Dammit Delevi!

ATI Really likes to advertise to me. Not only did they advertise games to me during the driver installation.. They advertise to me in the CCC application.

Upon launching the CCC (Catalyst Control Center), I see this:

REALLY?

This looks like a popup. It’s not a popup. It’s the application. It’s what you get when you double-click on the tray icon. Unchecking the “show this page on startup” doesn’t seem to do anything. I can only assume that on my next reboot, this would have annoyed me. Also, unchecking “Allow Web Content” doesn’t seem to get rid of this advert.

Note that the actual functionality of the application is in the “Graphics” and “options” dropdown menus:

I feel a lot like I’ve just paid $300 to install advertising software in my computer. Why, ATI, why?

Note that at this point, I don’t care about the contents of the application, I no longer even want to open it. I would uninstall it if it were possible.

If I didn’t need this card, I would return this to the store right now to remove the evil from my system. If I can get into an Nvidia card before the return window expires… I might.

Sometimes, I’m struck by the fail in my life. Some of it is correctable, and innocent, and some of it is not.

I shipped a friend of mine a video card - next day - to replace his failed card. It arrived exactly as prescribed, only they didn’t leave it at his place, instead (as makes sense) opting to retry delivery later… The story goes on from there, but it was a mess.

Separately, I ordered a new graphics card from Amazon, which I expected to find delivered at my home when I arrived there. Sadly, Amazon failed to provide Fedex with the package on time, so my shipment was delayed. I ended up telling them to go pound sand and driving to my friendly neighborhood computer store, which is less friendly and less neighborhood than I might like. I did eventually get my graphics card.

So now I begin the empirical evaluation of my Radeon HD 5850 - it being the replacement for my 9800GTX. I’ve been an nVidia guy for a long time, and probably will be after this exercise is over… but we’ll see. My last ATI card was from 2004, and I was not impressed. Since then, AMD has bought them out, and one would hope they’ve learned something.

So far, I have one gripe. Bloat. Their drivers left me with 3 entries in my windows 7 start menu - the first thing I saw was an ATI Icon, which.. was followed by two more, in addition to the expected start menu drivel.

Really, I just paid you $300 for this damned thing. I don’t need you trying to sell me on LOTR online or your marketing spam.

C’mon. Keep this up and I’ll actually look forward to replacing this card with some kind of nVidia GF104 derivative.