ATI

[toblix]

So my PC has an ATI graphics card, which I last had about ten years ago. Everyone knows hardware manufacturers suck the most at making GUI, but I'm still amazed at how ass everything from ATI looks. From the installer splash screen, which has the Windows 95 era 16bit dithered look, to the control panel, which looks like something bundled with Oracle 5 Management Tools.

I mean look at this:

Other than the Windows 7 borders, how woul you know this wasn't released in 1998? Two indicators:

1. ATI's URL wasn't ati.amd.com then.
   
2. THE LORD OF THE RINGS ONLINE FREE TRIAL™ had not yet been released so that ATI could bundle them with my fucking graphics card drivers.
   

[JonCole]

Yeah, I noticed this myself when I installed my new 5770, but to be fair, nVidia's interface doesn't look particularly elegant either. It's ironic that graphics card manufacturers don't know a thing about graphic design.

[Gabbo]

So my PC has an ATI graphics card, which I last had about ten years ago. Everyone knows hardware manufacturers suck the most at making GUI, but I'm still amazed at how ass everything from ATI looks. From the installer splash screen, which has the Windows 95 era 16bit dithered look, to the control panel, which looks like something bundled with Oracle 5 Management Tools.

I mean look at this:

<snip>

Other than the Windows 7 borders, how woul you know this wasn't released in 1998? Two indicators:

1. ATI's URL wasn't ati.amd.com then.
   
2. THE LORD OF THE RINGS ONLINE FREE TRIAL™ had not yet been released so that ATI could bundle them with my fucking graphics card drivers.
   

How would I know? How about the drivers actually work. In 1998 they were much more hit or miss. I've never seen a driver installer I would identify as pretty either way. I'd rather they keep the interface simple (KISS) and have it work than it use a fancy GUI and not.

[James]

• THE LORD OF THE RINGS ONLINE FREE TRIAL™ had not yet been released so that ATI could bundle them with my fucking graphics card drivers.
  

I had some difficulty getting my current computer working properly, so I had to install the ATI software several times. I liked how all it's installing for you is the LotRO installer, at a whopping 1 MB. You'll have to download the rest. But aren't you glad they saved you the effort of downloading that extra megabyte. That would be the straw that broke the camel's back.

It's ironic that graphics card manufacturers don't know a thing about graphic design.

I find it weird how companies who have departments that focus so much on swish visual design can have such shitty software GUIs. Phone manufacturers put out these very stylish looking devices, but then the software is this horrible chunky and awful and looks like it's a child's toy made of brightly-coloured plastic. You know, like the default XP theme.

[AndrewArmstrong]

I'm looking forward to the far flung future when the open source drivers can be ported efficiently to Windows. If ATI's cards were simply not superior in power to nVidia I'd be ditching the poor drivers.

One major thing is the missing application-specific settings which nVidia allows. You want per-application settings for AA and Vsync? tough luck

This highly annoys me now since I have the latest range of cards, and can't use the more advanced/nicer looking AA in the drivers/on the card with Dawn of War 2 (which took me ages to figure out), yet other games it works fine. Tough luck for me is very annoying.

Also means for older games, you can't force AA, making them look worse then they could.

[syntheticgerbil]

I have an ATI Radeon Graphics Card onboard my motherboard on a PC I had my dad build about a half a year ago.

It's a very low end ATI card on a much higher end everything else and the menus still look like this. When I actually get around to buying a proper card since I only went with the onboard graphics card to save money for the time being, I might have to see more about the usability of other brands. I used to have an Nvidia GeForce on the computer before that and the menus were much nicer and more involved.