So if you're like me, running an oldish (HD4000 and older) ATI Radeon and curious about Windows 8, then you've probably been bitten by the same crappy driver support that caused me frustration for much of the past week.
So I stumbled on a bit of advice in another forum, from someone who mentioned that they had managed to get an older 64-bit Vista/Windows 7 11-x series Catalyst driver set to install just fine on Windows 8. I did some surfing, and found the installer the 11-6_vista64_win7_64_dd_ccc_ocl.exe at the link below
I uninstalled whatever I found by ATI in my Control Panel, and ran the 11.6 installer. One reboot later, and everything was back to normal!
I hope this helps everyone who's having problems with their ATI Radeons and Windows 8. Lets put some pressure on AMD/ATI to focus on adding more support for our still capable devices in the next generation of Windows.
Tested not working with Windows 8 Consumer Preview and two ATI HD4890's. It seems as if Windows is forcing the ATI Radeon HD 4800 Series (Engineering Sample - WDDM v1.1) drivers instead of using the 11.6 ones I installed. I've tried multiple different previous releases but my Device Manager always shows my gfx cards using the WIN8 Engineering Sample drivers.
Good luck to anyone else out there using these drivers!
TESTED AND CONFIRMED ALZS FIX. I've written my own instructions below as well as they are a tad more detailed. GOOD LUCK.
To anyone using ATI Graphics: You must download and install Windows 7 drivers to play Minecraft and use openGL features. This has to be done with precise steps and REQUIRES at least ONE reboot of your PC.
I've read many guides/walkthroughs online with people stating they've got MC working on ATI GFX using Windows 7 drivers for their Windows 8 Consumer Preview OS. I followed the steps below to make this work.
Uninstall Windows 8 Engineering Sample Drivers. If the uninstall prompt allows you to also delete the drivers during installation, tick the box to do so. After uninstalling the drivers, also uninstall any versions of ATI Catalyst that is installed on your PC.
After your drivers/software have been successfully uninstalled, REBOOT YOUR MACHINE.
When Windows starts back up your GFX card(s) should be running without any driver installed. This can be checked in the device manager under the Display Adapters tree. If it says Windows 8 Engineering sample then you've got to uninstall the drivers again and reboot your PC.
Download the most recent version of your GFX cards Windows 7 compatible drivers. Mine personally (Radeon HD 4890) use the 12-2_vista_win7_64_dd_ccc.exe driver.
I've downloaded and installed the Win7 64bit drivers on my machine and now they show up as ATI Radeon HD 4800 Series in Device Manager. This clearly indicates that I've completely removed the Engineering Sample drivers that won't load Minecraft due to openGL issues.
Reboot your machine after installing the Windows 7 drivers. This is just for good measure. Make sure your cards still read Radeon HD XXXX in Device Manager after you've rebooted.
GLHF. Just keep at it and you'll find a fix. Don't be lazy.
I'm having a similar problem to kintama, it seems that the WDDM drivers are built in and are automatically selected on launch. I don't think you can uninstall them as it seems that the drivers for about every system imaginable are included with Windows 8. You can tell it to use different graphics drivers, but I haven't found that very reliable...
I've attempted to use guide on installing Windows 7 drivers in Windows 8 and this guide to try and force windows to install the drivers even though it insists that the WDDM ones are better. In the end windows simply tells me that "the driver selected for this device does not support this version of windows" and won't allow me to install them. I'm definitely using the right drivers so it seems there is nothing else I can do. I'm putting these guides up however, because they seem to have worked for a lot of people.
If anyone finds something that might be a solution please post it! I can't seem to find anything that might fix this, and I really want to play minecraft.
Finally, if anyone's curious I'm running Windows 8 consumer preview and my graphics card is a Radeon HD 4200.
I had this problem with a Mobility Radeon X1300. My solution was to use a tool called mobility modder.net. I found the most recent version of Catalyst that supported my card and put that setup file and the mobility modder.net setup file on a flash drive. I then went to a different computer that wasn't running Windows 8 and ran the Catalyst setup file, but after the part where it extracts its files I clicked cancel. Then I installed mobility modder.net and navigated to C:\ATI\Support\(your version of catalyst)\Driver and clicked mod. When the tool finished I cut and pasted the entire C:\ATI directory and put it on my flash drive and took it back to my computer that was running Windows 8. I then cut and pasted the ATI directory to the root of that computer's hard drive. I then opened up that directory until I got to the setup.exe file and I ran it and it installed perfectly. When it was done it was running the driver and Catalyst Control Center perfectly.
Well, this may possibly be thread necro, I don't know but for anyone like me who was still working on this I have FINALLY found a solution for my laptop. The problem was that I was stupid and was trying to install desktop drivers on to a laptop. Anyway, here's what I did to fix it:
Download the ATI Mobility drivers from here. The normal ones will work for desktops, but for laptops you'll want these (which are hidden from view and hard to access unless you know the url).
Run the installer to extract the files but DO NOT install them.
Go to the Control Panel and open the Device Manager.
Click Display adapters and then right click your video card ('ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4200' for me) and click 'Update Driver Software...'
Click 'Browse My Computer For Driver Software', then 'Let me pick from a list of devices on my computer', then 'Have Disk', then 'Browse' and find the directory where the drivers are in the package you just extracted. For me this was 'C:\AMD\Support\12-4_mobility_vista_win7_64_dd_ccc\Packages\Drivers\Display\W76A_INF'
If it worked it should show your driver AND YOUR DRIVER ALONE in the display window. If there are a large array of drivers showen your one is probably not present among them.
Click next, wait while the drivers are installed (your screen will probably flicker a little or go black temporarily) and then click close. That's it!
Your graphics card in the display adaptor section of the device manager should no longer mention WDDM 1.1 or whatever it had before if it worked correctly. This fixed everything for me, please let me know if this helped you. Also, I didn't mention uninstalling any drivers because the default windows ones are built in and cannot be uninstalled.
I was still having trouble sorting all this out, and I tried all of your so called "tutorials" but the way I found was much simpler. First off don't delete or uninstall anything (I have no idea if doing so will compromise this tutorial).
Go into Control Panel
ClickHardware and Sound
ClickDevice Manager
ClickDisplay Adapters
Right-click the current driver
ClickUpdate Driver Software...
ClickBrowse
ClickLet Me Pick
Then you should see a list of previous versions of your driver, click the oldest one, and install it
Last find an updated version of the windows 7 version and download and install it
There, that's what worked for me and it was easier than I thought. If it doesn't work for you then I don't know what to say, I guess I got lucky.
Well, this may possibly be thread necro, I don't know but for anyone like me who was still working on this I have FINALLY found a solution for my laptop. The problem was that I was stupid and was trying to install desktop drivers on to a laptop. Anyway, here's what I did to fix it:
Download the ATI Mobility drivers from here. The normal ones will work for desktops, but for laptops you'll want these (which are hidden from view and hard to access unless you know the url).
Run the installer to extract the files but DO NOT install them.
Go to the Control Panel and open the Device Manager.
Click Display adapters and then right click your video card ('ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4200' for me) and click 'Update Driver Software...'
Click 'Browse My Computer For Driver Software', then 'Let me pick from a list of devices on my computer', then 'Have Disk', then 'Browse' and find the directory where the drivers are in the package you just extracted. For me this was 'C:\AMD\Support\12-4_mobility_vista_win7_64_dd_ccc\Packages\Drivers\Display\W76A_INF'
If it worked it should show your driver AND YOUR DRIVER ALONE in the display window. If there are a large array of drivers showen your one is probably not present among them.
Click next, wait while the drivers are installed (your screen will probably flicker a little or go black temporarily) and then click close. That's it!
Your graphics card in the display adaptor section of the device manager should no longer mention WDDM 1.1 or whatever it had before if it worked correctly. This fixed everything for me, please let me know if this helped you. Also, I didn't mention uninstalling any drivers because the default windows ones are built in and cannot be uninstalled.
Thanks sooooooo much! This worked easily and minecraft is up and running! < for you!
I know this is an old topic, but I thought I should add that it worked for me on windows 8 GM. Thanks so much for this, I searched everywhere and this was the only one that worked!
Well, this may possibly be thread necro, I don't know but for anyone like me who was still working on this I have FINALLY found a solution for my laptop. The problem was that I was stupid and was trying to install desktop drivers on to a laptop. Anyway, here's what I did to fix it:
Download the ATI Mobility drivers from here. The normal ones will work for desktops, but for laptops you'll want these (which are hidden from view and hard to access unless you know the url).
Run the installer to extract the files but DO NOT install them.
Go to the Control Panel and open the Device Manager.
Click Display adapters and then right click your video card ('ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4200' for me) and click 'Update Driver Software...'
Click 'Browse My Computer For Driver Software', then 'Let me pick from a list of devices on my computer', then 'Have Disk', then 'Browse' and find the directory where the drivers are in the package you just extracted. For me this was 'C:\AMD\Support\12-4_mobility_vista_win7_64_dd_ccc\Packages\Drivers\Display\W76A_INF'
If it worked it should show your driver AND YOUR DRIVER ALONE in the display window. If there are a large array of drivers showen your one is probably not present among them.
Click next, wait while the drivers are installed (your screen will probably flicker a little or go black temporarily) and then click close. That's it!
Your graphics card in the display adaptor section of the device manager should no longer mention WDDM 1.1 or whatever it had before if it worked correctly. This fixed everything for me, please let me know if this helped you. Also, I didn't mention uninstalling any drivers because the default windows ones are built in and cannot be uninstalled.
So I stumbled on a bit of advice in another forum, from someone who mentioned that they had managed to get an older 64-bit Vista/Windows 7 11-x series Catalyst driver set to install just fine on Windows 8. I did some surfing, and found the installer the 11-6_vista64_win7_64_dd_ccc_ocl.exe at the link below
http://www.techpowerup.com/downloads/2007/ATI_Catalyst_11.6_Software_Suite_Vista7_64-bit.html
I uninstalled whatever I found by ATI in my Control Panel, and ran the 11.6 installer. One reboot later, and everything was back to normal!
I hope this helps everyone who's having problems with their ATI Radeons and Windows 8. Lets put some pressure on AMD/ATI to focus on adding more support for our still capable devices in the next generation of Windows.
Good luck to anyone else out there using these drivers!
To anyone using ATI Graphics: You must download and install Windows 7 drivers to play Minecraft and use openGL features. This has to be done with precise steps and REQUIRES at least ONE reboot of your PC.
I've read many guides/walkthroughs online with people stating they've got MC working on ATI GFX using Windows 7 drivers for their Windows 8 Consumer Preview OS. I followed the steps below to make this work.
I've attempted to use guide on installing Windows 7 drivers in Windows 8 and this guide to try and force windows to install the drivers even though it insists that the WDDM ones are better. In the end windows simply tells me that "the driver selected for this device does not support this version of windows" and won't allow me to install them. I'm definitely using the right drivers so it seems there is nothing else I can do. I'm putting these guides up however, because they seem to have worked for a lot of people.
If anyone finds something that might be a solution please post it! I can't seem to find anything that might fix this, and I really want to play minecraft.
Finally, if anyone's curious I'm running Windows 8 consumer preview and my graphics card is a Radeon HD 4200.
This should work with your model as well
Thanks sooooooo much! This worked easily and minecraft is up and running! < for you!