• Some users have recently had their accounts hijacked. It seems that the now defunct EVGA forums might have compromised your password there and seems many are using the same PW here. We would suggest you UPDATE YOUR PASSWORD and TURN ON 2FA for your account here to further secure it. None of the compromised accounts had 2FA turned on.
    Once you have enabled 2FA, your account will be updated soon to show a badge, letting other members know that you use 2FA to protect your account. This should be beneficial for everyone that uses FSFT.

Catalyst 4.9 Safety Install Guide

A

Andrew87

Limp Gawd
Joined
Oct 4, 2003
Messages
467
Seeing how these drivers are only really intended to fix Doom 3 and they are still Betas, there is no reason to install them for your whole OS - you only need it for Doom 3. Download the 4.9s from here.

Extract the file "atioglxx.dl_" from the "Driver\2KXP_INF\B_17036" directory inside the setup file. You can use WinRAR to do this, or just extract the files to the standard "C:\ATI\SUPPORT" directory via the setup file, but DO NOT install anything.

Open up command prompt by clicking on Start>Run and then typing CMD. Type in "EXPAND" and then drag the "atioglxx.dl_" file into the command prompt window so that it's exact location is after the EXPAND command. Finally add a space and type "C:\Program Files\Doom 3\atioglxx.dll" or whatever your Doom 3 installation directory is. You should have something that looks like:

EXPAND "C:\Documents and Settins\Local Settings\Andrew\Desktop\atioglxx.dl_" "C:\Program Files\Doom 3\atioglxx.dll"

It is important you use the quotes if your directories or filenames have spaces in them. Now simply press Enter and you should have expanded the Catalyst 4.9 driver to your Doom 3 root directory. Doom 3 will now use the 4.9 OpenGL driver and you shouldn't have conflicts with any other games.
 
Now, can I do the same thing for my other opengl games such as RTCW/ET/Q3? I'd imagine that would just take copying the .dll to those games directories as well.
 
It should work, I'm under the impression that games search their root directories for system files first before going to the Windows System Directory - but I have tested the above with Doom 3 and can confirm it works.
 
What is the benefit of running the 4.9's?

I am using 4.7's and everything works FLAWLESSLY, so are the 4.9's for eye-candy and/or performance n' such?

But for now I'll just enjoy a bug-free 4.7 Doom 3 experience
 
They made a 0.5fps increase on the timedemo for me, some people have gained 3-4fps, others have noticed no change. One person is even claiming BSODs because of the 4.9betas - that's the main reason I put this guide up, so other people don't suffer the same fate.
 
Yeah, I've done the same. Maybe sometime I'll get around to the timedemo thing with befores and afters.

And I don't think it's actually the games themselves that do the searching. They just ask windows to open the file soandso.dll and windows searches the default directories. Since the DOS days, ms oses searched the current directory first, then started following the PATH variable's settings in order. I believe that this is all they really do.

Why is this distinction important? Because if it's correct, then it means that there doesn't have to be functionality specifically programmed into the game itself.


Oh, and I bet you can go both ways pretty well. Later, when I get around to it, I'm going to get some older drivers for some older games. In particular, I'm thinking Freespace 2. REALLY old games look like crap on modern drivers for some reason. Also, I've heard someone saying something about Thief 3 not working on drivers past 4.4 (I never had trouble playing it, but, maybe they just mean that it's slow.) I'd imagine it might be a good idea to put the 4.4 drivers in it's directory -- and possibly this applies to Deus Ex 2 as I'm pretty sure it's the same basic engine with the same basic problems.
 
The 4.7's work fine for me in 1600x1200. I'll wait till the 4.9 officially comes out. It's just not worth it yet.
 
Not worth what? Is extracting and expanding one file that much work really? Sheesh, even I'm not too lazy to pass up on the speed benefits. The speed increase let me bump up my FSAA to something a little more comfortable.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top