Reminder: Give your video card drivers a little love
by Mike Schramm 
Feb 18th 2008 at 2:31PM
Theflamecrow on WoW LJ provides us with our quarterly reminder: it's probably time to update your video card's drivers, if you haven't done it in a while.If you're on a Mac, you don't need to worry about this (Software Update's got you covered, and the latest graphics update already helped your framerate). For PCs, Nvidia card drivers can get the latest version here, and ATI card owners can grab the latest files here. If you're not sure what kind of video card you've got installed, you can just follow along with this simple guide from the last big video card reminder, or one of the many other driver update guides available.
I should warn you: 99% of the time, updating your video card drivers will fix all kinds of problems-- it'll usually help your framerate, if it needs it, and it will often clear out problems with artifacts and other graphics glitches. But doing any system activity like updating drivers has the potential to harm your system, so always follow all instructions (like turning off all other programs and restarting the PC when asked) and, if possible, have a backup ready when you update. I've never had a system problem while updating graphics drivers, but if you're not careful, it could happen.
Filed under: Patches, Odds and ends, Hardware
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Havitech Feb 18th 2008 2:40PM
Windows was annoying me a few days ago with the system tray Update Alert about a new driver for my ATI card. I installed it, and then none of my games would run. I tried reinstalling the latest drivers directly from ATI's site; still no luck. So, I went back to an old driver I had archived, installed it, and WoW and my other games work again.
Scoottie Feb 18th 2008 2:46PM
always clean your old drivers out before installing new ones
http://downloads.guru3d.com/download.php?det=745
Koskun Feb 18th 2008 2:55PM
There is a known problem with the latest ATI drivers and AGP video cards.
Supposedly the latest driver fixes the issue, but people are reporting it is hit and miss if it works for their specific card (on ATI's own forums).
If my memory serves you have to go back to the July '07 release to get a working set of drivers for AGP cards.
Scoottie Feb 18th 2008 2:45PM
Creative has posted Beta drivers for X-Fi cards
Tasty Feb 18th 2008 3:01PM
Oh its ridiculous, my drivers from like 05' are the only ones that don't cause massive artifacting with my motherboard. Radeon 9250 ftl
Getting a new PC with sli 8800gt's though so I can't complain that much :P
Thijz Feb 18th 2008 3:07PM
Golden rule when it comes to drivers: Don't fix anything that isn't broken! Unless you got a reason to update your drivers (low fps, bugs, requirement for a new game...) you shouldn't do this! If there's nothing to fix it can only cause harm :)
Swarfy Feb 18th 2008 3:16PM
Last time I updated my drivers it wouldn't let me log into nor create the blood elf's. I would select them and it would insta crash / freeze my computer. So until that get's fixed I'm using an older version so i can play my Belf Healdin.
Kekleon64 Feb 18th 2008 4:22PM
That's a feature.
Theserene Feb 18th 2008 3:25PM
I don't update my drivers unless I have a REAL need to. Every time I have done it with no real reason I have ended up spending the next few hours fixing things again.
Same reason I don't patch the software at work if it doesn't need it. Half the time it'll introduce new bugs and at least with the old version I KNOW where those bugs are.
Elmo Feb 18th 2008 3:46PM
I got my Nvidia driver updated but still I have this annoying bug sometimes.
the game freezes a couple of times for a second.
then after some time the entire ground disappears, as in there are no ground textures. (
Thander Feb 18th 2008 6:34PM
I can think of two possibilities.
1. The card is overheating. Make sure the computer is in a cool place. You might need to install better cooling.
2. The card is not seated properly. The connection might be unstable causing information to be lost.
The first one can be very dangerous. One day your card just won't work at all. The second would just require you to open your computer and check the connection.
Random freezes can also occur with RAM not seated properly also.
If you're computer was built for you, I would go back to them. You probably got a basic warranty. Even if you don't, they will still have a better idea what might be going on than some random repair guy.
Umgawa Feb 18th 2008 7:58PM
I don't necessarily buy the overheating and seating theory, because I've seen a lot of complaints about this exact issue on the WoW technical forums, which go unaddressed. I've been dealing with this particular issue since I hit Outland, and it's tremendously annoying, having to exit the game to get the ground back.
Filipe Kim Feb 18th 2008 4:46PM
And are we gonna expect any articles on building THE WoW PC? maybe can include budget PC to $1000 PC to the Ultimate WoW machine. I just need some pointers to build a PC that will get me 60+ fps w/ all my addons running 2 WoW accnts. Love the site as always! :D
adam Feb 18th 2008 6:58PM
heres what i run, and im consistently at 60fps.
intel quad core q6600
nvidia 8800gts
3gb ram
320gig HD
Asus mobo
Grindelwald Feb 19th 2008 9:44AM
A
Grindelwald Feb 19th 2008 9:46AM
(I apologize for the double post, I included a <)
A sub-$1000 system running at +60fps is entirely possible. I just built my machine over again for about $1000 total (excluding peripherals):
Intel Quad Core 2.4ghz q6600
EVGA 8800GTS
8gb RAM
150gb 7200rpm SATA drive
ASUS P5N-E SLI motherboard
Antec Sonata III case
Thander Feb 18th 2008 6:41PM
Gamespot made a guide about this shortly before BC came out. WoW really doesn't require a powerful computer even with many addons. A simple Dell computer with Core 2 Duo and 2GB RAM could get what you want. Read the article for more detail.
http://www.gamespot.com/features/6164252/index.html
theRaptor Feb 18th 2008 9:20PM
Unless you have a recent graphics card (Im talking GF8800 or newer) or are playing a new game, updating drivers is likely to degrade performance if anything. It is very rare that nVidia/ATi will add anything to the drivers that will improve an old card running an old game. In fact, recently, newer drivers have been breaking very old games because they have been tuning the code for DX10 at the expense of DX8 and older technologies (for example Thief: The dark project, has broken rendering, which keeps getting worse with newer driver releases).
My advice, do not upgrade drivers unless you have recurrent serious problems that aren't due to driver corruption (guy in the article just needed to re-install his current driver), or it is known that newer drivers provide a performance upgrade.
Good_Idea Feb 19th 2008 2:11AM
Good article, thanks for the reminder.