9800xt Catalyst problems

[hatty]

I just bought a 9800xt card. I have the drivers installed and such but when i try to use the catalyst control panel it says that access is denied. i dont know what the deal is with this. also when i played hl1 games my fps was not high at all. It was lower then what i got with my mx440. I am thinking maybe i have the wrong driver even though ati's site said that it works with 9800 series. well any help would be nice. thanks alot, HaTTy.
Typed this very very fast.

[Sledgehammer70]

The 9800xt card is about 4 - 5 years old now and the tech isn't what I would call anything special compared to todays graphic cards. But the card should be pretty high end for Half Life 1.

Not to sure wht the CP locks you out, but I would try a fresh driver install and see if that haelps a bit. Also make sure all your Nvidia drivers have been removed.

[hatty]

My computer is freshly reformatted as of yesterday. I have a duron 1.6ghz cpu, 512 mb ram, and 9800xt. The 9800xt should kill hl1. I understand that its outdated but why would i get less fps with a 9800xt then an mx440?

No nvidia drivers whatsoever.

EDIT: I just looked at my processes and there is three CLI.exe and i am almost positive that is a process from ATI. Also there is 2 ati2evxx.exe. What the heck would be the possible need for 3 of the same exe open at the same time?

[hatty]

My computer is freshly reformatted as of yesterday. I have a duron 1.6ghz cpu, 512 mb ram, and 9800xt. The 9800xt should kill hl1. I understand that its outdated but why would i get less fps with a 9800xt then an mx440?

No nvidia drivers whatsoever.

EDIT: I just looked at my processes and there is three CLI.exe and i am almost positive that is a process from ATI. Also there is 2 ati2evxx.exe. What the heck would be the possible need for 3 of the same exe open at the same time?
I have a 280 watt power supply which should be fine for what all i have. Correct me if i am wrong. Seems like it wouldn't make a huge difference going from mx440 to 9800xt watts wise. I also had a gf6200 and it did not give me much higher fps could that have been caused from lack of psu wattage?
Very Frustrated with my purchase so far. Help is wanted and appreciated

[Karoum]

IM not certain, but I used to have an mx440 and it had no need ofr external power (from what I remember) as my current radeon9800pro needs external current from the 12v rail. Is your 3d card powered by external power or did you forget to plug the 12v rail to it? (check it)

And ya, the radeon9800 is not to be run on such a weak PSU.

[hatty]

Yes the 12v rail was plugged into the card. I still want to know if lack of power could cause the 9800 to slow down during gaming.

Well I bought a new power supply. So when it gets here i will put the 9800xt in after uninstalling GF drivers and then install 9800 drivers. Hopefully this will work. My power supply is weak as it is and i was looking to upgrade anyway.

[Karoum]

Well when my PSU began to be too weak, my graphics would stutter and get as low as 1 or 2 fps almost instantly after 10 seconds of playing.

[hatty]

Well mine does to like 25-35ish...i just know that i could tell it wasnt smooth worth a crap...i didnt pay much attention to the fps because it was frustrating me.