Randomness

Hello:

I intend this new thread for those in search of some insight into the lack of support for the Radeon IGP 320M, Radeon IGP 340M, Radeon IGP 345M and similar chipsets included in many older laptops.

Especially a lot of older HP notebooks as listed below:
HP Pavilion ze5200 series throu ze5600 ; HP Pavilion ze4100 series throu ze4700 ; Compaq nx9000, nx9005, nx9008, nx9010 ; Compaq Evo N1010v, N1015v series ; Compaq Presario 2100, 2500, 1100, and some 900 series.

This chipset has bothered me for some time, so i have done a lot of experimentation and research regarding them.

First, the Radeon 320M series and 340M series are essentially identical, expect for what processors they support. The 320M is designed for AMD based systems, and the 340M is designed for Intel processors. The 320M is the main focus of this article, but would apply similarily to the other series. The 320M is also known by ATI Mobility U1 or A3 with device ID: 4336 or 4136 respectively

On average, from I was able to find, these chipsets drivers are rather old. Some manufactures using drivers older than others. Based primarily on the Catalyst 3.8 - 4.4 driver model. Dated between 2002-2004 ... ish. Unfortunately some systems seem to have proprietary quirks about them that may make them stubborn to accepting newer modded graphics. That, and a lack of Radeon BIOS updates for these chipsets have left them behind the times.

These older Radeon IGPs have cores running at 160MHz, some maybe a little faster near and around 200MHz. If you look on the internet long enough, and a willing to risk it, you can probably overclock this chipset to get a little more out of it, assuming you can find the software to do it.

Here are a few things i have found that may help with troubleshooting some issues with these chipsets:

1) If you have the odd issue where you load a 3D game or full screen application, and the screen minimizs to the task bar, check for any Hardware button software running it background, such as a keyboard driver for extra internet buttons. Try updating this driver, or disable its text overlay feature (press a button, and green letters tell you whatever on the screen) if it has such an option, or disable it completely for 3D game play / 3D full screen. This issue can also be discribed as "You cancelled by pressing a key" in a Direct3D diagnostic test.

2) if you want newer drivers for this chipset....things can get messy. After 5 hours of fighting with 10 different versions of catalyst, custom registry and INF experimentation, and hybrid driver creation...i have relatize how stubborn i can be, and how equally stubborn this chipset is.

First, find a newer ATI GART driver for your laptop. You should be able to use the newer one available from HP, or even use the ATI GART provided from ATI under there "Motherboards with ATI" downloads page. Or maybe even from those "friendly" people at update.microsoft.com

It seems (and i am still looking into it) that these chipsets aren't very stable running any driver model that is based on Catalyst 4.11 or above. (Getting progressively more unstable near the near 5.1x drivers). The most common issue being DVD playback, and even other video playback. Earlier modded drivers cause a critically low frame rate playback, 5>fps. Using newer modded drivers (5.1x) will usually result in a rather abrupt and serious system lockup, requiring a forced power reset.

However, for those who want to get new-er-ish drivers, download Catalyst 4.10 ( i recommend fileshack, although their free servers can get busy, and you'll have to "wait in line"). If you use the Mobility Modder V3 by patje (see the homepage of Driverheaven), on the Catalyst 4.10 driver, the chipset should run a little more smoothly. I have yet to figure out what differs from 4.10 and 4.11 that would make such instability; the driver model is nearly identical, short of reverse engineering it.

You may have luck with newer catalyst version, as every system has its own quirks with these chipsets. Or bad luck, where only older modded catalyst drivers work. At the very least Catalyst 4.4 to 4.8 should work, and they provide some enhancements compared to the much older drivers available from your laptop manufacture.

I should also point out that these chipsets do not have DirectX 9 hardward acceleration, which can be really annoying when trying to run newer games, such as F.E.A.R. ; Although they do support DirectX 8.1 hardware acceleration.

I hope this is mildly helpful for anyone in search of some ideas regarding these stubborn chipsets for their laptop. If you need more information, post a message and i'll try to reply as soon as i can. Take care.

****Please SEE UPDATE Here:http://www.driverheaven.net/showthre...985#post832985 ; It is in this thread, and is regarding DVD playback, and a possible resolution using newer Catalyst drivers. Please also reference Alexl55's entry regarding Catalyst Mobility 5.13 here: The EPIC legacy of the Radeon IGP 320M / 340M / 345M and related chips out there ;
Good Luck, have fun, take care.

CameO

Thanx for this excellent explanation! I've been fighting with my 320M chipset for some time now - the biggest problem I'm having is to get the exotic 1280x854 resolution working with any driver.

But I'm thinking to stop this meaningless quest and just get my old tower setup working again (including a Geforce 4400Ti) to play the few games I own (most notably a copy of Beyond Good & Evil I picked up for € 5,-). Most current games are just unplayable with this chipset (as you mentioned also in your DirectX 9 remark).

No_Style

Nice write up. I owned an IGP 320M. It made me sad with its driver pickiness. Hopefully a mod can sticky this.

__________________

Randomness

Hello Again:

Just an update on my sad little hobby with this stubborn chipset. There seems to be a DVD hardware playback built into the Radeon IGP 320M and related chips, but sadly seems to be incompatible with Catalyst 4.11 and newer. It is isolated with the main Driver and miniport, but i have been unable to figure out exactly what the cause is. ATI seems reluctant to provide support with any laptop chipset.

My notebook manufacture, HP, said "they apologized for the inconvinence" and they'll look into it. Albiet, i doubt any time soon, or at all for the matter. Direct 3D will work with newer catalyst 5.x drivers however i have found that this chipset will no longer respond properly to any resent 5.9-ish or above versions. And again, DVD playback is completely unstable with the newer catalyst drivers. My best guest at the moment is that it has something to do with the DX9 hardware acceleration, or the ATI's driver model has been changed outside of the chipset's older BIOS parameters.

In theory, a BIOS update for this chip would correct the issue, but that is beyond my programming capabilities for the moment. Plus there is still the sticky issue that each Radeon BIOS for this chipset would need to be customized for each laptop motherboard Because of its AGP / P2K bridging, and LCD interfaces. And than there is the sad point of knowing this chip can only go so far, so perhaps it is indeed time to move on to either a new notebook or use a desktop for gaming.

But for now, if you would like to use newer drivers (compared to your manufacture), i recommend ATI Catalyst 4.10 modded with the DriverHeaven's mobility modder. It has been running pretty stable, and provides some preformance enahncements for a few games. You can probably find Catalyst 4.10 floating around the internet if you search google.com or try to find it archived at fileshack, and use one of their free servers to snag a copy. Good luck and take care.

Randomness

Hello, Just an update regarding my previous posts:

I have found an unusual incompatibility between modding newer versions of Catalyst. It seems to begin with Catalyst 4.11, and gets progressively worse to 5.13. I have yet to experiment with Catalyst 6.1, but i doubt it would show signs of improvement. Again, the problem seems to be with any accelerated video playback, especially DVD playback. In the earlier Catalyst versions, (4.11 to 5.6-ish) the system plays DVDs with 5<fps; the newer Catalyst drivers lock up and crash the system.

I have been trying to isolate the fundamental difference with 4.10 and 4.11 and other models, and have narrowed to the following files of the driver model:
ati2dvag.dll ---> Main Driver file
ati2cqag.dll ---> Central Memory manager
ati2mtag.sys ---> VDD Miniport
and possibly the ati2mdxx.exe ---> 2D mode component

There are no significant changes to the INF, or INI structures that i have been able to isolate to be the cause of the problems. It is also interesting to note the the DirectX3d Acceleration and Universal Radeon Video Accelration parts of the newer catalyst drivers still seem compatable with this chipset. I haven't had time to play with the OpenGL parts of it yet. Mildly hopeful.....ish.....

hope this is remotely useful. Have fun, take care.

Rambus

What is the status of your findings Randomness?

So far I ahev been able to play videos succesfuly by disabling Video Hardware Overlay on different applicatios (WMP, WinAmp, etc).

However it seems that it fails to do it properly on MCE2005. Sound comes out and I think video is playing on my laptop LCD (backlight failed some ago, so I am using the VGA 2ndary output). CCC overlay controls does not allow me to swith the way in which video is played ...

Randomness

Hello,
I have narrowed this issue down to the main NT driver and VDD miniport. It seems related to how the driver tells the chip to impliment DirectDraw 9 instructions. It seems to choke on Pixel fading / mixing registers. Only reinforcing the idea that this chipset needs modifications to its onboard BIOS code. But again, that is still beyond my capabilities for the moment.

In regards to your video playback, i would try 1 of 2 things. If remotely possible, try to extend your desktop, and play the video on the 2nd monitor. Microsoft has made it clear that displaying a video on more than 1 display at once seems out of the question. Although i am not sure about their motives on this issue. So its not the chips fault on this(for once).
But extending the desktop should allow video playback if you move the player program into the 2nd monitor. Although that could be tricky if your LCD is NFG.

If CCC gives you trouble, you may have better luck just using the good ol'fashion Control panel, if you can find a copy of it kicking around in the ATI archives:
https://support.ati.com/ics/support/...e&folderID=293

Your second option would be to figure out how to set your 2nd monitor as the "Primary Display"; Please reference this article for assistance:
http://www.microsoft.com/resources/d..._overview.mspx
Good luck, and take care.

Randomletters

Totally stole my name.

__________________
Main Rig to the Left

http://www.myspace.com/rnaodmnick <-- Yea I did it...

patje

Randomness, nice work.
I've read once that the dvd issue can be "solved" by putting the hardware acceleration slider to off instead of full. I'm not sure (I don't have 320m to test with) if this works but it's worth the shot.
Note that games will not work, you'll have to put the slider to full.
Maybe this will help in your quest

__________________

was24184

Randomness, excelent work. I've ad problems with my igp320m for so long that I've started saving money for a new notebook. I had them all: from video crashing, games crashing, video flickering and also a combination of these...The most "interesting" problem I have encountered is with video playback: If I turn overlay ON, video only runs smooth if I move the mouse arround...Yes, the mouse...Otherwise it stalls...This one I can't understand... Well I hope you come up with more great things about our beloved igp320m , and keep up the good work. Thanks!!!

Rambus

Well setting the 2nd output as primary did not work .... I will keep playing, there should be a registry setting or something that could help ....

Randomness

Hello again:

Thank you for your support and information regarding these chips. I have tried the suggestion from patje regarding disabling video acceleration to correct the DVD playback issue on modded catalyst drivers newer than 4.10, and have had no success. After tinkering with the write combining, and several other options/variations of acceleration/partial acceleration/no acceleration, i think i can conclude that the problem itself lies within the structure of the Catalyst driver model. I have also done a little more research, which would also suggest that it is not necessarily the BIOS code on the radeon chip, as i originally expected.

I have been able to experiment with a friend's laptop a little. It is using the Radeon IGP 345M, which is basically the same Radeon core, but designed to work as the northbridge for Pentium 4 CPUs (where the 320M is northbridge to AMD processors). Interestingly enough, the chip has a IGP 350M device code (0x4337), but the subsystem code is completely different. This would suggest that the chip has been significantly "customized" with the laptop's motherboard (sony...). I could not get time to try a newer driver model, but hopefully i'll get more time to play with it. However i can confirm that the Catalyst 4.10 did work well on his system, with no signs of bugs or issues.

A HP driver using the same Catalyst driver set has the 0x4337 device ID in its INF file, and it is based on Catalyst 5.7-ish. I am hoping i will be able to modify this driver to work on his system with little trouble, although i may need to study the INF code a little longer to understand the differences between his driver and the HP one. Perhaps that would at least allow me to suggest instructions on building a driver for those who are using that chipset, and/or the 350M for future reference.

With regards to Rambus' issue of video playback on a secondary monitor:
Again, i would recommend using a Catalyst control panel, rather than CCC. Apparently, according to ATi, CCC isn't fully compatable with the any IGP chips, albiet you may have better luck with the newest version of it. It sounds like a setting either through the ATi control panel, or buried in the registry. I'll try to work on the issue when i get time. Any additional information/discription on the issue would be helpful.

Anyway, take care, and good luck.

swimtech

Issues like these have been ongoing for some time with this chipset, your insight and research for everyone's sake is much appreciated...

__________________
It's not so much getting your way that matters or not - what matters is how you go about getting it.

Rambus

Windows MP10 video works using Catalyst 6.1 modded using Patje's application. Strange as t seems, WMP works if I select high-quality mode ()!! This is the one that is suppossed to use HW Accelration for video playback. If I select overlay it completely freezes my PC.

This trick does not work for MCE2005 ... oh well, one down


BTW my laptop is a Compaq Presario 906us (IGP 320m) ...

Randomness

Thank you Rambus. I haven't started to look at the Catalyst 6.1 driver model, fearing I may run into similar trouble with the 4.11-5.13 drivers. But at least its a place to start; it'll help narrow down the fundamental issue this chip has with video playback using these new drivers.

I beleive the problem is related to the registry, or at the very least, be compensated through the registry. So far, that has been my focus, trying to use a standard Mobility U1 as a template, hopefully it may provide some insight into what it is that causes such crahes. Unfortunately there are a lot of registry keys that the Radeon Family seems to support, and finding which one that could correct this issue has been a rather difficult task. But i think i'll eventually find it using the U1 has a road map. If i am lucky, i may even be able to find registry keys that would increase preformance on this chipset.

Anyway,
take care, Have fun.

Weria

Hi everybody!

I was wondering what games can be played with IGP 320M (I have HP Nx9005 mobo) and which version of DirectX is supported with this poor chipset - 7.0 or 8.1?? Why do I care? I desperately need to play Max Payne or Sims2! I don't know how to fix this problem. Or is there any list of games that can be played with this chipset, so as I could choose another..

Thanks for reply!
W.

Mysterious Dr X

Is it possible to play Guild Wars satisfactorily on a 345M? Two of my friends have this card, and they're both very choppy when playing the game. One is a Sony VAIO PCG-FRV28, the other is a Compaq Presario 2596us. I've heard mixed opinions, but I'm starting to think it's a driver problem, though they both have the most recent version of the manufacturers' outdated drivers. Could they see better performance with a modded Catalyst 4.10? Possibly even >5 fps? :-P

__________________
Dell Latitude D800
1.70 GHz Pentium M
1 GB RAM
40 GB Hard Drive
120 GB WD External HD
NVIDIA GeForce4 4200 Go

Randomness

Hello:
For future reference regarding playing Doom 3 on the ATi Radeon IGP 320M:
It seems to use an OpenGL driver, rather than DIrectX9 for its graphics interface, even though stated otherwise. Anyway, if you set your OpenGL and DirectX settings to "Preformance", load the game. Open the comman menu by pressing ctrl + alt + ~
enter : seta image_useNormalCompression 1
or try: seta image_useNormalCompression "1"
and press enter
than exit the command menu by pressing ctrl + alt + ~
it should work...ish; best on low settings, but you should be able to bring it up with more memory, and playing with other options. Make sure you disable shadows though, as they seem to cause a significant preformance decrease with this chip.

Keep it random....take care

fileserver

Hi,
I also so have a Compaq Presario 2199us with 320m graphic card. It is running Windows XP Pro SP2, 512 MB RAM minus 64 MB shared video, and Athlon-M 28000+.

Here is the problem:
The computer runned normally until I installed latest Omega =( around August 2005. I don't know what happen but:
1. The system crashed if I put Omega driver, original manufacturer driver, or 4.10 Catalyst.

The funny thing is if I remove the driver, then the system runs fine, but it does not scroll smoothly.

Can anyone help me out?

PS: I tried to do everything from the other thread, ie. install 4.10 with mod and other good stuff. Same result: system crashed.

ole00001

for en teit side. jeg kan jo ikke finne noen ting her og ivertfall ikke laste de ned. nei dette var dårlig

Randomness

Hello fileserver :

I may need more information to be of assistance. However here are a few things you can try:

1) Unistall all ATI stuff (including Omega's stuff) through control panel's add/remove, download DriverCleaner Pro, and run it afterwards to clean out any other ATi driver junk. Than install a fresh copy of your laptop's original driver. See websites below. I would than recommend using a Modded Catalyst 4.10 from ATI's Archive and patje's Mobility Modder V3.
For a Copy of DriverCleaner Pro:
http://www.drivercleaner.net/
For an updated HP Original Driver:
http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/g...tem=hb-21505-1
For Catalyst 4.10 from ATi's Archive:
https://support.ati.com/ics/support/...e&folderID=293
For patje's Mobility Modder:
http://www.driverheaven.net/patje/

2) Make sure write combining is enabled. Control panel-->display-->settings tab--> advanced-->troubleshoot-->check box for Write combining.

3) If you still have problems, it may be necessary to reload your system from scratch.

Hope this is helpful, take care.

Randomness

Hello:

With regards to Weria's post:
The Radeon IGP 3xx chips support DX8.1 hardware acceleration. With enoguh memory and system resources, you should be able to play most games that are based on DirectX 8.1 and older. In theory, you should be able to play games based on DX9.0, however they may play very slowly. You can try updated drivers for this chipset from your maufacture, or try modding Catalyst 4.10 with patje's Mobility modder to get a little more preformance / bug fixes. you could try different catalyst version upto 5.6 (inclusive), however i have incountered DVD playback issues with newer driver models (newer than 4.10) on two different systems using the IGP320M and IGP 345M chips.

With regards to Mysterious Dr X
The Radeon IGP 3xx chips where introduced in 2002-ish. They are roughly equivalent to the Radeon 7xxx and Radeon 8xxx cores, and support DX8.1 hardware accel. However if you encounter choppy game plaing, do try modding the Catalyst 4.10 driver for a possible improvement. You can also try to simply set the OpenGL and DirectX settings in ATI's controlpanel to Preformance. You chould also consider free system memory, and page file size, and file system fragmentation. But again, these chips can only do so much before their limitations are reached. I do not have sufficient information regarding Guild Wars played on this chipset, however their website may indicated wheather or not this chipset will play it properly.

Hope this is helpful. Good luck, and take care.

Asmoday

Hei ole00001,
Det kan vara svårt att få någet svar här om du snakker Norsk. Jag er svensk så jag kan förstå ungefär vad du säger. Skicka gärna ett pm till mig om du har problem att snakke Engelsk. Så ska jag försöka hjälpa dig så gott jag kan.

Asmoday, Forum Super moderator

__________________

Randomness

Hello:

This is an updated to the Epic legacy of the Radeon IGP3xx(M) chips from my previous posts.
Modded Catalyst drivers prove stable for 2D/3D applications, except Catalyst 4.11 and above seem to have DVD playback issues with systems. Currently Catalyst 4.10 is the "new"est driver set available to be odded with Patje's Mobility modder with no problems.

I have isolated the DVD playback problem 2 of the following issues...hopefully.
1) ATi Control Panel Configuration and registry related configuration
2) Version 4.11 includes the following change to it from 4.10 (the working driver model for this chip)
"CATALYST 4.11 includes a memory allocation bug fix for all AGP RADEON™ products with 256 of MB of memory that significantly improves performance for applications that make intensive us of graphics memory" - Release Notes for Cat. 4.11

During a recent driver test, i have isolated the DVD playback issue to the Miniport, Main, and memory control driver modules. It is likely that the said changes to the Main Memory control module has resulted in the issue. However...that said...this DVD playback problem would have turned up with the Desktop counterpart chips, which it seems it hasn't.

Therefore, i have concluded (for the moment) that the problem may lie within the registry configuration. Or it is possible that ATi changed a component of the Main driver file that is related to acceleration support for DVD playback. However...the problem isn't always isolated to DVDs, and can affect almost all motion video playback eventually. Furthermore, playback works/doesn't work with different multimedia players, thus complicating the issue in making it difficult to track down.

For furture reference, the IGP 320M seems to be based on the RS100 core....relative to the 7000,7200. The IGP 330/34x seems to be related to the RS200 core....relative to the 7500,8500, albiet it has been said that these chips are technically identical, except for which processor it serves as a northbridge to. The information available for these chips is inconsistant to say the least, which isn't always helpful.

In theory....and i have yet to fully test this theory, if you where to take the Catalyst 4.10 Driver, and overwrite the following files in the 4.10's Driver\2kxp_inf\B_XXXXX\
packaging with NEW Catalyst 6.2 files before installing, you should be able to take advantage of the "Universal Radeon Acceleration" Components. (But you would only notice this in 3D DirectX or OpenGL Games, and not version number or 2D driver features)
These Files are:
ATI3DUAG.DL_ ----> Direct3D Universal Accelerated graphics component (it works...)
ATIOGLXX.DL_ ----> OpenGL (untested, may need to rename ATIOGLX1.DL_ as ATIOGLXX.DL_ to us it if it instead if it gives you trouble with games)
ATIVVAXX.DL_ ----> Universal Radeon Video Acceleration (I haven't completely tested the use of this file with 4.10)

Unfortunately, without an actual ATi Driver programmer to look at the "Unified Driver Model", i doubt this problem can be fully corrected. It doesn't seem specific to notebook manufactures, or else the Catalyst 4.5 to 4.10 wouldn't have installed. Therefore it isn't the LCD Panel....or the added features (monitor/s-video/crt) ports. AND...ATi's own documents on the chipset clearly states "Unified Driver Model allows common graphics driver to support all Radeon™ discrete and integrated graphics products".....go figure.....

I probably wouldn't have cared very much about this chipset, however, i'm not exactly able to spend another 1-2 grand on either a new notebook or desktop at the moment, not to mention the simple fact that it doesn't work like it should.. But this chip has been a focal point as it seems to be the last remaining bottleneck to system performance on my current notebook. Oh well.

Anyway, hopefully this is helpful to someone who feels like tinkering. Have fun, and take care.

Good luck.

garykowk

Randomness:
i used a hp notebook.the graphics card is ati radeon igp 320m.i used omega 3.8.205,but i just have one problem.if i watching film the media player no working,if i used old driver can watch it. i need used omega driver because only it can play wowcraft in my pc.and digital
signer is not digitally signed.somebody can help me what can i do?can play the game and can watch film in nomaly.thx everyone.
i used wmp9 and realplayer and media player classic.they can't paly film.i don't know why.
maybe is not digitally signed...
when i used hp driver can play,but can't play wowcraft.
hope there have somebody can help me....
thx

Randomness

Hello garykowk:

Have you tried using modded Catalyst 4.10 Drivers? You can get these drivers from:
https://support.ati.com/ics/support/...e&folderID=293
And modd them with patje's utility:
http://www.driverheaven.net/patje
This seems to be the "newest" driver that corrects most game issues, but doesn't have any Movie playback issues. You could also try Omega's Drivers based on Catalyst 4.9 from his archives: http://www.omegadrivers.net/ --> Quick Menu --> Omega Driver Archive

Unfortunately, I have not found any solution to using Catlyst 5.x or Catalyst 6.x series drivers without encountering Movie / DVD playback issues at this time.

I have heard from some people that disabling overlays may correct playback issues with newer drivers. You could also trying to adjust your hardware acceleration in the Display-> settings->advanced->troubleshoot when playing back movies. Just make sure you have it set to FULL when playing a game.

Good luck, take care.

garykowk

i have try catalyst 4.1 and modv3.
it can't play game in nomally but play movie is ok.
thx your help.
good luck for all

Randomness

Have you used Catalyst 4.1 or Catalyst 4.10?
Catalyst 4.1 is dated : 01/19/04
internal version:6.14.10.6414
Catalyst 4.10 is dated : 10/14/04
Internal version:6.14.10.6483

I recommend the 4.10 Catalyst. It seems to be the newest that doesn't have movie playback problems
Again, ATi Archives: https://support.ati.com/ics/support/...e&folderID=293

take care

garykowk

OH..i make mistake.
write wrong.i used catalyst 4.10
i can't play world of warcraft.
but watch movie is good.
anyway.thank you.randomness
good luck.^^v

Randomness

Random thought:
Have you tried HP's Radeon 3xx series drivers? They are based on Catalyst 4.4, and a very stable, dispite some stubborn issues with games. However its OpenGL driver seems to work well with this chipset, so it might be worth a try to play with.

You candownload it here:
http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/g...tem=hb-21505-1

Have fun, take care.