Ray Adams is the one who made this tool. You can access ATI Tray Tools, a fullfeatured Radeon tweaker, from the system tray in Windows.. This gives you quick
access to options and settings. It’s useful and easy to download. Just click the
executable to get started.
But what are ATI Tray Tools and how do you install and use them? Read on to find
out more about the ATI Tray Tools.
What is ATI Tray Tools
ATI Tray Tools is free software that gives you instant access to many options. The
biggest of these is definitely the ability to overclock your graphics card without
having to use the BIOS.
ATI Tray Tools is a small piece of software that you can put in the system tray and
use to change the settings and options of your graphics card. It’s easy to use the
app—all you have to do is run the executables. With the help of an Arti-fact
tester, you can find the most stable GPU and RAM clocks, and you probably
already have some speed-up changes ready for the tri-linear filtering.
Users who know what they are doing can get source code plug-ins and register
any PCI device while the computer boots up. Because of the refresh lock
technology, you can set the refresh rate for each resolution to fit your needs.
Advantages and Disadvantages Overclocking through
Windows instead of through the BIOS
Overclocking through Windows rather than the BIOS has several advantages and
disadvantages. One of the most significant advantages of overclocking with this
freeware is that the changes made through Windows are significantly less than
starting from 0, so there is a much lower chance of your computer crashing or
auto restarting.
One of the most significant disadvantages of using this program to overclock is
that overclocking through the BIOS is typically much more stable than
overclocking through Windows. Many computer manufacturers, such as Dell and
HP, lock the BIOS, making it impossible to overclock your graphics card; this
freeware program is a workaround because it does not need to access the BIOS to
overclock and can do so directly from the desktop. If you’re looking for a small but
powerful tool to expand your computer’s capabilities, I recommend giving ATI
Tray Tools a shot.
Features of ATI Tray Tools
The most important thing about ATI Tray Tools is that it has a full set of tools for
overclocking and monitoring hardware. Support for overclocking follows a fairly
new trend of letting you overclock both at the hardware level and at the driver
level.
The other thing that makes it stand out is that it is the only major ATI utility, thirdparty or not, that supports profiles. This gives you full control over all 3D settings
and controls for each profile’s overclocking. Other features include a refresh rate
lock for games that are giving you trouble, global hotkeys, an interface to tweaks
that are normally hidden in the registry, and an on-screen display for games.
Here are some of ATI Tray Tools’ key features:
- Support for ATI Control Center
- Providing support for TV Out as well as profile display
- TV Out and Theater Mode Selection Options
- Overclocking with templates including FAN Control
- Automatic Overclocking when application required 3D mode
- Temperature monitoring
- Artifact Tester can find the most stable clock speeds for the GPU and memory.
- Game profiles with desktop shortcut creation.
- Template-based Direct3D configuration via a pop-up menu in the syste tray.
- Hardware low level color correction
- Hardware tweaks. Setting PCI latency timer
- Information about Radeon Display information about memory type, active rendering pipe lines, and more
How to Use ATI Tray Tools
After the software is installed, a link to it is added to the notification bar. To
change the options, overclocking, or color, just right-click on the icon and click on
the category you want to change. Under “Hardware,” on the “Overclocking
Setting” tab, you can choose to make the graphics card run faster. The “Advanced
Tweak” tab in the “Tweak” category has options that can be used to improve the
way the graphics look. Lastly, you can change the way colors look by going to the
“Color Setting” tab in the “Video & Color” category. You can also use the “3D”
category to save all of your changes.
General: Check ‘Use new Apply 3D Settings mode’ and ‘Aggressive 3D detection’.
Your preferences determine the remaining options. Tick “Swap mouse buttons for
tray menu” to open the main ATI Tray Tools menu with a left-click instead of a
right-click. Importantly, you can check whether ATT loads with Windows at the
top of this box. ATT doesn’t need to load at startup if you only use it to adjust
Catalyst settings and make a few Registry tweaks. The registry changes for basic
3D graphics options like “Flip Queue Size” don’t require ATT to be running in the
background. If you use an Overclocking Profile or Game Profile, it’s best to let ATT
load at Windows startup and use the Registry method in the drop box.
Advanced: To use FlashOSD, enable ATT Shared Memory (see Onscreen Display
on the next page). To avoid damaging or underperforming the card when
overclocking with ATT, enable overclocking limits. If you only want your new clock
rates to work while ATT is running, tick the “Reset clocks on exit” to return to
default speeds when ATT is closed, or tick “Reset clocks before suspend mode” to
remove your overclock before suspending. Finally, at the bottom of this box, tick
“Always select maximum refresh rate” to get the best refresh rate at any new
resolution. Follow the Tidying Up section of this guide to disable the ATI Hotkey
Poller Service whenever ATI Tray Tools is launched.
Audio Recorder: This ATT feature is unrelated to your graphics card and can be
tested. Record audio from videos and save it to a folder in your preferred format
(e.g. MP3).
Screenshots: ATT’s ability to take game screenshots using a Hotkey is a useful but
unrelated feature. I use FRAPS to take game screenshots, but ATT allows you to
set screenshot quality and size, so you may prefer it.
Conclusion
BIOS flashing is a really cool and effective way to improve the performance of
your card. For people who like to play with their hardware, it’s just another way
to do so. Most extreme overclockers like to mess around with ATI Tray Tools with
very high-power targets that help them break world records.