Vaio gfx drivers

I am running a sony vaio VGN-FW510F and have been using the default graphics drivers since getting it almost 2 years ago. Recently the game has been telling me to update my drivers on the login screen with a little red text message but I ignored it because the game was running fine but lately I have been crashing alot(daily at least). I tried going straight to ATI/amd/whatever theyre calling themselves but it wont let me update. I went to sony and they only offer the default drivers it shipped with from 2009. I browsed google and got the idea that sony may be blocking installation of oem drivers other than their own, but they havent released new ones.

my question to you all is: if the drivers are my problem, is there a way to trick my computer into installing the newest oem drivers?
I havent reformatted it since purchase but I make incremental backups so I dont mind installing a fresh windows7 if that would help.

According to Google-Fu, your laptop uses an ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4650.

ATI's latest drivers for that card should be available from the following link:
http://www2.ati.com/drivers/mobile/c...4-bit_util.exe

Try downloading this package, then uninstalling your existing drivers completely (even going so far as to use Driver Sweeper in Safe Mode to remove the remnants), then running the installer after a reboot.


FYI, laptop manufacturers rarely keep up-to-date graphics drivers on their site, unless they have some sort of proprietary chipset. You're almost always going to have better luck visiting the chip builder's site.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nethergoat it's NEVER too late to pad your /ignore list!

Sony, in particular, is known for also blocking the installation of any graphics drivers that aren't theirs. This is in keeping with their corporate philosophy of "You buy one of our products, we OWN you."

That is one of the main reasons why I don't recommend "gaming" laptops.

Solo, you may be able to install the Desktop graphics card drivers instead using the ATI Mobility Modder tool. The instructions are on the Mobility Modder page and are fairly simple to follow. Just download the regular Desktop drivers for the Radeon HD 4XXX series, download the Modder tool, and follow the instructions on the page.

This was developed before ATI started offering the Mobility drivers on their site.

thanks TJ, it installed and I havent had any crashes yet. I knew there had to be something like this around, my laptop 2 computers ago used to use omega drivers to play the game but they dont seem to be good for anything made recently.

One weird thing though, the game is still telling me I am running out of date drivers at the login screen. do you think that has to do with them being modified?

Possibly. It's safe to ignore it since you've updated.

For laptops with un-updated drivers, I suggest http://www.omegadrivers.net/ they offer drivers for old/mobile graphics cards. And even though they say the vista x64 drivers won't work in 7 x64, I have used them before.