Why can't ATI afford to sign drivers that need to be signed to work?

[VirtualLarry]

Just wondering. Is ATI really hurting that badly for money that they cannot afford to sign their driver packages anymore?

ATI Catalyst 9.12 AGP Hotfix drivers are unsigned. Even the Win7 64-bit versions. Which means that the OS won't load those drivers unless you hit F8 *on EVERY boot* to select "disable driver signing enforcement".

ATI sure wants to screw their loyal (AGP) customers over, don't they?

 

[bryanW1995]

I was about to throw out a smart-assed comment about joining the 21st century but your 3 rigs look pretty modern. None of those are agp, though. Why did you throw win 7 64-bit on the older rig?

 

[Genx87]

Hmm I havent had a problem with driver signing with my 4850. And I dont disable driver signing.

 

[soccerballtux]

Just wondering. Is ATI really hurting that badly for money that they cannot afford to sign their driver packages anymore?

ATI Catalyst 9.12 AGP Hotfix drivers are unsigned. Even the Win7 64-bit versions. Which means that the OS won't load those drivers unless you hit F8 *on EVERY boot* to select "disable driver signing enforcement".

ATI sure wants to screw their loyal (AGP) customers over, don't they?

Signing drivers yourself is easy, just google for it.

 

[her209]

LOL... have you taken a look at AMD's financial statements for the past year and a half?

 

[NoQuarter]

The hotfix drivers aren't signed because of the time it takes to get them verified by MS, nothing to do with money. They finished up a couple features they felt were very important but didn't finish in time for the official 9.12 driver sent in to Microsoft, and released the unsigned hotfix driver shortly after the 9.12 driver got certified.

 

[Phil1977]

Hotfix drivers are like beta drivers. No signature...

Stick to the offical drivers and you should be fine.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Hotfix drivers are like beta drivers. No signature...

Stick to the offical drivers and you should be fine.

Those ARE the "official" (official unofficial) drivers for AGP cards. Meaning, they are the ONLY drivers for AGP cards. The regular Cats don't work for AGP cards.

 

[RedShirt]

Those ARE the "official" (official unofficial) drivers for AGP cards. Meaning, they are the ONLY drivers for AGP cards. The regular Cats don't work for AGP cards.

I guess someone at ATI figured there wouldn't be a very big group of people running a 64-bit OS with an AGP card. And I think they would be correct.

Edit: That doesn't make it right. But honestly, AGP has been replaced now for for how long? 5+ years at least.

 

[Modelworks]

I have a ATI AGP card in use in a HTPC and use the hotfix drivers. I did learn beforehand that they would not work with 64bit . So I installed 32Bit. 3GB ram is all I need for a HTPC.
Any applications that are really going to use 4GB+ and x64 most likely also needs a newer pc that has pcie, so I can understand ATI dragging their feet.

 

[evolucion8]

Only supported configurations uses the Official drivers with signed drivers, ATi stopped supporting AGP a long time so they don't see the need to sign the drivers at all, in the end, it works fine, specially with newer cards, but with cards like the X1k series or under, I had found that recent games are having issues with weird colors and some glitches/artifacts like in Resident Evil 5 and Avatar, probably means that ATi hasn't updated or fixed nothing with cards that predates the HD 2x00 series like the X1K, the same issues should exists in the PCIe version of such cards.

The driver difference between the HD 2x00 series AGP or PCIe should be minimal to none because the Rialto bridge is completely transparent to the driver, I was even able to force the official catalyst drivers with my old HD 3850 AGP card and worked like a champ with no issues.

 

[VirtualLarry]

The driver difference between the HD 2x00 series AGP or PCIe should be minimal to none because the Rialto bridge is completely transparent to the driver, I was even able to force the official catalyst drivers with my old HD 3850 AGP card and worked like a champ with no issues.

Well that's interesting. If there are no driver changes, then why doesn't ATI just support their AGP cards inside their official drivers. Hmm.

 

[ViRGE]

Just wondering. Is ATI really hurting that badly for money that they cannot afford to sign their driver packages anymore?

ATI Catalyst 9.12 AGP Hotfix drivers are unsigned. Even the Win7 64-bit versions. Which means that the OS won't load those drivers unless you hit F8 *on EVERY boot* to select "disable driver signing enforcement".

ATI sure wants to screw their loyal (AGP) customers over, don't they?

Just to be clear, there's a difference between signing drivers, and getting drivers WHQL-certified. AMD has a signing certificate - every driver they release, including hotfix drivers (note: I haven't seen the AGP drivers), are self-signed. This means that the versions of Windows that required signed drivers will load them up just fine.

Hotfix drivers are not WHQL certified however. Only WHQL drivers will silently install. Non-WHQL drivers will throw up an error message which unfortunately enough calls them unsigned drivers, since Microsoft has not signed off on them with the WHQL certification. This is a one-time warning however, and doesn't prevent them from loading on additional boots.

Looking at the AGP hotfix, I see security catalogs with the drivers. So they look signed to me.

 

[soccerballtux]

Just to be clear, there's a difference between signing drivers, and getting drivers WHQL-certified. AMD has a signing certificate - every driver they release, including hotfix drivers (note: I haven't seen the AGP drivers), are self-signed. This means that the versions of Windows that required signed drivers will load them up just fine.

Hotfix drivers are not WHQL certified however. Only WHQL drivers will silently install. Non-WHQL drivers will throw up an error message which unfortunately enough calls them unsigned drivers, since Microsoft has not signed off on them with the WHQL certification. This is a one-time warning however, and doesn't prevent them from loading on additional boots.

Looking at the AGP hotfix, I see security catalogs with the drivers. So they look signed to me.

Thanks for clarifying that distinction. Great post.