Other Settings
Tray IconsDriver tray icons offers a quick way to alter driver settings without really opening the driver panel. These settings usually include 3D settings, general settings such as resolution, color depth, and monitor refresh rates. The AMD Catalyst Control Center tray applet also include profile selection, which makes it very handy if you want to load a certain profile or even apply a profile to revert to the default settings. NVIDIA's Forceware tray icon does not offer profile management, but it does offer a shortcut to the 'old' Color Correction panel on the old driver panel. From there, you can apply a color correction profile. Granted, it's not as good or as comprehensive as AMD's solution, but in newer games you should be able control the degree of anti aliasing and anisotropic filtering in game. You can also alter refresh rates directly from Forceware tray tool. The Catalyst Control Center tray icon don't offer this option, but the driver already manage refresh rates automatically according to the monitor's EDID or default driver settings. It's smart enough to lower the refresh rates at higher resolution - ie. from 1280 x 1024 @ 85 Hz to 1600 x 1200 @ 75 Hz and vice versa.
That's with Windows XP. In Vista, there's no tray icon applet or the option to enable it with NVIDIA Forceware. That means you have to bring up the control panel each time you want to make an adjustment. So, in this regard, AMD has the better solution.
Profiles
OK, let's make a distinction here. We're not talking about game / application profiles that offers certain speedups or optimizations. By profiles we mean driver profiles which lets you store 3D settings, color correction settings, video settings and the like.
Profile support with Catalyst Control Center is great. You can save just about almost everything to a profile - 3D settings, display resolution, refresh rates, rotation, color correction and even AVIVO settings. The glaring omission - AVIVO color settings in the monitor properties. This particular panel controls hue and saturation settings for the desktop. We think AMD should put these settings in the Color section or at least allow the Profile Manager to save its settings. Selecting a profile couldn't be more easy - you can call all the profiles stored from the tray icon, with a hotkey, from the control panel itself or make a shortcut to it on the desktop and also runs the associated game / application. However, the shortcut option is currently problematic with Vista (at least with our setup) - probably due to Vista using IE 7. Everything else works fine though. One feature we very much like to see is the ability to save a profile or all the profiles into a file. This means you can backup your settings and don't have to reset everything else in case you have to do a fresh Windows installation.
Now, many don't realize there is a profile support with NVIDIA Forceware. That's probably because the profile menu only shows itself when you select the Display section of the control panel. We think NVIDIA should've made it easier to spot and ditch this scheme. Much like Catalyst Control Center, you can save 3D settings, various display settings and color correction inside a profile. What is a definite plus is the ability to save those profiles into a file. That means you can backup your profiles easily, even share it with another machine (with an NVIDIA graphics card).
The bad? Well, we already mentioned that there's no easy way to apply a profile with NVIDIA's Forceware control panel. You have to bring up the control panel, select display so that you can select the Profile menu and then you can load the profile you want (and the associated program if you choose to do so). However, the annoying part is that profiles saved (into a file) with Windows XP is not compatible with Vista. A major bummer, since you basically have to reset everything again so it's best to write down your settings somewhere in a text file and save it..
Composite Sync Support
Though LCDs are nice, energy efficient, sleek and 'gasp' sexy compared to CRTs, no doubt there are users still sticking to CRT monitors. We are among them and the Viewsonic G90F-4 we're using is a composite sync monitor. AMD Catalyst Control Center does offer explicit support for composite sync monitors, enabling us to use high refresh rates with high resolutions. So, instead of 1600 x 1200 @ 60 Hz, we were able to use 1600 x 1200 @ 75 Hz and not have the display 'squashed' inward. With NVIDIA Forceware, we have to lower the refresh rate to 72 Hz to achieve the same setting. NVIDIA does offer Custom Resolution, but less tech-savvy users will probably be to baffled by the various options.
Restore Default Button Placement
This one is easy, but annoying as hell. Look back at the control panel images we show you earlier. Now find the 'Restore Defaults" for both control panels. 9 out of 10 will likely say they were able to find the button more quickly on the Catalyst Control Center than the Forceware Control Panel, more so with Vista. It's slightly easier to spot with XP, but you still have to know where to look. Conventional wisdom would place the button next to the Apply or Cancel button (which pops out on the bottom if you made any changes). What makes it worse is that you probably won't be able to see the button AT ALL if you don't expand (or maximize) the Forceware Control Panel window. We think this is a pretty bad decision made by NVIDIA's driver developer team.
Response Time
This is another annoyance that's we think shouldn't be present in the first place. AMD (back then ATI) took a lot of flak when they first introduce Catalyst Control Panel for this reason alone (not to mention the memory footprint of the panel itself, the slow start up time etc). Things have improved quite a lot, particularly with Vista. Start up time and memory footprint has improved considerably. AMD driver team also made a good decision to basically 'split up' the Catalyst Control Center into several components - that means the slightly larger memory footprint with 3D previews will not be present if you are not using 3D previews at all. Vista allows small, but significant improvements to the Catalyst Control Center. Applying 3D settings are now instantanenous, even when you're looking at the 3D preview or have a 3D game / application running. No monitor's blanking in and out (or on and off, if you prefer) either. No more exiting FRAPS just to make sure AA is applied when you change the settings.
The problems mentioned above are not present (or at least not as noticeable) with NVIDIA Forceware Control Panel. So, at least NVIDIA has that nailed down. Or at least we thought so. If you look at NVIDIA's Forceware Control Panel, you'll notice that the more detailed 3D settings doesn't include a preview, so you have to go back and forth to see any image quality changes. This is not a big of a problem with 3D applications, but what about video? We certainly want to see immediate changes so we could fine tune our settings.
Below are two videos captured in Vista, showing what we saw when we tried to move the overlay color correction sliders on both Catalyst Control Center and Forceware Control Panel.
slider response with NVIDIA Control Panel in Vista
XviD video, 7.214 KB
slider response with AMD Catalyst Control Center in Vista
XviD video, 9.675 KB
At first glance, the Forceware Control Panel seems to do a better job. You could see immediate changes to the clip playing on Windows Media Player 11, however you'll no doubt notice the changes are not instantanenous - more a like steps instead of a smooth transition. AVIVO Video Basi Color settings does much worse, the changes only applies after you stop moving the control panel (taking off your finger from the left mouse button). However, when we change the sliders from within AVIVO 'All Details', the changes are what we think it should be - an instantanenous, smooth, gradual transition. No doubt, both driver developer team has some work to do here, but clearly AMD has less to do.
Display Optimization Wizard
If we have to pick one feature on the NVIDIA Forceware Control Panel that's truly better than AMD Catalyst Control Center, this is it. There's simply nothing resembling this feature on the Catalyst Control Center. The wizard easily guides you in making brightness, contrast, and RGB gamma settings. If there's something to improve, it would be something similar, but for video / film. However, Vista Home Premium and Ultimate users already has access to a similar feature with Windows Media Center Display Configuration wizard (accessible through Settings - Tasks - Windows Media Center Setup).
Monitor Diagnostics
Though both driver over tools to manually adjust screen position and size (at least in XP), both lack diagnostic tools to help users adjust or more appropriately, correct, image distortion. It may not be a big deal for the average users, but it will certainly help those who like to make sure their monitors are setup and aligned correctly. There are third party applications for this purpose and at least we know of one graphics card manufacturer that bundles such a utility with their card. It would be great if both AMD and NVIDIA can include such a tool with their drivers.
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