Introducing FLEM - The Legacy Modder for legacy DirectX 9 and 10 cards.

You should try the method I posted above using the 9.11 legacy drivers. Your cards' chip architecture might not be compatible with regular dx10 kernel drivers from the newer legacy drivers. Keep testing to find a good match for your card.

 

AmiloMan I have an interesting question for you. As I noted earlier, the exact same OpenGL performs differently, based on whether it is installed from an XP package, or a Vista/7 package. It occurs to me, the difference between those, on the face of it, is the Usermode driver framework (atium*.*). Now, 7 quite happily loads the XP drivers, without any such framework present in them. Might it be possible to at least attempt to trick it into leaving that framework out of the Vista/7 install? by removing the references to those files in the inf, and any usermode-specific registry settings? I wouldn't expect any performance gain -more- than the XP drivers by doing so, but if it made them equal, while using native Vista/7 files instead of the XP ones, the end result might be more stability ... and my OCD having a little smile on its face. lol.

I think I'm gonna try it. All it can do is not work.

[edit] -------------------------------------------------------------------
For the benefit of others reading this, I was wrong about the atium*.* files, they are not Usermode framework, they provide DirectX management and functionality. I did anyway discover it is possible to not load them and still have a functioning driver, in case anyone is of a mind to do the bizarre experimenting I am doing on this journey. lol.
[/edit]

 

It seems the XP bug has bitten you, The modded drivers from Vista are stable, no BSODs but the OCD needs feeding I guess, check the infs and see if you can circumvent it.
Good luck

 

Stable but my app doesn't like the modded ones. The stock Vista drivers work, they're just slow, but if I can get XP speed out of them by making them think they -are- in XP, kind of, that will be good enough. And, if this wild hair idea of mine works, it might also get me past whatever is keeping the modern drivers from working, I don't know.

While I'm here, let me show you the results with 10.2 XP package, modded to add my card to the inf since 10.2 isn't a Mobility, and with 9.3 OpenGL in it, which is actually a later version than the one that comes in 10.2.

fullscreen at the resolution i usually use, 1280x768 , because my eyes are half a century old, and at its native 1920x1200:





In windowed mode its about double these results. My app runs at usually 1024x768 window minus the space for the windows taskbar, and its own FPS readout runs around 25 fps depending how much stuff it's having to render and how active my avatar is in the scene.


Oh and I found that 9.11 legacy you mentioned, along with a couple of other 9.x legacys I didn't have, so thank you for mentioning that, I didn't even know they existed. I'll play with that idea too and see what happens.

I also didn't know this GL Extensions thing existed, and it gives me a really good way to see if, as I suspect, those mods I already tried are actually working mods, and just my app isn't cooperating.

 

well. 9.11 very old..
but you say: "I use 10 files"
which files? ^^

 

You Are using windows 7 32bit right?
I posted the procedure above
" In the cocktailmaker use the basic 4 files + both openGL files(atioglxx.dl and atioglx.xml.)"

There are not many legacy drivers with working openGL functionality, you have to choose an older driver and the 9.11 is a good choice. After that came the 10.2s which came with broken openGL.
If you are lucky enough to be able to MOD with one of the newer legacy packages for DX10 cards then you could get a working openGL driver.
Well it is either older files that have working OpenGL or no openGL at all, not much choice.:eek3:

 

Yes.
But they not affect my DirectX performance?
I play Warthunder and World of Tanks, DirectX 9.0 games..

 

This is what I was saying, you have to sacrifice OpenGL or DirectX when choosing between drivers. Unfortunately you can't have both:

Latest DX9 Legacy 10.2 = good DirectX performance but broken OpenGL.
9.11 Legacy drivers = Good all round performance + working openGL slightly lower DX performance.

Not to mention there are several other legacy drivers out there that you can choose from and test.

or if you are lucky :kenny:

13.9 Legacy = Good all round performance + DX and OpenGL.

Try modding the best match for your card and mod according to your needs. Happy modding !

 

@AmiloMan your guide says "DirectX 10 cards users need to use the 13.9 legacy drivers as their base drivers for modding" and that's what I did but 13.9 base files don't work as I wrote earlier

I even tried 13.4 and 13.1 base files (also tried these with 15.7.1) with same results. 10.2 base files work but don't improve performace.

Why don't 13.9,13.4 or 13.1 base files work?
Is there a way to mod latest drivers using latest legacy base for my card or are 13.9 legacy without any modding the best for my card?

 

The DX10 legacy drivers should work but for the the 2400 cards i'm suspecting that chips' architecture is close to its predecessor the HD 2300 which is still only a remodeled dx9 card.

Try using only the first file from 10.2 the atikmdag.sy_ and the rest from the 13.9 legacy as usual.

 

Well, long story short, I have successfully gotten the 13.x to mod and function, but no matter what I mix with what, I can not get the OpenGL performance, using any Vista/7 anything, that I can get with the XP drivers. It can be marked down as a successful mod tho, I didn't literally try every 13.whatever but I did like three of 'em, with legacy files from 8.x, 9.3.1 and 9.11, and 10.2, and it all works. What had been blocking it before, seems like, was my old-school habit of only installing the driver, thru Device Mangler, not using the setup. When I let it use Setup to install, the 13.x are all happy. The 12.x, 14.x, and 15.x all bluescreen either at startup or logout.

Performance wise, I don't think it's directly OpenGL itself at fault, I think it's the differences in processor scheduling between the XP drivers and the Vista/7 drivers, because they just about across the board give almost the same test results using the Extensions Viewer test, but in the actual running app, I can see the fps oscillating up and down far more significantly under the Vista/7 drivers than I do under the XP ones. Especially the Vista 8.4 legacy, whether it's installed on its own or whether it's wrapped in 13.x, it bounces from 20 fps all the way up to 85-90, very rapidly, and this is in a totally empty scene with nothing to render but a flat terrain and empty sky. I found a few Windows services I could squash and tone it down a little but not stop it. That 9.11 driver did seem the most steady tho, and I'll keep it handy in case I wanna try some more fiddling on it later, because they pretty much do okay as long as nothing else needs to be running, so if I can figure out a way to sort that out, I can handle it being a little slower, just not a -lot- slower and especially not totally turning into a slug when it's not the foreground app.

So the end of this part of it for the time being is, I'll be staying with XP drivers for Windows 7, manually modding a legacy XP into a 13.4 XP probably, and applying the DXVA etc tweaks by hand, however many of them I can figure out from looking at the modded inf's for the Windows 7 drivers.

However, since Windows 10 just flat will not load an XP driver, it may be that the best one of these Windows 7 mods I already have will do some good in it, or it may be that I can get a good one with 15.x in it since 15.x is native Windows 10 coded. To be continued. lol.

 

Great job! interesting mod indeed .I'm curious how the DirectX performance registers compared to the vista/7 drivers ?
Great Tip for guys who need pure high performance stable OpenGL

 

lol

I dont really do anything that needs high performance DirectX but when i get my eyes un-crossed a little from this current marathon of testing stuff, and caught up on a couple of things, i'll put one of the good Vista ones back on and see what I can see

 

By the way, anyone can link me to a tutorial about using the DXVA Checker?

 

Here is a good tutorial https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RhZCtE1P40w

Link to the latest version http://www.videohelp.com/software/DXVA-Checker
Edit: link to another openGL testing tool that you may find useful http://www.ozone3d.net/gpu_caps_viewer/

While you are at it could you post a screenshot of your DXVA checker first page results.

 

sure, here you go:



and while we are on the subject of tips. For the guys that are having issues of the setup not seeing their device, well first off don't take no for an answer. My card is not supported by any desktop driver, it is only supported by legacy Mobility drivers, so no desktop setup ever wants to see it. And it's likely the same or similar reason some people aren't seeing the choice to install a driver for their card, the device ID isn't in the setup's *.ini and *.dat files that it looks at to identify the card, so all it wants to do is install the Control Center. Modifying the inf is enough to get Device Manager to install the card, usually, but Setup won't do it on just that.

FLEM can handle it to an extent but for FLEM to do a good job, it also has to be able to properly see your card, because I noticed when I tried a mod with the standard VGA driver running, that's what the mod got written for lol. So anyway, what I have ended up doing to be able to really make everything work:

First choose your legacy base, and make sure -it- will install by Setup, not just by the Device Manager. Modify the inf if it doesn't support your card already, then go into the folder the setup.exe is in -for the driver itself- and every file in there that will load into a text editor (*.ini and *.dat are the prime suspects) make sure your device ID is in them all. The desktop equivalent of my card has a device ID DEV_5B60 whereas my card is DEV_5460 , so I just replaced every 5B60 everywhere with 5460. At that point having done all that, if the Setup still won't see your card, install just the driver manually using Device Manager, then try setup, it should work.

Then once I know my legacy base is happy, let FLEM do its thing, and, if the resulting MODded setup still doesn't want to behave, do the same thing with it too, make sure your device ID is in the driver setup files, not just the inf. FLEM should do that, in 'Full MOD' mode at least, but in case it needs a little help thats where you can look to be sure.

I also uninstall and clean out the legacy driver, in between, and then if the modded setup won't see the card while it's in standard VGA mode, install just the freshly modded driver manually with Device Manager just like with the legacy step, then run Setup over that, because it's really just writing over its own same files anyway so it isn't messing up anything.

I'm a little bit new at being this deep into messing with the drivers, so if any of this needs any correcting or additional info, by all means anyone feel free to add or make suggestions.

 

The DXVA seems to be working, as much as XP drivers can handle.
Yes FLEM currently will only MOD a driver as it appears to the system that is why it's best practice to mod the driver when you still have a working driver installed .
Good tips for modding the XP drivers to use for Windows vista/7

 

Whats the fastest way to tell which renderer, and the stats, if i'm playing, say, a youtube video, with MPC-HC? something I can screencap and show you, on one same vid piped to MPC at different resolutions.
Oh and btw if anything says Compaq MV540 on anything I post that's kind of a half-truth, I have a second monitor connected and sometimes things catch the name of the ancient super-vga CRT which maxes out at 1024x768, my main laptop panel is capable of 1920x1200 but I run it at 1280x800, which I sometimes have to add in to get.

 

Youtube is Flash based, in MPC you can get better stats and configuration options, check this out here http://www.avsforum.com/forum/26-home-theater-computers/1357375-advanced-mpc-hc-setup-guide.html

 

Yeah I know but I'm using SMTube, feeding youtube videos -to- MPC as mp4. However I do also have a few various formats and encodings of video files here locally to mess with too. Thanks for the link

lol. that other GL tester you linked, you know the 'Fuzzy Cube' demo in it? Even with nothing at all else running, and with the fastest OpenGL I know how to wring out of this machine, that cube renders at a whopping 3 fps. in a 600x600 window. lol.