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Thread: Updating Graphics Driver

  1. #1
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    Updating Graphics Driver

    When playing another mmorpg I learned that in order to be able to play I had to download new version/upgrade my graphics driver once a week. I still do this and i think I have less problems than most. To do this close all games and stuff first then,

    1. Find out what graphics driver you have
    2. go to the website and download new graphics driver
    3. Install
    4. Restart your computer

    If anyone can tell me why people dont suggest this id really like to know, some say it updates itself, none of my computers ever have and if they did it was definitely not when the updates came out. Granted I understand this game is not all about graphics but it does have them and updating graphics card will help some. Thanks so much for your time

  2. #2
    Soldier Ultim's Avatar
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    Well most of the time, this not a bad advice when it comes to fixing issues with games in general. This is not as helpful when it comes to browsers. Browsers mainly rely on processors.

    I would say driver updates are usually great since they fix issues and sometimes add new features or settings but remember that they are made by people and sometimes they introduce new bugs and issues.

    Yes you can have automatic graphics card updates. At least for Nvidia, you can use Geforce Experience. I consider it bloatware and I download drivers manually periodically. Don't remember whether there is an alternative for AMD but there are free tools that check and update your drivers automatically but I dont use those. You shouldn't install drivers automatically. Some drivers install at your OS's kernel level, which means they have HUGE amounts of permissions and this is the main reason why they can cause BSOD. If you do not know what youre installing you might not be able to to boot or even break your hardware. Letting some free tool install drivers that it decides are the best for your machine, is not a good idea. Most drivers get tested prior to being published. How do you know that the tool you use is downloading tested drivers? So I would say keep your drivers up to date via official websites and tools, unless you know what youre doing. Learn how to go into the safe mode, in case you download a buggy driver and want to remove it. Safe mode doesnt load any custom drivers.

    If you know what youre doing you can also use tools like Rapr to remove drivers you dont need. Some installers, install multiple drivers even though you only need one. This slows down your system by a small amount with each unused driver. Intel and Realtek drivers commonly do this. It saves them time and money. They use 1 installer for multiple devices. You can manually remove those drivers with Rapr - Driver Store Explorer. Be on the lookout for inf files with the same name but different version. The worst offender here is Intel Chipset INF utility. It is by far the worst. It installs tens of drivers that do nothing. Even the ones in use are so called null drivers. They do nothing but get rid of the "unknown device" tag in the Device Manager. They also use driver date of 1968 for example so when you find an actual driver, this one gets replaced as outdated. Nvidia leaves drivers behind also and they are over 1GB so removing an older driver after you are sure everything is stable, saves space and increases speed.

  3. #3
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    Thank you so much for your informative post as I am not that computer savy but was just trying to help. You are awesome Ultim

  4. #4
    Soldier Ultim's Avatar
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    No problem. Just trying to help as well. RAPR is a really cool free tool that I use often. You can notice your device getting faster after cleaning up all the unused or duplicate drivers. Updating drivers is usually a good thing just wanted to let people know that its not ALWAYS a good thing. Depends on the device and the driver. Sometimes it doesnt install right and you think its the driver but you might just have to clean up previous drivers so the new ones install correctly.

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