Rage3D Tweak FAQ

  1. What is Rage3D Tweak?
  2. How does Rage3D Tweak work?
  3. How do I do X in Rage3D Tweak?
  4. How many languages is the tweaker available in?
  5. Why does it take you so long to release the translated versions?
  6. Overclocking does not work right on my system.  What is wrong?
  7. When I make changes to the tweaks they don't seem to change anything?
  8. How do I report a bug (feature!) or request new functionality?
  9. I have extra tabs displayed.  How do I get rid of them?
  10. Do I have to uninstall the tweaker when I change drivers?
  11. Do I have to run GameUtil at boot, and does it hog my system resources?
  12. My overclock settings are not remaining after rebooting my computer!
  13. Does the tweaker bloat the system registry?
  14. How do I get rid of the annoying sounds?
  15. What does the reset profile do?
  16. Why don't the ATI tabs update when I set something in the tweaker?
  17. How do I increase/decrease the overclocking limits?
  18. How do I save my custom profiles/settings?
  19. Which tweaker is the best for X?
  20. How would you rate this tweaker out of 10?

What is Rage3D Tweak?

Rage3D Tweak is a multi-language Radeon Tweaker designed to fit right in with the other ATI option tabs in the Advanced Display Properties accessed through the Control Panel.  It allows access to Registry Settings, Custom Display Modes, Refresh Rates, and Overclocking all through an easy to use interface.  For those requiring instant access to all the tweak options, a handy icon on the task bar can be enabled for quick access to all three tweaker tabs.  Comprehensive html, outline based help is available under the Help button as well as right-click help for all tweaks text.

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How does Rage3D Tweak work?

Rage3D Tweak is built on a fully customizable registry modification engine which allows us to specify tweaks, values and settings in any registry location with extraordinary flexibility.  All tweaks are inserted into the simple tree interface of Rage3D Tweak based on settings specified during installation.  The engine's flexibility allows us to make extensive interface changes and which tightly integrates within the advanced display property tabs in all supported Microsoft operating systems.  We can customize the graphics, icons, logos, tweaks and text within the tabs to match almost any look.  The help files have been designed for easy translation into other languages, and our custom installer will detect the localized language settings for each users operating system and select the proper language for installation if one exists.

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How do I do X in Rage3D Tweak?

Read the Help first before emailing me or posting in the forums!  There is a vast amount of information relating to how to use the many cool capabilities of Rage3D Tweak that is explained in the help file.  (You know... all that text that is painstakingly written to explain everything available from the Help button that you ignored)

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How many languages is the tweaker available in?

Six.  English, French, Italian, German, Spanish and Portuguese.

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Why does it take you so long to release the translated versions?

Because I've always got too many things to do.

Actually it's because it takes a lot of time to make sure each translation has no errors in the tweaks or their settings, and somehow we manage to come up with new things to put in the tweaker or ways to improve it faster than I can move the translations over to the new versions.  We've redesigned how the help files work however, and it will be much easier to get the translated versions out now each time we come out with a new version.

{Ed. Eric is a recovering procrastinator currently seeking professional help]

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Overclocking does not work right on my system.  What is wrong?

There are a couple of possibilities why overclocking may not work correctly on your system.

  1. The service that accesses the ATI registers is called probe. When this is not setup properly the tweaker can't overclock. A properly set up probe has the file probe.sys in your windows/system32/drivers folder and the service is registered in the registry. The service file is called probe.vxd under win98se and doesn't require anything in the registry.
  2. Some Windows XP tweaks might be interfering with the proper operation of probe.sys, there is one called large system cache in paticular that probe.sys might not like. It is located here: HKLM\system\currentcontrolset\control\session manager\memory management\LargeSystemCache

As of version 3.7, the tweaker now has a start menu link to a troubleshooting utility called WIYP.exe, it will allow you to register and unregister the probe service and copy the probe.sys file to the correct folder. If the utility displays probe is active, that means it's working.

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When I make changes to the tweaks they don't seem to change anything?

Either the tweak is broken in the tweaker, your current driver set does not support the tweak, or you're running Windows XP and the registry is arsed up enough that the tweaker can't figure out where it is supposed to be putting the registry settings. What can you do?

As of version 3.7, there is a start menu link to WIYP.exe, which outputs some information useful for debugging system issues on your system. Run it and hit the copy to clipboard button and paste the contents into a post in the Rage3D Overclocking and Tweaking forum.

With the latest Catylyst drivers from ATI, their display properties control panel resides in memory after the first run, and it never reads in the registry values again. Howver, changes made in the ATI panels should be reflected in the tweaker.

There is an option in the tweaker category that changes the right click help text to the registry path for each tweak on your system. This can be helpful as well.

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How do I report a bug (feature!) or request new functionality?

Post a thread in the Tweaker Forum here at Rage3D, or send me an email at ichneumon@rage3d.com

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I have extra tabs displayed.  How do I get rid of them?

In the Extras folder of the downloaded archive (open with winrar or equivalent) there is a file called twkilla.inf, after using add/remove to uninstall the tweaker, right click on this file and select install and reboot. This will wipe references to the tweaker from the registry and queue up any remaining tweaker files to be deleted on the next boot cycle.

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Do I have to uninstall the tweaker when I change drivers?

No.

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Do I have to run GameUtil at boot, and does it hog my system resources?

You don't have to run GameUtil at boot, but you loose a VAST amount of cool functionality of the tweaker.  This includes things like resetting OC settings after sleep mode, per-game profiles, per-game overclocking, refresh-rate fixing for standard and custom display modes in Win2k and WinXP and many more.

GameUtil is a tiny program that sits idle not using any CPU resources until it intercepts a mode change (sleep, refresh, etc) at which time it does its magic, which only takes moments and a miniscule amount of processing power.

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My overclock settings are not remaining after rebooting my computer!

Game Util is responsible for doing Radeon overclocking at boot.
You have to run Game Util for this to happen.
It works like this:
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Does the tweaker bloat the system registry?

As of version 3.7, the registry settings that define the tweaker are stored in a datafile. Registry use is no larger than any other installed program.

This datafile is a registry hive, the tweaker attaches this hive to the root of the HKLM registry when it is running and detaches it afterword.

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How do I save my custom profiles/settings?

What... you mean you didn't read the help file?

First, you should always make a profile to store your custom settings so they don't magically disappear if you change something.  To save your custom profiles when you are changing tweaker versions, you should Right-Click on each of your profiles and click save.  This will save a reg-file of the profile.  After you install a new version of Rage3D Tweak, or reinstall etc. you can just double-click the reg file you saved (or right-click and install it) and your profile will be back in Rage3D Tweak.  You should do this for each custom profile you create.

Starting with Version 3.7 you can "Export" your User Profiles to a file now which can be used to easily transfer profiles between tweaker versions as well as amongst your friends and fellow Rage3D folks.  It is now a part of the right-click menu for user profiles.  When Exported all another r3dtweak user (v3.7 or newer) needs to do is double-click the profile file to import it back into Rage3D Tweak.  It will check for tweaks that are no longer used or otherwise invalid and alert you of any differences between the exported and imported profile. 

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How do I get rid of the annoying sounds?

What... you mean the help file doesn't mention it?

When Game Util does something, there is no gui to indicate that it has done it, so to provide feedback to the user, it plays sounds. These sounds default to a voice saying what is going on, in a mumbled quake like tone. You can change what sounds are used by using the windows control panel, it varies from OS to OS but there is a section for changing application sounds in each one.

If you prefer not to have any sounds at all, you can use the tweaker settings to disable them, they are located strangely enough in the game util section, by Game Util Event Sounds. This setting has magical properties that make it invisible to the casual user.

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What does the Reset Profile do?

What... you mean the help file doesn't mention it?

When you first install the tweaker, all your d3d and ogl settings are saved in the reset profile. If you make the Reset Profile autorun then it will be run at boot and after any game that you have a profile for that also autoruns. Basically, just put the settings you want to be the default in this profile.

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Why don't the ATI tabs update?

The tweaker knows about the ATI tabs, the ATI tabs don't know about the tweaker. The ATI tabs remain resident in ram, they only check the registry the first time they are loaded. If the tweaker responds to changes in the ATI tabs, everything is working fine. If you want ATI to change it's tab behaviour you will have to contract ATI.

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How do I increase/decrease the overclocking limits?

Use Regedit:
Find HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Game Util\ATI Radeon Overclocker. Change one or more of the following:
UpperCoreX
LowerCoreX
UpperMemX
LowerMemX
They are multiplied by the defaults to get the ranges.

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What tweaker should I use?

How do you expect us to answer that? :)

We like the way we did ours, no doubt the other programmers did things differently and like the way they did theirs. There are strengths and weaknesses of different approaches. Try them all and either use them simutaneously or just run the one that works best for you.

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Eric "Ichneumon" Amidon and Byron "Himself" Montgomerie
Copyright © 2002 [Rage3D]. All rights reserved.
Revised: 01/26/03.