Use ATI Radeon Xpress 1150 Graphics on Windows 7
If you’re reading this, you’re probably running Windows 7 in 800×600 or 1024×768 resolution with a default PnP monitor even though you’ve got an ATI graphics card that supports higher resolutions.
ATI was quick enough to release Windows 7 drivers for higher-end cards which you can download here but if you try to install the setup with an older graphics card (such as an ATI Radeon Xpress 1150), the setup fails to install because the graphics card is not supported. I wasn’t surprised, as my graphics card wasn’t mentioned in the release notes of the Windows 7 drivers but I tried installing the Vista equivalent (Catalyst version 9.3) hoping that would work, which unfortunately didn’t.
Without these drivers, you can’t load screensavers, use Aero or use taskbar previews and the display appears slightly blurred.
I found a solution by using an older driver (so old that it isn’t even mentioned on ATI’s Older Releases page) and although the Catalyst software didn’t work, the display driver works fine and I can use Aero, view taskbar previews and pretty much do everything else.
You will need to download ATI Catalyst Driver version 7.11 for your card to work properly with Windows 7 which you can download here for the 32-bit version or here for the 64-bit one. Although the drivers are for Vista, they will work for Windows 7 as well. I haven’t been successful running a higher version of ATI’s drivers, so let me know if you’ve succeeded running a higher version.
Windows 7 RC boots faster and even runs slightly better than Windows XP and I haven’t had problems with application compatibility so far and I advise you all to give it a try.
Enjoy!
Update 1:
Version 8.12 works as well. Download it from here
Thanks icxz!
Update 2:
I was forced to reinstall Windows 7 RC for irrelevant reasons, and this time Windows 7 automatically downloaded the driver for the Radeon Xpress 1150 Card after the OS setup was complete.
The update appears as a recommended download in Windows update and although it states that the driver publish date is 27th April 2009, the actual driver is version 8.421.000 and was released in September 2007. The driver installed by ATI’s 8.12 Catalyst setup is version 8.561.000 which was released in December 2008.
Win Update
Driver Details
Games work perfectly fine and so does Aero and Aero Peek although I personally feel that games ran noticeably faster with the v8.12 driver. Also, the pre-startup screen logo animation is not displayed with the default driver that Windows installs.
Still, I recommend updating the driver to version 8.12.
I haven’t had the opportunity to try this on the retail version of Windows 7 yet, but I’ll update this post as soon as I do.
Update 3:
If you use DriverMax, it suggests a newer driver for the ATI Radeon Xpress 1150 having version 8.593.100.0 released on 27th April 2009. I guess this was the driver that Microsoft intended to bundle with its Windows update (read Update 2) so I went ahead and installed it.
The driver worked fine until I started a couple of games, which is when I noticed that this driver cannot resize the screen to a lower resolution. What it does instead is reduce the resolution of the game instead of the screen. For example, I chose 800×600 resolution for a game and instead of resizing the screen, the driver maintained the usual 1280×800 resolution for the screen and reduced the game to 800×600 resulting in the game taking up only a small portion of the screen.
After uninstalling the driver and reverting to the previous one, everything was back to normal. Moral of the story: DO NOT install version 8.593.100.0 !!!
That works really fine. I’m surprised and have no idea why that works, but it does. Thank you very much!
I’m going to try this for my x1650… for the life of me i can’t get it to update. Same no device found error. Aero and all that works, my big issue is I need Catalyst Control Center for scaling on my HDTV.
Tried installing the drivers, but couldn’t boot afterwards. It was installed on a Dell Vostro notebook running the Ultimate version of 7. I would recommend that a restore point be created before installing the drivers (Which I didn’t do, being an idiot)
That’s weird. I have a Dell Vostro 1000 Notebook and it worked just fine.
Tried it again (after reinstalling Windows 7) and this time, it worked. Didn’t mention earlier that it was the 64 bit version. The difference with the install was that I ran the install in custom mode, and unchecked the north bridge option. (Dell Vostro 1000 Notebook). Just for kicks, tried installing the 8.12 version. That worked as well. Here’s the main driver listing page I grabbed both sets from:
http://downloads.guru3d.com/Videocards—ATI-Catalyst-Windows-Vista_c31.html
8.12 works for me as well.
Thanks
Thanks for the useful info. It’s so interesting
The best information i have found exactly here. Keep going Thank you
Thank you so much, you have done wonders. I appreciate your searching.
I’ve just managed to (relatively) painlessly install Catalyst 9.3 on W7 RC, using the Mobility Modder (http://www.driverheaven.net/modtool.php). Uninstalled all old drivers first, downloaded 9.3, modded it using the tool, and ran the install without even having to use compatibility. It threw an error at the end, but the driver works fine anyway. At least, I think it does. Device manager reports driver version 8.591.0.0, which is right I think, and it hasn’t crashed yet!
Thanx Dude it works I m very thankful to you!!!!!!!!
Thanks for some very useful information. Loaded 8.12 on a 64-bit Vostro 1000 with Ultimate 7. Graphics significantly improved and the Control Centre works as well.
thanks buddy!
FYI versions 9.1 and 9.2 work fine too
Atleast they do on my Vostro 1000 with Win 7 Ultimate x64 
I just installed FIFA 09 and found out that the picture is not stretched to full screen while im using version 9.2 drivers. Im not sure if its the drivers or smth else. I’m testing it further and will let you know. For now just stick to 8.12. I’ll comment here after testing is done
UPDATE 2:I have fnished testing various setups and it is the drivers that was preventing the image in lower resolutions to be strech to full screen. It is therefore my conclusion that drivers 9.1 and 9.2 work fine on higher or full resolutions but at less resolutions they do not stretch the picture to full screen. Hence, if you are gamer stick you 8.12 under Windows 7 for X1150.
Thanks, Sonny. I had no idea about the stretching issue.
I have been using Version 8.12 for my Xpress 1150 in a hp nx6325 notebook, it works fine apart from running accelerated flash in fullscreen mode (youtube et c) which periodically crashes the display driver (which does reset nicely). Disabling acceleration in flash stops the crashes but puts a lot of load on the CPU. Has anyone else experienced this? Is there a fix?
Yeah, I experience the same issues and so far I haven’t found any fix for it. Let me know if anyone finds a solution. The youtube fullscreen crash is annoying.
Wow! Great work figuring that out! I was about to switch back to vista because i couldn’t use my ATI graphix. everything looked fuzzy. Everything works fine now!
I wish AMD would release a new 32 bit and 64 driver for our graphics chip. Especially as this chip is not older than 5 years. AMD classifies this as a “legacy” card which is strange to me. I wish they release just one driver for people like me and many others who have only used AMD for the past many years..
i used the 7.11 version and it does work, thank u for your useful info.
thanks born2code! you’ve done something that AMD/ATI was not able to do for people who pay for their products
hopefully it works for my acer ferrari 1003
wish me luck
Thanks man!! it works great!
The animation on my Windows 7 boot screen doesn’t work?!! It just starts and the orbs start to come together to from MS logo but it freezes after 1 sec.. the OS continues to boot and I can work fine but thinking the animation freezes coz of these drivers.. anyone else experiencing this with 8.12?
I think it’s work. tnx man!
Thanks for the post – it helped me greatly when I first installed Windows 7. Since then I have been playing about with various setups and I have managed to find *9.8* drivers that seem to do the trick (things like the youtube full screen crash are FIXED.) I haven’t had the opportunity to fully test them out but they seem to be solid. Here is a link to the 32-bit version:
http://support.amd.com/us/gpudownload/windows/Legacy/Pages/integrated_vista32.aspx?type=2.7&product=2.7.5.3.1&lang=English
And the 64-bit version (warning, I haven’t tried these out at all):
http://support.amd.com/us/gpudownload/windows/Legacy/Pages/integrated_vista64.aspx?type=2.7&product=2.7.5.3.1&lang=English
Hope this helps,
Jonathan
Is anyone else getting a BSOD? I get an error like “ati2dvag.dll has caused an infinite loop” Never happened in Vista..
Nope, everything works great except the YouTube fullscreen issue.
What is your laptop configuration?
thanks born2code , 8.12 worked brilliantly for me (Dell Inspiron 1501 with Windows 7)…feel like a blind man now given the gift of sight
wow!!! that’s great information!!! i struggled to get it to work and didn’t managed to do that until i read your article. thank you!!!
i was getting tired od the 800×600 resolution
hi…thanks to all
but when i installed windows 7 oem on my dell 1501 then aero effect r not there…it work well in RC so what i will do for final version…anyone else try it on final version….
Thanks so much for posting this!!! I’ve upgraded my Dell Vostro 1000 to Windows 7 64-bit and it’s like I just bought a new computer!! SO MUCH better than Vista 32 bit!!!
Only problem was the slightly blurry graphics but now you have made my day!!
hello
i intalled windows 7 32 bit on my dell 1501 but i didn’t get areo effect and also rating give error that their may be error due to OS or driver…every thing move very hard..plz help me what will be solution for driver…
any updates?
I’m using the 8.31.100.32 driver. I don’t know what version it is but it came out on 24/11/2006. Works like a charm. Haven’t tried the 8.12 driver – don’t need to. Maybe you’ll know which version this is. It works flawlessly on my Dell 1501. FWIW
Great post!
Thanks for the useful info.
I downloaded version 8.12 for my radeon 1150 system and aero peek did not work still…my system is hp nx6325.
Are you a professional journalist? You write very well.
I hope that it will work fine
ATI Catalyst™ Display Driver Version 9.11
Ati driver suppport -> windows7 32-bit -> radeon -> radeon x1050 series
Note: AMD’s DirectX 9 ATI Radeon graphics accelerators are not officially supported under Windows 7. If the user chooses to, they can install the ATI Catalyst Windows Vista graphics driver under Windows 7. Please be aware that none of the new Windows 7 graphics driver (WDDM 1.1) features are supported (as the Windows Vista level graphics driver is limited to WDDM 1.0 level support). Using the ATI Catalyst Windows Vista driver under Windows 7 is not officially supported by AMD, and as such AMD will not provide any form of customer support for users running in this configuration.
I checked my laptop with windows7 adviser. it said that Aero effect and Xpress x1050 compatible. there isn’t error about graphic.
I hope that it works fine.
Thank you for this info.
In order to stop me getting NT Kernel & System running at 50%, I had to drop my ATI Radeon 1150 drivers back to 8.12 as suggested. This was after an install of Windows 7 64bit Professional.
Its works fine, thanx for the solution!
Got the driver working thanks to all of you!!!Thanks
Now, does anybody have a fix to get the Catalyst Control Center to work in Win7 with a Radeon Xpress 1150? I do need the scaling that the CCC offers.
Alright, I have a Xpress 1150 and have never had that sort of problem. :\
I mean, it worked right away when I installed the latest Vista drivers.. So… dunno, Catalyst works too.
Thanks! hopefully this helps me get abe’s odyssey running on my gf’s laptop
Whew! What a relief! I was really so worried that I can’t enjoy Win7’s feature just because I don’t have (and can’t find) the right video driver for the ATI Radeon Xpress 1150 in my Dell Inspiron 1501…
Btw, can someone update a new download link of the above mentioned files, the 32bit version link was already dead. x.x
Glad it worked for you. I checked the links though, and they work fine.
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