Catalyst Control Center – Should I Uninstall it?

Ever since I wrote the AMD Catalyst Modding Guide, I thought about how Catalyst Control Center would impact performance and image quality. Further more some people asked me if Catalyst Control Center has any obscure functions, other than the obvious ones, and what happens if they don’t install it.

Using AMD Catalyst 12.4 WHQL, I will compare performance and image quality between two situations: 1. Using CCC; 2. Not Using CCC. Also I will be looking at how CCC.exe and MOM.exe (processes used by CCC) behave in different circumstances.

Back in the day when I had a P3 and only 256MB of RAM I never installed the Catalyst Software, every KB of ram was important to me; I couldn’t be bothered with installing the NET Framework either, plus I didn’t even know what the settings were good for, not that I know now… But with the current hardware generation I really don’t think that CCC should be thought of as a RAM eater…We’ll have to see about that.

In order to have a clean OS I used Driver Sweeper 3.2.0 and Atiman Uninstaller 6.3.1 but using those two programs will not guarantee a clean OS of all AMD/ATI files so to be extra sure I did a manual registry keys search and removed everything that matched my searches. Then I installed 12.4 WHQL but without selecting CCC. Did all the tests and repeated the complete removal of all AMD files and installed the complete 12.4 WHQL package, redid the tests.

I will use 7 games to test performance and image quality:

• 1. Crysis 2 1.9 using Adrenaline Benchmark Tool – Extreme Preset – 1680×1050 – 4xAA – Hi-Res Textures – Central Park – 3 Runs.
• 2. DiRT 3 – Ultra Preset – 1680×1050 – 8xMSAA – 3 Runs using the in-game benchmark
• 3. Battlefield 3 – Ultra Preset – 1680×1050 – 4xMSAA – 16xAF – Multiplayer @ Strike at Karkand (32p map, Large Conquest), main street: US Deployment -> B Flag – 3 Runs x 60s.
• 4. Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim v1.5 – Ultra Preset – 1680×1050 – 8xAA – 16xAF – Tested in the area East of Rorikstead – 3 Runs x 60s.
• 5. Mass Effect 3 – Settings are maxed out @ 1680×1050 – 3 runs x 120s
• 6. Risen 2: Dark Waters – Settings are maxed out @ 1680×1050 – 3 runs
• 7. F1 2011 – Ultra Settings – 8xMSAA @ 1680×1050 – 3 runs using the in-game benchmark

Table of Contents:

Page 1 – Introduction
Page 2 – Performance Comparison
Page 3 – Image Quality Comparison
Page 4 – Conclusion

Page 2 – Performance Comparison