Fresh OS install with 3870 drivers

[mazeroth]

My current build didn't go so well when it came time to install my X1800XL. I installed the drivers without first installing NET 2.0 so my CCC wouldn't work. I really didn't mind because I haven't had much time to game since I built so I never fixed that problem. Now that the tables have turned and I have a lot more time to game I want to make sure I install everything correctly. Here's what I'm going to do:

Full format of both drives. 250 gig SATA2 HD will be my main system with XP on it. I'm also going to use an older 80 gig PATA for a Vista install to play DX10 games. So, I install the OS, then I install NET 2.0, then I install the drivers, correct? Or is there a better way to do this? I wasn't super fond of the CCC back when I had an X1900XT (yes, I downgraded and saved some $$$) so is there a better way to control my card's AF and AA than using the CCC?

Thanks.

 

[nullpointerus]

The order I would try:

01. OS
02. IE7
03. .NET 1.x-3.0
04. DirectX 9.0c
05. OS updates
06. motherboard drivers
07. video card drivers
08. sound card drivers (if applicable)
09. defragment
10. security software
11. games and everything else
12. defragment

Many people here swear by ATITool as a replacement for CCC (though CCC has improved!).

 

[mazeroth]

Thanks for that list. I'll give it a shot.

I have ATITool 0.26 installed right now but there's no way to adjust the level of AF or AA with it, that I'm aware of. That's the only selling point I can see with installing the ATI CCC. Is there a way to control those settings outside of the ATI CCC?

Thanks.

 

[bryanW1995]

I've never had much success with ati tool, CCC seems to work much better for me. Maybe it will be different with 3870, but I suspect that ati tool will need an update to work as well as CCC with it.

 

[mazeroth]

Originally posted by: nullpointerus
The order I would try:

01. OS
02. IE7
03. .NET 1.x-3.0
04. DirectX 9.0c
05. OS updates
06. motherboard drivers
07. video card drivers
08. sound card drivers (if applicable)
09. defragment
10. security software
11. games and everything else
12. defragment

Many people here swear by ATITool as a replacement for CCC (though CCC has improved!).

Well, 2 months later but I'm about to do this today. Does everyone agree with the aforementioned before I do it?

 

[sutahz]

If you have a disk you can boot w/ and partition your hard drive, do that.
1st Partition, however big your pagefile is + 512MB (so 1536MB for a 1024MB PF)
2nd Partition XP (35-50GB is more then enough)
3rd Partition Games (50GB is more then enough, 100GB MAX)
4th partition Storage (whatever is left)

Since you want to mess around w/ Vista, you can partiton that 80GB sorta the same way, and have XP use that first partition as its PF, and vista use the first part. on the 250GB hdd as its pagefile. When installing Vista on the 80GB, have your other hard drive unhooked. This way you have to manually tell your computer which hdd to boot off of (when you want to boot into Vista, as XP will be your normal everyday OS). That way if you ever want to drop Vista, wont cause any problems on your XP side.

OS
Chipset & NIC (if nic seperate)
all windows updates (critical first then software/hardware optional such as .Net's)
Other drivers (Snd/video, doesn't really matter order, I go video first though)
Anti-Virus
Any and all other just normal programs you use (Games, office, adobe, flash, daemon-tools, etc etc etc)
Perfect Disk (Best/equally best defrag program out there. Offline then online defrag)
Good to go.

 

[mazeroth]

Awesome. Thanks.