Thinkpads Forum

I'm looking into buying a T500 (maybe a W500 if I go with the better configured outlet machine that's a bit cheaper)


I'd like to know

1) How do you update the manufacturer's drivers, if this is still necessary. I know I used to use Mobility Modder back in the T60 days, but haven't had an ATI card in a year and a half.

2) If you can mod the drivers, do they support FireGL should I end up with the W500?

3) How do I get these new drivers to maintain the capability to switch between intel and ATI video?

For ATI drivers you'd have to rely on the notebook manufacturer to provide drivers. ATI only releases drivers for their desktop cards. But as you said, Mobility Modder is still the option. Most likely you'll lose the switching ability though, if you use anything else than the stock Lenovo provided driver.

I actually have plans myself to buy a T500 soon, and perhaps have some fun with slightly overclocking the videocard. That's the only reason I can think of to use other drivers than the Lenovo ones. I've heard one need to revert to 8.10 Catalyst drivers to make it work though, since the 8.11 and forward broke overclocking.

What would be your reason to not use the Lenovo drivers?

Don't know about the FireGL card. With these 'cad'-cards, driver support can be troublesome since they are not mainstream cards.

Lenovo hasn't exactly been on the ball for updates.

Really, no manufacturer ever is.

The T61p I have now, the latest drivers on their site are based off 176.93. They dated them Jan 09.

186.03 is out on nVidia's site, and a simple INF fix can make them work on my Quadro.

Any performance bumps available in new drivers wouldn't be available to me until Lenovo would decide to put out drivers. While gaming won't be a major concern on a new notebook, I'd like to be able to update as necessary.

Yep, that's true. Quite annoying to be so dependent on the manufacturer. Good thing Nvidia started to release the mobile drivers by themselves. But doesn't help when you sit with a ATI card...