Stuck with low-res textures

My computer is a Fujitsu-Siemens Amilo 1554 laptop, with a Mobility Radeon X1900. My drivers are forced Ati Catalyst drivers installed with the help of ModTool, althought the problem was present earlier as well with the stock Fujitsu-Siemens drivers.

In many games when I try to increase the Texture Detail, say from low to high, there is absolutely no change in look or performance. Some examples are Half-Life 2 Ep. 2 and Mass Effect. The textures look low-quality and blurry so I'm guessing they're stuck in the "Low"-mode.

In other games, especially some older ones, the higher quality textures do load and there is a visible change when fiddling with the graphics options.

Any ideas?

I wouldn't recommend using non-ati drivers. use the ones provided by ur laptop manufactuer. sucks ati doesnt update drivers to consumers but passes them to manufacturers who either give them to u or dont. usually they change them a bit to work correctly with ur laptop (think power consumption, features, etc). I cant tell if ati stopped making drivers for x300 64mb mobility radeon on my old laptop or whether dell is being an a$$ and not letting me updater my drivers since 2005 so i can buy their newer laptops. Anyways, I would love to max out WC3 at 1280x800 which i cant with these crappy drivers and still get 30fps+ constant, mind you this game is so old, and doesn't support AA or AF unless you force it.

If you want to game buy a gaming Desktop, or a Xbox/PS3.

Are you on Vista or XP?

If you're on Vista the mod tool is required, but on XP just use the latest mobile catalysts;
http://ati.amd.com/online/mobilecatalyst/

Be sure to wipe out the old ones first, and also be sure your DirectX installation is up to do after you install the drivers. Other than those two issues I don't know why it would be limiting you like that.

Also, as PCGamer said, be sure you're running at native resolution or else interpolation will blur all the textures anyways.