Installing drivers

[Bill]

Want to upgrade to 3.1o but the instructions at ATI not clear to me.

Should I uninstall the MMC the ATI control panel, DVD decoder, display
driver, Hydravision OR just the display drivers from the add/remove programs
Win XP?

Many thanks

Bill

 

[Skid]

Want to upgrade to 3.1o but the instructions at ATI not clear to me.

Should I uninstall the MMC the ATI control panel, DVD decoder, display
driver, Hydravision OR just the display drivers from the add/remove programs
Win XP?

Uninstall everything. The new driver file will replace them all, or at least
the ones you need and choose.

 

[Bill]

Uninstall everything. The new driver file will replace them all, or at least
the ones you need and choose.

Thanks did that and all is well.

Bill

 

[PB]

Uninstall everything. The new driver file will replace them all, or at least
the ones you need and choose.

Why should a modern video card driver require you to uninstall the old
version to install the new?

You don't have to do that with nVidia drivers, but then ATI was never very
good at writing software, drivers, etc.

I made a huge mistake upgrading my Ti 4200 to a Radeon 9600 Pro, that's two
occasions now that I have been burned harshly by ATI, and there will never
be a third.

DD

 

[Strontium]

-
PB stood up at show-n-tell, in [email protected], and
said:

Why should a modern video card driver require you to uninstall the old
version to install the new?

You don't have to do that with nVidia drivers, but then ATI was never
very good at writing software, drivers, etc.

I made a huge mistake upgrading my Ti 4200 to a Radeon 9600 Pro,
that's two occasions now that I have been burned harshly by ATI, and
there will never be a third.

Don't let the door hit you, on the ass, on your way out....

 

[Don Burnette]

Why should a modern video card driver require you to uninstall the old
version to install the new?

You don't have to do that with nVidia drivers, but then ATI was never
very good at writing software, drivers, etc.

I made a huge mistake upgrading my Ti 4200 to a Radeon 9600 Pro,
that's two occasions now that I have been burned harshly by ATI, and
there will never be a third.

DD

Say what? I always found it better to uninstall Nvidia drivers as well
before installing newer ones.

It takes what, all of 2 minutes at most to uninstall older drivers? It
usually is good practice for any driver update anyway.
I made a huge great decision in ditching my TI4400 for my 9700 Pro - no
comparison, never looked back.


Cya,

 

[Skid]

Why should a modern video card driver require you to uninstall the old
version to install the new?

You don't have to do that with nVidia drivers, but then ATI was never very
good at writing software, drivers, etc.

I made a huge mistake upgrading my Ti 4200 to a Radeon 9600 Pro, that's two
occasions now that I have been burned harshly by ATI, and there will never
be a third.

Drivers aren't like other software. When the card is displaying video, there
are a lot of files in use. Installing over the old driver means some of
those files might not get overwritten and you'll wind up with a mix of files
with the same names but different versions.

In an ideal world it wouldn't happen, or cause you problems if it did. But
this isn't that kind of world. Computers are complicated and some of the
people who use them are stupid and lazy.

A clean install of Windows is better than updating over and old version, and
a clean driver install is better than installing over an old version for the
same reason. It's cheap insurance against unnecessary glitches that may be
hard to diagnose.

Many times when people come here complaining because of problems with a
particular game or app, they find others don't have the same symptoms and a
clean install cures the problem.

You can be as biased against ATI as you want, it's a free country. But your
failure to follow the installation directions sort of undermines your
argument that any hassles you might have experienced are due to bad drivers.

You can install the ATI drivers exactly the way you're used to installing
Nvidia drivers. A lot of people do, and don't have any trouble.

On the other hand, a lot of people uninstall old Nvidia drivers before
installing new ones for exactly the reasons I listed above. That's why there
are a number of third-party driver removal apps like Detonator Destroyer
around.

To each his own, but I don't think there are many people around who would
agree with you that upgrading from a Ti 4200 to a 9600 Pro is a bad move.

 

[D'n C]

Why should a modern video card driver require you to uninstall the old
version to install the new?

You don't have to do that with nVidia drivers, but then ATI was never
very good at writing software, drivers, etc.

Check the instructions included with nVidia drivers again. This is a direct
quote from them:

a.. Before installing new drivers make sure you uninstall all NVIDIA display
drivers from the Windows Control Panel. Browse to the Start Menu > Windows
Control Panel > Add/Remove Programs and search for "NVIDIA Windows Display
Drivers" or "NVIDIA Display Drivers" and select remove.

Sounds like you don't have a leg to stand on.

I made a huge mistake upgrading my Ti 4200 to a Radeon 9600 Pro,
that's two occasions now that I have been burned harshly by ATI, and
there will never be a third.

Maybe if you had followed instructions you would have had better luck.

D'n C

 

[John Schuler]

IMHO, neither company has the driver installation down completely, but Nvidia
at least has integrated drivers, while ATI forces me to upgrade piecemeal.

Before posters light their flamethrowers, let me state that I own a 9600 Pro
AIW, and love it.

But Nvidia has done a SUPERB job with their software and documentation, while I
give ATI a "D". There just isn't any comparison. For example, as far as I know,
the process to enable "clone" mode (dual monitors displaying the same thing)
isn't documented ANYWHERE by ATI. Their documentation smacks of being authored
by engineers. Bad idea.

On the plus side, I give ATI's tech support very high marks. I thought I had a
video card problem (it turned out to be the 2nd memory mobo slot) and I was
immediatly put in contact with VERY competent engineers. In fact, I would rate
the competency of their tech support as the best I've ever encountered.

 

[J.Clarke]

IMHO, neither company has the driver installation down completely, but
Nvidia at least has integrated drivers, while ATI forces me to upgrade
piecemeal.

Only if you don't have a fast enough connection to download the whole
package in one shot. Perhaps you're referring to multimdia center,
which is not a driver.

Before posters light their flamethrowers, let me state that I own a
9600 Pro AIW, and love it.

But Nvidia has done a SUPERB job with their software and
documentation, while I give ATI a "D". There just isn't any
comparison. For example, as far as I know, the process to enable
"clone" mode (dual monitors displaying the same thing) isn't
documented ANYWHERE by ATI. Their documentation smacks of being
authored by engineers. Bad idea.

On the little red "ATI" icon in the tray, right click, click "help",
click "ATI display", find "clone". Should also have been on the help
menu that appears right after you install the drivers that you probably
clicked off and never looked at again.

 

[PB]

IMHO, neither company has the driver installation down completely, but Nvidia
at least has integrated drivers, while ATI forces me to upgrade piecemeal.

/shrug

Never had a single problem installing or using an nVidia driver in the 4
years I used their cards, between the two times I used ATI boards. I have
yet to be impressed (annoyed, irritated, frustrated, and many other words
describe the effect more accurately) by an ATI driver. Both the drivers and
the documentation appear to be written by engineers, which we all know do
not speak the same language as mere mortals.