New X1300 laptop, have some questions

Hey all, I got my new laptop yesterday, an Acer 1652ZWLMi.

Pentium 1.7ghz
1024mb
100gb HDD
ATI X1300

Its a nice bit of kit, no dead pixels on LCD (always a worry of mine!) and so far so good. Benchmark results so far;

3dmark03- 2244
3dmark05- 1288

However I'm completely new to ATI graphics cards, and laptops in general, so have a few questions.

Firstly about the drivers. The drivers that came with the laptop are Catalyst 6.1 (6.14.10.6587). I wanted to get the latest 6.4s since they seem to offer best AVIVO playback but it seems that the 6.4s do not support my card (why?!). So I'm looking at the Omega drivers, are they safe to use for my card? Anyone on here with the new X1k range used these?

Next, the Catalyst Control Centre seems to take up a hell of a lot of space. Does this program offer any real help to the user or is it just gumpf?

Thanks for any help. I'll try and post up some pictures and some benchmark links later in the day.

 

Actually, you can install the Catalyst 6.4 suite - download them, and then you can use the mobility modder to make them work in a laptop:
http://driverheaven.net/patje/
There's directions on the page of how to do it.

I wouldn't install the CCC. It doesn't prove its worth, I never had any use for it. When you go to install the drivers, instead of doing the automatic setup, do a custom one when it asks you, and deselect the CCC, only select the driver.

Chaz

 

Firstly its more or less safe to use the Omega drivers. just make sure u use DriverCleaner to clean up your old drivers first to avoid any conflicts or problems. And Catalyst Control Center is just a load of ****ware in my opinion. One of the most poorly written net.framework programs. Use Ati Tray Tools instead. Gives you more options and takes up less resources.

By the way is your x1300 with 64mb dedicated and total 256mb hypermemory? Interesting thats it scores lower than my 64mb ati radeon 9700mobility in 3dmark03. mine scores around 3300. dunno about 3dmark05 as i cant run for it for some reason.

 

Just go for the ATI's drivers, Omega's isnt good if you are new with laptops and such... I recommand you install 6.4 right away, they have great support for X1k cards!

Charlie-Peru

 

But mobility catalyst's do not have support for X1K series of cards.

 

Just use the desktop 6.4's and use the Mobility modder from Driverheaven.net.

 

Can i do that to get the 6.4's for my inspiron to? I know that ati's driver doesn't support dell either!!

 

download the desktop drivers, use mobility modder to install them.

doenst matter who they say they support (manufacturer wise), if it is an ATI card (and it says they support it), it will work.

pb,out.

 

Tried getting the desktop catalysts and modding them with no success. Tried Omega drivers but they did not work either. But today I found new Acer ATI drivers at their FTP site, based on the 6.1 catalysts (the drivers that ship with the laptop are based on 5.13) and although nothing happened on the 3dmark front, i can now play Quake 4 without artifacts everywhere. Which is nice!

ftp://ftp.support.acer-euro.com/notebook/travelmate_4070_4080/driver/

Can find the new Acer ATI drivers there, based on 6.1s, driver versions are
2d- 6.14.10.6857
D3D - 6.14.10.0362
OpenGL- 6.14.10.5529

Might be worth checking out for anyone who is interested.