Video drivers

[raublekick]

What so you? Is it better to use Nvidia/ATI's drivers, or use the manufacturers drivers? I have a Sapphire Radeon 9600, and they provide drivers on their webpage http://www.sapphiretech.com/

But, their drivers are behind ATI's (5.3 rather than 5.5). They don't come with any of the control panel stuff or anything, so I didn't know if they might be drivers more specific to Sapphire cards or what. Any insight?

[GT2000]

I just installed a new Sapphire X850XTPE, didn't bother with the driver cd, I just installed the 5.5 cats that I was already using on my 9800pro. I'd just stick to the ati ref drivers, remember, just because the card came from a different 3rd party vendor, it's still the same ati gpu off the BBA (built-by-ati) cards.

[Plain Old Jane]

just install the CAT drivers on ATIs site, they're built for all radeon cards

[raublekick]

that's what i figured the answer would be, just wasn't sure why manufacturers would provide their own (not up to date with ATI) drivers.

[GT2000]

Because some choose to include their own control panel, with additional options, and branding of course, but, Sapphire just..I don't know.

[raublekick]

haha yeah they don't include a control panel at all really.

[GT2000]

Well...maybe they test the drivers better than ATI, sometimes ATI releases new Cats with tons of bugs in them, like, with specific games. Just a guess.

Also, do yourself a favor...make sure Fast writes and VPU recover are both off, they cause issues more than they do good.

[raublekick]

oh yeah, i figured that out long ago.

<edit> i just went into my settings to check this because i installed the sapphire drivers the other day, there is no way i can find to disable these options, but there is no way to tell if they are enabled.

[GT2000]

So you're saying that if you go to your display properties...settings > advanced, you no longer have a tab that shows as "SMARTGART(tm)"?

If not, you can always disable fastwrites directly in your bios settings, usually under advanced bios settings.

[raublekick]

here's my settings -> advanced from the sapphire drivers (it probably just doesn't come with a control panel):

[GT2000]

Ah, yessir, just install the 5.5s from ati.com, that'll put the ATI CCC back in there if you want it. BTW, are you still having issues when playing games?

[raublekick]

yes sir i am. i used the omega driver, couldn't get past the intro part of KOTOR (crashed as soon as it put me in control). i then installed the Sapphire drivers just to test them, played for awhile, and crashed when in the middle of a cutscene. i'm gonna install 5.5 soon, but KOTOR is known to be best with 4.2, so i don't expect tremendous results. and Doom 3 is just kinda buggy in a lot of ways, especially with my sound card, and the other games i have are too aged to really give my card a good test.

<edit> i have always used the ATI provided drivers before this week, so i am well familiar with their contol panel and such.