Specifications

CATALYST™ SOFTWARE FEATURES - Page 6
USER BENEFITS
a.) A much more user-friendly interface that can be used to easily change a variety
of different settings within the control panel.
b.) Novice users can easily change the overall performance or quality experience
of any application without having to worry about the intricacies of how a 3D
accelerator works when using the Main Settings slider of the Direct3D™ and
OpenGL® panels.
c.) Advanced users can easily configure a variety of very specific parameters to
best meet their needs through the Custom Settings controls and Compatibility
Settings… pages located within the Direct3D™ and OpenGL® panels.
d.) Detailed information about the driver and the graphics accelerator can be easily
accessed in the Options page of the control panel.
USAGE SCENARIO
You’ve just purchased the latest 3D-accelerated game, but to your dismay the visual quality
and texture detail just isn’t as high as you expected. With the new CATLAYST™ Direct3D™
and OpenGL® control panel, this is no longer a problem! All you have to do is move the
“Main Settings” slider to the “Optimal Quality” position in either the Direct3D™ or OpenGL®
panel. This allows you to experience the best visual quality possible without having to worry
about the complexities of how or what Anti-aliasing, Anisotropic filtering or mipmaps are.
SUMMARY
Many AGP bus errors have arisen as a result of AGP bus controllers ("chipsets") and
motherboards found in the marketplace not being compatible with one another. Many of
these bus errors will either cause video corruption or users systems to hang. To solve this
problem, ATI Technologies has developed a software testing and diagnostics tool known as
SMARTGART™ as seen in Figure 8. SMARTGART™ performs a variety of AGP tests and
determines the optimal AGP setting to ensure system stability.
FEATURE DESCRIPTION
SMARTGART™ automatically tests the AGP compatibility upon the initialization of the
display driver, and dynamically determines the proper AGP bus speed based on the results
of the test. If a new AGP setting is required and the system must reboot, the driver will
automatically set the new bus speed on the next reboot.
The diagnostic tests will only be run on the system when the driver is installed for the first
time, or when the system configuration is changed.
SMARTGART™