefit you will see from using these optimizations.


Flip Queue Size: This setting controls how many frames the GPU should render ahead (hence the nomenclature of its nVidia counterpart: "Max Frames to Render Ahead") and temporarily store in a 'queue', ready to be displayed. The default value of this setting is "Undefined" (which equals to 3). In general, the higher this setting, the higher the potential fps gain. Note however that setting this excessively high can cause noticeable input lag, so it's generally not recommended to set it above 3.

Sources:
TweakGuides.com: ATI catalyst Tweak Guide
Rage3D Forum: Flip Queue Size


This setting is two-barreled. If you are sensitive to mouse lag, I would personally suggest trying a value of 2 first, and if it introduces intolerable input lag, try 1 or even 0 (which is my preferred setting). If you are one of the lucky individuals who rarely notices input lag, set it to 3 first, and even 4 or 5 if you still don't notice input lag. As Koroush Ghazi of TweakGuides.com wrote in his ATI Catalyst Tweak Guide, the higher this setting, the higher the framerate. Another Guru3D-member, AXS, wrote:

I personally recommend setting it to 2 - It's another bonus which might improve your game play

... Hence enforcing my suggestion of setting it to 2 initially.


Force to use Triple Buffers: This option is associated with Vertical Synchronization (= Vsync). Vsync is a technique which improves the image quality of 3D graphics by removing "tearing", the misalignment of the top and bottom portions of your screen. It comes with one huge drawback however: It limits the framerate to a display's refresh rate frequency, thus decreasing performance by a very noticeable amount in some cases. Triple Buffering is a technique which should be used in conjunction with Vsync, as it essentially eliminates the performance hit caused by Vsync while still retaining the positive effect on image quality provided by it, therefore bringing you the best of both worlds. You should not keep this setting enabled if you do not use Vsync, as Triple Buffering tends to consume some video memory, and may actually decrease performance as a result. In cases where Vsync is enabled, the benefits of enabling Triple Buffering usually outweigh the disadvantage brought about by its memory consumption.

Sources:
TweakGuides.com: ATI Catalyst Tweak Guide
[H]ardForum Forum: How VSync works, and why people loathe it
Wikipedia: Triple Buffering

Originally Posted by AXS

Force to use Triple Buffers: - can be found in game profiles for Direct3D and at additional settings for OpenGL, it's a good bonus if you have 256+ GDDR, some say it help with VSync on, I say it's great even with it off, you might get some extra FPS.

***Standard Tweaks***

Override Pixel/Vertex Shader Version: These options allow you to force a lower shader level than the maximum one supported by your GPU. Forcing a lower shader level may provide higher performance / greater compatibility in some older games, but will also degrade image quality, so these settings should be left alone in most cases.


Optimize Pixel Shader Code: Enables internal shader optimization for highly increased performance with no image quality loss. This setting should be enabled at all times, as disabling it will severely hurt performance and will not gain you any image quality to compensate for the performance loss.


Geometry Instancing: Infested Nexus, another Guru3D-member, gave a good definition for Geometry Instancing in this thread:

Originally Posted by Infested Nexus

Geometry Instancing is where the card is able to render an object once and then utilize special code to use that object again in the scene instead of fully processing it again. It is intended to give you a performance boost, which you may only notice in situation where for example there is a lot of realistic plant life to render.

Geometry Instancing should always be enabled for increased performance in games which take advantage of the technique (for example Far Cry).


Force Mip-Map Filter: Enabling this option should theoretically improve texture quality in some games, but many users have reported a contrary scenario. This setting also introduces some strange visual anomalies in certain games, and comes with a slight performance hit, so it is recommended to keep this disabled.


Z Compression Mode: Controls the level of compression applied on information held in the Z-Buffer. Enabling a higher level of compression should theoretically improve performance, but the chance of encountering visual anomalies will also be greater than with the default setting. From my experience, enabling a higher level of Z compression does nothing in the way of improving performance, and as a general piece of advice, I would recommend leaving this setting to default, as the default setting provides an optimal level of performance without any discernible image quality impact.


Fast Z Clear Enable: Enabling this will cause information stored in the Z-Buffer to be cleared more quickly, resulting in increased performance without image quality loss. Disabling it will degrade performance noticeably, so it is only recommended to disable this setting for troubleshooting purposes (if you are experiencing Hyper-Z related problems). Unticking this setting cut my Counter Strike: Source Stress Test framerate in half, so I strongly recommend that this setting be left enabled.


Z Mask Enable: Ticking this will enable a technique used to selectively remove unnecessary information from the Z-Buffer. Keep this setting enabled for optimal performance with no image quality loss.


Z Top Disable: In effect, this setting is equivalent to 'disable Hyper-Z'. Refer to the post below this one for a more explicit description.


VPU Recover: A tool with its primary aim being to prevent system hangs resulting from a graphics-related lock-up, forcing the user to restart their PC. VPU Recover being frequently triggered is a sign of system instability, and generally indicates a hardware issue/failure. It is recommended to keep this setting disabled, as VPU Recover has been reported to sometimes crash itself when enabled, and disabling it will hence improve overall system stability.


Disable DMA Copy: [no description]


Disable Block Write: Having block writing enabled results in the graphics driver waiting until a certain amount of graphics information is collected into the video memory before being displayed. This decreases performance if the information is being queued and not written immediately, as seems to be the case most of the time. Because of this, it is recommended that this setting be left enabled (ticked) in most cases. Note that some AGP boards may benefit from having this setting disabled (not ticked).


WMV Acceleration: Ticking this setting enables hardware accelerated Windows Media Video playback, and should be enabled in most cases.

***Advanced Registry Tweaks***

Advanced Direct3D Tweaks

Fog Options: According to Koroush Ghazi of TweakGuides.com, the Fog Options are diagnostics settings. I however claim that enabling them will increase compatibility with older games especially, and you should hence enable them all if you are certain that your video card supports them. Notice that enabling these will not force anything, but will merely add support for certain fog types. Only disable these if you are experiencing problems with a particular game or if your video card doesn't support them.


Export W Buffer: If ticked, enables W-Buffer support. The W-Buffer is a depth rendering technique much like the Z-Buffer, but results in more evenly distributed precision of the Z-Buffer's distance values, therefore potentially providing better image quality than the Z-Buffer in games that support it. It is recommended to tick this setting, as it doesn't force anything, but merely adds support for the W-Buffer.


Fast Color Clear: Ticking this setting enables a technique which clears color information more quickly from the frame buffer, resulting in increased performance without a discernible image quality drop. This should be enabled by default even if ATT doesn't detect its value. I recommend ticking it just to make sure.


VoltxEnable: Adds support for Volumetric Textures when enabled. Tick this for improved performance.


Color Compression: Ticking this enables a technique used to compress color information stored in the graphics memory, freeing video memory space, and thus resulting in increased performance. This should be enabled by default even if ATT doesn't detect its value. I recommend ticking it just to make sure.


Export MipMap Cube Maps: From the TweakGuides ATI Catalyst Tweak Guide:

Enabling this should provide support for Mipmap textures on Cube Maps. Cube Maps are a trick to show reflections of surroundings on static reflective object surfaces with minimal performance cost, and Mipmaps are a series of pre-scaled textures used to improve rendering performance as an object recedes into the distance.

This should be enabled by default even if ATT doesn't detect its value. I once again recommend ticking it just to make sure.


Export Signed Vol Textures: This setting presumably adds support for a texture type called "Signed Volume Textures" (whatever those are). I have tested this setting in several games, and have found no image quality- or performance impact from having it enabled. If you want to experiment, enable this setting and try your favorite games to see if you notice any performance improvement.


Line AA Enable: Ticking this will enable Line Anti-Aliasing, a technique used to smooth the edges of individual lines. Note that this setting does not add AA to any other objects besides standalone lines. This setting might result in a minor performance hit for a small improvement in image quality, so if you are after the absolute best performance, it is recommended that you disable this setting. Note: This setting appears to be limited to ATI's FireGL range of graphics cards, meaning that it has no effect on ATI's consumer graphics cards.


Enable Raster Guardband: From the TweakGuides ATI Catalyst Tweak Guide:

This option controls Hardware T&L Guard Band Clipping, which is an optimization technique to improve video performance by only clipping (removing) certain portions of the 3D world, and this in turn saves CPU time.

This setting should be enabled by default even if ATT doesn't detect its value. I recommend ticking it just to make sure.


Allow Macro Volume Textures: This setting presumably adds support for "Macro Volume Textures" (whatever those are). I have tested this setting in several games, and have found no image quality- or performance impact from having it enabled. If you want to experiment, enable this setting and try your favorite games to see if you notice any performance improvement.


Force Compressed Stencil Buffer: Enabling this setting forces information stored in the stencil buffer to be compressed. This may improve or degrade performance depending on the game. I have tested this setting in several games, and have not found it to have any noticeable impact on performance, so I recommend leaving it at default (disabled) initially.


Constant Compare Enable: [No description]


Support for Non power of two size textures: Enabling this option will add support for non-power of two size textures (the standard type of texture size), and should be enabled for maximum compatibility.


Tiling Settings: These settings control support for several texture tiling methods. Having these settings enabled can improve performance in some games, and it is thus recommended that you enable them all.

Advanced OGL Tweaks

Force Vertex Cache for Iris: [No description]


DitherAlpha: Enabling this setting dithers alpha textures in OpenGL-based games. This should result in smooth color-blending, as dithering creates the notion of a color missing from the color palette being displayed by combining different colors which are found in the color palette. Disabling this may improve performance, but will result in poorer color quality.


Disable AGP Blit: Blitting is a technique used in 2D games, and should not be disabled. Leave this setting alone.


Disable FGL AGP: Ticking this setting presumably disables ATI's FireGL card series' AGP function.


Export OpenGL 2.0 Procedures: Ticking this setting adds support for OpenGL 2.0 procedures, and it should therefore be enabled.

CCC Mode Switch

Enable Merged 3D Mode (Emulate Control Center): Enabling this setting causes the Direct3D and OpenGL sections of ATT to be merged into one '3D' section to emulate Catalyst Control Center behavior. Whether or not this setting should be enabled is a question of preference, though there is one drawback to enabling this which ought to be considered before switching to the merged 3D mode: If you set Catalyst AI to "Off" or "High" and/or you disable VPU Recover, they will be reverted back to their default values after the next reboot of your PC. Catalyst AI will return to "Low" and VPU Recover will be enabled again, but if you normally have Catalyst AI set to "Low" and don't mind VPU Recover being enabled, you can tick this setting to somewhat simplify your ATT interface.

Compatibility Tweaks

Do not touch these settings unless you know precisely what you're doing and why!

Display Tweaks

These tweaks are mainly for troubleshooting your display settings, and should generally be left alone, unless you are experiencing a display-related problem (the most common being the non-proper detection of your display). Most of these tweaks should be pretty self-explanatory. Below is an example scenario where these tweaks may be needed:

Problem: Help! I have a problem where if I enter a 3d application and use a resolution greater than 800*600, I cannot see part of the screen, as if it is leaking over the edges of my display!

Solution: I once had this problem, and it was due to my display not being correctly detected, as a result of which the non-DDC monitor restrictions were put into effect by the Catalyst driver. In order to solve this problem, all of the boxes under 'Display mode restrictions' should be unticked. This will ensure that even in such a scenario where the display isn't being detected at all, the image is not being disrupted by any driver-level restrictions. Note that the display mode restrictions act as a sort of "safety lock" so that the user cannot possibly destroy his/her display by assigning a resolution and/or refresh rate beyond the display's capability. This is why the display tweaks should be left alone if you are not experiencing any display-related problems which cannot otherwise be resolved.

Multi Thread Support

Enable MT Support: From the TweakGuides ATI Catalyst Tweak Guide:

If you have a multi-thread capable CPU, that is either a dual/multi core CPU, or a CPU with HyperThreading (virtual dual core) technology, you can enable this option for a potential performance improvement. You should leave the 'Minimum Working Threads' to 0 to start with, and set the 'Maximum Working Threads' to a value like 2 to start with. Play some recent 3D games and see if you get an actual improvement in performance, and also note if there is any additional instability caused. If it remains stable and you also notice a performance improvement, raise the Maximum value to 4, 6 or 8 for example and again experiment.

New AA and AF Methods

These settings include several experimental anti-aliasing and anisotropic filtering methods, one of which is the famous "EATM" anti-aliasing, discussed in more detail in post #3 of this thread.

Video Tweaks

These settings control hardware acceleration support for several video playback formats. Don't touch these settings unless you know what you're doing.

Vista Avivo Tweaks

These settings include various Windows Vista -only Avivo tweaks you can tinker with at your own discretion. Since I don't have Vista, I don't know what it is exactly that these tweaks do, so I would be appreciative if someone would enlighten me about them.


---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Here are the tweaks I have applied on my system:

Standard:


Advanced:

*These tweaks should be safe to implement for anyone in possession of an ATI X1300-series card or higher. I cannot however be held responsible for anything which may occur as a result of tweaking your Windows registry (yes, these are technically registry tweaks). If you do encounter problems, the most prudent thing to do would obviously be to revert back to default settings. With Standard Tweaks you can do this by clicking the "Default" box, but the Advanced Tweaks section unfortunately doesn't have this feature, so you'll have to change the values back to default manually. The default values for the Direct3D section are as follows:

Support for Non power of two size textures - Check
Primary Tiling - Check
All others - green box (no value)

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Credits:

• Ray Adams - For making ATI Tray Tools
• Koroush Ghazi - For engaging in tedious testing to find out what (almost) every tweak listed here does

Links:

• TweakGuides: ATI Catalyst Tweak Guide
• DriverHeaven Forum: ATI Tray Tools Advanced Tweaks
• TWcenter Forum: Radeon Tweaking Guide
• Guru3D Forum: Advanced Direct3D Tweaks
• Guru3D Forum: What is Geometry Instancing???
• Guru3D Forum: WTF is Geometry Instancing ?
• Guru3D Forum: New AA and AF Methods.
• Wikipedia: Z-Buffering

*Note: This guide refers to the latest official ATI Catalyst driver version 10.1 and to the latest official ATI Tray Tools version 1.3.6.1042.

[Decane]

A bit of information on the "Z Top Disable" Hyper-Z setting:

Ray Adams stated the following on the DriverHeaven forum:

Z Top Disable - Similar to Disable HyperZ

It will disable HSR - Hidden Surface Removal or in other words HyperZ. Read about HyperZ on ATI's web site.

Another member wrote, regarding this topic:

Example: if there's a tree in front of a barn, with HyperZ enabled, it won't render the portion of the barn masked by the tree, thus IMPROVING performance. Disabling it forces it to render the proper faces of both the tree and the barn, adding more work to the stack and slowing the card down.

Conclusion: Do not tick "Z Top Disable" under 99% of circumstances, as it will reduce performance!

[Decane]

ATI Tray Tools also provides the option for users to test experimental anti-aliasing and anisotropic filtering methods. One of the new anti-aliasing methods is a more performance-oriented form of Adaptive Anti-Aliasing, called "EATM".

Without EATM + Alpha Sharpening: With EATM + Alpha Sharpening:


As you can see from the above screenshots, the wired fence looks smoother with EATM anti-aliasing enabled than it does without it. The performance hit with EATM enabled is null on my system (unnoticeable) and it looks much better than with no alpha anti-aliasing applied at all, albeit not as good as Adaptive Anti-Aliasing (=AAA). The screenshots may not fully illustrate this, however the difference is quite noticeable when in motion. Both shots were taken in HL2: Lost Coast at the following settings:

• 1600*1200
• 6xAA
• 16xHQAF
• 0x Adaptive AA
• All in-game settings maxed out including HDR
• V-sync off (naturally )

-------------------------------------------------------------

To enable EATM and Alpha Sharpening (to be used in conjunction with EATM), simply follow these instructions:

1.) Navigate to Tweaks > Advanced Tweaks > New AA and AF Methods.
2.) Place checkmarks in the following boxes:

• EATM
• ATMAlphaSharpenMode

... Such that it looks like this:



3.) Accept the changes and enjoy!

-------------------------------------------------------------

NOTICE!!! This method of anti-aliasing is NOT officially supported by ATI so it may not function correctly in some games. Also, tinkering with your registry is dangerous business, so use your own discretion accordingly.

Here is a screenshot to illustrate the quality of EATM + Alpha Sharpening a little bit better. No comparison shot this time, though you should be able to see that there is a noticeable quality improvement when EATM is enabled vs. not having it enabled. Notice especially how the wires in the right bottom corner of the chained fence are drawn, whereas not having any alpha anti-aliasing methods on will result in some portions of the fence not being rendered at all at high angles such as the one in the screenshot.



-------------------------------------------------------------

Here are some comparison screenshots from Half Life 2: Lost Coast. Taken at the settings specified before:

• No Alpha Anti-Aliasing enabled.
• EATM AA + Alpha Sharpening enabled.
• Performance AAA enabled.
• Quality AAA enabled.

Note: EATM is apparently bound to the amount of multi-sampling anti-aliasing enabled at a given time, which means in practice that the more multi-sampling AA you have, the higher the EATM quality will be. This also means that if you have no multi-sampling AA applied at all, then no EATM will be applied either.


Links:

• Rage3D Forum: 6.12 beta out..
• Rage3D Forum: EATM + ALPHASHARPENMODE , reg settings?
• DriverHeaven Forum: EATM + ALPHASHARPENMODE , reg settings?
  
• DriverHeaven Forum: Catalyst 6.12 beta
• HardForum Forum: Catalyst 6.12 released
• Guru3D Forum: A new and better performing Adaptive Anti-aliasing!

[Decane]

Introduction

I have long pondered how much of an impact driver optimizations truly have on performance and image quality, so I decided to test this myself. In this test, I compared and contrasted different levels of Catalyst AI with the help of the Counter Strike: Source stress test. I ran 2 tests for each level of Catalyst AI on otherwise identical settings (both driver-level and in-game), and with the same PC. After acquiring the results, I averaged them. This is a very brief test, but should nevertheless provide useful for anyone who's ever wondered how Catalyst AI impacts performance, and what the optimum level would be. I used the official Catalyst 6.9 display driver in this test, and the in-game resolution was set to 1600x1200. Note: The different levels of Catalyst AI are denoted by Disabled, Standard and Advanced in CCC, and their corresponding ATT values are Off, Low and High respectively.

Test results and settings

Driver-level settings:

• Anti-aliasing: Application controlled
• Adaptive anti-aliasing: Off
• Anisotropic filtering: High quality 16x AF
• Catalyst AI: [variable, see below]
• Texture preference: High Quality
• Mipmap detail level: High Quality

In-game settings:

• Anti-aliasing: 6x
• Filtering mode: Anisotropic 16x
• HDR: Full
• Vsync: Disabled
• Model detail: High
• Texture detail: High
• Shader detail: High
• Water detail: Reflect all
• Shadow detail: High
• Color correction: Disabled

Catalyst AI @ Off:

Test run 1: 108.44 fps
Test run 2: 108.61 fps

--> Average: 108.53 fps

---------------------------------------------------

Catalyst AI @ Low:

Test run 1: 115.66 fps
Test run 2: 115.19 fps

--> Average: 115.43 fps

---------------------------------------------------

Catalyst AI @ High:

Test run 1: 115.60 fps
Test run 2: 116.80 fps

--> Average: 116.20 fps

---------------------------------------------------

Difference between Off and Low = 6.90 fps --> 5.97%
Difference between Off and High = 7.67 fps --> 6.6%
Difference between Low and High = 0.77 fps --> 0.66%

---------------------------------------------------

Here are a few screenshots comparing the image quality of Catalyst AI set to Off and High respectively:

• Catalyst AI @ Off
• Catalyst AI @ High

Unfortunately, the shimmering that the High level of Catalyst AI causes cannot be illustrated with screenshots, and that is why the shots above appear almost identical. Despite this however, there are some subtle differences to be seen, as illustrated below:



Notice how the rock seen between the railing is much blurrier with Catalyst AI set to High (Advanced) than it is with Catalyst AI disabled.

---------------------------------------------------

Conclusion

Looking at the results of this test, it is obvious that the performance difference between Catalyst AI at Low and Catalyst AI at High is minimal and definitely not noticeable in a real-world gaming environment, whereas the performance difference between Catalyst AI at Off and Low/High is quite noticeable. Because image quality took a noticeable turn for the worse with Catalyst AI at High (some very annoying texture shimmering took place, which wasn't there with either Catalyst AI at Off or at Low), I find it difficult to recommend this setting to anyone (aside from CrossFire users, see below) especially since the Low level of Catalyst AI delivers almost identical framerates to the High level, without the image quality loss. The difference between having Catalyst AI disabled and Catalyst AI at Low can only really be seen in performance, as the differences in image quality are so subtle that they are barely noticeable. Because of the aforementioned, I conclude that the Low (Standard) level of Catalyst AI is the optimum compromise of image quality and performance for most non-CrossFire users. Bear in mind that different setups will obtain different numbers, but it is likely that the proportions will stay more or less the same.

Notice!

Note: As of the 6.7 Catalysts, Crossfire users should set Catalyst A.I. to Advanced to force Alternate Frame Rendering (AFR) mode in all Direct3D games for optimal performance. Once again, Catalyst A.I. should only be disabled if you notice image corruption in particular games.

Source: TweakGuides

---------------------------------------------------

Critical evaluation of test:

• Results vary from driver to driver
• Different results are obtained with different rigs (mainly with different CPUs and GPUs), and the CPU used here (AMD 64 3800+) renders a bottleneck to the X1900XT used in this test.
• Random error is inevitable, and the figures in this test are therefore too accurate considering the context.
• The test is now outdated.

---------------------------------------------------

This is what Koroush Ghazi of TweakGuides.com had to say about Catalyst AI:

Catalyst A.I. allows users to determine the level of 'optimizations' they enable in graphics applications. These optimizations are graphics 'short cuts' which the Catalyst A.I. calculates to attempt to improve the performance of 3D games without any noticeable reduction in image quality. In the past there has been a great deal of controversy about 'hidden optimizations', where both Nvidia and ATI were accused of cutting corners, reducing image quality in subtle ways by reducing image precision for example, simply to get higher scores in synthetic benchmarks like 3DMark. In response to this, both ATI and Nvidia have made the process transparent to a great extent. You can select whether you want to enable or disable Catalyst A.I. for a further potential performance boost in return for possibly a slight reduction in image quality in some cases. You can choose the aggressiveness of such optimizations, either Standard or Advanced on the slider. The Advanced setting ensures maximum performance, and usually results in no problems or noticeable image quality reduction, so it is recommended you enable Catalyst AI and set it to Advanced. If on the other hand you want to always ensure the highest image quality at all costs, disable Catalyst A.I. (tick the 'Disable Catalyst A.I.' box). I recommend leaving Catalyst A.I enabled unless you experience problems, as many application-specific optimizations for recent games such as Oblivion are dependent on Catalyst AI being enabled.

Links:

• DriverHeaven: ATI Optimizations
• TweakGuides: ATI Catalyst Tweak Guide
• Anandtech: Behind the Mask with Optimization and Catalyst AI
• Extremetech: ATI's New Catalyst AI Driver Optimizations
• Guru3D Forum: Comparing different levels of Catalyst AI
• Elite Bastards Forum: Catalyst A.I. - The future of optimisations?

[thecake90]

Very nice guide man!
Good job, too bad I can't use ATT

[SebJC]

GREAT guide!

In the General options menu what are:
Use new apply 3D settings mode
Aggressive 3d detection
Enable Shared ATT memory

[Decane]

Originally Posted by SebJC

GREAT guide!

In the General options menu what are:
Use new apply 3D settings mode
Aggressive 3d detection
Enable Shared ATT memory

[AXS]

Nice, I know what it means to make a guide like this, respect man.

[Decane]

Very nice guide man!
Good job

GREAT guide!

Nice, I know what it means to make a guide like this, respect man.

Thanks guys, but please don't forget that this thread was intended to be a place for discussion as well, and so far I haven't seen too many people share their tweaking experiences... So I once again strongly urge anyone with any amount of experience with ATT's tweaks to share their experiences. I had in mind members such as Jonnyboy, Amilo-D, darthkevin and any others who might have anything to share. Perhaps even Ray Adams himself would like to pop in here and add anything I may have missed....

If people conduct tests such as the ones I made, I would be more than happy to include them into one of my main posts, of course giving credit to the creator. Sharing is caring.

[AXS]

Force to use Triple Buffers: - can be found in game profiles for Direct3D and at additional settings for OpenGL, it's a good bonus if you have 256+ GDDR, some say it help with VSync on, I say it's great even with it off, you might get some extra FPS.

Flip Queue Size:

This setting is similar to the 'Max Frames to Render Ahead' Nvidia . It works in much the same way, controlling the number of frames which are rendered and held in advance of being displayed. The default is 3, or Undefined, however by lowering this setting you may be able to resolve mouse lag problems, and even prevent graphics freezes in certain games. Experiment by setting this value to 2 first, and then if necessary try an extreme value like 0. For most people however I recommend either 3, 2 or 1 at the lowest as setting a value of 0 can disable the performance benefits of dual core CPUs for example, and in general lowering this setting will reduce overall FPS the lower the setting. You can try raising it if you want to see if you can gain performance, however again you may experience mouse lag or input lag.

I personally recommend setting it to 2 - It's another bonus which might improve your game play.

[Decane]

Originally Posted by AXS

Force to use Triple Buffers: - can be found in game profiles for Direct3D and at additional settings for OpenGL, it's a good bonus if you have 256+ GDDR, some say it help with VSync on, I say it's great even with it off, you might get some extra FPS.

Flip Queue Size:

I personally recommend setting it to 2 - It's another bonus which might improve your game play.

Added to main post. Thanks!

[virgoman]

How to reset Advanced Registry Tweaks

[Decane]

Originally Posted by virgoman

How to reset Advanced Registry Tweaks

"Support for Non power of two size textures" - Check
"Primary Tiling" - Check
All others - green box (no value)

[virgoman]

Originally Posted by Decane

"Support for Non power of two size textures" - Check
"Primary Tiling" - Check
All others - green box (no value)

Thank you very much

[neilsouth]

Awsome guide and you also linked two of my older posts

Niceee

[Mehtevas]

Hi
I took your advice and I tweek my card exactly as you have hear, I have an ati all in wonder 9600, a drastic improvement , my question is, I play cod2 and after the tweek my text on the screen is unreadable, how do I fix that? also can you tell me where to find how to use the Ati controll pannel? I am having trouble finding it

PS. I am new to Ati controll pannel as well as gameing so I need to start at dummy and work my way up..
Thank you

[Decane]

Originally Posted by Mehtevas

Hi
I took your advice and I tweek my card exactly as you have hear, I have an ati all in wonder 9600, a drastic improvement , my question is, I play cod2 and after the tweek my text on the screen is unreadable, how do I fix that? also can you tell me where to find how to use the Ati controll pannel? I am having trouble finding it

PS. I am new to Ati controll pannel as well as gameing so I need to start at dummy and work my way up..
Thank you

Greetings Mehtevas.

I am glad to hear that the tweaks improved your performance, however I specifically wrote:

*These tweaks should be safe to implement for anyone in possession of an ATI X1k series card or higher.

As you are in possession of a 9600-series card, some of the tweaks I posted may cause problems for you. In this case, I'd suggest you to undo all of the tweaks, and start over. This time however, instead of enabling all tweaks at once, implement them one at a time, testing the game you were having problems with after implementing each tweak. This method of troubleshooting may be tedious, but it will ensure that you find the culprit of your problem. Also, when you do find the culprit, you'd be doing everyone a huge favor by posting it here.

PS: This website would be a good place to start. Specifically you should read the ATI Catalyst Tweak Guide, The Gamer's Graphics & Display Settings Guide and the Call of Duty 2 Tweak Guide. Happy tweaking.

[NightCrawler™]

This is a great guide.... I'm gonna test a few settings tomorrow that were new to me... hope they gain me a few FPS....

[Decane]

Originally Posted by NightCrawler™

This is a great guide.... I'm gonna test a few settings tomorrow that were new to me... hope they gain me a few FPS....

Just don't expect any miracles. The most improvement can be seen on lower end cards, and yours isn't exactly what I'd call "lower end". Also, many of the tweaks here only have an effect in certain games. For example, Geometry Instancing only has a profound effect in games where heavy foliage is present (namely Far Cry), where fps gains can exceed 5 in the most foliage-heavy areas.

[NightCrawler™]

If I'm able to improve IQ and maybe gain some 2-3 fps on average I'm pleased..

[Decane]

Originally Posted by NightCrawler™

If I'm able to improve IQ and maybe gain some 2-3 fps on average I'm pleased..

Well, did you gain 2-3 fps and better IQ?

[NightCrawler™]

Still working with it... So far it seems to work for me especially the IQ part... Not sure about the FPS gain but it does seem to run smoother...

[Jonnyboy]

I'm useing the same tweaks as Decan and I havent seen any problems everything runs smooths and faster then they did before with the resolution I use which is 1440*900

[Decane]

The main post has now been updated several times. I have removed most of the quotes from TweakGuides.com, and replaced them with my own descriptions. The guide is still not cosmetically finished, but its contents are now more or less in their final form. I will be adding small updates to the post every now and then, but they will not be such updates that they would warrant taking the time and effort to add them into the history section of the main post, and I have therefore decided to delete the 'Post History' section entirely.

I hope you are all satisfied with the quality of the guide, and if anyone has any suggestions for how to improve the guide, please do not hesitate to share your thoughts.

[Jonnyboy]

I was wondering what is support bumb mapping and does it have a negitive affect toward performance?