System Restore Saves the Day!

Microsoft System Restore
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-SG/windows7/products/features/system-restore

This has been in system a long time ago, since XP perhaps. While most of the time, we only hear about how this feature waste space and cause delay during installation, we had totally forgotten when it would become useful.

In fact, for me, even in the days of Windows 8.1, this feature prove to be useful. What actually happened to me was that I was migrating one of my PC from a ATI (AMD) graphics card to a Nvidia one.

 

It is no surprise that ATI and Nvidia driver would not play nice together. The fatal mistake was however my own. I had forgotten to remove the old ATI driver before shutting down and plug in my Nvidia card. After testing, I wanted to change back to my ATI card and this time, even when I remember to uninstall the Nvidia driver, it just give me the famous "Black Screen of Death" at the Windows 8 login. I had tried reinstalling the ATI driver (but it won't install when the Nvidia card is in) and install-remove the Nvidia driver, but it just wont boot up when the ATI card is in, but perfectly OK on the Nvidia. I guess it could be a "feature" so that you won't switch back to your own card... LOL

Anyway, in the end, during the boot option, I click "Advance Option" and decided to try a System Restore, fortunately was just before the swap since the Direct X was updated. Guess, what? It solved all the issue and I got it up on the very next reboot (even though System Restore did took a while).

So, ask yourself is that little bit more of HDD space worth it? To me, definitely, since HDD space is cheap nowadays and System Restore actually manages itself not to overuse the space anyway. And one thing is for sure, I would add more restore point in the future. And lastly, Thanks Microsoft for implementing this nice feature! 

Catalyst 11.5 Yet Another Cock Up Again

It looks like it will become a common trend now for ATI driver to always havea hotfix version. In fact, for 11.5, the hotfix came out within 30 mins of release. For my personel use, I find that I was not able to install the original driver due to BSOD and I always have to install the hotfix version, at least since 11.4.

Here is the link to the 11.5 hotfix version:

http://support.amd.com/us/kbarticles/Pages/AMDCatalyst115ahotfix.aspx

AMD Catalyst 11.4 installation failed. ATI Display Driver could not be installed.

Yes, it looks like AMD had fucked up again with the release. Even though they had taken a long time to release their drivers, they still did not get it right, at least for me. The ATI Display driver had failed to installed for my HD 6950. I had tried to removed all drivers, reinstalled etc yet nothing works. I am about to give up and roll back to 11.3 when I thought there might had been a hotfix. For AMD, there are usually some hotfix because some card just could not install the driver here and then. And I was right.

Download the Catalyst 11.4c hotfix here:
http://support.amd.com/us/kbarticles/Pages/AMDCatalyst114cHotfix.aspx

Despite the descriptions saying that it remove some flickering in some games as below:
Resolves intermittent flickering issues seen in the following applications in a system using an AMD Radeon™ HD 6600 series graphics card with DDR3 memory and running in DirectX® 9 mode:

• Civilization 5
• Dead Rising 2
• Fallout 3
• Mafia 2
• NBA 2K10
• ShenGuiChuanQi
• Starcraft 2
• Warcraft III
• World of Warcraft

I found that the driver somehow works for me this time. Thank goodness I did not need to roll back my drivers. I hope AMD gets it right in 11.5.

ATI Catalyst 10.1 10.2 Control Center does not work

After some digging and checking, I found out the real cause of one of the machine where the following symptoms exist:

There is no errors in installation on Catalyst 10.x. There is a Catalyst Control Center shortcut when you right click on desktop, but when you click it, nothing happens.

If you have the above, you may have the same problem as me.

Are you using a 64 bits OS? Have you previously installed a lower version Catalyst, such as 9.x or below?

Well, if your answer is yes to the above, it is VERY likely you have the same problem as me.

The problem lies in the bad uninstallation. In drivers before 10.x, there drivers were not properly written and installed as 64 bits software. Therefore, you will see some ATI folders and files in the "Program Files(x86)" directory. Inside there includes the faulty Catalyst Control Center. No matter how you reinstall your 10.x driver, it will go to the 64 bits directory "Program Files" instead and is never properly registered to run.

In case you still have no idea what I am talking about. You can do this to solve the problem:
1. Uninstall Catalyst completely.
2. Boot to saf mode if necessary
3. Remove the ATI directories in Program Files(x86) and in Program Files.
4. Remove ATI registry entries from both HKLM and HKCU.
5. Reboot and reinstall.

I can't believe it is such a screw up that had wasted so much of my time trying to troubleshoot this. I suggest a more through testing from ATI part for different scenarios for this installation which in the first place is already not a very clean solution and is often broken...

ATI Catalyst 9.8 is out!

Though these drivers are not yet available on the official download page, Over at Quakecon Ian “Cabrtosr” McNaughton released Catalyst 9.8 drivers.
According to the latest info, with this driver, you should see significant performance increases on AMD platforms.
These improvements are more platform related – you will see gains of up to 50% in some titles (like Far Cry 2) when using a CrossFire solution with 4870 X2 or other 4xxx series in resolutions 16x10 and higher – you’ll see these gains mostly in CPU-bound situations. You will also see significant improvements in titles like HAWX, Crysis, Company of Heroes and World in Conflict.

• ATI Catalyst 9.8 Windows 7 and Vista (64-bit)
• ATI Catalyst 9.8 Windows 7 and Vista (32-bit)
• ATI Catalyst 9.8 Windows XP (32-bit)
• ATI Catalyst 9.8 Windows XP (64-bit)

ATI Catalyst 9.5 Suite is out!

Finally, after the long wait. I found this from the TechPowerUp website with direct links to all version of hte Catalyst 9.5 drivers. If you has read my previous post you will know that mainly the upgrade is necessary for anyone on the HD 4770 cards and using crossfire. I am installing right now. Hope this finally fixes the issues.

ATI Catalyst 9.5 for Windows XP 32-bit Windows XP 64-bit Windows Vista/7 32-bit Windows Vista/7 64-bit

Update : Works perfectly with CrossFire. After reboot, automatically enabled. Yeah, kicks some ass in Furmark with 150 fps and COH with 70fps average :)

PC RAM : 1GB vs 1.5GB vs 2GB

And I thought there is no significant gain in performance. How wrong I was.

I had 2x256MB+2x512MB=1.5GB on Alphonso when I had the ASUS board (which is in RMA, 2 month liao, I will make sure heads roll for this). Then I had no choice but to buy a MSI ATI board since its cheap. That board only managed to take in my 2x512MB=1GB. As soon as I had that, I realized how slow things had became and even though its a fresh installation (thanks to motherboard change). I had lived with that for like... oh, yes, good guess 2 months.

Now, I just got myself 2x1GB=2GB RAM and plug in it. Wont co-exist with the 2x512MB, so I had to pull them out. Now, 2GB. Yes, Yes, Yes... Things are back to normal and actualyl even smoother. So, if anyone wants to tell me that that 512MB doesn't make the difference, I will let certainly show him the way out through the window. :)