Fixing some T60 Mobility X1400 OpenGL issues with unofficial driver

[dr_st]

Recently I've used my Thinkpad T60 Windows XP system to test a few games and realized that there are issues with the ATI Mobility X1400 drivers.

Lenovo has several releases, according to the readme:

Code: Select all

Version                              Build ID    Rev.  Issue Date 
  -----------------------------------  --------    ----  ---------------
  8.593.100.7-090929a-090748C-Lenovo   79D179WW    01    2009/11/10
  8.533.3.1-081110a-075168C-Lenovo     79D177WW    01    2009/01/30
  8.442.3-080103a1-057754C-Lenovo      79D172WW          9th release
  8.441-071128a-056348C-Lenovo         79D171WW          8th release
  8.383.1.1.3-070621a2-050878C-Lenovo  79D165WW          7th release
  8.362-070405a-046310C-Lenovo         79D164WW          6th release
  8.293.1-060913a-036475C-Lenovo       79D162WW          5th release
  8.241.1-060324a-031947C-Lenovo       79D141WW          4th release
  8.231-060221a1-031193C-Lenovo        79D135WW          3rd release
  8.204-051220a1-031127C-Lenovo        79D122WW          2nd release
  8.204-051220a1-029804C-Lenovo        79D121WW          Initial release

The two latest ones - 8.533 and 8.593 - have some weird pixelization issue with new versions of Angry Birds. 8.442 and older don't have this issue, but they also don't have the option to enable aspect-correct GPU scaling for games that do not have widescreen support (a feature I've been using for gaming on my DELL 2209WA WSXGA+ screen).

Lenovo has not released any versions between 8.442 and 8.533, it seems, and the Omega Drivers only go up to 8.442 myself, so I was stuck. Fortunately, a lucky solution was found. It seems that an intermediate version - 8.512 for Mobility X1400 on Windows XP is available through Microsoft's update catalog. By default it won't install on the T60, because the INF has some hardcoded subsystem IDs (and therefore Windows Update will not offer it to you as well). However, if you force the installation ("I will choose which driver to install"), then it works great, shows version 8.512.0.0, no pixelization issues in Angry Birds, and GPU scaling is available in the Catalyst Control Center.

Decided to post this here, in case someone else ever looks for an intermediate version of the ATI driver for their T60 to resolve some strange issue. Note that a separate version is available for Mobility X1300/X1550 series.

[dr_st]

Another small update on the issue. One limitation of the non-Lenovo driver 8.512 is that it does not integrate well with the Presentation Director (scheme changing does not work). I assumed some change in the driver files or settings might be the cause, so I decide to compare the INFs of the DELL (Gateway) 8.512 and the Lenovo 8.533. In the process, I accidentally stumbled on a different workaround to the original issue, which at the moment seems like the best of both worlds.

Earlier driver versions shipped two separate OpenGL driver - ATIOGLXX.DLL (~5MB), and ATIOGLX2.DLL (~9MB) - the latter apparently is the newer OpenGL 2.1 driver. Starting from 8.533, only ATIOGLXX.DLL is present; the file size is larger (~10MB), so I suspect it's supposed to be an "integrated" driver for both. For whatever reason, it has compatibility issues with Angry Birds (and other apps as well, since this workaround has been suggested in other locations, such as here and here.

What needs to be done is as follows:

• Install an official Lenovo ATI driver 8.533 or 8.593
• Since the above will not include ATIOGLX2.DLL, import it from an older version (the one from 8.512 works fine). You may even still have it in your WINDOWS\SYSTEM32, if you performed a driver upgrade; if not - copy it over.
• In the registry change the following key:

  Code: Select all

  [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\OpenGLDrivers\ati2dvag]

  Replace

  Code: Select all

  "Dll"="atioglxx.dll"

  with

  Code: Select all

  "Dll"="atioglx2.dll"

After rebooting, OpenGL applications (which include Angry Birds) will be using ATIOGLX2, and whatever issues they experienced with ATIOGLXX should be gone. On the other hand, the Lenovo-specific features, such as Presentation Director scheme integration work fine. I have not encountered any compatibility issues so far, but will update if something comes up.