I hate C#… in my mind it exists for only 2 reasons 1) so that apps run ONLY on Microsoft OS (that Mono stuff is just garbage and just another Microsoft trap… besides C++ runs on ANY OS under the sun) and 2) So Microsoft can CONTROL it’s own language (that committe thing with C# is just “smoke and mirrors”)… HOWEVER the reason Catalyst Control Center sucks has NOTHING to do with C# which (other than the fact that I hate it) is a VERY capable language… the reason Catalyst Control Center sucks is that nobody at ATI (now AMD) actually knows how to write code… the company is filled wall-to-wall with politicians (like many big company’s) instead of good engineers.
I stopped thinking about CCC and just hope that I never care enough about a setting to want to run it. I always download the driver only distribution.
People have said for a long time that it’s not the language, its the coders. They’ve said that for ages with Java and similiar interpreted languages from Microsoft. My counter to this is I’ve never used a Java/managed code application that I liked, does real work and is not as slow as crap.
I know of many that worked just fine and actually had a more user friendly look and feel until they were “rewritten” in a new language with memory consumption increasing several times and performance decreasing by the same margin.
Some good examples are in the list above “SQL 2005”, “Visual Studio 2005” and of course CCC.
As a consumer I don’t care what its written in. I just want it to work and save time not waste it.
A bit late but wanted to say thank you Simon!
What possible reason could there be to add a control center menu item to the Explorer window? It was infuriating for those of us who Alt-F to the New submenu. Then, if you mess up and don’t down arrow twice it takes 30 seconds for control center to open before you can shut it down.
This sounds minor but the bigger issue is that programmers need to analyze a feature before just throwing it into the codebase. Especially something as brain dead and useless as the menu item. Really makes you wonder what other goodies are lurking under the hood.
I know this thread is a bit dated but I just spent a day downloading, installing then uninstalling the latest drivers with Catalyst Control Center.
The Control Center is probably a good example of how even the best framework (which I think .NET is) cannot compensate for lack of ability.
I will have to give ATI(AMD?) the benefit of the doubt and believe Control Center must have started life as some ‘make work’ project for some junior developers?
Sandy, read my comments on January 12, 2007 12:26 PM.
That is the clue why CCC is garbage.
Bill
Well, not only people at ATI do not understand short and elegant code, but they also insist on defacing right click menus all over by adding an item “ATI CATALYST® Control Center” at the top of options.
This is also programming horror : hi-jacking the general interface and littering menus is akin to creating malware.
By the way, here is the single item (ACE) to remove with regedit to throw this piece of crap where it belongs : in the garbage bin.
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\Background\shellex\ContextMenuHandlers\ACE
Haven’t you noticed how often harware nowadays comes with crapware ? Especially from China. Probably cultural differences. Or do they dispise so much software that they have teenagers do this on the side ?
Many thanks to Simon Menashy. I’ve been plagued by the ATI CATALYST® Control Center context menu option for some time now. Every suggestion I’ve tried to remove it until now didn’t work. Yours did the trick. Thanks!
Not only is Catalyst bloatware in and of itself.
The packaging and deployment compounds the crime by littering hard drives with multiple copies of EVERYTHING.
Can’t find it in the path? No problem! Make another copy!
And the file names. Only someone who never operates at the command line would consider using those huge path names.
Another example of the current crop of cut and paste programmers.
Obviously, the ATI folks picked the wrong Development language to develop the app (or thier code suffers from a lot of inefficiencies), or thier test machines were dual processor pentium xeno machines and they never noticed the app start up time.
Anyway, .NET is a great development environment but it’s not the be all end all. If I’m developing a missile guidance system, chances are the development language will be C or Assembly, not .Net. Lower level (unmanaged) languages have purpose, especially with systems that need to do heavy processing at real time and need to be close to the hardware. Most applications do not have to be close to the hardware (DB, business app), so .NET is a good choice.
I was actually just trashing Catalyst online with a buddy of mine the other day; the biggest issue we had was “why” would they write it in managed code? Just to say “hey, we wrote it in managed code?” More than likely yes, as this type of app has no business being written in anything but VC++, reason being is that it probably makes a gazillion p/invoke/external/interop calls on startup, and doing that from .Net takes many more cycles then just calling stuff natively from C++. I hate it too, and I also hate that when I upgrade it, all my previous settings are set back to defaults. Silly ATI developers…they need to stick to what they do best, and that’s cranking out kickass video cards.
I just wonder if the ATI developers had created a the Catalyst Control Center in C++, would it have been this slow to launch and use?
Probably, and it would have the added benefit of crashing with heap corruption and exposing the classic vulnerabilities so often associated with C/C++
Haacked is right. A lot of developers (including myself) could write that thing in C# and you wouldn’t be able to tell it from an unmanaged app. I’ve been writing managed code for almost five years now (I was fortunate enough to work on a new application when the .net EAP started) and when there’s that obvious of a performance problem, it’s typically not .net, it’s the program.
I am using currently using an ATI-based card. I have been satisfied with it until recently.
My next card will most likely be based on an nVidia chip.
The one single reason for me to swith from ATI is the bloat called Catalyst Control Center. Prevsiously I could download the standard control panel but since this is no longer the case ATI lost me and many others as customers.
I am a programmer and I also believe managed code is great, but not in all cases.
Thanks for your comments, everyone.
A bit of Googling found me an old forum post about how to get rid of the irritating “ATI CATALYST® Control Center” option at the top of the context menu. Just run regedit and delete the following key, and it should disappear immediately:
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\Background\shellex\ContextMenuHandlers\ACE
Fantastic! Hope this helps others too.