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

I can't leave it this way in Windows 7 because the OpenGL is still too slow for me, but this is what DXVA Checker reports with the fastest setup I can come up with, and that I will be keeping in Windows 10, since it can't load XP drivers. This is the old Vista 32 bit Catalyst 8.12, no files swapped, just your tweaks in the inf:



By the way something I've noticed that maybe you want to have a look at. Whoever all makes the inf's at ATI is inconsistent; sometimes the setting value is enclosed in quotes, and sometimes it's not. And I can't remember at the moment which one, but one case or the other of it, FLEM is not finding and replacing, sometimes.

 

On a side note, while I'm here, I've noticed in all this meddling that Flash is installing its own DirectX dll, in \Windows\System32\Macromed\atiumdag.dll , in case of anyone fiddling with hardware acceleration in Flash playback that might bear looking at. Unless it got there because of a copypaste glitch on my part in which case ignore this lol.

 

Interesting post that caught my attention....

The difference maybe is vista manages memory not drivers (unlike in xp)

As I said before on here, you need 10.11 as a base to use any 10.11-12.6 Opengl injected driver so that is out for this card as before 10.11 ogl was multithreaded. As I have a feeling that the kernal drivers atikmpag and atikmdag are tied to opengl injected working or not (thats what I found out anyway, looks like hard coded blocks in the drivers)

You can however use up to 10.4 atioglxx.dl_ and atio6axx.dl_ replacements swapped into a 9.x driver (without the other 4 small files like atigktxx etc) at least on the 4xxx series when I tried it here. And that does work without crashing so don't let the difference in implementation of late 9.x and early 10.x put you off. (The smaller ogl relevant files didn't exist in 9.x)

Your perhaps not missing much not being able to go beyond 9.3 anyway even if you could....Why ? (There is also a 9.3.1 legacy driver btw and although I have it I haven't checked it out)

Catalyst 9.4 to 9.9 had a memory leak in VBO (Vertex buffer objects) which was fixed by 9.10 or 9.10 beta RC7 or the Hemlock beta drivers which has a later ogl version that either of those while still working for IL2.

And 9.10 is the last driver where things like second life and and IL2 flight sim worked. Above 10.3 kotor in opengl is broken and it didn't work since 9.12, and above 10.4 old opengl games stopped working altogether due to opengl extension limits until 11.2. (think quake, quake2), and even then after 11.2 not everything was fixed again.

Enemy territory quake wars was was borked from 8.11 to 9.6. (fixed in 9.7)

Photoshop CS6 has issues with the liquify mask filter being a crap shoot outside of 9.6<>9.8, and it's not easy to find a fully working photoshop ATI opengl implementation outside of Catalyst 11.7 without rotation or other issues.

DXT1-DXT5 texture compression in OGL wasn't supported till Catalyst 11.9 only stc on 4K series at least.

So this just shows, there is no ideal opengl driver, and furthermore, it's not possible to "have your cake and eat it". I have done extensive research and testing myself to verify the bugs and shortcomings.

If you want to play very old games I recommmend OGL no higher than 8.11rc1
And infact 8.8's opengl implementation is plain broken anyway.

You are correct though in thinking that things got worse while directx support got better. After around 11.6 began the great slowdown. Lot's of things got fixed along the way up till 12.6. (which surprisingly is the only driver since 10.4 that works with cities in motion again)

But a whole bunch of old stuff just plain quit working altogether, or got broken along the way (games like brink, rage) as the opinion was unlike 2001-2003 the opengl API was defunct for games (In their view).

I'd even like to use 12.6's ogl myself integrated into an even older driver than 10.11. Unfortunately as yet I haven't found a way around that limitation to make that possible, and that's on the 4K series never mind older cards.

AMD usually support stuff properly for around 2 years before performance for older series is either thrown out the windows or chopped.

Also something to watch out for (Interesting read, remove spaces) :

https://scalibq.w o r d p r e s s . c o m/2012/03/03/legacy-catalyst-driver-problems-with-opengl/

 

yeah SecondLife is my thing, everything revolves around that, so I want it working top notch, and every whatever else can just do however best it can with that accomplished lol. i haven't noticed specifically seeing 8.11rc1 laying around anywhere but i'll keep an eye for it, i had about settled on 8.12 so far (the XP version, so win7 doesn't bog me down), because i don't need 'complete' DirectX performance, just good enough to watch a youtube or my own local video on one monitor while SecondLife is on the other one, without the video stuttering, but without sacrificing my blazing OpenGL speed. and so far 8.12 does it okay. now, how to make windows 10 give me that lol.

oh and i have the later-than-9.3 legacys, but i can't find a 'mobile' legacy after 9.3, i know how to patch them but i like not having to, if all i'm really meddling with is the openGL anyway.

very informative post, for my situation. maybe i'll have another go at 9.3, as it is a tiny bit slower for my OpenGL but the overall driver seems a bit more stable, might be worth seeing how it acts with those early 10.x files you mentioned, or the later 9.x ones if SecondLife doesn't like the 10.x ones as much.

 

Well 8.10 is a good driver where you want to be for the DXVA HTPC video stuff, after that things got very broken and headaches.

The BTSC601 trick to fix the black levels got removed after 9.1.

They did say at the time that anything after using 8.10 went down the toilet performance wise for pre 4K cards.

Opengl games :

etqw only worked on 8.9 & 8.7, rtcw got busted after 8.11.
DCS blackshark only works on 8.6 or 8.12.

Specifically 8.12 is when oblivion crossfire performance fell away (worked fine in 8.11)

I have most drivers archived for legacy that are very, very, hard to find anymore and very old including 8.11rc1 developer for XPx86, just give me a nod and i'll upload it somewhere if your curious. The version number is 8.542 btw.

Since your not on 4870x2 or multigpu, you won't be affected by the multigpu clockbugs built in between 8.8 and 8.11 till it got fixed by 8.12.

 

Thanks kevsamiga1974, for ongoing support and advice for legacy owners. Wish you could just write a book on the subject that we can download. This link may help with download of older drivers.....

http://www.n g o h q.com/?page=Files&go=cat&dwn_cat_id=18

Remove spaces and go to AMD Drivers download

 

Great to see you still lurking around these parts Kev, thanks for the input.

 

i have 8.10 and 8.11 XP final, the mobile versions, and 8.11 Vista final, the desktop version. so hmm, yeah maybe that 8.10 if you have a Vista version, and 8.11rc1 if you wanna toss it up just since you're there anyway, whichever you have XP and/or Vista.

DirectX hardware anything doesn't work in the XP drivers when I already have SecondLife open, the DXVA all disappears, or at least DXVA Checker seems to think so. so to have hardware acceleration at all, concurrent with SL being open, it looks like i might -have- to use Vista/7 drivers. the software acceleration isn't really that bad, at small resolutions, but 720p or above ... ick. And I have two monitors, which I'm sure is not helping lol. That still gives Xorg grief in Linux even after all these years.

 

I'll add the link to what you have requested within the next 24 hours, watch this space...

I didn't know which OS flavour you wanted in particular x86 or x64, so I uploaded complete intact sets of 8.541 (8.10) and 8.542 (8.11rc1) packages including AVIVO/Hydravision/WDM's etc for XP x86 and XP x64, Vista x86 & x64. I don't have "mobile" versions, nor do I know whether they exist as I don't have any mobility chipsets.

Everything. Complete. Untouched & No Malware for you to do with as you please. The archive is obviously large as it includes EVERYTHING full installs. Not just the driver alone. I don't want to upload stuff this large again often however anytime soon, as the archive weighs in @ around 558Mb just for 2 complete driver packages across all 4 OS's.

I didn't realise that before I started. Ooops.

Link :

https://www.mediafire.com/?p11p6phntm4yemh

There are so many pitfalls and bugs to avoid with AMD drivers, the book would be larger than the encyclopedia britannica.... :infinity:

And unfortunately Guru3d and NGO doesn't have everything from the beginning of time, obscure betas or complete package árchives.

I do though from 2008 onwards since the 4K series began. And I managed to archive just about everything back in 2012 before AMD changed the website and pulled the plug on all the legacy links....

....As well as digging up and uncovering all the available drivers down into the 9.x and 8.x ranges, hotfixes/beta's. When you make stuff yourself, and want to test stuff , it's handy to have on tap immediate access to EVERYTHING, whether you use them or not, so you can track the changes and effects across versions.

*

On another note seeing as 9.3 Opengl goes as the highest for these legacy chipset's, I just had a thought that it might be worth investigating trying the opengl .dll's from the 8.592.x RC drivers for 4890 that were given out before the real WHQL catalyst (8.600, 9.4) for 4890 got released. I can't try that myself obviously since I don't own that hardware.

They may not have removed the code for them not to work on legacy chipset's by then (pre 8.600), and you may of course perhaps gain a higher version of opengl driver as a result. Worth trying.

 

lol i'm sorry, i'm 32 bit, thank you for all the time and effort. same here i have downloaded everything i could find that pertains to my card even if i knew i wasnt going to actually 'use' it.

 

Strange.. with 9.11 still not works. o.0

 

Also, looking at my extensive list of notes here:

Drivers based around 10.1/10.2 (maybe DX9 legacy too) have issues coming out of standby if your using certain monitors.

Your much better doing a MOD based off of <9.12 if your DX9 only. Since these cards are also exclusively DX9 based, I could never figure out why they included atidxx32/atidxx64.dll in the later legacy drivers when you don't have DX10+ hardware (but it's probably ****ty AMD file dependancies, you know the ones that bork the drivers if certain files don't exist anymore)

---------------------------------

I can also say too that regarding OpenGL modding (also referring to my research and experimentation notes) :

That, Whether interchangable OpenGL support works or not IS exclusively tied and hardcoded having to use a higher enough version 2D driver (specifically the presence of a different version of atikmdag.sys alone) as to whether different versions of OpenGL/DXVA works or not.

But you have to be careful modifying the 2D component, to get opengl working to also test and monitor DXVA playback, as while 2D and opengl can work, it may inadvertantly break DXVA with a combination concocted.

For instance....

I have catalyst driver 9.10 running on 4870x2, with the 10.2 2D components, the 11.4 preview DXVA components, and 12.2's OpenGL (for photoshop & IL2)

A weird cocktail I know but.....

Without 10.2's 2D DXVA L5.1 playback in DXVA (VLC, have some hard test clips to verify working) and hardware accelerated flash wouldn't work without errors nearly as well as it does (without crashes, visual corruption or hangs), nor would OpenGL from 12.2 work.

You don't need to use the extra OpenGL small .dll files this way either and they can be ignored modding into a 9.x driver set.

I spent months on this stuff, and many many reboots/experiments and nights burning the midnight oil to figure out the "why" things break and when.

Obviously it's different for DX9 legacy as there are extra restrictions in place to prevent higher driver usage, but you get the idea.

 

Thanks, as always kev.

 

Interesting cocktail Great tip for the DX10 legacy crowd wanting to MOD their drivers. As for right now the DX10 crowd is happy frolicking in the bliss of the brand new 15.11.1 beta legacy drivers.....

I wish the DX9 users had more legroom with which drivers to choose from.
My personal favorites for my DX9 card are the 2D from the 10.2s and DXVA + OpenGL files from the 9.11 legacy(this is the driver that has GPU acceleration of H.264 video content using the Adobe Flash Player and good OpenGL performance. Any dxva files before this cause stutter and skipping in flash videos, the 10.2 legacy dxva files are not upto par either....)
This way guys can have the cake and eat a little slice from it too at least.

 

I'm assuming you tried the DisablePCIEx1LaneUVD hack with 10.2 ?

There are a lot of cards that were/are saddled with having to use 9.11 due to DXVA not working correctly in later versions of (DX9 based) legacy drivers.

AMD left things behind in a mess as usual when support is bricked.

 

Yes that is what I use and some more tweaks for most of the drivers, they can be found in the tweak section of the app(FLEM).

 

Anyone with legacy HD cards wanting to tweak DXVA and video outputs can have a play around with the following VBScript.. (opens in notepad so you can see what it does).

While I can't take the credit for the script, it's something that's been sat on my HDD over the years that some may find useful to play around with.

https://www.mediafire.com/?zkd140gay2z6flq

*EDIT

Explanation of what they do:

https://web.archive.org/web/2012042...avs-vb/showpost.php?p=11659897&postcount=2121

 

Thanks kev.

 

hi, i have read the forum and the guide, so i tried to mod 15.7.1 WHQL drivers with 10.2 legacy drivers. All seems to be ok in FLEM but when i try to install the modded 15.7.1 driver i see an error " package can't be installed". i tried with 15.11.1 drivers too and no result.

os: windows seven 32bit
GPU: ATI X1700 256 MO radeon Mobility PCI\VEN_1002&DEV_71D5 (supported in compatible cards).

I think the problem comes from the 10.2 legacy drivers: they only support x1700 desktop not the mobility. The 10.2 mobility drivers i used too are modded with DH Mobility Modder.NET from "toulesdrivers.com".
i read and read again the guide but i don't know what i've do wrong. if someone could give me an advice? thanks.

 

i retried with some x1700 mobility driver from microsoft update catalogue and catalyst 15.7.1 but it's the same result. just an error message "installation de l'application:echec du package d'installation".