Randomness

Hello again,

I have been playing with Windows Vista recently from the CTP our good friends at microsoft opened up the last few days.

Sadly, the Radeon IGP 3xx chips do not support Pixel Shader 2.0, and hense, do not allow the complete experience of the Windows Aero interfaces.

The driver built into Vista for the Radeon 3xx chips are providing me with new insight to what may be the problem with the newer drivers and modding them for XP. For reference, the driver used in Vista seems to be a custom build of the Catalyst 5.10 driver-set.

Curiously enough, i haven't had luck with OpenGL interfaces, and upon further analysis, the driver is so streamlined that it doesn't have the OpenGL driver component. In theory.....and strickly in theory....one may be able to re-write the INF to include a OpenGL driver component, but i am unsure how the driver would react in the new WDDM. To be honest, the driver structure doesn't resemble the WDDM driver-set that ATI has available for download for vista for the newer cards, it looks more like the normal XP driver structure. Perhaps this chipset is too old for the WDDM. Or perhaps the driver has been completely re-written, and no one has bothered to include OpenGL support.

I'll continue to play...hopefully i'll find something.

Take care, have fun.

Randomness

openone

isnt ATI IGP 7000 is based on 320M ?

which of the drivers can enable perpixel on it? Please tell me friends..

Randomness

Hello:

The Radeon IGP 3xx chips are based on the same core as the 7000/8000 series cards.

Unfortunately, these cards do not support the required "Pixel Shader 2.0" hardware engines that are needed to enjoy the more glassy-look in windows Vista. The WDDM vista drivers are not compatible with this hardware, i have still had no success trying to mod them. (including the 7000 series)

However the use of standard Windows XP drivers (as is the one included for this chip in Vista's driver database) can be used to work with the "Basic Aero" appearance. I should point out that the "Microsoft" driver in the recent Vista build does not include OpenGL support, so i would suggest installing your preferred driver that one would normally use in XP. You can try the Catalyst mobility 5.13 that alexl55 posted earlier in this thread:

http://www.station-drivers.com/telec...-2kxp-whql.exe

Hope this is helpful, take care.

openone

thanks for the reply , Randomness.

I am not asking for Vista , but windowblinds 5. For using windowblinds 5 with glass like (vista-ish themes) , Windowblinds 5 asks for "Per pixel support" , but windowblinds system information says

i tried the new drivers , but i couldnt achieve it.

One guy told me he used some sort of modded old drivers to activate per-pixel when he was having old 7000 IGP card, but he isnt having those drivers now , since he switched to Mac.

Can some sort of modded drivers could help me? is it possible?

Thanks for your time and kindness.

Randomness

Hello again,

From what i have been able to discover, this "per pixel" support is a critical component in playing with pixel color/transparency. However it would seem that this "per pixel" support is only present in older Catalyst drivers.

I would suggest Catalyst drivers older than 5.0 to start with, but you'll have to experiment to see which driver-set gets you the best results.

I would suggest first trying to use the drivers that came from your notebook manufacture. By nature, these drivers are always older, and should allow you to use the per-pixel feature you are looking for.

I can also point you a few directions for finding alternate sources for older drivers:

1) I would suggest trying this driver for Radeon mobility chips, it is made by HP, but should be able to accomadate most older notebook graphics solutions.
http://h18007.www1.hp.com/support/fi...oad/22817.html
2) I would also suggest the "Previous Drivers and Software" section in ATi's driver data base under "Radeon" or "Motherboard/IGP" ; Perhaps a catalyst version from 4.4 to 4.10 may give you some luck.
You will need a mod tool to change the INF to be used with notebooks. You can get one here : http://www.driverheaven.net/patje

3) You could also try looking for older catalyst drivers from archives such as Omegadrivers, FileShack, or simply try looking around with google.com

Hope this is helpful, take care, and have fun.

RDA2

I finally got my Compaq 2197 (320M IGP) working with the 6.4 Catalyst drivers. Everything works perfectly - D3D, OGL, and DVD playback.

1. Download the 6.4 IGP driver set from ATI (note, this is NOT the desktop or mobility Catalyst set).

2. Uninstall any existing drivers you have.

3. Clean out any junk in the registry. Specifically, delete the following entries:

HKEY Local Machine\Software\ATI technologies
HKEY Current user\Software\ATI technologies
HKEY Local Machine\System\CurrentControlSet000X\Control\Video \[delete all SUBKEYS - DON'T delete the 'Video' key!!!

4. Search for "ati.*.*" in the C:\WINDOWS\System32 folder. Delete all these files.

5. Go to Device Manager. Manually update the video driver for the display adapter by pointing it to the location where the files were extracted (the .inf is in the 'Driver' folder). Select "Have Disk" and choose '320 IGP' or '340 IGP' as required. Install. EDIT: Don't try using the setup program for this; the .inf does not support the mobility IGP chips and you will see an error message. Since they are basically the same as the desktop IGP parts though, the driver does work if you manually select it.

6. Under Device Manager, you should see "Generic System Bus." Manually update that by pointing it to the "SMBUS" folder. Install.

7. Install the GART driver by updating the "PCI-to-PCI" bridge. The .inf is in the "GART" folder. Install.

8. Reboot.

9. Manually install Catalyst Control Centre. The setup.exe is in the "CCC" folder.

10. Reboot.


This worked for me. I have been playing Call of Duty all weekend after doing this. For watching DVDs, I use Media Player Classic, along with the Nvidia decoders. The decoder supplied with MPC works well too, though it's image quality is not as good (though this is not a driver-related issue).

Good-luck!!!!

Randomness

Hello:


I haven't had time to verify if this works on my notebook. But could you confirm that your DVD playback
1) uses overlays
2) uses less than 20% CPU usage for windows or full screen normal playback.

And also look for tearing in the DVD playback image. Or even in tearing in normal movie-playback of other file types.

take care.

RDA2

I use VMR as the image quality is better than with overlay. I have enabled DXVA to reduce CPU utilization; it's around 40% I think.

No tearing at all.

alexl55

The image quality of VMR vs. Overlay gets debated quite a bit on A/V forums. But it is a fact that VMR uses more CPU cycles than Overlay. For us laptop users, we want the lowest CPU usage possible in order to fully utilize the underclocking functions of our Moblie CPUs. Beside laptops have tiny low-res screens, it's not like you can see much detail anyways.

I have used RDA2's installation method before except for the registry part. I used DH's Driver Cleaner Pro in conjuction with a registry cleaner instead. Also the IGP driver package just adds the GART and southbridge drivers. The Catalyst drivers in it are exactly the same as the others, apart from different .inf of course. The 3D performance is so much better with the new drivers. But overlay doesn't work with the new drivers. VMR, however, will work with select DVD codecs. (I think Randomness confirmed that Cyberlink's PowerDVD works well in VMR, but Intervideo's WinDVD tries to use overlay regardless of the settings) I tested with Cyberlink and ,yes, the video playback is very smooth. The thing that bothered me the most was the CPU usage. (that's probably why Randomness asked whether it the CPU was under 20%) My CPU fan spins up to its Max RPM keep up. I think it might have to do with IGP320m's lack of DXVA support. The chipset/drivers only have Hardware Accelerated video overlay support (which got broken in Cat 4.10+). I think DXVA is only supported on DirectX 9 video cards. IGP 320m only a DirectX 7 or 8.1 chipset, I forget which.

If you choose your codecs right and you don't mind the extra CPU usage and noise, then your solution is the way to go.

BTW has anyone tried using the ATI DVD Decoder (not the h.264 one)? The web downloads says that it requires the original driver CD, but it refuses to read mine. Nvidia's PureVideo Decoder works well, but alot of features are locked since this isn't an Nvidia Card.

__________________
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)

RDA2

Interesting.... I hadn't heard the CPU cycles argument for using overlay before. Probably a moot point since I don't think this machine could make it through a two-hour movie on just batteries anyway.

I can confirm though, that the 320M does support DXVA hardware-assisted decoding of dvds. Below are some screen shots.... photobucket has resized them, unfortunately.







I am using it now with the new Windows Media Player 11, which is quite good for dvd playback, when mated to a good decoder. On this matter, I have to say Nvidia makes the best one in terms of image quality. It costs a bit, but well worth it. The only one that comes close [IMHO], is Dscaler filter, which is free, but still a little buggy. Note that for the Nvidia decoder, only the hardware video processing features are restricted to GeForce cards; you can still use Nvidia's Video Post Processor in software to cleanup the picture. The image looks very good, but there is a penalty in terms of CPU. Add the following registry key to enable it:

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\NVIDIA Corporation\Filters\Video]
"EnableNVVPP"=dword:00000001

alexl55

I did some research, it seems that IGP320m does support DXVA. Well, I couldn't find a site that expicitedly said that was supported, but c'mon if the ATI Rage is supported... then. Anyways, I was wrong about DXVA not being supported. I guess next time I reinstall windows (which will be very soon. ugh...), I'll try the new Catalyst drivers w/ the Nvidia Decoder. I'd still like to try the ATI one and see if it has any hardware acceleration/processing. Does one have an "original" ATI driver CD? Supposedly ATI AIW's come with one.

BTW isn't Window Media Player 11 part of Win Vista? I think only the beta available to the public. I like Media Player Classic, but I haven't tried WMP11 yet. Also how is Xvid and Dvix performance? Most DVD decoders have DXVA support now, but I don't think ffdshow does yet. How is the CPU load and image quality.

About inserting images on this forum, I think I just used the insert image button on the forum toolbar. I posted my image on photobucket before I could link it.

__________________
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)

RDA2

I'm using the WMP 11 beta. It's good for DVDs since it automatically downloads the title/chapter info and navigating the discs is very easy. XviD/DivX playback sucks, since there is lots of CPU overhead compared with Media Player Classic.

You're right about ffdshow not supporting DXVA... ffdshow does EVERYTHING in software, so it's a choice between hardware-assisted decoding or post processing the image. CPU load varies depending on your settings, but is generally quite high compared to no processing and very high compared to using DXVA (I'm at about 75% with Blur&NR and Sharpening selected). Lower quality video can really benefit from this though. DVDs don't show much improvement; DXVA is probably a better option in this case.

BTW, you can check my previous post for the screenshots. cheers.

Randomness

Hello:
The following information is from the Radeon IGP 320M technical data sheet. Unfortunately, i cannot retrace where i got it from, and i haven't had sufficient time to bother uploading it to on of those free servers, But i can copy and past the specifications.

This chip does support DVD decoding in its hardware, along with several other features present in both the Rage series, and the Radeon 7000/8000 series chips. (R100 and R200 series cores)

I am still having difficulty issolating the exact cause of the incompatibility, as of current, my best guest is pointing to something with the miniport and GART modules. It is an ongong and unusal problem, and sadly, i have also found that the beloved Windows Vista suffers from the same preformance issue with this chip because it uses newer drivers, however it tends to handle it better than Windows XP when playing DVDs. (most likely due to the DirectX 10's emulation capabilities....but it still draws a significant amount of CPU (50-70%)power, and hense bad battery life).

In my current XP installation, i am running Catalyst 4.4 WHQL'd from HP, and CinePlayer DVD decoder plugin, and WMP11 Beta, with Hardware Acceleration enabled. DVD playback consumes under 10-15% and the battery lasts through a movie, unlike my Vista installation's set-up with the microsoft drivers. Which i have also invistigated to be Catalyst 5.10 minus OpenGL support, and the fancy Control panel modules. So i would recommend playing with the Catalyst mobility 5.13b that Alexl55 discovered from station-drivers for OpenGL support. I haven't had luck with using the 4.x versions in vista.

Hope this is useful. Take care

------------------------------------------Radeon IGP 320M------------------------------------------
Visit ATI.com
Integrated Graphics Processor for Mobile
AMD® Athlon™ 4 / Duron™ Processors
Based on ATI’s award-winning RADEON™ technology, the RADEON™ IGP 320M brings
high-performance integrated graphics to platforms using AMD’s Mobile Athlon™ 4 and Duron™ processors. The RADEON™ IGP 320M belongs to the RADEON™ IGP family of products supporting desktop and mobile platforms and multiple CPU families, which are all compatible with ATI’s RADEON™ driver software. RADEON™ IGP 320M is a true mobile solution integrating LVDS interface, NTSC/PAL TV encoder and other space saving features.

CPU INTERFACE
• Supports AMD® Mobile Athlon™ and Duron™ processors
• 266/200 MHz AMD S2K CPU FSB
• Optimized for AMD 3Dnow!™ instructions
SYSTEM LOGIC FEATURES
• Integrated system clock generator with spread
spectrum support
• A-Link interface supports multiple modes of operation:
A-Link and PCI
• 266MB/s point-to-point interface to ATI IXP when
used in A-Link mode
• 33 MHz PCI 2.2 compliant I/O bus when used with
third party south bridge
• ACPI 1.0B power management
• WLP (Windows Logo Program) compliant for
Microsoft® WHQL certification

MEMORY INTERFACE
• Unified Memory Architecture (UMA)
• 64-bit system memory interface
• Supports synchronous and asynchronous memory to
processor bus clock ratios
• PC2100 and PC1600 DDR SDRAM support provides
up to 2.1 GB/s memory bandwidth
• Up to two un-buffered SO DIMMs provide up to
1 GB DRAM support
• 64, 128, and 256 Mbit memory technology
• x8, x16, and x32 memory device width
• Maximum of 32 loads per address/control
• 8 MB to 128 MB of main memory configurable
as display memory
• Back-to-back DRAM accesses

AT A GLANCE:
• Delivers industry-leading mobile integrated
graphics performance for the Athlon™ 4 /
Duron™ platform
• FLEXFIT™ Universal Platform Architecture
• ATI’s PIXEL TAPESTRY™, HYPER Z™,
VIDEO IMMERSION™ and HYDRAVISION™
technologies integrated in a UMA chipset
• Highly integrated design, including LVDS
interface and TV encoder
• Low power consumption and industry leading
power management
• Fully software compatible with stand-alone
RADEON™ graphics
• Integrated master clock, a system clock
generator, with spread spectrum support
RADEON™ IGP 320M - Page 2
3D GRAPHICS FEATURES
• HYPER Z™ technology to improve
performance in demanding 3D
applications
• PIXEL TAPESTRY™ architecture
• Multi-texturing with 3 texture units
• Single pass 3 texel reads per pixel
per clock
• On-chip texel, pixel, and vertex
caches
• Supports vertex blending
• Supports 3D textures
• DirectX® texture compression
• Support for Emboss, Dot-Product 3,
and Cubic Environment bump
mapping

2D GRAPHICS FEATURES
• Highly optimized 128-bit 2D Engine
• Hardware acceleration of BitBLT, Line
Draw, Polygon/Rectangle Fill, Bit
Masking, Monochrome Expansion,
Panning/Scrolling, Scissoring, and full
ROP support (including ROP3)
• Optimized handling of fonts and texts
using ATI proprietary techniques
• Game acceleration including support
for Microsoft DirectDraw®: Double
Buffering, Virtual Sprites, Transparent
Blit, and Masked Blit
• 8, 16, and 32 BPP acceleration
modes
• Supports up to QXGA (2048x1536)
resolution at 32 BPP
• Support for CI8 color expansion
• Support for Windows® XP GDI
extensions: Alpha BLT, Transparent
BLT, Gradient Fill
• Hardware cursor up to 64x64x32 BPP
• Support for Windows® XP alpha
cursor

VIDEO FEATURES
• Features ATI's VIDEO IMMERSION™
technology
• Adaptive de-interlacing filter
• Bob and Weave de-interlacing
• Video scaling and filtering
• Front and back-end scalers
• Integrated hardware motion
compensation and iDCT
• Compatible with third-party
software DVD players
• Full screen/full speed video
playback
• Support for contrast, hue,
brightness, and gamma correction

DISPLAY CONTROLLER
• Supports dual display
• Display rotation mode
• Supports hot plugging
• Integrated DAC and CRT controllers
• Simultaneous CRT/LCD/TV
output with on-chip triple DAC
at 300MHz
• OS extended desktop with two
CRTs
• ATI's extended desktop with two
CRT controllers
• Fully programmable YCrCb to RGB
color conversion
• Supports all formats of DTV/HDTV
• Integrated TV encoder for
NTSC/PAL and various TV formats
• Hardware DVD sub-picture
decoder
• Enhanced support for range based
graphics and video keying for
effective overlay of video and
graphics
• Hardware mirroring
• Support for DDC1 and DDC2B+ for
plug and play monitors
• 8-bit alpha blending of graphics and
video overlay
FLAT PANEL MONITOR
SUPPORT
• Digital output to support external
TMDS for analog and digital LCD
monitors
• Enhanced Ratiometric Expansion
for best image quality on LCD
• Supports DVI, DFP, and VESA
P&D interfaces
• Supports up to 1600x1200 screen
resolution for LCD panels
• Support for VGA text modes
in centering panel modes
™
RADEON™ IGP 320M - Page 3
™
INTEGRATED LVDS
INTERFACE
• Integrated dual LVDS interface
• Supports Spread Spectrum
• 85 MHz pixel clock rate
• 3 pairs (+1 clock) mode for both
single and dual channel LVDS
• FPDI-2 compliant
• OpenLDI compliant excluding DC
balancing
• LVDS eye pattern to improve
testability of LVDS module
TV-OUT SUPPORT
• Integrated TV encoder
• 10-bit DAC with 8-tap filter
• ATI's exclusive Composite Dot
Crawl freeze option
• Integrated flicker filters for UV
filtering for sharper picture
• Supports PAL/NTSC and various
TV formats
• Supports Composite, S-Video, and
RGB interfaces
• Macrovision 7.02 copy protection
standard
• Line 21 Closed Caption and
Extended Data Service support for
encoding in Vertical Blanking
Interval (VBI) of TV signal
• CGMS-A DVD copy management
support in VBI through Line-20
and /or Extended Data Service
(Line-21 Field 2)
• TV-out power management support

POWER MANAGEMENT
FEATURES
• Designed for AMD® PowerNow™
support
• Fully supports ACPI states S1, S3,
S4, and S5
• Supports four device power states:
On, Standby, Suspend, and Off
• Power states controllable by
software control bits
• Significant reduction in power
consumption by turning off the
clock to the idle blocks
• Self-refresh SDRAM in suspend
mode

OPTIMIZED SOFTWARE
SUPPORT
• DirectX® 8.1 and OpenGL® drivers
• HYDRAVISION™ multimonitor
management software from ATI
• Unified driver model allows common
graphics driver to support all
RADEON™ discrete and integrated
graphics products

SUPPORTED OPERATING
SYSTEMS
• Windows® XP
• Windows® Me
• Windows® 2000
• Windows® 98

PACKAGING
• 596-Ball BGA
• Small footprint 35 x 35 mm package
ATI TECHNOLOGIES INC.
33 Commerce Valley Drive East
Markham, Ontario, Canada L3T 7N6
Telephone: (905) 882-2600
Facsimile: (905) 882-2620
www.ati.com
ATI TECHNOLOGIES
SYSTEMS CORP.
2805 Bowers Avenue
Santa Clara, CA 95051-0917
Telephone: (408) 572-6500
Facsimile: (408) 572-6305
ATI TECHNOLOGIES
(EUROPE) GMBH
Keltenring 13
D-82041 Oberhaching, Germany
Telephone: +49 89 665 15 -0
Facsimile: +49 89 665 15 -300
ATI TECHNOLOGIES
(JAPAN) INC.
Kojimachi Nakata Bldg 4F
5-3 Kojimachi, Chiyoda-Ku
Tokyo 102-0083, Japan
Telephone: +81 35275-2241
Facsimile: +81 35275-2242
OFFICIAL ATI REP.
AMI TECHNOLOGIES CORP.
8F, 148, Sec. 1, Hsin Sheng S. Rd.
Taipei, Taiwan, R.O.C.
Telephone: 886-2-2396-7711
Facsimile: 886-2-2351-3030
Copyright 2002, ATI Technologies Inc. All rights reserved. ATI, RADEON, PIXEL TAPESTRY, CHARISMA ENGINE, HYPER Z, VIDEO IMMERSION, FLEXFIT and HYDRAVISION are trademarks and/or registered
trademarks of ATI Technologies Inc. All other company and/or product names are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of their respective owners. Features, performance and specifications may vary by
operating environment and are subject to change without notice. Products may not be exactly as shown. Printed in Canada. 03/02 P/N 129-40288-00
RADEON™ IGP 320M Block Diagram
™
ATI RADEON™ IGP 320M
ATI IXP 200 /
ATI IXP 250
AMD® Athlon™ 4 /
AMD® Duron™

Randomness

Hello:

***Updated information****

Just like to point out a few discoveries with regards to DVD playback and the Radeon IGP 320M (which also means i am using an AMD processor -- Athlon XP-M 2800+)

I have DVD Playback using the Sonic CinePlayer DVD decoder pack, with Hardware acceleration enabled, and VMR disabled. I was also able to enable/disable DXVA as well.

Speaking of DXVA:
ATI DXVA capable hardware - All Rage 128, Rage Mobility, Mobility 128, Radeon and Mobile Radeon level graphics chips support DXVA with IDCT (Inverse Discrete Cosine Transformation) for video acceleration and hardware DVD sub-picture blending. (Referenced from both ATi whitepapers and Sonic CinePlayer FAQs)
So when it comes to DXVA, the Radeon IGP 320M supports it. Its whitepaper has both overlay and iDCT support. I should also point out from the ATi whitepaper on the Radeon IGP 320 that it also supports hardware overlay processing.

With DXVA and hardware, the average CPU usage for playback is around 15% on average (depending on the movie being played), although it does spike when playing with menus. (It is also noted that it can spike once and while depending on what is being displayed, but doesn't go over 40%)

With DXVA and hardware acceleration off, CPU usage during playback averages around 25-30%)

Overall when it comes to DVD Playback on notebook computers, you'd like to keep it below 40% CPU utilization (in the low-power CPU mode ; in my processor's low power case, that would be 533MHz @1.200 V)

I have preferred Overlay over VMR because i find the picture less likely to tear, and there isn't any noticable pixelation. Plus there is specific hardware in the Radeon IGP 320M to support overlay image processing.

During these tests, the Athlon XP-M CPU status was monitored, and did not leave the 533MHz "cool" mode, and hense doesn't require a cooling fan.

This test was conducted with the HP-ATi OEM Catalyst driver version 4.4, and modded drivers up to 4.10.

In Windows Vista, the Microsoft-ATi Catalyst driver 5.10 provides DVD playback, whereas a modded Catalyst 5.10 would normally lock up in XP during DVD playback. However the CPU usage approached 70%, and the CPU is in the 2133 MHz operation mode (full throttle...basically, and running hot).

It has been confirmed that one can use a newer modded driver in Windows XP, as long as the DVD decoder installed supported VMR instead of overlay, or uses something else instead of the DirectX DirectShow API (like OpenGL for example) however this does not provide complete hardware acceleration during movie playback, and additional CPU usage may be noticed.
If one uses a DirectShow API - based DVD software decoder, i would recommend one designed for DirectX version 7 or 8.1 ; so the older the software decoder, the more likely it will work better with this chip.

I used a modded driver based on Catalyst 5.6, and CinePlayer reported that Overlay rendering was not supported by the driver, and it warned that picture quality would not be the same using VMR. DXVA was still enabled, and CPU usage averaged 25% (Which is a 10% increase from the Catalyst 4.4 drivers from HP)

Using the decoder through WMP10 allowed for a much better picture, however i could still noticed pixelation, and there was an occasional tear in playback.

I finally finished my own trace of the playback, and can confirm Goldbird's orignal findings. The playback issues all trace back to the "ativvaxx.dll", which is the "Radeon Video Acceleration Universal Driver" module. However, changing this file, as Goldbird suggested, could become problematic if the Catalyst versions used are too different. (ie// using an ativvaxx.dll from Cat 4.10 with a Cat 6.x may make the system unstable, espically the newer Catalyst 6.4 and above)

In theory, changing this DLL would work fine, however it depends on 2 particular and important things:
1) The version gap between Catalyst versions (the bigger, the more likely one will encounter BSOD or crashes)
2) The notebook motherboard's design. Different motherboard's have different Radeon IGP 320M BIOS versions, and bus configurations (although very subtle changes) and hense some systems will accept the "hybrid" catalyst installation better than others.

For those with a Radeon IGP 340M/345M/350M (RS200M core), you may find that newer modded drivers will be more compatible with DVD playback, however i have yet been able to verify this on a hardware test. One of the OEM drivers i cam accross was based on Catalyst 5.6 for the DEV ID: 4337 and a SUBSYS ID matching that of the 350M, however the DEV 4337 is the same for the 350M and 34xM chipsets.

With regards to making hybrid drivers:
Using different DLL components from different Catalyst driversets will not guarentee preformance increases unless the main driver ati2dvag.dll its miniport ati2mtag.sys and memory manager ati2cqag.dll & atikvmag.dll are included. Playing with the core files (ati2dvag.dll and ati2mtag.sys), and different memory manager control modules ( ati2cqag.dll and atikvmag.dll) will create an unstable driver, and may lead to BSOD when the system requests a driver specific feature (DVD playback, Direct3D, OpenGL, etc. from another module such as ativvaxx.dll (for DVD) or ati3duag.dll (for Direct3D)).

I'll continue working on the issue in my spare time.
I am hoping to find an easy way to make a "hybrid" driver using catalyst 4.10 and catalyst 5.9; These versions seem to provide the best preformance increases this chip can handle. In theory (i haven't tested it yet), one could simply change the ati3duag.dll, atioglxx.dll and atiglx1.dll in Catalyst 4.10 and replace them with ones from Catalyst 5.9.

Note: I would recommend benchmarking a pure mod of Catalyst 5.9 with 3dmark2001. Than compare the results with the hybrid Cat 4.10 / Cat 5.9 driver.

But again, use caution, and do such mods under your own risk.

Take Care, have fun, and good luck.

***********UPDATE:"Hybrid" driver test results*********

Catalyst 4.10 with Catalyst 5.9 ati3duag.dll mod
1640 3dMarks
Overlay image rendering and DVD playback was successful

Catalyst 5.9 with Catalyst 4.10 ativvaxx.dll mod
1751 3dMarks
Overlay image rendering and DVD playback was NOT successful

It would seem that the core 2D drivers are needed to gain the complete 3D speed improvement. And ativvaxx.dll is specific to the core 2D driver it normally is packaged with. :-(

Randomness

Hello again:
Just wanted to post a question regarding the Windows Vista WDDM graphics subsystem. Has anybody had success modding the Vista Beta 2 Catalyst drivers to work with this chip?
Every time i try, i get an odd error stating that "this is not a valid Windows XP driver"
Perhaps there is hardware scan Vista does to prevent the use of the more advanced WDDM graphics sub-system on older chips.

The Hybrid catalyst driver idea in my last post should work in Windows Vista (assuming it works in the first place), and correct its excessive CPU usage when it playback DVDs....assuming such a driver can be produced successfully. It would also provide OpenGL support as well. the built in drivers don't have any atioglxx.dll driver component.

Sadly, sich a driver wouldn't allow the WDDM system to work. Looks like we'll be stuck with Aero Basic for now.

Take care.

nerothos

Hello randomness! Can you confirm RDA2 's post from above? Wonder if I ll have any improvement on Wow with the 6.14 drivers. I ve been using so far the drivers Alex recommended, but even now I get an error message saying ''CLI.exe application Error. The application failed to initialize properly''.
Yet wow is by far better than when I was using the original last drivers that came out.
Just wondering and I am curious about the solution RDA2 came with.............

Again, thank to all for your great work. Random keep up !

Randomness

Hello nerothos,

I haven't personally tried RDA2's solution because, as the following posts read, DVD playback works only through the use of VMR and not overlays, or at least, it hasn't been confirmed that DVD playback through overlay rendering was successful. I have found that when the driver allows the support of overlay rendering, it allows the system to playback DVDs without using much CPU usage, and hense a longer battery life.

RDA2's Solution works, it is similar to standard modding and using the DriverCleaner Pro tool, however his solution simply outlines it all manually. I have tried a similar method, and still run into the overlay rendering problem with any drivers newer than Catalyst 4.10.

In Windows Vista, the Graphics Subsystem seems to accept newer drivers, and DVD playback works, albiet at higher CPU usage.

But, if your intent is to use Media Player Classic, or other DVD-playback program that uses VMR for its rendering method, than yes, RDA2's solution will work.

In regards to your error with CLI.exe ;
You are most likely experiencing this problem from a corrupt Catalyst control center installation.
You can fix this as follows:

Start-->Run-->regedit
Navigate to:
My Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Win dows\CurrentVersion\Run
and Delete the CLI.exe entry.

If you have trouble with accessing Catalyst control Centre, I would also suggest installing an updated Catalyst Control Centre (CCC) package from ATI's Drive download page.
You can fetch a copy from here in the "Low Speed" download list.
https://support.ati.com/ics/support/...estionID=22020
If this link doesn't work, go to http://support.ati.com --> In left hand plane, expand the "Drivers and Software" --> Expand Windows XP --> Expand "Motherboards with ATI Graphics" --> "Previous Drivers and Software"
Find and download the CCC package (the download that has only the Catalyst control center, i.e.// no drivers) from Catalyst 6.1 to 6.4. You can get the single CCC package in the Low Speed download list.

The current 6.6 and 6.5 versions may not be fully compatible with this chipset.

With regards to using newer Catalyst 6.x drivers on the Radeon IGP 3xxM chips, i would strongly recommend not using them unless you need to correct a bug in a certain game. Catalyst versions over 5.9 tend to preform more slowly on this chipset, and expecially get worse in the 6.x versions.

Good luck, have fun, and take care.

- Randomness

RDA2

We're stuck with Aero Basic no matter what... Aero Glass requires Pixel Shader 2.0 support in hardware, which these chips don't have. Bummer huh?

Randomness, I was wondering what sort of machine you have? I'm specifically interested in the battery. My laptop (Presario 2197, Athlon-M 2800+) simply won't make it through a full movie on battery power regardless of driver set, making the Overlay vs VMR debate a non-issue...

Randomness

Hello RDA2,

I forgot about the Pixel Shader 2.0 hardware rquirement. That would explain why i could mod the WDDM drivers and get them running because Windows Vista won't engage WDDM for Aero Glass without detected the hardware itself. I suppost there would be a way around this, and force it to use the hardware, but i would imagine that would require a lot of CPU power.

With regards to my notebook, surprizingly, i am using the same model. I have listed the specs below, although i have made some recent upgrades to it in the last year. With regards to the battery....that was a sticky issue some while pack, which i'll explain in the specs below.

HP Compaq Presario 2197ca
AMD Athlon XP-M 2800+
1GB (2x512 SODIMM) DDR RAM
WD Scorpio 80GB 2.5" Hard Drive ATA-100
Slimtype SOSW-852S DVD+/- RW with DL+R support (Firmware PS08)
*Note: slimtype is rebadged from the Liteon SOSW-852S
Of course the original bells and whistles on all the Presario 2100 models:
Radeon IGP 320M (with 128MB UMA allocation)
ALi/ULi M1535+ PCI Southbridge
ATi A3/U1 S2K CPU to PCI Northbridge
ALi/ULi M5451 Audio Accelerator
*Note: newest driver badged Conexant AC-Link Audio
Broadcom 802.11b/g mini-PCI wireless model: BCM94306MP
National Semiconductor DP83815/16 MacPhyter 10/100 Ethernet
4400mAH F4809a/f4812a Li-ion 8-cell Motorola P/N EPNN8330A
*Note: Battery provides about 3 and half hours run time if CPU stays cool.
*Note: This is replacement battery. Original battery spontaneously stopped working despite low charge cycle-count of only 50; I suspect it had something to do with the HP notebook battery recall, but my original battery was 2 months newer than what they were replacing, so i simple ordered a new one.
This model of Li-ion battery generally will require replacement is the cycle count is up and around 300. You can check this information either in the BIOS, or using the Battery Calibration tool that came in the software with the notebook.
You will need to go to this website, and check your battery's Serial Number:
http://bpr.hpordercenter.com/ebpr/landingpage.aspx
Also keep in mind that most common notebook lithium-ion batteries will need to be replaced one way or another with the first 1-2 years of use. On of the other things that wears out a lithium battery is when it sets at full-charge and never gets used. HP recommends using it at least once a week down to 50%. Or discharge to 40-50% and store it until you'll be using it.

Hope this is remotely insightful.

Randomness

alexl55

WOW!!!! 3.5 hours of battery life?!? how did u get that? I used to only be able to get about 1.5 hours on my batteries. I found a nice clock regulation program while OC'ing my Opteron, so I decided to try it on my laptop too. It's called RMclock. The lowest stable clock rate for Athlon XP-M 2200+ is also 533mHz (4x divider). I tried 3x divider (400mHz) but my laptop always crashed. I think default voltage @ 533mHz is 1.2V, but thru RMclock I was able drop it to 1.0V and my laptop is still running rock solid. I'll probably Prime it to make sure. But my battery life shot up to 2.5 hours thanks to the lower voltage. I still want to know how you get 3.5 hours (my battery wear is only @ 31%).

Also another thing I noticed in RMclock is that the CPU throttles when it's on batteries. For me, the actual CPU speed is 240mHz when the CPU is set to 533mHz according to RMclock. I tried Everest and CPU-Z and they all reported 533mHz. so I'm not sure where RMClock got that number. The throttling dissappears once the AC power is plugged in.

__________________
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)

fluke1023

Hello! I just registered here at DriverHeaven, I have been reading a little bit about my craptacular IGP 345M chip I have in my Sony Vaio PGC-K45...now it says it's 64mb memory, I assume that is shared but I can't verify that anywhere...but I have also been reading, is it possible I can change that to 128? I have been reading something about the changing the bios settings for the chips UMA shared memory? Can anyone tell me how to find out if I can do this, and if I can tell me how? hehe Thanks for putting up with my massive noobage!


Ah yes my noobage betrays me...sorry to have bothered you with that stupid question...I found out how to do it!

Randomness

Hello again,

Alexl55 --- Please keep in mind that Lithium-ion batteries are tricky when it comes to keeping them happy. One of the saddest lessons i have learned is that the Li-Ion battery in this notebook series cannot stay at Full charge and not be used, otherwise it can become damaged, and lessen its run-time. I had to replace my battery. If you don't plan on using the battery for more than a week, discharge it to 40% and store it some place cool.

HOWEVER....Perhaps this might help a little. The AMD Athlon XP-M is a 7th generation processor, and needs a mobile amdk7 system driver. Windows has a habit of using its built in driver, and not the K7 driver provided by HP on the driver disc. Make sure your running a amdk7 system driver version 5.1.2600.1152 dated 17/12/2002 or better. I have found that the system better regulates its throttling when on battery power. Also make sure your power management settings are set to "portable/Laptop" otherwise the throttle feature will be mal-treated, or disabled altogether by windows.

You could try recalibrating the battery. When you turn the system on, at the COMPAQ logo press F6....i think. It may be F5. The process will take at least 4-6 hours, i recommend letting it do its cycle at night.

You could also try resetting the ACPI drivers in Windows XP. Do do this, remove the following devices under "System devices":
ACPI Fixed Feature Button
ACPI Power Button
ACPI Lid
And than reset your system.

I am going to assume you are using the newest ATi GART driver compatible with this system (that i know of anyway) version: 5.1.2196.1009 ; The Radeon IGP 3xx chips also have there own core throttle features.

Hope some of this is helpful. Take care.

Randomness

Hello fluke1023,

Welcome to DriverHeaven.net

UMA refers to the Unified Memory Architecture. Unlike normal Graphics chips, like the Radeon Mobility 7500, the Radeon IGP 3xxM chips act as the northbridge chipset in your notebook.
The northbridge chipset is also responsible for serving as a memory controller and CPU interface to southbridge chipset, and and the rst of your computer.
The southbridge runs your USB/PCI/other perhiperials
With the UMA, the Radeon graphics core in the northbridge can physically assign its own graphics memory straight from the system memory banks. Not exactly "sharing" like the Intel chips do, because the system can't access that memory the graphics core uses.

Feel free to post anymore questions regarding your Radeon IGP 345M.

Take care, and have fun.

vlab22

hI Randomness, Hi All

Great post,

I was abandoning my Pavillion Ze5560US with IGP 340M,
when I read this post, I follow your hints and install the
last Catalyst 6.6 Driver, but my OpengGL app became worst,
With YOUR LIGHT , I read the patje topics and install Catalyst 4.10 and OpenGL
works with a performace that I never think my hp would get

The problem is Direct3D not working now...

I found a old (really old) topic by patje with the soution but the link is broken
("http://users.skynet.be/FCB/files/modded410b.exe").

Do you know a newer solution for me? Or where can I find this modded410b.exe?

Thanks for ALL! and sorry for my poor english

Randomness

Hello vlab22:

Under normal circumstances, the direct3D driver module in the catalyst 4.10 package is fully compatible with these IGP chipsets. One of the few instances where Direct3D does not work in a modded driver is when the AGP bridge driver / GART driver is not installed correctly, outdated, or not even installed in the first place.

I would recommend cleaning out your current ATi driver installation with DriverCleaner Pro. You can get a copy at www.drivercleaner.net
Use both the "ATi" and "ATi IGP" filters, clean out your system. Restart, and repeat the process again. Make sure that the modded Catalyst 4.10 driver you have are moved into a renamed directory so the system won't try to re-install them during boot-up.
Once your system is cleaned of the ATi driver installations, you will first need to find, download and install a new ATi GART driver.

You can get a copy of the GART driver from ATI through there Driver page. Goto support.ati.com, in the left hand menu, expand Drivers and Software, expand your windows version, expand Motherboards/IGP, and click on Previous Drivers and software. Goto Catalyst 5.6, and download the GART driver in the "low-speed" download section.
You can try going directly there with this link:
https://support.ati.com/ics/support/...estionID=19553
But ATi links have a habit of becoming invalid after a day or so.

To install it, try using the silent install program that comes with it. And check in Hardware Manager if you have a "ATI RS200/RS200M/RS250M Accelerated Graphics Port" listed under system devices. If it isn't installed, you will notice the device will be called "PCI standard PCI-to-PCI bridge"
The driver version should be "5.1.2196.1009" or newer

There is another option, but i haven't had access to the DEV_4337 chip. It is the chip used for the Radeon IGP 340M/345M/350M models. The only difference between the models is related to the system main board, its subsystem configuration.

HP has this driver available:
https://support.ati.com/ics/support/...estionID=19553
The INF configuration is specific for the IGP 350M but in theory, it can be modded to work with the Radeon IGP 340M and 345M. When you download the package, run it, and than cancel the installation when you get an error. It will have unpacked itself into the c:\swsetup directory. You can use Patje's mod tool to mod the driver. But keep in mind that OpenGL issues can pop up if not properly modded. Please refer to my previous posts in this thread regarding OpenGL.

You may also find this HP software package useful:
http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/g...reg_R1002_USEN
It has a copy of the ATI Gart driver, and several Windows XP patches to improve preformance. Although it is mentioned for systems other than your own, you may still be able to use the software because the hardware isn't significantly different.

The HP Driver i pointed to you is based on Catalyst 5.6 ; I have found Catalyst 5.6 to 5.9 provide the best 3D preformance with the Radeon IGP 3xxM chips. I don't recommend using the 6.x Catalyst versions, because ATI is slowly phasing out support for their older chipsets in it, and you could run into compatibility problems. Keep in mind that there are known DVD playback problems with anything newer than Catalyst 4.10, however some systems with an IGP 340/345/350 *may* not have any problems with DVD playback.

If you require any more information, please provide more detail about you system, and the errors you encounter. Please let us know out things make out.

Take care, and good luck.

-Randomness

Randomness

Hello once again,

After a load of reading on the internet, it would seem that the DVD Playback issues this thread has dwelled one aren't isolated to just the Radeon IGP 320M and related chips.

The most curious bit of information i came accross was the DVD Playback issues start in Catalyst 4.6 with some chips, and result in different playback preformance depending on the graphics chip, and its video firmware version.

Now, i've tested Catalyst 4.10, and found DVD playback works find with Overlay rendering, and iDCT Hardware acceleration, but upon further experimentation, i did find that Catalyst 4.4 and Catalyst 4.5 provide better frame rates. Very subtle changes, but they are still present. If the root of Catalyst 4.11 DVD playback issue stems from Catalyst 4.6, it would explain why it is has been difficult to isolate. I've also played with Catalyst 5.6 using a very unique mini-port mod, and was able to prevent the system from crashing. Unfortunately i could only get the DVD Playback to stablize at 10fps. Its an improvement from the Crashes / <5fps from previous experiments.

Thus far, it would seem that DVD playback issues stems from the Miniport driver, and the ativvaxx.dll "Radeon Video Acceleration Universal Driver" ; But it would also seem that different video firmwares play their own role in it aswell. But it is my hope that the Catalyst 4.4 / 4.5 discovery can be used as a new experiment template.



Hope this information is somewhat useful. Take care.

Randomness

Hello, this post is just some reference information i've collected during my current batch of experiements with the Radeon IGP 320M

ATI Mobility U1 ---> Radeon IGP 320M series
ATI Mobility U2 ---> Radeon IGP 340M series
ATI Mobility U3 ---> ATI Radeon Mobility 9100 IGP series

All "can" share common AGP bridge driver ATi GART version 5.0.2195.1004
Which suggests the DVD playback issue doesn't necessarily center on the GART interface, but DVD Playback issues have been referenced chips up to the Radeon Mobile 9700 series. But it seems the older chips are more prone to playback issues.

Got iDCT working on newer drivers, but still have playback issues. Suggesting it isn't related to the video firmware, but more along the lines of memory / resource / bus-mastering management. Resource mapping for newer drivers seems relatively the same, but i intend on running a more detailed comparative diagnostic.

Support for the Radeon IGP 320M was removed from "current" (Catalyst 5.7 and above) GART versions but support for its close relative the Radeon Mobility 7000 is still present.

........back to the drawing board.......

Jagermage

Ok, I've read most of the previous posts, but I'll admit, they are over my head. So I'm wondering if anyone can walk me through, step by step, how to make WoW work. DVD playback on this machine is not important. I tried d/l ing the Catalyst 5.13, but got an error message saying "INF error, video driver not found." Hit ok, then got "Setup was unable to complete the installation. Try to setup your display adapter with a standard VGA driver before running the setup." Now, I can get WoW to run, but the graphics gut in and out randomly, even on the account entry screen. I've got an HP Pavilion ze4800 with the IGP 320m. Got a mobile AMD athlon XP 2800+ with 448 megs of RAM. It was 192, but I just upgraded to 2 256 sticks, which is my other question..why am I only showing 448 megs? I downloaded the drivers for my card from the HP website, but they were current as of June 2004. I don't know much about computers, but I know just enough to get me in trouble if i start playing around. So, can you all help? Assume that explanations should be made to the lowest common intellectual demoninator. Any help I can get would be appreciated as my fiancee, who I'm trying to get the computer to work for, really wants to play WoW with me. Thanks ahead of time. Let me know if there is any more information about the system you need.

Randomness

Hello, and welcome to DriverHeaven.net

It is some-what unusuall that you would get an INF error if you tried to download and install the Catalyst Mobility 5.13b from here:
http://www.station-drivers.com/telec...-2kxp-whql.exe
You first need to uninstall the old drivers. You can normally do this in the Add/Remove programs in control panel (windows XP/2000)

Second, download the Catalyst drivers stated above, and the most up-to-date GART driver, which you can get here:
http://h18007.www1.hp.com/support/fi...oad/21127.html

The GART AGP driver is responsible for allowing your graphics chip to communicate with your CPU properly. Its formal name is "ATI U1/RS200 AGP Bus Driver".

Install the AGP Bus driver (GART) first, restart, and than install the Catalyst Mobility 5.13b drivers from the station-drivers link above.

The reason you have Windows stating you have 448 MB of RAM instead of 512 MB is because the Radeon IGP 320M will take 64MB to itself, which windows cannot access. This memory is used for the IGP 320M's frame buffer (presents the picture) and texture mapping (3D rendering). For WoW, i would recommend getting a 512 MB SODIMM chip for your notebook, and setting the Video memory to 128MB instead of 64MB. The reason i suggest more memory is because if you set the shared memory to 128MB as it is, windows will only get 384MB, and might get cranky.
Setting the IGP 320M's memory allocation can only be done in the BIOS. you can access the BIOS by pressin F2 when you first turn your notebook on. The Graphics memory allocation is a setting called "UMA". Be careful not to change any other system settings.

If it is still giving you problems, i will try to post a better walk through when i have a little more free time.

Good luck, and Take care

Jagermage

Well, I did everything you said to, and well, let's just say the results were...





Fantastic! It worked perfectly. Thanks for all your help. You are teh shiznit Randomness.