Taming the ATi Catalyst Control Centre

ATi Catalyst Control Centre driver software is a resource hungry application to keep open all the time. Now I'm able to run it on demand.

Part of this is experimentation, and part is from other forums and guides, but here is another guide.

The ATi Catalyst Control Centre is pretty but resource-hog central. I don't know what everyone thinks, but 50 megs of memory usage while idle is disgusting.

There are some things you can do to help, though...

1. Install the ATi Catalyst Control Centre (CCC)... or if you have it installed already, go to step 2.
2. In Regedit go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/SOFTWARE/Microsoft/Windows/CurrentVersion/Run
3. Delete the ATICCC (CLI.EXE) entry. This is used to initialise your computer to run the CCC, and is run on boot. This increases boot time and memory usage. Unfortunately, the CCC WILL NOT RUN in this current state unless you follow the rest of this guide.
4. (XP Home only) Download and extract the contents of Windows Taskkill Command Line Tool into c:/windows/system32. I promise this is not a virus or malware, but feel free to scan it however you like.
5. Create a batch file (ccc.bat on desktop) with the following code:

@echo off
echo Running the CCC runtime component...
call "C:/Program Files/ATI Technologies/ATI.ACE/runtime.bat/"
echo Now open the CCC, and press any key when finished
pause > nul
taskkill /F /IM CLI.exe
taskkill /F /IM Preview.exe

1. Restart your computer
2. Now run the CCC.bat file on your desktop. When you get a message "Now open the CCC, and press any key when finished", you can open your CCC through whatever means you like. Tweak around, change your settings, etc. Whilst the control panel is open, leave the command prompt window opened by the bat file alone.
3. When you close your CCC, return to the command prompt window left open by the batch file and hit any key. And you're done. Check your task manager; the CCC is no longer swallowing all of your memory.

Now, when you wish to open the ATi Catalyst Control Centre, you must follow these exact steps:

1. Run CCC.bat
2. Open the ATi Catalyst Control Centre
3. Close the ATi Catalyst Control Centre
4. Press any key inside the Command Prompt Window