Alternate drivers for Radeon 9800XT

  • Thread starter Thread starter Harry Putnam
  • Start date Start date
H

Harry Putnam

I've just installed the newest Catalyst drivers from ATI for my 9800XT
card. I tried both of the released versions.

It has changed the way I was able to configure my desktop.

Before I was able to set a virtual size of (approx since I don't have
them to hand) 2000x1800 Or some near huge figure. Then at
display/properties/settings/advanced/ I was able to set a limit of
1024x768 or something similar. So when booted I had a huge desktop
to flop around on, like I've learned to like from my unix background.

Now with these newer drivers:

wxp-w2k-catalyst-8-071-041026a-018719c.exe
wxp-w2k-ccc-8-071-041026a-018719c-english.exe

I see no way to accomplish that.

Also, I've seen hints here from time to time about alternate drivers
for the radeon cards. Can someone tell me where to learn about those?
 
Taking a moment's reflection, Conor mused:
|
| Not updated for ages...

Last updated: Oct 23, 2004 ... has the Omega 4.10 (based off Catalyst
4.10) set.
 
mhicaoidh said:
Taking a moment's reflection, Conor mused:

Last updated: Oct 23, 2004 ... has the Omega 4.10 (based off
Catalyst
4.10) set.
Click to expand...


Looks like he's too busy or gotten tired of it. I had to switch back to
ATI's drivers for 4.12...
 
Tom Brown said:
Looks like he's too busy or gotten tired of it. I had to switch back to
ATI's drivers for 4.12...
Click to expand...

Not sure which works better, actually, I've tried both, and it's basically
give-and-take. Not much of a difference to write home about AFAICT. Omega's
set is a little faster than the 4.10's, as are the 4.12's, and I don't think
there's any loss of image quality to go with the speed. I like the control
panel a little more too. It's like CCC-Lite which is exactly what the CCC
needs IME, which is why it doesn't get installed here. I would have
preferred ATI improved their OpenGL and Linux drivers rather than dedicate
the resources to this bit of fluff, but that's just me, which is why Nvidia
is still what's for breakfast with Linux use and OpenGL-based rendering
apps.
 
Nerdillius Maximus said:
Not sure which works better, actually, I've tried both, and it's basically
give-and-take. Not much of a difference to write home about AFAICT. Omega's
set is a little faster than the 4.10's, as are the 4.12's, and I don't think
there's any loss of image quality to go with the speed. I like the control
panel a little more too. It's like CCC-Lite which is exactly what the CCC
needs IME, which is why it doesn't get installed here. I would have
preferred ATI improved their OpenGL and Linux drivers rather than dedicate
the resources to this bit of fluff, but that's just me, which is why Nvidia
is still what's for breakfast with Linux use and OpenGL-based rendering
apps.
Click to expand...

What I was after was a way to have the large `virtual' desktop that
doesn't stop the card from booting on monitors that can't handle that
res.

There was a way to do that in past drivers. IE, one could enable all
resolutions then pick some huge one like 2000x1600 or such, then set
in properties/advanced/displays a limit of something like 1024x768.

I'm not sure what that actually did but I think it meant the lower res
was the booted res, then when the cards hardware is in play the larger
res is invoked.

The effect was a huge desktop area of the larger res where one could
flop around as needed. But no boot troubles.
 
Harry Putnam said:
What I was after was a way to have the large `virtual' desktop that
doesn't stop the card from booting on monitors that can't handle that
res.

There was a way to do that in past drivers. IE, one could enable all
resolutions then pick some huge one like 2000x1600 or such, then set
in properties/advanced/displays a limit of something like 1024x768.

I'm not sure what that actually did but I think it meant the lower res
was the booted res, then when the cards hardware is in play the larger
res is invoked.

The effect was a huge desktop area of the larger res where one could
flop around as needed. But no boot troubles.
Click to expand...

Right, I gotcha. In the registry under your "display" key (subclass of HKLM,
me not in XP right now so can't tell you exactly where...) there is listed
under "Default" the string "Refresh Rate" which is usually set to "-1" When
you install the video drivers from VGA mode after clearing out the old ones,
before reboot, change the value to, say, "60", which is where you want it
for LCD panels anyway, and it will reboot to your desktop at 60 Hz. Under
"Modes/whatever mode you want", you can manually specify refresh rates. If
the string "RefreshRate" ain't there, you can add it and use your desired
value. (omigosh I used the non-M$ forward slash...guess where I've been
lately...) I hope this all makes some sense and helps...
 
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