Friday, August 28, 2009

Catalyst “Mobility” 9.3.1 Vista legacy drivers on Windows 7

Windows 7 RC default drivers for ATI Radeon Mobility X300 are working fine on my work Dell Inspiron 9300 with Aero Glass and all, but let’s try to push it a bit further.

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Download Catalyst Radeon 9.3.1 legacy desktop drivers for Windows Vista x32:

http://support.amd.com/us/gpudownload/windows/Legacy/previous/Pages/radeonaiw_vista32.aspx

Run the package and let it extract the drivers - usually to a path like X:\ATI\Support\9-3_1_legacy_vista32-64_dd_ccc – then cancel the installation.

Download and run DriverHeaven’s Mobility Modder to modify the drivers package (see similar notes on the application download page).

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I’ve tried then to run the setup.exe from the driver package as the instructions say on the Mobility Modder page, but the driver didn’t show up in the list, so I went and update the driver manually through Computer Management > Device Manager > Display adapters > ATI MOBILITY RADEON X300 > Driver (tab) > Update driver > Browse my computer for driver software > Let me pick from list of device drivers on my computer > Have Disk > X:\ATI\Support\9-3_1_legacy_vista32-64_dd_ccc\Packages\Drivers\Display\LH_INF > etc. Reboot when prompted.

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The updated driver didn’t change the graphics rating and I couldn’t notice any performance increase, but I’ll keep the drivers if no problems appear.

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Note: I have tried the same procedure on ATI Catalyst 9.8 desktop drivers, and although the driver is being presented through the manual update procedure, on reboot I lost the Aero Glass and the maximum resolution allowed was 1600x1200. Which probably makes sense, since ATI has dropped support for the legacy chipsets in newer drivers, even if the Modder makes them appear in the .inf file.

2 comments :

  1. I have tried all the steps written above on my Fujitsu Siemens Amilo Pro V2045 with Radeon Mobility X300..and no way! After rebooting I can see only the explanation near graphic adapter in the device manager and in description is a funny notice: device has a problem:o(

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  2. Martin,

    I see the link I posted goes to Radeon 9.8 which didn't work for me either. Try again the whole process on Radeon 9.3 or 9.3.1, that might work.

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