topic Re: Drivers for ATI Mobility Radeon 9700 in PCs & Accessories

Drivers for ATI Mobility Radeon 9700

Nifty — Fri, 10 Sep 2004 16:30:40 GMT

I have a recurring graphics problem with my laptop's graphics card. I occasionally get severe screen distortion when running 3D games, its apparently random and no amount of settings tweaking can fix it.

On attempting to locate some replacement drivers for my GPU i came accross the problem that there are no drivers designed for my Sony by Sony or ATI. Can i just download the latest drivers from ATI and use them or will that be just as unstable becuase they are not intended for my Sony system?

Maybe my problem is not GPU related (although i reckon it is). I can only describe what i see as lots of artifacts as if my GPU is overheating but they are everywhere and i mean everywhere, pixels seem to get drawn in the wrong place resulting in almost a blender effect. The problem even spills over into the desktop so when i close the game all my icons are fuzzy and distorted, but other areas are fine. This problem can happen as soon as i boot a game so im certain its not simply GPU overheating.

Its not a serious problem; it only happens occasionally and a reboot fixes it, but i would like it not to happen in the middle of playing games!

Re: Drivers for ATI Mobility Radeon 9700

TygerTyger — Fri, 10 Sep 2004 17:18:28 GMT

You would think if it was a driver problem then every A117s would be like this. It's possible that the original driver has become corrupted, try simply reinstalling it from www.vaio-link.com.
As for new drivers, this is a common question here. Short answer is there are no new drivers, and it may be a very long time before there are any. Sony rarely release new driver versions because they are crap. If you go into the notebook section and go back through the threads far enough (there is no search here sorry), I gave details to modify the standard Ati desktop drivers so they would work on a laptop, it was for a 9200 but it works the same. Come back if neither of these solutions works.

Re: Drivers for ATI Mobility Radeon 9700

kee-lo_ — Fri, 10 Sep 2004 18:36:36 GMT

Sony need to make more support for graphics cards.

Re: Drivers for ATI Mobility Radeon 9700

nick_pan — Fri, 10 Sep 2004 20:50:45 GMT

the ATI standard GPU drivers released from their site won't work on their mobile set of chips..

if you're looking for a new set of drivers for your gfx card, you can try the ATI catalyst drivers

http://downloads.driverheaven.net/index4.htm

and see if they make a difference...don't expect a performance increase cause theyre called 'catalyst'..tho these drivers do give u the option to overclock your card. bad idea on a laptop

if your still having problems, could be a gpu fault

Re: Drivers for ATI Mobility Radeon 9700

kee-lo_ — Fri, 10 Sep 2004 20:54:06 GMT

Be careful with those drivers though - some people have had issues.

Re: Drivers for ATI Mobility Radeon 9700

TygerTyger — Fri, 10 Sep 2004 21:54:35 GMT

I really REALLY wish we could have a sticky on this, I would re-post my instructions on modifying the desktop drivers if only someone could FIND THEM AGAIN A WEEK LATER. DO YOU HEAR THAT SONY.

Re: Drivers for ATI Mobility Radeon 9700

kee-lo_ — Sat, 11 Sep 2004 13:28:04 GMT

Amen to that Tyger .... STICKY PLEASE CLUBUSER !

Re: Drivers for ATI Mobility Radeon 9700

nick_pan — Sat, 11 Sep 2004 13:41:53 GMT

guys i agree with that..

some of us are beginning to sound like broken records here

Re: Drivers for ATI Mobility Radeon 9700

cynicalmoose — Sat, 11 Sep 2004 16:26:52 GMT

ATI will not release Mobility Radeon drivers as they should be adjusted by product manufacturer. However, modded drivers will work on Mobility systems (the chipset is in fact the same, so it's a very small mod, just to get the driver to install). ATI's recommended source of modded drivers is: www.omegadrivers.net

The producer of Omega Drivers is an ATI beta tester, and has knowledge of the chipsets involved. You can overclock your card with these drivers, however, the thermal environment of a laptop is very tight, and the performance will have been maxed out to what the fan can take by Sony.

Re: Drivers for ATI Mobility Radeon 9700

TygerTyger — Sat, 11 Sep 2004 22:34:01 GMT

No way do Ati recommend Omega, they'd get their ass kicked as soon as someone had their computer screwed up by beta drivers.

I would agree, overclocking a laptop in any way is a really bad idea, and also putting your resolution higher than the OEM specification is seriously not recommended.

I say again, unless you have a really good reason to do so, stick with what you have got until/if Sony release some new drivers.

Re: Drivers for ATI Mobility Radeon 9700

nick_pan — Sat, 11 Sep 2004 23:47:11 GMT

 until/if Sony release some new drivers.

that was a good one..:smileywink:

Re: Drivers for ATI Mobility Radeon 9700

kee-lo_ — Sun, 12 Sep 2004 14:08:03 GMT

Tyger's right, don't make a mistake which could cost you £1000;s

Re: Drivers for ATI Mobility Radeon 9700

Nifty — Mon, 13 Sep 2004 15:00:15 GMT

Yeah thanks, i dont think i will risk unsupported drivers. Its not a severe problem just a bit annoying. If its a GPU problem then i can have it fixed on my insurance (although my ppl usually take 6 weeks to fix anything. [Say no to coverplan])

TY!

Re: Drivers for ATI Mobility Radeon 9700

kee-lo_ — Mon, 13 Sep 2004 15:06:42 GMT

Mastercare are worse...

Re: Drivers for ATI Mobility Radeon 9700

Nifty — Mon, 13 Sep 2004 18:07:05 GMT

Mastercare is Coverplan. Dixons, PC World, Currys, and The Link are all part of the one evil company that is DSG Retail Limited, who will try and make you buy Mastercare / Coverplan.

Word of advice just dont buy from any of them for anything, buy it fom saaay John Lewis who usually give a free years extended warranty anyway and it costs a mere fraction to add extra years.

Kicks self for not buying from them in the first place! [ I would go into all the trauma Dixons + Mastercare gave me but thats a whole other subject!]

Re: Drivers for ATI Mobility Radeon 9700

kee-lo_ — Mon, 13 Sep 2004 18:39:48 GMT

Yeah I like John Lewis for that

Re: Drivers for ATI Mobility Radeon 9700

K-tch — Wed, 15 Sep 2004 16:55:43 GMT

Okay, so installing the regular radeon or catalyst drovers from ATI is a bad idea, so I won't try that.

My graphics card sometimes when I try to play a game turns my system unstable.
Radeon 345m chip (max 128megs shared memory.

My question: is it worth is to sell my 415m and buy a vaio with a radeon 9200 ? The site sais they have 64megs VRAM. What is that? Is that dedicated memory, or does this card just use 64 megs of your regular ram?

Playing games is only needed when I'm bored, so it's not a major issue.

Re: Drivers for ATI Mobility Radeon 9700

nick_pan — Wed, 15 Sep 2004 17:18:06 GMT

ive got the radeon 9200..

not that much better. It does have 64mb of dedicated video memory which makes a difference but its still a slightly weak card for todays games..

depends what you play really..

I wouldnt sell your current laptop for a laptop with the 9200, espeically if games aren't your priority..

If u do plan on selling it, then try look out for an a series with a 9700 with 64mb of mem, thats a better card.

Re: Drivers for ATI Mobility Radeon 9700

kee-lo_ — Wed, 15 Sep 2004 20:38:04 GMT

If you can get a good price and have some spare cash then do so.
Myself I'd get an RA104 desktop if you don't need something portable

&#@k I said I'd stop PLUGGING the RA!

Re: Drivers for ATI Mobility Radeon 9700

CrunchyArmadillo — Fri, 24 Sep 2004 16:19:12 GMT

I have tjis exact same problem on my VGN-A197VP. I found an intermediate solution that should do the job. Use the omega driver set and declock the core speed.

I decreased the core from 391 to 324 to begin with, and i achieved stability without much noticable effect on performance. I've been gradually increasing it to find the turning point and Im currently at 364.

I guess that this would invalidate any warrenty but since the product wasnt working in the first place and that Sony/ATI dont seem to be adressing the issue I dont think they have much to complain about. After all it is a design fault.