Tips for Power savings with ATI cards.

[tebore]

Tip for those using ATI video cards. I have a FireGL V5200 and without PowerPlay Enabled my video card draws about 10 watts with the fans running to keep it cool. This is about 1 hours off my battery life. Constantly opening CCC each time before I load a game to switch PP off and back on after the game is annoying since CCC takes forever to load.

This is what I did. Assuming you didn’t disable ATI’s “HotKey Poller” service (which you need for PP to work anyway) you can make profiles. I have 2 profiles, 1 where PP is disabled and used for gaming(usually plugged in when I game anyway) and 1 where PP is enabled and set to max power savings. You can make 3 profiles where you have the same 2 as me and 1 more where PP is enabled but set to balanced so you can game while on battery.

Follow these steps(This assumes CCC is set to advanced mode):
1. Open CCC.
2. Go PP and set all sliders to Optimal battery life.
Optional: Since the video card is really slow when set to Optimal battery life I set AF/AA to “Use Application Settings” and “Mipmap Detail Level” to “Quality” so I can get playable performance and the core doesn’t run as hard.
3. Once all of this is set go to “Profiles” select Profile Manager and Enter a name for your new Profile and a short description if you like.
4. Click the “Activation” Tab and check off System Hotkeys Assignments.
5. Under Select Hotkeys Modifier keys select the keys to bind. Mine are “Control+Shift”. Then under “Enter a Hotkeys selection” enter the key to complete the bind. Mine is “P”.
6. Click save.

So everytime I hit Control+shift+P my system goes in to Optimal Battery life.

To create the normal profile

1. Open CCC.
2. Go PP and set all sliders to Optimal Performance.
Optional: Set your AF/AA and Mipmap settings.
3. Once all of this is set go to “Profiles” select Profile Manager and Enter a name for your new Profile and a short description if you like.
4. Click the “Activation” Tab and check off System Hotkeys Assignments.
5. Under Select Hotkeys Modifier keys select the keys to bind. Mine are “Control+Shift”. Then under “Enter a Hotkeys selection” enter the key to complete the bind. Mine is “N”.
6. Click save.

So everytime I hit Control+shift+N my system goes in to Optimal Performance.