Catalyst “Mobility” 9.3.1 Vista legacy drivers on Windows 7

Windows 7 RC default drivers for ATI Radeon Mobility X300 are working fine on my work Dell Inspiron 9300 with Aero Glass and all, but let’s try to push it a bit further.

Download Catalyst Radeon 9.3.1 legacy desktop drivers for Windows Vista x32:

http://support.amd.com/us/gpudownload/windows/Legacy/previous/Pages/radeonaiw_vista32.aspx

Run the package and let it extract the drivers - usually to a path like X:\ATI\Support\9-3_1_legacy_vista32-64_dd_ccc – then cancel the installation.

Download and run DriverHeaven’s Mobility Modder to modify the drivers package (see similar notes on the application download page).

I’ve tried then to run the setup.exe from the driver package as the instructions say on the Mobility Modder page, but the driver didn’t show up in the list, so I went and update the driver manually through Computer Management > Device Manager > Display adapters > ATI MOBILITY RADEON X300 > Driver (tab) > Update driver > Browse my computer for driver software > Let me pick from list of device drivers on my computer > Have Disk > X:\ATI\Support\9-3_1_legacy_vista32-64_dd_ccc\Packages\Drivers\Display\LH_INF > etc. Reboot when prompted.

The updated driver didn’t change the graphics rating and I couldn’t notice any performance increase, but I’ll keep the drivers if no problems appear.

 
Note: I have tried the same procedure on ATI Catalyst 9.8 desktop drivers, and although the driver is being presented through the manual update procedure, on reboot I lost the Aero Glass and the maximum resolution allowed was 1600x1200. Which probably makes sense, since ATI has dropped support for the legacy chipsets in newer drivers, even if the Modder makes them appear in the .inf file.

Catalyst 9.3.1 Vista legacy drivers on Windows 7

ATI’s made the Catalyst 9.3.1 Legacy Display Driver for Windows Vista 32bit work fine on Windows 7 now, no need to do any hacking, of course it comes with the note saying that’s not officially supported.

http://support.amd.com/us/gpudownload/windows/Legacy/Pages/radeonaiw_vista32.aspx

 
I don’t know about yous, but this gives my old system (Intel P4 3.0 GHz Prescott, 2 GB RAM, ATI Radeon 9600XT) a new lease of life, Windows 7 is working pretty much as fast as Windows XP, maybe with a little more HDD activity (although I stopped Superfetch service and turned off write-cache buffer flushing), but generally fairly happy with it. It works fine with the Aero Glass and all the nice stuff, haven’t missed running any software yet, heck, even old Halo (2003) works no problems.

ATI Catalyst Mobility 9.3 – Windows XP driver

I’ve been looking for a while for an updated driver for ATI Mobility X300 in my Dell Inspiron 9300 work laptop running Windows XP - Dell’s driver dated back to 2005. I don’t know if this is going to help anyone nowadays when all the buzz is Vista and Windows 7, but it’s a keeper anyways as you can’t seem to be able to get it from AMD’s website.

ATI Catalyst Display Driver
http://support.amd.com/us/gpudownload/windows/Legacy/Pages/radeonmob_xp.aspx?type=2.4.2&product=2.4.2.3.4&lang=English

Driver package (OpenDrivers.com)
http://download1.opendrivers.com/uploaddrv/display-and-video/ati-technology/9-3-mobile_xp32_dd_ccc_enu.exe