Catalyst Control Center is a utility that comes with the driver that makes your AMD video card work. It shows up as CCC.exe in your task manager, and in most cases you won’t have to worry about it. You may have to dig into your Catalyst Control Center settings if you play on your computer, and it may require attention if it ever goes berserk, but you’re usually safe just leaving it alone.
What does the Catalyst Control Center do?
Catalyst Control Center starts when you turn on your computer, as it has to run in the background to manage the operation of your AMD video card. The same software was also used to manage ATI video cards before AMD bought ATI, so older computers with ATI cards may also have CCC.exe installed.
If you don’t play video games on your computer, you’ll probably never need to touch the Catalyst Control Center, but if you do, it’s pretty easy. The software allows you to check for driver updates for your video card and manage the card’s operation.
Some of the basic things you can do with the Catalyst Control Center include changing the resolution, or desktop area, and the rate at which the screen refreshes. There are also many other more advanced settings that are very useful for gamers. For example, you can change antialiasing settings in the Catalyst Control Center, which can remove jagged edges from 3D objects.
If you have a laptop with two video cards, you can also use the Catalyst Control Center to switch between them. This is useful if you notice poor performance when playing a game, which can be caused by the game not using your high powered AMD video card.
How did CCC.exe get on my computer?
If you have an AMD video card, then CCC.exe is usually installed along with the driver that actually makes the card work. Although it is possible to install just the driver, without the Catalyst Control Center, it is much more common to install them together as a package. Other executables, such as MOM.exe, are also included in the package.
In less common circumstances, you may have been hit with a virus or malware masquerading as Catalyst Control Center. If you have an Nvidia video card and your computer has never had an AMD card installed, this may be the case.
Is CCC.exe a virus?
Although CCC.exe is not a virus when downloaded directly from AMD, it is possible for a virus to be disguised as CCC.exe. Any good antivirus or anti-malware program will detect this type of hidden problem, but you can also see the location of CCC.exe on your computer. You can accomplish this in six simple steps:
- Press and hold control + alt + delete on your keyboard.
- Click on task manager .
- Click on the Processes tab .
- Look for CCC.exe in the name column.
- Write what it says in the appropriate column of the command line.
- If there is no command line column, right click on the name column and then left click where it says command line.
If your copy of CCC.exe is legitimate, the location given in the command line column will be something like Program Files (x86)/ATI Technologies . Whenever CCC.exe appears in any other location, it indicates that it may be malware.
How to fix problems with CCC.exe
When CCC.exe experiences a problem, an error message may appear on your screen. Some common error messages include:
- CCC.exe has stopped working
- CCC.exe has experienced a problem
- Catalyst Control Center: The guest application has encountered an error and needs to close
This usually happens when something gets corrupted, and the most common solutions are to repair the Catalyst Control Center installation or reinstall it entirely. In earlier versions of Windows, you can do this in the Programs and Features section of Control Panel. In Windows 10, you need to navigate to Apps & features in Windows Settings .
The easiest option is to simply download the latest version of Catalyst Control Center directly from AMD. When you run the Catalyst Control Center installer, you must remove the broken version and install a working version.
Since Catalyst Control Center is not a required utility, you can also prevent it from running when your computer starts. This will prevent you from accessing any advanced settings for your video card, but it should also stop any annoying error messages.