# DAAMIT should pay W1zzard for ATI Tool development



## qubit (Mar 25, 2008)

I've been using ATI Tool for a long time now on various ATI cards over the years. This tool adds so much value to AMD's graphics products, that I feel they should pay W1zzard to develop it and provide him with all the documentation and resources to make a first class job of it. They should then bundle a copy on the driver CD with every card.

As it is, W1zzard has to reverse engineer all these different cards and gets no help in writing this complex app. He then has to somehow squeeze all this hard work into his spare time.

The result is that we have a buggy mess that's in a constant beta state and is very frustrating to use. Just look at the people begging for fixes on the ATI Tool beta thread to see what I mean. Most of these requests end up going unfixed, including mine.

My own personal glitches currently relate to the use of ATI Tool on my HD2900XT 1GB with 0.27b3 & 0.27b4 (b4 isn't even listed on the beta thread, yet it exists...) The 2900 has a reputation for being a noisy and slow card, mainly due to its high power requirements. Well, with careful management, that's simply not true. Using ATI Tool, I can adjust clock, fan and voltage settings so that the card is _always_ silent during desktop use and makes only a slight noise during 3D games, even when moderately overclocked. The underrated 2900 really shines when carefully set up in this way.

Unfortunately, the auto switching on ATI Tool is shot, so I constantly have to correct it manually, which is very irritating.

Here, it does not properly read all the profile parameters of the config file when switching between 2D & 3D clocks, or starting up. For example, the voltages are not set automatically. I have to manually tell it to load the core voltage from the file and then set it. *Every damn time* - and there's been no update and no fix for months now. There's other glitches too, unfortunately.

All this crap would go away, if DAAMIT would simply pay him and give him the resources to do a first class job of it. Just think how many more cards they'd sell to us diehard enthusiasts by keeping us loyal to ATI?? His payment would be peanuts compared to their profit. Fools.

As it is, thanks for all your hard work, W1zzard and please don't give up. Perhaps show DAAMIT this thread and see if they can be persuaded?


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## philbrown23 (Mar 25, 2008)

agreed


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## tkpenalty (Mar 25, 2008)

Note that DAAMIT are having financial difficulties at the moment...


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## goober (Mar 25, 2008)

We should all donate some money to W1zzard for all of his hard work.


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## NU(GFX)T (Mar 25, 2008)

I opened a support ticket with ATi support about shimmering textures in ANNO1701 back  when I had X1900CrossFire .

Anyway they have a system diagnostic utility that you need to run and attach the report it generates to your support ticket wich contains almost eveything from installed programs to your hardware config etc.

There they spotted ATitool in my programs list and here look what they said


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## qubit (Mar 26, 2008)

*Corporate clowns*

NU(GFX)T: that support ticket says it all, really. Typical corporate shortsightedness - and really bad English too. Lame.

tkpenalty: they can afford to pay an enthusiast something to enhance their product and boost sales...


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## DanishDevil (Mar 26, 2008)

I want a company to start making TPU Edition cards decked out with the TPU logo and bundled with ATi Tool so the user can overclock the card themselves.

Either that or TPU needs to start selling video cards as their own brand!


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## Kreij (Mar 26, 2008)

I disagree.
While ATI/AMD could give W1z more information to improve his code. he would then be subject to their whims because they are paying him.


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## Frogger (Mar 26, 2008)

Kreij said:


> I disagree.
> he would then be subject to their whims because they are paying him.



 sounds like somebody has felt the hand of ...... before!


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## Jimmy 2004 (Mar 26, 2008)

NU(GFX)T said:


> I opened a support ticket with ATi support about shimmering textures in ANNO1701 back  when I had X1900CrossFire .
> 
> Anyway they have a system diagnostic utility that you need to run and attach the report it generates to your support ticket wich contains almost eveything from installed programs to your hardware config etc.
> 
> There they spotted ATitool in my programs list and here look what they said



They'd have no case against you for having ATITool installed. Whilst it can be used for overclocking, it also has many other useful features like temperature monitoring, stress testing and driver tweaks.


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## btarunr (Mar 26, 2008)

You can pay W1zzard, if you really wish to.

Paypal: donations@techpowerup.com

that's donations 'at' techpowerup 'dot' com.

Edit by W1zzard: it's funds@techpowerup.com


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## qubit (Mar 26, 2008)

*DAAMIT should dig deep into their pockets*

Thanks for pointing that out, but while user donations are all well and good, DAAMIT should really be the ones paying W1zzard well for enhancing *their* products and increasing sales, not us, the customers.

We will then have great cards along with a first class overclocking and profiling tool.


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## Wetbehindtheears (Mar 26, 2008)

Kreij said:


> While ATI/AMD could give W1z more information to improve his code. he would then be subject to their whims because they are paying him.



agree - NDs etc etc

BUT couldn't they provide support by offering info with/without money (certainly on older models) ????

and what about NV - can't ATI Tool be used on their offerings so maybe they could/should support W1z as well


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## driver66 (Mar 26, 2008)

Wetbehindtheears said:


> agree - NDs etc etc
> 
> BUT couldn't they provide support by offering info with/without money (certainly on older models) ????
> 
> and what about NV - can't ATI Tool be used on their offerings so maybe they could/should support W1z as well



Yep just name it GPU-TOOL


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## lemonadesoda (Mar 26, 2008)

qubit said:


> DAAMIT should really be the ones paying W1zzard well for enhancing *their* products and increasing sales, not us, the customers.


LOL. That's like saying car manufacturers should pay paintshops and after-market distributors for pimping and blinging cars... and the customers shouldnt have to pay. Sorry, but 

I do agree however that ATI has always been a bit "closed shop" and NOT HELPFUL to customers or developers.  I agree they should make (some) internal resources available for supporting developers like W1z.


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## cdawall (Mar 26, 2008)

this is a dumb arguement he wont get any help cause thats just they way ATi is. end of story eh would have better luck making a tool for Via than ATi


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## btarunr (Mar 27, 2008)

qubit said:


> Thanks for pointing that out, but while user donations are all well and good, DAAMIT should really be the ones paying W1zzard well for enhancing *their* products and increasing sales, not us, the customers.
> 
> We will then have great cards along with a first class overclocking and profiling tool.



W1z's software enhance products of both ATI and NVidia, why should either pay? AlexUnwinder doesn't get paid for the RivaTuner, ordinary users donate to him, FUGGER is a sort of 'brand ambassador' for Intel...he gets his Skulltrail before anyone else does but he does have some obligations towards Intel. Note the difference, neither is paid.


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## qubit (Mar 30, 2008)

btarunr said:


> W1z's software enhance products of both ATI and NVidia, why should either pay?



You've said it right there in your opening line...because he enhances their products. That makes them more desirable to potential purchasers. Just think how good it would look for AMD if ATI Tool were bundled with every graphics card, put in product descriptions and described on the product box.

Same goes for anyone elese that does this kind of thing, too.

If not money, then they should at least be given specs and resources, so they don't have to reverse engineer the products and they can do a better job of writing these utilities.


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## Wetbehindtheears (Mar 30, 2008)

qubit said:


> If not money, then they should at least be given specs and resources, so they don't have to reverse engineer the products and they can do a better job of writing these utilities.



I agree - that's pretty much what I said in post 13. 

I do, however, believe that it opens up a bit of a minefield, competing companies, differing (?) views/aspects etc on NDAs 

I'm not sure that there is any easy answer  but certain there must be ways that both can give W1z info to further his progress, and therefore their own  surely to all parties concerned?


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## cdawall (Mar 30, 2008)

qubit said:


> You've said it right there in your opening line...because he enhances their products. That makes them more desirable to potential purchasers. Just think how good it would look for AMD if ATI Tool were bundled with every graphics card, put in product descriptions and described on the product box.
> 
> Same goes for anyone elese that does this kind of thing, too.
> 
> If not money, then they should at least be given specs and resources, so they don't have to reverse engineer the products and they can do a better job of writing these utilities.



they wont bundle it it violates the terms for most companies warranties


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## WarEagleAU (Mar 30, 2008)

Hey, Im just happy W1zz does the ATI Tool project. Lord knows its certainly helped me. It will also help me even more when my His IceQ3 HD 3870 gets here Tuesday


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## Astennu (Apr 1, 2008)

Totaly agree. Super tool. To bad voltage settings are not working good on new HD card. But i costs to much time to program that.

They should pay him to make the program better. The OC community will thank AMD for that. Because ATi Tool is a very nice tool.


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