AMD/ATI has stated that they will not be releasing Windows 7 drivers for older hardware. Anything older than X2000 series will not be supported. The pre-release drivers do not work properly with my X1600 Pro card. The latest 9.1 and 9.2 Vista drivers also fail to work properly under Windows 7. I tested older Vista drivers packages with Windows 7, and have found that the 8.12 Vista driver from last year functions well with my older X1600 card. I'm also using the 8.12 TV Tuner Driver. Unless AMD/ATI changes their mind, this appears to be the only solution at this point for using older hardware.
that makes no sense, they will not be releasing a WDDM 1.1 driver or they will not release a driver at all? I know Nvidia 7 drivers won't work with my fx5200 in one of my servers but the old vista drivers do.
IMHO there is no need to release the Win7 WDDM 1.1 driver for older than the HD2xxx series of ATi/AMD cards (they don't support DX10.1 at all so it would be pointless). Also the new drivers do not give you any improvements for old generations of cards at all. Besides - ATi/AMD won't drop the support totally, they only drop the monthly release schedule (moving to the quarterly release schedule for the old generation of cards). Stick to the included driver and/or install the vista driver (since you won't benefit from the WDDM 1.1 at all).
Well some of us don't game, so DirectX 10, 10.1 etc are irrelevant. The inbox ATI drivers for Win 7 do not allow adjustments for the TV out, and the Win 7 drivers on the ATI site do not support older cards. My X1600 pro is more than adequate for 2D and Media Center functionality .