Vista - Is there anyway to change hardware acceleration settings in vista?

I have an ati card but when i enter display settings, advanced settings & then hit the troubleshoot tab hardware acceleration is grayed out for some reason?

Is there some regedit 2 change the setting & allow hardware acceleration settings to be active in the troubleshoot tab? ive googled this & can't find a definitive answer as 2 why this is the case in vista. Is vista set 2 use max hardware acceleration as standard?

Also in wmp 11 i can't enable hardware acceleration in the options, when i play HD files my cpu is to high and my graphics card hardley brakes a sweat?
One of ati's main claims foe this card is that it takes the load of the cpu when playing HD content & movie files of any kind?

when you have your ati card installed and are using the catalyst control center, you will no longer be able to adjust hardware acceleration from window--that is what the catalyst control center is for. you want to change screen resolution? use ccc. change screen orientation (portrait vs landscape)--use ccc.

Ok thanks for the response, i just sorted out the problem i was having with playback issues on some dvd software. I could not get hardware acceleration to work with hd playback, but it turned out to be a codec issue in the end.

mpcrsc562 stated

"when you have your ati card installed and are using the catalyst control center, you will no longer be able to adjust hardware acceleration from window--that is what the catalyst control center is for. you want to change screen resolution? use ccc. change screen orientation (portrait vs landscape)--use ccc."


That is exactly my situation. Even called support, they said update the driver, no help. Can you tell me how to change the setting in catalyst control center please?

Best Regards
Sam71N

Right click on an open space on your desktop & select ati ccc to open the control center. Theres lots of settings to mess about with there.

I've been there. Just not able to find the hardware acceleration.

Theres no specific settings for hardware acceleration in the ccc. Adjusting the various settings effects the general performance of the card like the profiles such as performance or high quality. Theres sliders in the ccc to adjust to the pre set profiles for each. What problems are you having exactly? is it HD movie playback of HD files and blueray movies? and do you have an agp card by any chance?

My new computer has a 256MB ATI Radeon HD 3650 with the catalyst control center. The Software is Master Cam. Year ago I new there was problems with the Radeon cards so I avoided them. Thought the problem was cured. There are arrows that flash on the screen to tell which way a chain is selected, not being able to see them makes using the software a nightmare, also The screen has to be refeshed constantly.

Mastercam and ATI radeon9700 - CNCzone.com-The Ultimate Machinist Community

The above link shows other people who have had the same problem and slowed the grahpic hardware acceleration with good sucess.

Thanks
Sam71N

If you have tried all the pre sets like quality & lowered all the sliders in the ccc under the graphics settings then you could also try turning off all the eye candy in vista to a basic view i.e no Areo choose windows classic theme for example. I remember a thread I read somewhere about this kind of issue in vista with certain software running, it's not just ati cards it's the same for newer nvidia cards also under vista. Apparently vista controls the hardware acceleration as it needs 3D acceleration for the glass & areo effects. Vista seems to control hardware acceleration basicaly, so try turning off areo in display properties then see if the programe runs ok , if not also check to see if the hardware acceleration slider is still grayed out after turning areo off . If all else fails XP still allows you to change your hardware acceleration settings so you could install XP.