Video drivers for T42 w/Mobility Radeon 9600/9700 with VISTA

[silo]

I have a T42 with Mobility Radeon 9600/9700 video and it's rated at 2.0 by Vista.

I read that if I install ATI Catalyst 7.2 drivers for the 9600 then Vista will rank my video performance at 3.5.

Much desired, I assume. So I've spent the last 45 minutes trying to find the drivers. But I can't find them.

And there is a specific statement saying that ATI provides no Catalyst drivers for Mobility Radeon video.

What gives? Are there some video drivers available (where?) that will significantly improve performance of my T42 with the 9600/9700 video?

Thanks.

[Troels]

You will need to modify ATI's drivers with the Mobility Modder in order to make it work.
They have developed a version for Vista.
Read the page http://www.driverheaven.net/modtool/
and follow the step-by-step guide.


Also, Omega drivers are working on their first Vista release, which could be released any day now.

[w0qj]

err... what's the difference between Catalyst and Omega video drivers? Sorry for such a noob question...

[ryengineer]

err... what's the difference between Catalyst and Omega video drivers? Sorry for such a noob question...

I hope this will clear up everything.

The Omega Drivers have been recognized by ATI as the best moddeed drivers in the Internet!!!

Here is a quote from Terry Makedon when he was interviewed by a German Magazine:

"ATI supports the enthusiast community wholly. Omega Drivers are in fact a good example of ATI's user community at its best. What they are in principle are CATALYST drivers with different settings enabled via registry keys and other such methods. This provides users an alternative to ATI's CATALYST default settings. While there are a few different modification drivers out in the community our relationship with the creator of the Omega Drivers is of the highest working standard. The author of these drivers is part of the CATALYST beta driver testing team and also in direct contact with ATI. In fact we would go so far as to say that if a user chooses to go the mod driver route they go with the Omega Drivers."

[masterus]

Hi

There's one small difference..Omega are faster..about 10-15%

Regards

[silo]

Hi

There's one small difference..Omega are faster..about 10-15%

Regards

Where can I get these Omega drivers for a T42? And what do I have to do to them to use them with ATI Mobility 9600/9700?

[Harryc]

Hi

There's one small difference..Omega are faster..about 10-15%

Regards

Where can I get these Omega drivers for a T42? And what do I have to do to them to use them with ATI Mobility 9600/9700?

You would get them at the link below, but as stated they are not released for Vista yet.

http://www.omegadrivers.net/ati.php

For installation instructions, see the README at the download link when the Vista drivers are released.

[GnatGoSplat]

I'm a little confused...

The better performance is gained by using Catalyst desktop chipset drivers with Mobility chips, so is required to mod the drivers to support Mobility chips?

Also, why 7.2? I see 7.4 exists. Is 7.2 that much better than 7.3 and 7.4?

[silo]

I'm a little confused...

The better performance is gained by using Catalyst desktop chipset drivers with Mobility chips, so is required to mod the drivers to support Mobility chips?

Also, why 7.2? I see 7.4 exists. Is 7.2 that much better than 7.3 and 7.4?

I tried twice to install the Catalyst drivers using the instructions at

http://www.driverheaven.net/modtool/

No dice. Don't have a clew as to what the problem is.

Wondering if this is really worth it, ie, do the new drivers produce a perceptible difference in the speed of the Op Sys?

[GomJabbar]

I installed the modded Catalyst drivers on a T42 with the 9600 Radeon adapter using the same instructions on driverheaven.net on a Vista RC1 installation. The install went fine, but I ran into power management issues when going into Standby or when turning the display off. For me, the ATI drivers included with Vista RC1 work best, but there are still problems. I was told in another thread that Vista RTM that is out now works better with the ATI drivers. I have not yet purchased a retail version of Vista to test.

[GnatGoSplat]

I compared the screenshots of Catalyst 7.4 at http://www.driverheaven.net/modtool/ to what was already installed, and what was already there was newer!

What I did was installed the ATI drivers from IBM, and then Windows Vista found an updated driver and auto-updated it.