Enable RealView in Solidworks on your Radeon 4670 or 5730 system!

I use Solidworks and was disappointed when I first got my SXPS 16 to learn that the RealView feature was disabled since the Radeon 4670 is not on their recognized list of compatible graphics cards. It is fully capable, though, meaning a software fix should theoretically allow enabling of RealView. I did some reading and learned about soft-modding Radeons to FireGL cards, which are on the compatible list, and I started this thread on the topic: http://forum.notebookreview.com/dell-xps-studio-xps/511764-soft-modding-gpu-so-radeon-shows-up-firegl.html

I tried to do this but failed on the first attempt. I did some more reading and found that Solidworks only does a graphics card name check to determine whether or not to enable RealView. So I simply downloaded the latest driver package for the 4670 from Dell's website, extracted it, and modified the .inf files, replacing everything that said "ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4670" with "ATI FirePro V7750 (FireGL)". Then I installed the drivers and RealView works! I'm very happy.

To break it down in case there are any other Solidworks users here:

1. Go to dell.com and download the latest driver package for your GPU.

2. Run the executable (double click the file you downloaded) and it'll begin extracting the contents, first asking you to "Select the folder where you want to unzip the files to." I left it as the default, which was C:\dell\drivers\R257949.

3. Use windows explorer to navigate to the driver's .inf files that were extracted. I found them in: C:\dell\drivers\R257949\Packages\Drivers\Display\W76A_INF
There were two of them: C7_94670.inf and CH_94670.inf.

4. Open each of the .inf files with notepad and look for the phrase "ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4670". Replace each one you find with the phrase "ATI FirePro V7750 (FireGL)". I imagine you could use just about any other graphics card name that's on the compatible list, but this is the one I was originally trying to use for the soft-mod because it's one of three that actually use the same chip as the 4670.

5. Save the .inf files. (I actually don't know if it was necessary to modify both inf files. I just did them both instead of trying to guess which one to do.)

6. Install the driver. You can do this by navigating back to the initial extraction directory ( C:\dell\drivers\R257949 in my case) and running setup.exe.

That's it! It should work. Before doing this I also went through a process to disable driver signing which can be found on this page ATI FireGL/FireProSoftmod - Discussion Thread for new members - Guru3D.com Forums using a program called DSEO 1.3b.

 

Ever since doing this I haven't been able to access the Catalyst Control Center (CCC). When I try to run it through the start menu or through the link in the control panel, I'll get the waiting cursor briefly and the hard drive will start doing its thing, but then nothing happens. Any idea how to get it back? I have some keyboard shortcuts for turning the lcd on/off when using an external monitor and they're no longer working.

 

This is because you're using the worst piece of software on the planet. ATI does not know how to code its own control panel.

Essentially, the problem is that you installed the control panel without completely uninstalling the old one. You have to remove all traces of CCC and ATi install manager (or whatever it's called) from your computer before installing.

 

I have to agree with this. I've been using Nvidia for most of the last few years, and I'm quite disappointed with the CCC since switching to ATI. The 5730 itself performs just fine, but the CCC is horrible.

 

I know this is an old thread, but I wanted to thank the OP for putting this trick out there. I am surprised others aren't talking about this more.

I wanted to put together a cheap system to run Solidworks, but naturally I also wanted Realview. I have an inexpensive AMD 785G motherboard with built in ATI 4200 graphics. That onboard chip is similar to a V3700, so I found the correct name for the V3700 from it's drivers and cut and paste that name in the 4200 driver inf files to replace the 4200 name. The result is that the 4200 is now called a V3700 in the device manager and I have Realview as a result.

This is a great and simple trick. You are just calling the card something else in the inf file. There will not be any performance increase, but you get Realview, which can be very useful. Increased functionality with zero cost is pretty nice. Also, this should work on any 760G or 785G motherboard, and those are cheap and plentiful.