phantomphreak

I apologize if this issue has been covered in other topics, I perused a bit and didn't find any exact matches, though. My apologies in advance for a long-winded post, I just don't want to leave anything out.

I am running XP Pro SP2 on an 11-month-old Toshiba Satellite A70 with a 3.06 GHZ P4, 1,150 MB of RAM, & of course, the MR9000 (at 128 MB due to the shared memory feature). From what friends who are marginally competent have told me, this is a respectable set up that should be capable of running most recent games. However, I seem to be having issues with Transform & Lighting and with really slow framerates at all but the lowest video settings.

After having excruciating, unplayable framerate issues with Star Wars KOTOR (A year older than my nb!) I was told by a support individual at a game developer that this card doesn't support T&L, but check out ATI's own synopsis of the MR9000:

At-a-glance

• Advanced Vertex and Pixel Shaders
• Transform, Lighting and Clipping .......

What gives? Of course, I'm assuming ATI is right on this one, so I'm not sure what else could be causing it.

More recently, I got my hands on Fable: The Lost Chapters. This game is bearable, but on all but the very lowest video settings it's a ridiculously low framerate. This seems strange since Microsoft's support site lists the MR9000 as a compatible card and all system requirements are met. These are the relevant system requirements:

"PC with 1.4 GHz equivalent or higher processor
256 MB of system RAM
64 MB shader capable video card required"

It seems to me that something fishy is going on, but I have no idea what. Thanks in advance for taking the time to help out a guy in need. Oh, here are my relevant DX diagnostic results:

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Display Devices
---------------
Card name: ATI MOBILITY RADEON 9000 IGP
Manufacturer: ATI Technologies Inc.
Chip type: MOBILITY RADEON 9100 IGP AGP (0x5835)
DAC type: Internal DAC(400MHz)
Device Key: Enum\PCI\VEN_1002&DEV_5835&SUBSYS_FF021179&REV_00
Display Memory: 128.0 MB
Current Mode: 1280 x 800 (32 bit) (60Hz)
Driver Name: ati2dvag.dll
Driver Version: 6.14.0010.6444 (English)
DDI Version: 9 (or higher)
Driver Attributes: Final Retail
Driver Date/Size: 4/21/2004 23:11:38, 205824 bytes
WHQL Logo'd: Yes
WHQL Date Stamp: n/a
VDD: n/a
Mini VDD: ati2mtag.sys
Mini VDD Date: 4/21/2004 23:11:06, 729088 bytes
Device Identifier: {D7B71EE2-1B75-11CF-E56B-08DFA1C2CB35}
Vendor ID: 0x1002
Device ID: 0x5835
SubSys ID: 0xFF021179
Revision ID: 0x0000
Revision ID: 0x0000
Video Accel: ModeMPEG2_D ModeMPEG2_C

Registry: OK
DDraw Status: Enabled
D3D Status: Enabled
AGP Status: Enabled

Thanks again!

Aligokalppeker

I've the same card as you see,Performance issue is really a problem for me.Some OGL games can be too slow in this card.It can be because of some uncompatibility between HyperZ and games.I'm trying some tools to change registry settings like ATT.But also driver version is important i use 4.12 Omega.It seems as you use 4.4 am i wrong?

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phantomphreak

Well, actually I'm afraid I'm not quite sure. I am using the stock driver and have only recently become aware of the necessity to update it. I've considered the latest Omega driver and also been told that I can force the official ATI Catalyst drivers to function, despite the incompatibility.

I'm a bit squeamish about the whole driver issue, though as I've heard horror stories about errors or incompatibility completely screwing up people's displays (and this is my only system).

Any recommendations as to what drivers to use and how to avoid mistakes? Have you noticed any improvements with your drivers? Also, what's HyperZ?

Ferret_Style

If you follow direction of most of the modders drivers they are dam safe on a laptop. Honestly if you are squimish use the manufacture drives. ATI modded drivers always work really well for me but i also use a few others that work well like DHZP and Omega. They are pretty dam safe IMO. You would really have to do something dum like skrew with hard refresh rates in linux to kill it.

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"You might be Eaten by a Grue" MC Frontalot!

Aligokalppeker

Omega 4.12 is quite good.I see some performance increase when installed this driver.If you want to increase performance set A.I. to HIGH and ZCompression to 3.Latest drivers are better for more compatibility but they are made for X series,9x series doesn't show good performance with those.

HYPERZ is a technic to save memory bandwidth by compressing Z coordinates(ZCompression) or eliminating unnecessary Z values(HierarcialZ) and also Fast clearing Z values(Fast Z Clear)

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phantomphreak

Thanks for the reassurance and the information, guys. I'll definitely give Omega 4.12 a try. I'll let you know how it goes and if I've any questions, I'll post 'em.

phantomphreak

Alright, sorry about this: I'm about to dl 4.12 (2.5.97a) and I think I'd like to back up all my driver and graphics card information if possible just to be extremely safe as I've had no luck getting any support from ATI or the OEM on this issue.

Should I just copy the entire ATI folder onto cd, or would there be something else I would need to do to ensure that I can revert to the stock drivers if something does go wrong (an unlikely event, I know, but I was a boyscout and some habits die hard )?

Thanks for baring with me.

scipio5585

Hi everybody,
It's just to say I had the same problem when ATI stop his support for my Mobility Radeon 9000, and the 4.12 omega driver is definitely THE solution.
So thanks a lot guys to give me the solution after my 4 day intensive quest.
BYE