Questions about Alienware m17x

I have heard of people circumventing the "You MUST install Dell released Drivers ONLY" and I am wanting to know how to do it. I haven't found any consistent or reliable articles on the net. I want to be able to use ATI's drivers but is there a problem in doing that? Is it software that blocks out any Non-Dell video drivers or something deeper?

The drivers that shipped with the system run Crysis AMAZINGLY but can not play Starcraft 2. There are spots in the map where units will disappear and become un-selectable. The BETA vista drivers on dell's site work great in Starcraft 2 but stutter Crysis. I just cant win. The old drivers are choppy on Blur but the Beta's are smooth. Company of Heroes is smooth on both drivers. I haven't gotten to try much else.
I am hopeful that there is a solution that doesnt involve waiting 6 months for new drivers from Dell.

Thank you for the help!

 

Dell/Alienware recently released an updated video driver and it failed. Obviously there is far more complexity to the video driver issue than first percieved by many on this forum. If you think you will succeed where dozens of Alienware/Dell engineers have failed than the answer is yes. The problem is really very simple, the AMD drivers are generic and are not compatible with some of the Alienware proprietary features. Which features is a carefully guarded secret. Some conflict always arises after using the Catalyst generic drivers and than a new thread pops up. Personally I think it is time to scrap the Alienware drivers and make the system compatible with Catalyst but I don't think that will happen. If people are expecting monthly video updates than they have truly bought a "pig in a poke" and that aint no joke.

 

This is a laptop and game munufacturers simply don't support Laptops. Most games usually print directly on the box that mobile chipsets are not supported. If the 5870 were truly generic than they would simply work but alas they don't with this game. Again a gaming laptop is a bit of a pig in poke. That being said 98% of the games do function. If Starcraft does not work than I think this is the responsibility of the software engineers that made Starcraft 2 to fix their game to make it compatible. The odds are that the next Starcraft 2 patch might fix any compatibility issues.

 

To be clear though, MOST of the problems are only present with Crossfire configurations. The AMD/ATI generic drivers often work fine for non-crossfire systems, particularly single-4870 machines.

 

Yes many with 4870's have reported no problems with Catalyst. I really don't know why they are having so many problems with the 5870 CF. Unfortunately this is what everyone wants. My last system was an XPS1710 and Nvidia blocked the download of the drivers and directed me back to Dell so I am not overly suprised by the current status quo.

 

hmm... thats unfortunate. I'm hoping this new beta driver will work better. Thanks for the info! ^_^