Fuck ATI and their damn catalyst control center. All I want to do is change the damn gamma setting on my video card, not spend 30 seconds loading some extreme leet skinz that you designed and a 3D preview that could easily be replaced by a still image. I know it's boring to write control panel software all day, but it's supposed to be boring. It's a control panel, not a game. Speaking of games, you can start Blockland and connect to a multiplayer game in the time it takes to load the ATI catalyst control center. It takes so long to load they have a splash screen. A splash screen. For a control panel.

The gamma adjustment doesn't even work properly. Sure there are separate adjustments for desktop and fullscreen 3D, but if you use windowed 3D, it resets to the default setting and you have to restart the goddamn control center (and wait 30 seconds) to reset it.

ATI isn't the only one guilty of this. Creative Labs, Turtle Beach, Apple, Microsoft - they're all guilty of mutilating the standard interface for the sake of some imaginary "coolness" factor. Nvidia is a little better, but they still don't use standard windows elements. Creative Labs is guilty of far greater crimes which I can't go into detail on because I swore off them years ago.

Bottom line: Make the driver do what it's supposed to do as simply and effectively as possible. I buy hardware as a means to an end, not an end in itself.

Comments

Alex (IP: 86.155.200.123) 2010-03-07 10:06:56

sounds like gaming communism O_o