SOME NOTEBOOK manufacturers update their Windows video drivers frequently. Plenty of others do not. Take Sony and Gateway as two examples. My experience is with a Vaio (PCG-FRV26, 2.8Ghz P4), and an Arima-based Gateway notebook (AMD64).

ATI tried to address this mess themselves with the release of its Catalyst Mobility driver, but even that one supports only a very short list of notebook manufacturers and "system designers" (I was lucky, for instance to see ATI add "Arima" to the list of systems supported by the Mobility drivers - my Gateway 7422 hence recently made it to the list -albeit indirectly because it's a re-branded Arima system-).

Unofficial patcher puts notebook manufacturers and ATI to shame

The official ATI drivers also support only a limited number of Radeon chipsets, namely the 9600-9800 and the Mobility Radeon X300-800 series, but apparently none in the "IGP" series. In short: if you're using a notebook or chipset not included in the list of "approved" systems for the Catalyst Mobility driver, you're out of luck. Well, not really.

While the ATI FAQ page reads "Display drivers and multimedia applications for notebooks with ATI graphics solutions are available for download from your Notebook manufacturer." the reality is that if you visit Sony's "Tech Support" site for the 2-yrs old VAIO PCG-FRV26 you notice that there's a video driver update for the notebook's IGP-345M chipset... dated October 2003. And this isn't just a notebook that Sony is not supporting anymore. In fact, there are other drivers for it dated mid 2004 (audio) and mid 2005 (update utility).

Sony offers its notebook users ATI drivers from 2003

In case you think this is another Sony bashing article, let me refer you to my other notebook, a Gateway. And the 7422GX model was released at the start of 2005. Go to Gateway's support web page and we find the latest video driver dated... July 2004. As least they know this is a problem, as one Gateway employee once told me in the middle of some support debugging: "we realize the (video) drivers on the web site are not the most current (This is a different item to deal with)". Of course this issue is something "to be dealt with". For instance trying to run any game with outdated drivers often makes the game un-playable. Not a great customer experience for someone who spend a dozen hundred greenbacks in a notebook.

Outdated Radeon IGP-345M drivers offered by Sony: unplayable games ( Nadeo Trackmania)

But someone -'Patje' from Driverheaven.net- decided, some time ago, that things were getting ridiculous and decided to do something about it -once again, the individual hacker saves the day, while corporations continue running with their heads chopped off-. So he coded his own unofficial driver patcher. The goal?. Simple, make ATI drivers made for desktop-bound radeon cards to work on notebooks, any notebooks whose ATI radeon chipset is supported by the desktop drivers.

ATI desktop drivers normally refuse to install on notebooks

His tool, dubbed "DH Modtool" implements "Patje's Mobility Modding", patching the ATI installer and successfully bringing new life to otherwise neglected old notebooks. I've been using patje's "modtool" since its v2.0 release (it's currently at version three) and it just works.

The unofficial patcher

The list of the patcher's supported chipsets is rather long:

- ATI MOBILITY RADEON
- ATI MOBILITY RADEON 7500 / 7800GL
- ATI MOBILITY RADEON 9000
- ATI MOBILITY IGP 320M/340M/345M
- ATI MOBILITY IGP 7000 / 9000 / 9100
- ATI MOBILITY FIRE GL T2/T2e
- ATI MOBILITY FireGL V3100
- ATI MOBILITY FireGL V3200
- ATI MOBILITY FireGL V5000
- ATI MOBILITY FireGL V5000
- ATI MOBILITY FireGL V5100
- ATI MOBILITY RADEON 9500 / 9550
- ATI MOBILITY RADEON 9600/9700 Series
- ATI MOBILITY RADEON 9800
- ATI MOBILITY RADEON X200
- ATI MOBILITY RADEON X300
- ATI MOBILITY RADEON X600 / X600 SE
- ATI MOBILITY RADEON X700
- ATI MOBILITY RADEON X800 / X800 XT

It works!: problem solved with 2005 ATI drivers on the IGP-345M notebook from Sony

If a lone programmer was able to do this, why can't the notebook manufacturers themselves (or ATI, for instance) do the same and release official drivers?. Oh wait, I think I know what it all comes down to: money. Once they've sold you a notebook or video card, getting you to buy a new one as soon as possible seems to be the name of the game. Btw: I should probably say something right now about the fact that installing unofficial video drivers probably voids your warranty, but since we're talking about notebooks on average one year and older, this point is probably moot. Anyway, do it at your own risk.

Find the tool, along with instructions, at Patje's web page here. Shame on all corporations that don't pay attention to the customer, long live to the code hackers! µ