Old GPUs on Windows 7

Hi everyone.

My laptop has an MR x1700 gpu and I want to switch to windows 7. I'm currently running vista x86 and I've been using the driverheaven mobility modder with official R X1650 desktop drivers and they worked flawlessly.

The problem is that all pre-HD200 gpus are "legacy", so there are no official win7 drivers. Therefore i'll be forced to use vista drivers.

So my questions is this: has anyone here tried running win7 on a X1xxx series GPu, preferably using the driverheaven modtool? How is the performance? I don't expect any miracles, but I think it should run just as well as vista.

Thanks in advance

 

bump...................

 

I have not hear of a MR x1700 is this an ATI GPU??? EDIT : yes it is an ATI x1700 , and i cannot find any W7 display drivers, as you said mobility modder is your best choice.

Have you run the Windows 7 comparability adviser

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...90-7659-4bd9-9e51-2497c146af15&displayLang=en

 

see below it`s fo the x1800 , but it should work on the x1700

http://www.driverheaven.net/driverh...stalled-x1800-9-3-drivers-vista-7-32-bit.html

 

I do not recommend using Windows 7 if you got a Dx9 based ATI card. (Got a similar specced card in my own notebook)
Its is hell to get ATIs Vista drivers to work properly since they disabled much of the options in Catalyst Control Center since Dx9 cards only do WDDM 1.0.
You cant change aspect ratio and the default option is a big black frame around the image.

But if your willing to use Windows default driver from Windows Update its another story.
But it has problems rendering OpenGL apps in fullscreen.

 

Buy a new computer!

 

Vista drivers will work. You will lack some features, as DEagleson mentioned, but the basic functionality should still be there.

 

Agreed.. its just too old.. save urself a lot of trouble and buy a new laptop!

 

The mobility 1000's were released in early 2006. That makes them 3.5-4 years old. Definitely does not make them "too old".

 

Nope, I intend to keep this lappie for quite a while(or at least until it dies). It does everything i want it to do whitout a problem. And besides, win7 is supposed to be better optimised than vista, which is running perfectly.

And what do you mean by lacking features? The only feature I need is powerplay. As for aspect ratio, all I need is for the display to be fullscreen.

But how is it performance-wise in gaming? Is this "crippled" driver capable of rendering similar FPS to vista?

 

should run just as well, possibly slightly better, I have gotten an old radeon 2000m running well ( no 3d ) with XP drivers here in an old Compaq R3000

 

I had W7 Beta here, i am in a Laptop with a Radeon Mobility 9700 and had no problems for normal work. Didn't tried 3D and such so can't comment that.

 

@crazycanuk: what do you mean by "no 3d"? How can it run well without 3d acceleration? I mean in games of course. And is powerplay working?

And I forgot: How is the driver installed through windows update performance-wise?

 

the GPU is so old it does not even have 3d support, and its pre powerplay as well. the stock MS driver should work for you or snag the vista drriver from ati or laptopvideotogo

 

What? I think all GPU's have had 3D support for quite some time...

 

this old beast dates back to 2002 no 3d accelleration in it as it is an antique business class unit, and YES it does run 7 as it was one of my old win 7 test platforms, never got the ad 1816 sound running right though

 

I did that for my Dell laptop, im using 9.8 Legacy drivers (vista) but I had to like to modify it to get it to install correctly on my laptop. (Apparently the X1400 is a legacy card, and its NOT supported by the Ati legacy drivers). Maybe you guys can help me. I'm playing games below 1680x1050, but it won't scale correctly. When I was running XP, CCC let me set the aspect ratio, but the new ones on 9.8 doesn't give me ANY options whatsoever. I somewhat found a fix. I had to set the resolution lower than native, and I'm given the option to scale (under CCC's Basic tab, I'm not given this option on Advance). When I set back to my native resolution after doing the above, the problem comes back. I tried looking under Ati Tray Tools to see if I could force it to correct the aspect ratio but I couldn't find one. I can't seem to find a solution and its pretty annoying trying to play a game running at 800x600 with all this huge black screen around the game.

 

I highly doubt it lacks 3D acceleration.

 

Well, I just installed it and everything works perfectly. The 9.8 legacy driver installed with no issues.

Aero is also up and running. However, there are 2 problems:

1. Whenever I close a windows in aero there's a slight stutter in the animation. This doesn't happen to any of the other animations. Flip3d for example works perfectly smooth even with a lot of windows open. So my GPU has more than enough juice to run aero.

2. As you guys warned me, I have the same problem with lower resolution scaling as LancerEvoX. Whenever I try a lower than 1280x800 res, the screen shrinks and is surrounded by huge black bars.

I understand that CCC can't set this right because of driver limitations, but isn't there some kind of hack or 3rd party app like ati tray tools?

Pls help

 

Bump................

 

Bump again..........sorry for my persistence, but so far this issue is the only bad thing i can find about win7 and there must be some sort of sollution.......

 

I have an old Inspiron 6000 around with W7 installed.

I experienced the same issues like you guys with ANY of the Catalyst 9 drivers, I'm unable to set scaling options

You can try Catalyst 8.12 instead, it's what Windows Update installed for my X300, but you can download the ATI version and use Mobility Modder, CCC still allows you to set the scaling options.

Another option is try ATI Tray Tools, like one of you have mentioned, IIRC they took out the Display option a while back, but you can add it back adding this line on the ini file

hide_display=0

Again, I have to warn you though, the author hid the display option for a reason, so it's not ideal.

 

Heiji, you're my hero

I have a copy of vista 8.12s on my hdd lying around. I'll install them when I have the time. Thanks.

EDIT: I just installed 8.12 and the scaling option is right there in CCC and works beautifully. Thanks again guys and especially you, Heiji