alexl55

Let me first say good job Randomness!!! I am following this thread very carefully in hopes that I'll both be able to both watch video and play WoW w/o having to reinstall the display driver each time.

It seems like ATI is hiding Mobility support from mainstream users. I stumbled upon this website while surfing. http://www.station-drivers.com/page/...20mobility.htm. Curiously the Catalyst 5.13 from the site has a IGP320m entry in it and it's also WQHL certified. Which means it is an official driver submitted by ATI to Microsoft for testing. And Microsoft approved it. So I don't think the .inf has been "hacked". Anyways, with great hope I tried to install it. Unfortunately, it met the same fate. Choppy video playback, but WoW works great.

The interesting part is that after the install, I was poking around CCC (Catalys Control Center) and found a new option that I had not seen before on my other ATI cards. Under "Integrated Graphics", there's an option called "UMA Frame Buffer" and the only option to set it to is 0MB, even though I have it set to 32MB in the BIOS. I think the new drivers have a probelm with memory control driver module as Randomness stated before. Hope this info helps.

Edit:
Here's a pic from my CCC


Quick laptop Specs:
Compaq Persario 2100
AMD Athlon XP 2200+ @ 1.8Ghz
512 PC2100 DDR ram
ATI IGP 320m w/ 32MB shared memory
Toshiba 4200rpm 40GB hdd

Randomness

I must say, this is a very interesting....anomaly in the EPIC legacy of the Radeon IGP 3xx chips. I can say i have sucessfully verified alexl55's discovery.

1) Yes the Catalyst 5.13 mobility drivers from the previously posted website have the Radeon IGP 320M in its INF configuration
2) I haven't found any foul-play with the security index, and indeed these drivers are WHQL certified.
However i must also note that Windows update will still list the May 2004 (Cat. 4.4-ish) driver even with these drivers installed. Nor do furture versions of Catalyst Mobility have the Radeon IGP 3xx chips.

3) AND Sadly....yes there is still the video playback problem.
A great thanks goes out for this discovery. Indeed, the core problem would be focused on the UMA Frame Buffer, however i have been unable to isolate the exact problem. The INF and the registry haven't been forthcoming with the issue. This Catalyst 5.13 version runs surprizingly more stable than its other relatives of the 5.1x sets with this chipset. instead of crashing, the computer simply has poor playback. Decreasing color depth and resolution to lowest possible settings can "improve" the playback frame rate, but nothing near watchable rates. I must also point out that Audio playback is no longer choppy during playback.

Disabling hardare acceleration tends to make things worst.

I fear that this issue ay be related to the BIOS, or simply a fundamental problem with the ATi catalyst's memory management with UMA and this chip, or a combination of both.

I did find "UmaFrameBuffer" registry Binary value in the :HKLM\Software\ATI Technologies\Desktop\{xxxxx-xxxx-etc}\
You may have some luck playing with this key, however i haven't made any successful progress with it....yet, but i will update this thread when i get more information.

Another possibility i may try is replacing the cat 5.13's memory control module with a 4.4 or 4.10 module, in hopes it may resolve the issue. Unfortunately i haven't had much sucess from prior experiments, but its worth a try.

Anway, hope this is useful to some extent. Good luck, and take care.

alexl55

I found that with Cat5.13 installed on my system, Windows Media Player can playback Divx/Xvid/MPEG4 formats smoothly as well as WMV and h.264 formats. But DVD/MPEG2 remained choppy. I tested those same files in my other media players but found them all to be choppy. After some exploration, I found that the other media players are using the Overlay Mixer to output the video. I decided to try a different renderer, namely VMR9. With VMR9 set as the video renderer, BSplayer and Media Player Classic can output any video at full speed. MPC can even playback DVDs no probelm. Unfortunately, retail players, such as Intervideo WinDVD, do not have this functionality to change the renderer. althought this is only a temporary solution, but at least I can play WoW and watch movies w/ the same driver now =).

The only players I tested are Windows Media Player, BSplayer, Media Player Classic, and Intervideo WinDVD6. The only video renderers I tested are Overlay Mixer and VMR9 (renderless). I tested w/ an Xvid .avi file, an h.264 embedded in an .mkv file, a .wmv file and the Serenity DVD. Codecs used respectively are ffdshow, CoreAVC with Haali Media Splitter, Windows Video 9, Intervideo DVD decoder (I think MPC has an internal decoder for DVDs)

MPC seems to be the player of choice, since it plays just about anything. Bsplayer lacks DVD support but plays the rest fine. Windows Media Player seems to work well too except w/ DVDs. Intervideo WinDVD can't do anything right. Zoomplayer and VideoLan are also powerful players and you probably can also change the video renderer to get them working well. However, this solution is player specific. I hope a more permanent solution can be reached.

Suprisingly Quicktime played back fine as well. I haven't tested RealMedia formats, yet.

Edit: Spelling and wording

garykowk

thx alexl55 and randomness
i so sad in igp 320m.i give up watch movie now.just play wow.
i have used new cat 6.2 that so stupid.play game no better than cat 6.1
i will be focus there.
thx your agian.
good luck.^^ vbmenu_register("postmenu_812099", true);

Randomness

Hello again:

After running many more experiments, i have found a very troubling issue with my original statment that Catalyst 4.10 works with the Radeon IGP 320M and related chips. Indeed it does playback DVDs without issues, and plays Direct3D games as well. However, when this driver is clean-installed, Ie//after any previous driver is cleaned out with drivercleaner, I have encountered errors with OpenGL and the occassional Full screen video playback issue with WMP10.

Originally i clean-installed my original notebook drivers, and then updated them to 4.10 through the hardware manager in Windows XP, and I didn't encounter any problems. It was only when this driver is clean-installed did i encounter them. Interestingly enough, i also only have one display device listed under "monitors" ; whereas with my original notebook drivers i had 1 "Digital Flat Panel" and 2 "Default Monitor" listed.

From what i have been able to discern thus far is that Windows XP doesn't change the Monitor configuration when the "Display Adapter" driver is updated. Thus concluding that the original Catalyst drivers do not have full configuration support for the notebook's LCD and external display connections. Furthermore, building on this display configuration, it seems that the UMA Frame Buffer is also mal-configured with newer Catalyst display drivers, even when modded, which seems to be the primary cause of the DVD-playback and overlay issues. However i do not think that the mal-configuration of the frame buffer is direct result from the monitor configuration.

However i have not yet figured out why the OpenGL drivers from Catalyst 4.10 would encounter errors. Although the size of the OpenGL drivers in the newer versions are smaller than my notebook's originals. I don't know if this is because of more efficient coding, or simply because something could be missing.

The probelms i have uncovered aren't exactly serious, however i would suspect they could be rather frequent on some systems.

So, in theory, if one wanted to get newer catalyst drivers working on their notebook with the Radeon IGP 320M / 340M / 345M et al, one would have to figure out:
1) how to configure proper recognition of the LCD and external display connectors
which i fear is also tied into
2) how to properly configure the UMA Frame Buffer (which would be related to the memory managment component of the Catalyst Driverset "ati2cqag.dll" / "ati2cqag.dl_ ")
and of course
3) Figure out why OpenGL is acting up, and manage to magically correct the problem.

Fortunately, the Direct3D acceleration componenets of the Catalyst driver are "Universal", and in theory, one could simply copy the "ati3daug.dl_" from a new catalyst driverset and put it into their notebook's original driver set. This would be in the \Driver\2KXP_inf\B_xxxxx\ folder of both respective unpacked driversets. One should also be able to also benefit from the "Universal Radeon Video Acceleration" component "ativvaxx.dl_" as well....but again....in theory.

My apologies for any frustration i may have cause with my recommendations on using the Catalyst 4.10 ; It would seem that is one wanted to "successfully" use this driver set, it would have to be updated onto the original notebook drivers, rather than be clean-installed.

Hopefully, this information may actually be useful. Good luck, and take care, and thank you all for your support.

IGP madness

elllo! i gotta say i m very appreciative of wat u r doing because it seems even ATI wont support their own chipset. but yes anyways, in a earlier post u said sumfin bout modded catalyst drivers. now are these better than the omega drivers? if so how wud i go bout removing my omegas and successfully installin the modded catalyst. Also, is the radeon igp 345m replaceable with anuther video card? like another video card that is meant for laptops. And not to bug u wit lots of questions but how wud i go bout improvin my card's performance with gaming ? i am runnin a sony vaio k13 p4 2.8ghz 512 ram and of course, the RADEON IGP 345m. Thx for ur help!

Randomness

Hello IGP Madness:

I would not say that modded drivers from ati using patje's tool are better than omega's drivers. I use patje's modding tool because i cannot find a specific Omega Driver version based on the Catalyst 4.10 to compare with 4.11. Omega's drivers are modded to provide a few extra tweaks for gamers, and in theory should provide a little more preformance, or at the least, a few more options to play with in tweakin preformance. I have found some systems to be rather unstaple with Omega drivers and the Radeon IGP 320M with 3D games. I haven't had time to narrow down the problem, however it could be because not all DirectX tweaks work well with this chip.

If you do decide to uninstall your omega drivers or other ati driver, i would recommend to run the uninstall program under the Add/Remove program applet in control panel. And then i would recommend using DriverCleaner Pro to clean out any debris from their installations left behind. You can get a copy of DriverCleanerPro at http://www.drivercleaner.net .
After a recent experiment:
If you do decided to use modded drivers on your notebook, install the most up-to-date notebook drivers available for your system, and than update the Radeon IGP 3xx with modded drivers manually from the Hardware Manager console in Windows XP.

Unfortunately, the radeon IGP 345m is not replaceable in any notebook that i am currently aware of. It acts as the northbridge(ie// memory controller) to your CPU as well as your graphics controller, and any attempt to replace it could get very messy, and probably destroy the notebook's mainboard. Newer notebooks (albiet very few) are starting to appear with modular graphics cards, unfortunately i haven't encountered any older notebooks that use the IGP 3xx chips to have such upgradability.

To improve your graphics chips in gaming:
Keep in mind it is only 160MHz core, and only supports DirectX 8.1 isntruction sets. So any games that use DirectX 9.0 can preform slowly, or in some cases, not at all.

I would recommend upgrading the system memory, and changing the BIOS setting for the chip's UMA shared memory to 128MB ; note that some systems may need a BIOS update to do this. And some systems may not be able to go that high, so check with your manufacture.

Using your notebook's newest drivers would probably proide the most reliable operation. And setting both the Direct3D and OpenGL tabs in the advanced display settings to Preformance would increase game preformance. However it will decrease the quality of texture rendering, so you may need to tinker with the custom settings instead. You could also run your system on 16-bit color when playing some games, as this would cut down the needed frame buffer memory by half.

If you want to get a little more boost from this chip, i would recommend trying the Catalyst 4.10 modded with patje's mobility tool, or Omega's Driver based on Catalyst 4.9 ; I have encountered DVD playback problems with any catalyst above version 4.10, however Catalyst 5.6 does provide a noticable 3D preformance boost. So if DVD playback is not an issue, 5.6 would probably provide the best 3D gaming experience for this chip. And again, i recommend installing your notebooks drivers first, than updating the display adapter's drivere through hardware manager with the modded ones.

At the moment i am working on a few experiements that in theory would allow one's original notebook drivers to be "patched" with newer Direct3D, OpenGL and Video Acceleration modules, however its an idea that is still a work in progress....
Note: patje's mobility modder can be found at http://www.driverheaven.net/patje

Hopefully this may be useful to answering some of your questions. Good luck, and have fun.

- Randomness

alexl55

Incidentally, I also did a clean-install of windows. Just got in a new 5400rpm 80gb Hitachi hdd , still waiting for my 1gb ram. Anyways, I also lost the 1 "Digital Flat Panel" and 2 "Default moniter" option. But I found that Windows media player can't play video back smoothly anymore. I did a straight install of the 5.13 driver found at the link I posted above. On my old hdd, I had no probelms with video in Windows Media Player. So I reinstalled my old hdd figure out what was different. It turns out that I had made some changes under options to Windows Media Player. If you disable "overlay" in Windows Media Player, then everything works fine.

For Windows Media Player 10, goto "Tools" -> "Options...". Goto the "Performance" tab and in the Video Acceleration Section hit "Advanced...". For the Video Acceleration section, check "Use high quality mode", instead of "Use Overlays". For the DVD Video Section, just uncheck "Use Overlays". (DVD video part was unchecked in my previous post, that is why I said I didn't work w/ DVDs). Now your Windows Media Player should be able to play video smoothly now.

Basically, don't use overlay with any drivers above 4.10. The fact that the WoW intro movie played back smoothly after the clean install kinda tipped me off, since it uses a 3D surface rather than the overlay mixer to render. BTW, WoW works great with the 5.13 Drivers. No more flickering or bad ground textures like the older drivers. I was raiding MC and got about 15~20 fps average. And that was with CTmod, CTraid and Teamspeak running at the same time.

To Randomness, which OpenGL program is causing trouble? OpenGL seems to run fine on the 5.13 drivers.

__________________
Laptop
~~~~~
Compaq Presario 2100 series
AMD mobile Athlon XP 2200+ @1.8GHz
Infineon 2x256MB PC2100 2.5-3-3-? @ 133MHz
ATI Radeon IGP 320m w/ 32MB Shared ram
Laptop LCD @ 1024 x 768
Hitachi 5400rpm 80GB HDD
Windows XP Home SP2

Desktop
~~~~~
AMD Opteron 146 @ 2.80GHz (10x280MHz) + Zalman CNPS7700-Cu CPU Cooler
OCZ Gold 2x512MB PC3200 2-2-2-7 1T @ 233MHz 5/6 divider
DFI Lanparty-uT nF4 Ultra-D
256MB X800GTO@12p PCI-E Flash modded to X800XT@16p 540/560 + ATI Silencer 5 VGA Cooler
Dell 2001 FP @ 1600 x 1200 x 32bit @ 60Hz
Thermaltake Sviking Chassis + Antec Smartpower 500W
250GB Hitachi T7K500 SATA300 + 320GB Seagate 7200.10 SATA300 + 200GB Maxtor IDE
NEC ND-3240A DVD Burner
WIndows XP Pro SP2 + Mac OSX 10.4.7 JaS install (99% working)

Randomness

Hello again,

With regards to openGL, the issue seems to be isolated to a clean-install of the Catalyst 4.10 drivers and Doom 3. However the problem doesn't exist with the Mobility 5.13 you found. I haven't been able to duplicate the success you've had with WMP10 and the DVD playback / overlays, however i was able to play DVD video through Media player classic, as you recommened ealier by choosing the renderless VMR9 renderless and using either "Use texture surfaces and render in 2d" or the 3D option.
It may be yet another successful workaround with this chip, however i intend to continue to explore the issues on why overlays aren't completely working.
Sadly i may need to reload my computer soon, as i have collected quite a bit of system file debris, and a few other unrelated issues. Hopefully on a new reload i may have similar success. At least i'll have a free registry to tinker with.

Take care, and have fun.

garykowk

i can't understand your mean..
your plan so complicated.
alexl55,which wow server you played?and what job?i play in china server.warlock.
mc raid i did long time...
help me fix my problem...
randomness and alexl55...used simple words to explian your ways.
thx a lot....
good luck...

Randomness

Hello garykowk,

I still have not figured out the problem with video playback with newer Catalyst drivers.

However if you are running a new catalyst driver (like 6.2) that allows you to play WoW, you may be able to play video with Media Player Classic

Download:http://sourceforge.net/project/showf...ease_id=373767.
You will need 7z to uncompress:
http://www.7-zip.org/
Go to Media Player's Options under "View" ---> Playback ---> output
Select: "VMR9 (renderless)**" under DirectShow Video
Select: "Use texture surfaces and render in 2D" OR "Use texture surfaces and render in 3D"
both should work.

You may need to play with other settings to get better playback. However "overlay" and "(windowed)" options don't work.

Hope this is helpful. Special thanks to alexl55 for pointing this out. It is a quick fix, for now.
Take care, and good luck.

IGP madness

So its probably not replaceable? that sucks. But i guess ill have to tweak it to squeeze whatever performance i can get. but i have read on something that the IGP line is pin compatible or something. im not really sure what this means but i would think it means that i can use another IGP, a more recent one, and replace my current IGP. Also, if i wanted to overclock my card, how would i go about it? and once again, thx for all ur help. U have proved far more helpful than any site ive searched, and i ve searched for very long. THX!!!


QUOTE:
"At the moment i am working on a few experiements that in theory would allow one's original notebook drivers to be "patched" with newer Direct3D, OpenGL and Video Acceleration modules, however its an idea that is still a work in progress....
Note: patje's mobility modder can be found at http://www.driverheaven.net/patje"
Also,
Lol could you emphasize a bit more on this? Lol yes, I am a bit slow. But this sounds interesting. Like are you saying you could patch your card to like work better or like to be more compatible with Directx 9.0 programs or games. Lol yehh im a bit confused .


once more, THX!!!

Randomness

Hello IGP Madness,

The ATi Radeon IGP 3xx series use something called "FlexFit (TM) Universal Platform Architecture ", all or most IGPs have this flex-fit form. It basically means that they all share a common pin out, however Different IGPs support different CPUs, and different IGPs require its own custom system board BIOS. Its just a an easier way for manufactures to make one notebook motherboard that can be customized into different models. Ie// Same base motherboad layout, but different chips.

Furthermore, it uses a BGA packaging, or Ball-grid array package, where small beeds of solder are on the bottom of the chip. The chip is placed on the motherboard, and effectively baked on in an oven where these beeds melt into the contacts on the motherboard. I don't think it would be feesable to change the IGP chip unless you had the necessary circuitboard manufacturing devices, and skill to rewrite BIOS code.

With regards to overclocking this chip....i have tried it, but haven't noticed much improvement in preformance. The core runs at 160MHz originally, and the memory bus at 133MHz. I am unsure of any specific safety limits, but it can make your notebook run hotter, and use more power if running on batteries. Programs like Rage3D tweaker, or Powerstrip can be used to overclock the chip, however if you are not careful you could cook the chip, and make your notebook unusable.

With regards to the idea of "patching" :
It has been stated that World of Warcraft encounters playback issues with older drivers for this chipset, but not with recent modded catalyst drivers, such as version 5.13 or 6.2 ; unfortunately the new modded drivers cause DVD playback problems.

So, i have been experimenting with the idea of taking the "universal" DirectX, OpenGL and video acceleration modules from the newer catalyst drivers, and placing them into the original notebook driver for this chipset. In theory it should work fine with both gaming and DVD playback, however i still need to route out any possiblilty of instability, and tweak the inf code to optimise the new modules. I am still unsure if these modules even fully operate without trouble when patched onto a driver using older miniport/2D/memory management components.

It would not necessarily mean that all DirectX 9.0 Games will work better. That is still a direct physical limitation of the chip. But it may help with some games, like WoW.

Hope this aswered some of your questions. Have fun, take care.

IGP madness

ohh i git it. haha. well whenever you git that working out ill b sure to dl it. as for overclocking, i m willing to try anything to get even the slightest performance increase, seeing as how i do not have the cash to spend on a high end rig, much less a high end laptop. so thanks for the advice. Oh, so then in a nutshell i cant replace it. haha. hmph....




wow u sure no ur stuff.

garykowk

randomness
i just used media player classic .
'Select: "VMR9 (renderless)**" under DirectShow Video
Select: "Use texture surfaces and render in 2D" OR "Use texture surfaces and render in 3D"
both should work. '
it be ok now...thx
my god!it a stranger things...
thx again..
good luck......hoho