As shipped from Dell my Radeon X850 Pro drivers do not have Catalyst Control Center that others are talking about in this forum. The interface looks much simplified and streamlined like before catalyst Control center was introduced. There is no way to control different types of AA folks are talking about, only on or off and 2 to 6. etc.Is there any advantage to installing CCC? Would ati tray tools work with my current setup to do some advanced tweaking?I understand that only CCC is available and supported now by ATI.So if I move up there would be no going back.Greg

I have a Dell XPS3 with an ATI X800 XT, and I've tried the official ATI Catalysts with CCC, the Omega drivers with ATI Tray Tools, and also the Dell tweaked drivers (which are probably the ones you have). Like most people, I thought that Omega would give me better performance, and the tray tools were nice because of the profiles and options. I found the performance gains with Omega were elusive and the drivers often unstable. The official ATI drivers are OK but use the bloated control center. I've recently loaded the Dell modded drivers, and actually, performance has been essentially the same or better. They come with the older ATI control panel which provides most of the options you need with the exception of profiles and AI. You can also load ATI Tray Tools along with the control panel if you need the added features.Bottom line, unless a newer driver version cures an issue that you are specifically experiencing, I wouldn't be so quick to run and change the driver. I've been through a whole bunch and after more than a year I came back to the Dell modded Catalysts. It's just my experience, but sometimes simpler is better.

>Like most people, I thought that Omega would give me better>performance, and the tray tools were nice because of the>profiles and options. I found the performance gains with>Omega were elusive and the drivers often unstable.Never had any problems with driver stability, be it Omega or any other drivers. Frankly I don't think there is a dime worth of difference between all those drivers.Michael J.http://www.precisionmanuals.com/images/forum/pmdg_744F.jpghttp://sales.hifisim.com/pub-download/asv6-banner-beta.jpg

Folks, I thank you very much. What you say makes a lot of sense,and I am going to stick with what I have. Saves a lot of time uninstalling and reinstalling as well!Greg

>Never had any problems with driver stability, be it Omega or>any other drivers. Frankly I don't think there is a dime worth>of difference between all those drivers.>>Michael J.Same here. Unless you are running tons of benchmarking utilities, I've never seen a difference. Plus, any gains in a generic benchmark will not necessarily equate to better fs2004 performance. The only thing I do notice is that I have had quite a few small problems with the ATI CCC software. The newer versions of the official ATI drivers don't come with a Control Center version, so you have to install it or go with the Omega drivers. This was my only reason for switching from the official to the omega. Just make sure you get those Dell drivers off the system as soon as possible.

>>>Never had any problems with driver stability, be it Omega or>>any other drivers. Frankly I don't think there is a dime>worth>>of difference between all those drivers.>>>>Michael J.>>Same here. Unless you are running tons of benchmarking>utilities, I've never seen a difference. Plus, any gains in a>generic benchmark will not necessarily equate to better fs2004>performance. >>The only thing I do notice is that I have had quite a few>small problems with the ATI CCC software. The newer versions>of the official ATI drivers don't come with a Control Center>version, so you have to install it or go with the Omega>drivers. This was my only reason for switching from the>official to the omega. >>Just make sure you get those Dell drivers off the system as>soon as possible. I agree that I haven't seen much difference with any of the drivers, which is what I said in my post, except what may have been isolated issues with the Omegas and tray tools on my system. Why would you say "Just make sure you get those Dell drivers off the system as soon as possible?" All they are is a Dell packaged version of the official 5.12 catalysts with the ATI control panel, instead of the bloated CCC. I've tested many versions of different drivers, and as we've all just pointed out there was little difference with the Dell drivers (which were as good or better than the 6.01 Omegas on my system).