best method to upgrade video card drivers?

[Stern]

Hi, I've got a 4870X2 running on Windows Vista Ultimate 32-bit, and I want to upgrade my drivers from the 8.10 version I've got installed now to the 8.11 version that is the latest stable version to hopefully improve performance in GTA4 slightly (as it is piss poor at the moment).

A lot of people recommend using driver cleaner tools, cleaning your registry 50 times, etc etc.

Is this really necessary? I just know that a lot of people make threads about botched driver installs/upgrades and I don't want to become one of them.

Any help appreciated, thanks!

 

[cmdrdredd]

I use driver cleaner. It's not a big deal to simply restart in safe mode, clean, and startup as normal then install drivers.

I feel safer and it's only another minute of my time.

You probably don't have to, but I do just because.

BTW: GTA4 sucks on everyone's system. I didn't buy it because it's a crappy port and I finished it on PS3 already. My neighbor has it and it runs pretty poorly on his 3.2Ghz C2D and 4850.

 

[Stern]

Yeah I have a E8600 and thought this would be a breeze, but apparently the big bottleneck is the CPU not the graphics card so I will try to overclock it. This CPU is supposed to be excellent for that though so hopefully I'll be able to push it to 4 fairly easily. So with driver cleaner I just install driver cleaner, boot into safe mode, run it, uninstall all ati drivers, then boot into normal mode and run the driver installer for the new driver? Or should I run the driver installer in safe mode aswell?

Thanks for your response!

 

[Stern]

Also I had a quick google for driver cleaner. Do you have a link to the version that 'everyone' seems to use? I have found one that costs money, one that is a trial version, one where the download links won't work because I don't allow cookies... :S

 

[Stern]

ops, and another question. Some versions of driver cleaner I've come across cite support only as far as Windows XP. I'm using Windows Vista 32-bit so is this just an out-dated description on the mirror or does it not work for Vista?

 

[aclim]

look for driver sweeper, same thing

 

[cmdrdredd]

http://www.guru3d.com/category/driversweeper/

install driver sweeper, Uninstall drivers, restart to safe mode, run driver sweeper and remove all ATI files it finds. Startup normally and install new driver.

 

[Billb2]

Drive Cleaner Professional

 

[Stern]

thanks guys this seems to have worked. Now to see if my performance has improved :S

 

[F1shF4t]

Originally posted by: Stern
thanks guys this seems to have worked. Now to see if my performance has improved :S

I just downgraded to 8.10 from 8.11 and it improved performance in both gta4 (it still sucks though) and fallout 3 (no more lag). So go figure

Did you see any gains?

 

[Bateluer]

I've don't bother with driver cleaner software for the Catalyst drivers any more. Using the ATI uninstaller works perfectly, then install the most current drivers. Simple.

 

[akugami]

ATI as well as nVidia drivers used to be notoriously finicky if you didn't clear out every single file that it installed or left behind. Why their drivers didn't clean up properly after itself is something you'll have to ask both companies. This has gotten better in the last few years but built up paranoia (and I'll admit I'm one of the paranoid) has gotten us to scrub our systems clean whenever we upgrade new drivers and especially if we're moving from ATI to nVidia or vice versa.

With Vista this seems to be less of a problem and of course I've already said that both companies have been doing a much better job of making sure their drivers play nice...but a lot of us who once experienced the endlessly fun loops of BSOD's are still a tad paranoid. I'd still uninstall and do a restart before attempting to install new video drivers at a minimum.

And don't believe the hype about ATI drivers being crap. Overall, ATI and nVidia are roughly the same as far as drivers go and have been for the last 5 or so years. Each still has its issues, some of them glaring but overall they are not bad. Unless you're a fanboy, who cares how bad ATI drivers were 5+ years ago? What does that have to do with the state of video card drivers today?

 

[dguy6789]

I never have to uninstall at all in the first place. I just download the newer version of the drivers, install them, and everything works perfectly. I have done this for years. The only time I uninstall drivers is if I am swapping video cards.

 

[hclarkjr]

for the hell of it i just recently upgraded from the October driver to the November driver by just installing to see if i could break something. no luck, all went smooth, did not uninstall anything at all.

 

[Qbah]

Not to mention you don't have to even do a reset Just install and continue with what you were doing. Sure, a restart is not a long thing, still it's a nice feature.

 

[Stern]

Originally posted by: Dark Cupcake

Originally posted by: Stern
thanks guys this seems to have worked. Now to see if my performance has improved :S

I just downgraded to 8.10 from 8.11 and it improved performance in both gta4 (it still sucks though) and fallout 3 (no more lag). So go figure

Did you see any gains?

I'm definitely getting an improvement in GTA4. Unfortunately I am attempting to make GFWL work in Fallout 3 and its borked it for now. That was running fairly well though.

 

[dakels]

I used to be a cleaner nut as well but the new ATI uninstaller/installer package seems to do he job well. No problems for me on XP since my new rebuild 9 months ago (4 Cat driver updates on a 4850).