Tune Up Your Video Card!

When I talk about video card tweaking, the first programs that come to my mind are RivaTuner and Ati Tray Tools. There are also a lot of other programs built to help you get everything out of your video card, some better than the others. But why tweak it?

The video drivers for your video card have a lot of undocumented registry entries that can help boost visuals and also raw performance. Besides that, it's always better to set the regular settings like anti aliasing, anisotropic filtering and the others "by hand" instead of using the default ones.

Today's tweaker is called aTuner and supports a wide range of video cards from ATI and nVidia. Its installation kit is a bit smaller than 500KB and the setup process is fast and easy for everyone.

The program's interface is not beautiful, not even nice, but it does its job. With two clicks you can expand it and have the Profile-Manager and Configuration areas in sight. Once these are visible, you can start tuning...

Basic OpenGL and Direct3D settings are available from the main program window, while extra options like LOD Bias, Triple Buffering or Texture Compression settings are available from the Extra Options panels. You have one advanced panel for OpenGL and one for Direct3D settings; they are extremely easy to reach, so I can't see any problem here.

Oh, well, there could be one problem... some people may wonder already "what's that LOD?" or "triple WHAT?", but, unfortunately, 3D graphics terminology is not my topic now. I am sure that most of these enigmas will be easily cleared out using Wikipedia or specialized computer graphics websites.

Did I forget about Gamma? I can't forget Gamma, it's one of the most important visual settings. It's not about performance, but about your eyes' health and pleasure to work with your computer. aTuner allows you to set your video card Gamma values, black-point and to use different predefined color effects. This is the feature that I love most with this program.

Unfortunately, the advanced help topics about the command console on the producer's website were not translated into English yet, so we'll have to wait for that... I tried to type "help" and I got "No help yet" as an answer, but I couldn't figure out any other valid command. You are free to try...

Working with profiles is very easy and also it's covered by the poor Help system to be found in the program. All you have to do is give a name to the profile, assign an executable file to it and choose which one of the current profiles to save (you can choose to save OpenGL or Direct3D settings and, if you need, both of them).

I hope to see much more from this program in the future, because for now everything is well, but still needs more to compete with RivaTuner, Ati Tray Tools or PowerStrip.


The Good

aTuner is small, easy to use at basic level and can prove quite useful. It allows you to store separate profiles for each application and edit advanced registry settings.


The Bad

The program seems unfinished, with some options "to come" and a crude looking Help system. Features like the advanced registry tweaks or the console are a mystery for beginners and require a lot of reading before being used easily. aTuner really misses the overclocking options available in most of today's tweakers.


The Truth

If you're not using a video card tuning program yet, then you should check aTuner. Its wide range of video cards supported and the advanced settings available (but unfortunately undocumented) make it an interesting choice for most of us. aTuner is not a great program, but has no reason to be ashamed. If you have some time to spare, give it a chance!


Here are some snapshots of the application in action: