8204 New Video Driver at ACER FTP ?

ftp://ftp.support.acer-euro.com/notebook/travelmate_8200/driver/

ATI_8.231.zip 04/12/2006.

Unfortunately, I cannot test; my 8204 is at ACER repair center to change the motherboard (ATI buzz issue)

 

I was just about to report this. I'll try it soon.

Old driver: 8.201.2 (released 02/27/06)
New driver: 8.231 (released 04/12/06) - yesterday!

The archive didn't contain a changelog, so I'll write down the ATI control panel info to be able to read the official ATI driver changelog.


Best Regards,
Christopher H.

 

I have now installed this new driver and have to say that it looks promising. It has fixed plenty of bugs, added features and has an all-new interface. I was unable to find any changelog from ATI to see what has been fixed, though.

Here's how to upgrade a stock TravelMate 8204WLMi:

1. Run "ATI Uninstaller" from "C:\Program Files\ATI Technologies\UninstallAll\AtiCimUn.exe"

2. Start "Windows Installer" service.
a. To enable the service, go to start menu properties and enable 'administrative tools' menu item.
b. Go to start > administrative tools > services, scroll down to "Windows Installer", select it and click "Start".

3. Open Add/Remove Programs from Control Panel and uninstall in this order:
- ATI Software Uninstall Utility
- ATI Display Driver
- ATI Catalyst Control Center
If one or more of these items don't appear in the menu, ignore it and move on.

4. Download Driver Cleaner and reboot into SAFE MODE (Press F8 while Windows is loading).

5. Run Driver Cleaner in SAFE MODE and enable "Select multiple cleaning filters". Add all the filters beginning with ATI, then click "Show Details" and finally "Start". It will now delete all the orphan files from your old ATI installation.

6. Close Driver Cleaner, reboot into SAFE MODE again, and run Driver Cleaner once more. Repeat the process in step 5. After this, you can be sure that it has deleted everything so that there will be no conflicts. Reboot into regular Windows.

7. Start the "Windows Installer" service again (see step 2). Proceed to unzip ATI_8.231.zip and run Setup.exe. After installing the drivers, reboot your system a final time and you'll be done!

I've made some pictures to show the difference between the two driver versions, and the look of the new UI.

- Old Driver
- New Driver
- New UI

Best Regards,
Christopher H.

 

I forgot to mention this, but it looks like the new driver unthrottles the GPU and Memory clock speeds, my GPU went from 392->446 MHz and the Memory went from 252->495MHz.

This makes sense, as one of the latest updates to the OFFICIAL ATI Driver talks about some new automatic speed-throttle functionality.

It's possible that our old, pre-installed Acer driver was bumping up the speed only while playing games, to conserve power. But if it constantly ran at those lower clock speeds, this driver update will actually yield a VERY high performance boost since the memory is now 50% faster, and the graphics chip is 15% faster.


Best Regards,
Christopher H.

PS. Anyone wanna run some before-and-after benchmarks while following my instructions? It would be cool to know if this is the case.

 

I ran the update w/o all this cleaning and everything seems fine. I have the same version number.

 

me 0602 build has the same old numbers/driver that you have but had 446/495 clocks...possible you powerplay wasn't setup right. If powerplay setting is optimal battery life you get 128/135 clocks. When I set to balanced I get 392/252. This can be affected by cpu speed and battery/ac power settings. This did take a while to get the card to move to these new numbers so maybe the new drivers doa beetr job of switching. I might just take the plunge and play with the new drivers myself

 

Is this new driver better than the Omega Drivers that are available? Or is this something different. If I install these new Official ATI drivers, and then install the omega drivers, will it just replace it. Basically what I am asking is if the Omega and new ATI drivers are different versions of the same thing?

 

Don't get me wrong i love Acer, but their software is so full of bugs its like the plague again. I downloaded the official Ati driver for the X1600 series and edited it with mobilemod. Rose my 05 score by ~300/400 marks

 

Can those who have installed the new driver post a 3Dmark05 or '06 score? Thanks.

 

My 06 score- 1997

 

If you don't clean out the old drivers, some driver files may be in use as you try to install the newer drivers, and as such they won't get updated. That is why Driver Cleaner was made.

You're right. I used to have it at "optimal performance" but it got reset by itself for some reason (in the old driver). And yeah, the new driver is much smarter at speed throttling, that's one of the updates.

Install one or the other, not both. They are mutually exclusive. I trust the Acer driver more, so I'd choose that.

I heard about mobilemod and the possibility to use official ATI Drivers, but we can't be sure what Acer has changed in the drivers. What if we lose functionality by not using their driver?

Is this on the Acer TravelMate 8204WLMi? And is it:
- The original, preinstalled Windows that came with it, or a reinstall? This affects performance quite a bit.
- Do you have lots of background applications that didn't come with the computer? That would affect performance too.

I don't doubt that the performance has increased in this driver, but if we are to compare scores, we need homogenous results.


Best Regards,
Christopher H.

 

Yes, this is a 8204WLMi
Original Windows install, converted to NTFS.
All available updates applied.
3312 BIOS

what is your 06 score?

 

Wait... you can covert the original windows partition (FAT32...god knows why) into NTFS? i.e. without having to reinstall/restore? Ive never done this before, so maybe Im just misunderstanding.

 

Yes, it is simple. Check out this for details:
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/winxppro/maintain/convertfat.mspx

or
http://www.notebookforums.com/showthread.php?t=145936

 

did the uninstall, ran cleaner and reinstalled the new Acer drivers and now my 06 score is 1980

 

Thanks for your reports. I'm afraid I don't have 3DMark as I can't justify $20 just to run a benchmark.

About NTFS. When I got the laptop I reformatted the D: drive to NTFS and contemplated converting C:, but didn't want to risk system stability. Is the conversion worth doing? Did it improve startup times?

The laptop, factory loaded, boots from blank screen to windows in like 4 minutes. The long startup time is a known issue. Sometime I'll reformat and reinstall a clean version of Windows. I read articles about reformatting the 8204WLMi and how the startup speed was reduced to like 1 minute, and how any sluggishness and occasional instability vanished.

All you need to do is reinstall using a Windows disk, then download all drivers from Acer's website to get it back to the functionality that it came preinstalled with. Worth doing if you got the time. But remember to recover your Windows CD-key from the registry (since Acer didn't bother to print it out on paper for us :/).

The slightly lower score doesn't imply anything, it would be strange if it DIDN'T fluctuate, since the system is under different amounts of load each time. You did the right thing to clean out the old drivers, by the way.



Best Regards,
Christopher H.

 

Actually, you can get a free eval copy of 3Dmark06.

- Ed

 

Just updated my 8204, Build date 06/01.

3DMark 05 with original drivers - 2828

with new drivers 2920

 

3dMark06 is free

changing C drive to NTFS is very simple and presents no risk to system stability...takes 20 seconds to convert.

regarding startup time, Ive never timed mine but I think it is FAR less than 4 minutes

 

My CD KEY is on a sticker on the bottom of the notebook....did yours not come with it?

 

Just timed my startup:
0:00 push power button from total shutdown
1:00 min- logon/password screen
2:00 min- desktop w/ icons appear
3:30- all applications loaded
note: I have quite a few items in startup + I have 5 mapped network drives (from office) that are not accessable as I am at home.

 

Check for the option "connct network drives at startup". It's useless.
Check for enableprefetcher, too.

 

Could you say to me that Ati driver link you are thinking about?!
I'm searching for it, but I find catalyst only, not for Acer products..
Thanks!

 

Did these new drivers fix the buzzing issue?

 

No, the buzzing issue , is a hardware issue.

 

I have 4523 '05 and 2000 '06 with Acer (Catalyst 6.3) driver. Previously, I had 4502 and 1954 with Omega (6.3) driver + strange noise in the shadows with every driver except the original (6.1). Read this thread and check if you have similar problem:
http://www.notebookforums.com/showthread.php?postid=1969961#post1969961

 

I just have to figure out how all of you are getting over 4000 on your 3D Mark 05 when i am only getting around 2900. I have a lot of stuff that loads up at startup but i tried running it with various background apps shut down and disabled and with a bare minimum system could only get 2929. I have heard something about being able to clock the GPU differently, any idea how to do that? Could it be something that i have going on in my machine with it being a January build?

Any help or info would be great.

 

Set 3D setting in CCC to performance or optimal. You can disable antivirus while the test is running, but I get my score without doing it. With some overclocking you can reach 5200 and more...

 

I've done that. 3D is set to optimal, I shut down everything that was extraneous, Antivir, Firewall.. I only ever got 2929..

HOW do you overclock? Is that processor or GPU that you are overclocking.

This has me worried that it is something with the hardware in my early build that is bifferent in your newer machines.

Yellow

 

I didn't overclock anything. Just regular driver settings. My 8204 is 0601 and I could get ~$4200 with original driver (based on Catalyst 6.1). Did you try to reinstall the driver?
I'm not sure if it could help in this case, but you can run registry cleaner (I use jv16 Power Tools) and disk defragmenter before you launch the test. If it doesn't help, check the BIOS version and upgrade if necessary...
Update:
I've reached 4530 and 2009 after cleaning the registry! I think I could get extra couple of points disabling antivirus and spyware doctor scanner or get even more disabling all the Acer software, but I want to measure the performance in reallife situation...

 

My numbers were obtained both before and after I upgraded to the newest Catalyst last week. I have cleaned the registry using a couple of different tools (although I doubt that wold be an issue), I have tried both before I defraged and after.

I have tried running this benchmark under various system conditions. I obtained the best mark of 2929 after I unloaded every non essential process (antivir, firewall, acer software...) and service.

The only thing that I have not done is upgrade the BIOS to 3312. I am always a little hesitant before I flash any BIOS. I'll try that and see. But it still bugs me that many people have this kind of performance before making many of these updaetes including BIOS.

 

Could you post some screenshots of your Catalyst settings?

 

No time today to post screenshots..

But... I have played around a lot with Catalyst. I initially adjusted everything for Maximum performance and saw only a tiny improvement but of course things were rendered quite poorly. I updated the BIOS to 3312, no change. I have spent almost a day screwing around with Catalyst settings and re running 3Dmark. 2920 is the highest i have got so far.

Hmmm.. I just thought of something. I wonder if everybody is running 3DMark with the default resolution that it starts with. When i run it i am setting the resolution to match this display. I change no other settings before i run a test, just the resolution. Maybe i'll try running it at the default 1024x768 and see what happens.

What 3DMark settings are everybody using when they run it?

 

AH HA!!

That was it. Just ran it with the default settings, now I get 4503 with my system fully loaded and running how i intend.

Thank you all for your help. I'll just get on with my life now.