ATI Catalyst: Lenovo OEM drivers (7.1) or ATI drivers (7.1)?

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AlexanderT · #1 Post by **AlexanderT** » Sun Mar 18, 2007 11:08 am

The title says it all. Currently I use the Lenovo drivers, and they work fine. But according to ATI, 8.2 has some important improvements, including "significant performance gains" and "reduced system resource usage."

I am not sure if I should upgrade based on these improvements. What would be the side-effects?

PS: My GPU is a Mobility Radeon X1400.

warder · #2 Post by **warder** » Sun Mar 18, 2007 5:03 pm

7.2 has no performance improvements apparent to the Vista performance index on my z60m.

It has bugs though over the original MS driver:

- Image tearing on desktop (http://not42.com/Images/ati72tear.jpg)

- Screen order is lost on multi-screen desktop when the laptop restores from sleep. E.g. I order my 2 screens 2,1 and it always unsleeps to 1,2.

The only reason that I use the ATi driver is:

- It adds PowerPlay settings to the control panel power options

- It enables DVD playing due to MS silly DRM restrictions

Hopefully they'll fix the issues in 7.3.

AlexanderT · #3 Post by **AlexanderT** » Mon Mar 19, 2007 3:43 am

warder, thanks for the info.

Please note I was not comparing ATI drivers to built-in MS drivers.

Lenovo offers OEM drivers from ATI for Thinkpad users, but you can also download official drivers from ATI.

warder · #4 Post by **warder** » Mon Mar 19, 2007 9:33 am

AlexanderT wrote: Please note I was not comparing ATI drivers to built-in MS drivers.

I know

Thought people might like to know that the 7.2 drivers were not perfect. Waiting for 7.3...

killigrew · #5 Post by **killigrew** » Mon Mar 19, 2007 1:57 pm

Dont't know about the Lenovo Driver but i would use the newest.

I have the ATI 7.2 Driver installed and it works perfektly for me.
Good Game Performance,
PowerPlay is working perfectly even with an externel Display !!!
No crashes till now.
I'm totlay happy with it

cu

#6 Post by **Kyocera** » Mon Mar 19, 2007 6:53 pm

warder, I"m using the MS driver now and have no complaints is it worth using the ATI driver? I'm not a gamer, and right now have no screen issues, other than it's working perfectly.

warder · #7 Post by **warder** » Tue Mar 20, 2007 8:57 am

Kyocera, if it wasn't for the fact that Media Player refused to play a DVD the other day with the MS driver, I'd still be using that too. I'd stick the MS one until you find something doesn't work.

AlexanderT · #8 Post by **AlexanderT** » Wed Mar 21, 2007 6:11 pm

Kyocera, if you are running Vista (with all the Aero effects etc.), I would clearly recommend to use either of the official ATI drivers which are optimized to take the hardware acceleration of your card into account.

stephenaron · #9 Post by **stephenaron** » Wed Mar 21, 2007 9:39 pm

Anyon running 7.2 under Vista using the FireGL 5200 card in the T60p? Where did you download it? Link please. Working better?

AlexanderT · #10 Post by **AlexanderT** » Sat Mar 24, 2007 3:55 am

Download link for the official ATI 7.2 drivers:

http://ati.amd.com/support/drivers/vist ... sta32.html

FirstTimer · #11 Post by **FirstTimer** » Fri Apr 06, 2007 10:19 pm

I'm using ATI 8.342.0.0 driver on FireGL 5200.
This is the only driver I found so far that allows me to play HD content recorded from Comcast cable box over firewire.

Using other drivers playback was so choppy I was ready to crack the laptop in half.

This is Z61p with Core 2 Duo 2.33GHz with WUXGA screen.

Temetka · #12 Post by **Temetka** » Sat Apr 07, 2007 2:53 am

Hmm..

I am unable to locate a driver for the FireGL T2 chip in my T41P. Since I am running Vista 32-bit, I would like to take advantage of powerplay.

I am downloading from the link 2 posts above mine and will give that a shot. If it fails, has Omega been updated to work with Vista yet?

Not asking for much, just an updated driver for my laptop.

Temetka · #13 Post by **Temetka** » Sun Apr 08, 2007 11:43 am

UPDATE: The new driver, does NOT install on my T41P.

What is the latest driver that will work with my GPU, and where can I download it from?

Thanks.

tballx · #14 Post by **tballx** » Sun Apr 08, 2007 12:09 pm

FirstTimer wrote:I'm using ATI 8.342.0.0 driver on FireGL 5200.
This is the only driver I found so far that allows me to play HD content recorded from Comcast cable box over firewire.

Using other drivers playback was so choppy I was ready to crack the laptop in half.

This is Z61p with Core 2 Duo 2.33GHz with WUXGA screen.

Where did you obtain this driver?

FirstTimer · #15 Post by **FirstTimer** » Sun Apr 08, 2007 7:42 pm

http://ati.amd.com/support/drivers/vist ... sta32.html

This is Mobility Radeon x1600 driver.
I installed just the driver without the catalist...