Windows 7 ATI Drivers`

[SeanBest]

Well I just finished installing Windows 7 Beta and isntalled the ATI drivers. WOW! Installed first time, CrossFireX started correctly, shows my cards linked was able to set my fans and it even saw the oc from the drivers on my other hdd. I isntalled the beta on a seperate hdd yet when I open CCC in Windows 7 it had the saved oc from my XP drive (odd but awesome). And the sweetest thing ... after installing the drivers (which took like 1/10 the the time it does in XP 64 bit) no restart ... CCC opened up right away and I was off. I'm truely AMAZED with both MS and ATI on this one. If this is how it is in the Beta I am really looking forward to the official releases of both. Gonna try installing some games...Never used DX10 so I'm excited, heard gaming in W7 wasn't too bad. I'll report back!

[Satsumomo]

I wish I hadn't just installed my whole Vista system just yesterday! I have a spare 500GB drive here though... hmmm...

[Codeman05]

good to hear! I'm about to give W7 a shot myself.

Are you just using the Vista 8.12s? I don't see anything specific to W7 on the ATI site.

[vixro]

http://support.ati.com/ics/support/default.asp?deptID=894&task=knowledge&questionID=39069

[TimoneX]

Yeah the Vista x64 8.12 driver worked perfectly for me on WIN7 too. Hydravision...not so good. :) I miss the grid too!

Wow the beta you linked is 73.2MB and has "limited feature support". Though the Vista x64 v8.12 driver is 62MB and seems to have a full feature set.

Anyone tried the WIN7 x64 beta driver yet?

[TimoneX]

Well I decided to try the beta WIN7 x64 driver and had a bit of a fight with it. Wouldn't install using Install manager so I forced the driver. Then when I rebooted everything seemed fine until windows finished loading then blank screen. Reboot to VGA and slowly ramped up resolution till it was exactly where it was before I booted in VGA mode and all is well.

About to run tests on Engineering sample v1.1

M'k got 11953 on 3DM06@1600x1200 at default clocks on the 4850HD w/ the beta driver.

[Codeman05]

Well, with the beta driver on WM7, my 3Dmark06 dropped 2,000 points compared to Vista64 with the 8.12s
I can't get Vantage to run for some reason. Not totally unexpected considering its a beta O/S with beta drivers. I'm going to try the 8.12 cats now and see if that makes a difference.

[SeanBest]

I am running the W7 beta drivers. Didn't install any benchmarking stuff yet, will probably do later on today when I get back to my apartment. First day of spring classes ... yeah. I am still amazed at how well it went. Only one BSoD so far, was playing CoD4 at the time. Definitely video related, atixxxxxx.sys error. Creative drivers installed as well, just ran in Vista compatibility mode, smooth install, X-Fi XtremeGamer running smooth as well.Will post back with some bench results when I get time.

[Codeman05]

I ended up switching back the 8.12 vistas under W7. I haven't run any benches yet, but gameplay feels better. So far I have about 12 hours of gaming under W7 and not a crash knock on wood.

[TimoneX]

There are some weird gadgets in the beta though that could be fun to play with. Anyone else with two vid cards get the Additive Graphics tab on Catalyst?

I suspected some oddities with the beta it's about 10MBs larger and the download page says some features are disabled...yet it's larger? :) Now IC y...ATI is experimentating. Offloaded physics perhaps? They did just realease the first stream drivers in Cat 8.12.

[vixro]

I didn't really look into the beta link, I just posted it. What is the date on the drivers? Perhaps they are older than the 8.12's.

[TimoneX]

v8.53.2.12 11/13/08 The 8.12 cats were released early December as I recall, but I don't recall the driver signature date.

[Wiggy Fuzz]

turns out windows 7 also needs the 8.12 hotfix, when used with crossfired HD4850's. i got a black screen with a mouse and build number both times i tried 7 with the regular 8.12 drivers.

[SeanBest]

When I open the graphics software tab in CCC in W7 it says 8.11. I didn't see an Additive tab, and I am using CrossFire, but I didn't really look at CCC much once it installed. I'll have to give the 8.12 Vista drivers a shot as well. The compatibility mode is quite useful in W7 it seems.

[TimoneX]

I have a bit of an unusual config as I have a 4850HD for main vid and a 3650HD for secondary to run 4 displays. The 3650HD was about the minimum to reliably output HD content to an HD capable DLP projector. A 4850 & 3650 will not do any xfire or xfirex together so I found it odd that this tab popped up as soon as I installed the WIN7 beta driver. I did not see the tab under any of the Vista x64 cats. I posted a snap of this tab over here:

http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?t=591210&page=10

I'm hoping it's an ATI attempt at offloading physics processing given their recent release of stream enabled drivers.

[TranceBear]

You guys with 8gb of ram and running Win7 64bit did you have to do anything special to get any ATI driver to work?

[TimoneX]

I certainly did. As I touched on previously...in this thread? I had alot of problems after windows update "improved" my display driver. I then installed the Vista x64 cat v8.12 and though that did work, I couldn't get through 3DM06. The WIN7 beta driver posted by ATI on their site, though listed as "feature disabled" works flawlessly for me. I have found no faults with this driver whatsoever to this point.

[nzaneb]

I had a horrible time trying to get W7 to work with 8GB RAM and crossfire. I finally ended up reverting back to Vista, as I didn't have time to mess with it anymore. Cat 12's worked somewhat, W7 Beta's crashed everything. This weekend I plan on trying again... so wish me luck!

[TimoneX]

You might have more luck forcing the driver in safe mode. This is how I had to do it. I also tried going back to the Vista x64 8.12 cat and everything went haywire on reboot so that was a no go. Had to go back to safe mode and roll back the driver to recover.

[TranceBear]

I tried safe mode. They installed but when I rebooted it went to VGA safe mode and Windows told me that the ATI driver was causing problems and it would not load. I have tried ATI beta Windows 7 driver, both ATI drivers that Microsoft supplies through updates and the 1st one still works. I have tried the Vista 64bit 8.12 and they do not work. Any ideas?

[TranceBear]

This may be an AMD issue only since Timonex got his to work with the ATI Beta drivers off ATI's website.

[TranceBear]

I got it to work. I had to run this Catalyst uninstaller program, the uninstaller within the CCC did not work. I then ran the installer for the ATI beta drivers and it worked. Finally I have my CCC back.

[TimoneX]

Nice. Glad persistence paid off.

The only problem I've had lately is that it installed my ancient Cornerstone c1025 21" CRTs as non-PNP displays. This is always fine under every other MS OS, but WIN7 simply wouldn't allow display resolutions above 1600x1200x75hz. I'd click off the hide modes button and load up CCC and set the properties to anything I liked, but they just revert back. Even ultramon which has been my traditional tool against this silliness was no use. Forcing unsigned drivers on bootup and running ATI Traytools slapped things into shape though. Now I got that 1920x1080x75hz goodness I sought. Why oh why do these programs always think they know best? :p