The Notebook Review forums were hosted by TechTarget, who shut down them down on January 31, 2022. This static read-only archive was pulled by NBR forum users between January 20 and January 31, 2022, in an effort to make sure that the valuable technical information that had been posted on the forums is preserved. For current discussions, many NBR forum users moved over to NotebookTalk.net after the shutdown.
Problems? See this thread at archive.org.

    Soft-modding the GPU so the Radeon shows up as FireGL?

    Discussion in 'Dell XPS and Studio XPS' started by maxh, Aug 21, 2010.

  1. maxh

    maxh Notebook Consultant

    Reputations:
    16
    Messages:
    143
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    30
    I use Solidworks and one of the display features, "RealView", is disabled because the ATI Radeon HD 4670 in my 1645 is not one of the recognized compatible cards. However, the chip is fully capable, and is the same chip as used in some of the FireGL cards that are listed as compatible.

    In this thread over at Guru3D forums, the process of softmodding Radeons to FireGLs is described.
    ATI FireGL/FireProSoftmod - Discussion Thread for new members - Guru3D.com Forums

    Has anyone here ever done this successfully on their 4670 or 5730?
     
  2. killaz05

    killaz05 Notebook Evangelist

    Reputations:
    12
    Messages:
    373
    Likes Received:
    2
    Trophy Points:
    31
    I looked into it after you posted this thread and it seems really complicated for me. I would love it if it would help with my Autodesk programs.
     
  3. Kyodo

    Kyodo Newbie

    Reputations:
    0
    Messages:
    1
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    5
    I'm very interested in this post: I did something like this 7 years ago for my radeon 8500.. and it was amazing..
    I don't know if I would be able to do it again now with my laptop, but I'd love to! If anybody knows how to, please post his experience and, possibly, a tutorial specific for our HD 4670..
    =)
     
  4. cxmgp

    cxmgp Notebook Geek

    Reputations:
    0
    Messages:
    78
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    15
    Can we gain anything with this mod ?
    (speed in 3d games for example?)
     
  5. moral hazard

    moral hazard Notebook Nobel Laureate

    Reputations:
    2,779
    Messages:
    7,957
    Likes Received:
    87
    Trophy Points:
    216
    You will gain nothing in 3d games.

    I bet you could flash the vBIOS from a FireGL to a Radeon.
     
  6. gpig

    gpig Notebook Deity

    Reputations:
    82
    Messages:
    885
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    30
    I thought this process was as easy as:

    1. Find the closest FireGL card to your own card
    2. Download that FireGL's driver
    3. Open the device manager -> Display adapter ->Driver tab -> update -> browse computer for driver software -> install
    4. Hope you don't break anything
     
  7. slimDusty

    slimDusty Notebook Enthusiast

    Reputations:
    0
    Messages:
    29
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    5
    I just did this following the guide in the first post. I didn't do any benchmarks before (which was kind of stupid) and I can't notice any difference whatsoever in Maya 2011. Viewport 2.0 still doesn't work, I dont seem to have faster viewport fps either. I modded my 4670 to Firepro 7750. So basically I'm not even sure that it's working and I don't know how to check.
     
  8. slimDusty

    slimDusty Notebook Enthusiast

    Reputations:
    0
    Messages:
    29
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    5
    Also hardware rendering doesn't work anymore, so perhaps I screwed up somewhere...
     
  9. slimDusty

    slimDusty Notebook Enthusiast

    Reputations:
    0
    Messages:
    29
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    5
  10. maxh

    maxh Notebook Consultant

    Reputations:
    16
    Messages:
    143
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    30
  11. slimDusty

    slimDusty Notebook Enthusiast

    Reputations:
    0
    Messages:
    29
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    5
    It's better explained, and some stuff differs, eg. the modification of the patchscript.