Hacking AIW BIOS: T200 Unified A/VSteam detection

C

Crashman

New member
Hardware ID is NTATIVRV01 for the AIW X800 XL (PCIe) and later cards. This unified architecture seems to be the same TV hardware as the AIW X800 XT AGP, replacing the following individual device ID's:

NTativbt40
NTativxb40
NTativtu40
NTativsn40
NTativmd40
NTativxs40
NTativrv40
ntativra40
ntativpd40
ntativtt40

One device ID on T200 Unified cards is serving the same function as several devices on the AIW X800 XT. This would appear to be a BIOS issue?

What would be needed if that's the case, is to hack later BIOS with the unified device ID to support those individual device ID's, so that NSP drivers could be loaded, and reverted to SP drivers.

Oh yes, I can hack the inf file on the SP drivers to support the AIW X800 XT without reversion, but anyway...

It seems that the same hardware is being used so...any chance we could hack the BIOS to allow analog sound output? I have all the hardware needed for testing and so forth, including recent versions of the AIW (X800XT, 2006 PCIe, X800XL, X1800 XL, X1900). Sorry, but I already got rid of the AIW X600 Pro PCIe, which would probably be a better match to the newer cards since it's using the same TV hardware and the PCIe interface.
 
I am sure the T200 devices ID are not in the card's bios, since the old AIW 9800/9700/9600/9500 now uses T200 Unified AVStream driver with Calatyst 6.3/6.4, no bios upgrade are required for T200 Unified AVStream driver device ID.
AIW 9200/SE, 9000/PRO have T200 chip, but these cards are will only have the SP WDM driver ID by default, NSP WDM driver works with these cards.
Spend time to hack the driver only, don't bother with the bios
 
Last edited:
Yatalok, that sounds a little like "putting the cart before the horse", to be more accurate your typical Post Hoc fallacy...

I'm not certain that these device ID's are locked in BIOS but it certainly looks that way. On the other hand, the T200 Unified AVStream driver might have been adapted to INCLUDE the multiple device ID's found in the earlier cards, wheras the newer cards have only one device ID for the AIW features. In such a case, the older cards would support both styles of driver, where the newer cards would only support the later driver, evidence to support my theory.
 
Long story short, don't think there's any way to use the WDM NSP/SP drivers with ccc 6.3/6.4. Not all the multimedia features are included in the WDM or MMC software -- from v. 6.2 (maybe earlier, but can't remember) the card's drivers show a lighter display with overlay & vid out, regardless MMC or WDM versions, or even if they're installed or enabled.

At any rate, updating the drivers only, the 6 wdm devices are replaced by one in Device Mgr, and the new AVS T200 provides the Direct Show filters (controls) in Graphedit or wmencoder 9 or moviemaker etc... If you don't provide the info on AVS T200, winxp just uses an unknown device. You can update that one device to one of the NSP WDM drivers, but only one -- doesn't seem any way to go back to 6 devices without downgrading to 6.2 or earlier. The behavior seems hard-coded in the card drivers.

As an example of how the card drivers (ccc) themselves are involved, MMC 9.08 uses it's own encoder, yet paired with CCC 6.2, vid file conversion (in Library - non-Avivo) requires the new external decoder now avail..

Personally my thoughts are that future releases will likely have avs t200 drivers with more support for non-Avivo cards. MS has been promoting new display code for Vista, anounced that this code will be incorporated in XP, will probably follow thru as this would be an incentive for developers to buy/use new tools/code. Somewhere along the line I imagine card drivers will have to be updated to work with it.

Current AVS T200 WDM do not appear to support true, full height, dual field video as advertised with non-Avivo cards using XP. With 3 year warranties, & non-Avivo cards still being sold, would be a huge nightmare for ATI if they didn't have a software solution.
 
OK, may be I should put it this way, the WDM device ID follows the registry entries from the Catalyst display driver.
No display driver = no WDM ID.
Try to make your AIW X1800XT to look like a AIW 9200 to the driver?
 
Ok Supposing that we could 'hack' the card id and use/revert to the SP DRIVERS (audio of the card connected to one of the audio in MB connectors..) NEW CARDS LIKE MINE AIW X800GT PCIE HAVE NO AUDIO OUT SO THERE IS NO CHANCE THAT THEY CAN BENEFIT FROM ANY HACK PROPOSED....
 
In case it helps getting NSP/SP WDM drivers working with CCC 6.3/6.4, here’s something *might* want to play with... Windows Update has a partial ATI driver update that, when installed over CCC 6.2, breaks the NSP drivers – removes them from Device Mgr. As far as I can tell, the newer version files installed are: ati2cqag.dll; ati2dvag.dll; ati3duag.dll; ATIDEMGR.dll; atioglxx.dll; ativvaxx.dll; ati2mtag.sys.

I don’t know if using one or more of these files from CCC 6.2 or earlier with latest CCC will allow the NSP/SP drivers to work or not, but *may be* worth a try? I didn’t play with it further because I’ve been using 6.2, so there’s no need.
 
you can force install drivers using older drivers THEN update drivers and just dont update the wdm drivers really its the easiest way to work around it
 
SEMI-Sorry to bring to life this old thread. I'm trying to get an AIW x800XL PCI-E setup functioning.
I don't have the original driver disk for it but have tried several of the others that I have x800XT AGP driver setup disk does not work on it (my workign theory is b/c the X800XL PCI-E requires T200 Drivers and that installation CD doesn't offer them.
I am able to SEMI get the card working using the driver disk from an AIW x800GT PCI-E (pal) card which installs Catalyst 5.7 (T200 Unified WDM drivers) and MMC 9.09. It works up until i get around CH 40 then there is static that increases in volume the higher I go in the CH.s until I get to CH 60 ish then they turn B&White and go 100% static.

From that set-up I can upgrade to Catalyst 6.1 etc with WDM drivers but it still is T200.
I have been trying a number of things unsuccessfully. The first is trying to get it to run on NSP WDM drivers. In comparrison the slightly older AIW x800XT AGP runs fine for me on Catalyst 5.13 with the analog NSP_WDM components and MMC 9.08.

I would greatly appreciate knowing if I am trying to push a bolder up hill?
Does the AIW X800XL PCI-E require the T200 drivers?
Did it ship with a version of MMC such as MMC 9.13 or was it designed to run still on the older MMC's. B/c I can't seem to get past the unable to start failure with MMC 9.05, MMC 9.08

TechPower up has a BIOS editor, I don't remember how far back it will function under (i think unfortunately it only goes back to x1900s) but wondering if there is any way to trick the install process. I tried editing and removing the T200 drivers from the C:\ATI\Support folder and other times did that plus edited the ini files to delete the T200 mention when I saw it....but always got failures to install.
 
DA1745 said:
I would greatly appreciate knowing if I am trying to push a bolder up hill?
Does the AIW X800XL PCI-E require the T200 drivers?
Did it ship with a version of MMC such as MMC 9.13 or was it designed to run still on the older MMC's. B/c I can't seem to get past the unable to start failure with MMC 9.05, MMC 9.08
Click to expand...

Old MMC TV 9.08 will not work with AIW x800XL PCI-E, get the MMC 9.13 or newer, make sure to install the AVIVO code, the TV VCR encode and decoder are in the AVIVO package.
The TV performance is very poor with TV 9.1X, there is nothing we can do.
Also the AIW X800XL PCI-E works only with T200 WDM driver set for TV and capture:cry:
 
Last edited:
yatalok said:
Old MMC TV 9.08 will not work with AIW x800XL PCI-E, get the MMC 9.13 or newer, make sure to install the AVIVO code, the TV VCR encode and decoder are in the AVIVO package.
The TV performance is very poor with TV 9.1X, there is nothing we can do.
Also the AIW X800XL PCI-E works only with T200 WDM driver set for TV and capture:cry:
Click to expand...
OMGoodness!!! THANK YOU SO MUCH for answering those questions!!! I can't believe I missed it a few days back when I checked.
While, it's disappointing news, it is nice to have confirmation of what I suspected. I was still holding out a glimmer of hope that the forced installtion (or else it wouldnt' install / work with SP/NSP drivers) was due to the fact that the MOBO I was using had digital sound built into the motherboard. I was split into two schools of thought: 1) that the X800XL - PCI-E had made a fundamental change from the X800XT AGP and was forced to use T200 Unified Digtal drivers, AND / OR 2) that the Digital Sound built into my Abit IP35-e was causing ATI's software to detect digital sound and therefore would only see and install the T200 drivers. I WAS SERIOUSLY HOPING FOR only the later b/c then I could install in another boxed unit with PCI-E and analog sound chip and use NSP drivers..... (BOO! that I can't, but SO THANKFUL for the independant clarification). YOU WERE THE ONLY ONE!

It is curious that I am able to get it (Partially) working with MMC 9.09, it doesn't give me a choice on using anything but T200 Drivers). Everything installs correctly with say CAT 5.7, and MMC 9.09 from the [AIW x800GT CD-which may or may not be the same CD that Came with AIW X800XL(PCI-E)] but I get the static problem starting around Ch 40 and then get only B&W and all static around CH 60 and through 70's (dont' have any 80's Ch.s but the CH 96,97 are back in color/sound). Any thoughts on that? Obviously it doesn't "really" work not completely, unless I used something like an outside tuner from a VCR or cable box and simply left it fixed on CH 3 (which is maybe my only acceptable work around) if i don't want MMC 9.13+<
If my memory serves me (and it's hard with all those installations, using Catalyst 5.7 and MMC 9.09 with the T200 drivers I could not get Windows Media Center Edition 2005 TV application to find the Tuner. (I could w/ latest Cat & MMC) maybe i'll dual boot the system to accomidate that, i'll have to dbl check it first. GRRR!
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top