Drivers

starixiom wrote on 6/17/2003, 9:44 PM
What is the protocal with regards to updating drivers? Should you use Windows XP, The updated company Drivers found on the website, or Manufactures latest drivers (ie. Nvidia, ATI)?

I know with firewire cards you let Windows XP install its drivers instead of the drivers that are shipped.

I have a geforce3 VIO by Abit and a Quadro2. I dont know whether to use the updated drivers on Abit's site, Updated drivers on Nvidias site. or another source?

Comments

BillyBoy wrote on 6/17/2003, 10:11 PM
I generally go the ''if it ain't broke, don't try to fix it route' most of time. So start with the drivers that come with the product. Only if you have problems go looking for a later version.

While you'll find the latest drivers on the company's web site, they could as buggy as hell. Nothing beats real world testing. I rather have the other guy be the tester.

Today, Microsoft itests many drivers, the so-called "signed" version, meaning Microsoft supposedly tested them real good. The problem with that is its Microsoft doing the testing. Kind of like the fox guarding the chicken coop.

I think you can get in the most trouble updating BIOS. Don't unless you have a reason, otherwise that new BIOS may not even boot your PC or it can hang mid install and then for sure you're screwed. Updating BIOS is 'risky business" Not something you should do, only to get the latest and greatest features.

Updating your video card's drivers is a good thing, more people SHOULD do. At least check every six months or so and be sure to read what's new. If you don't need the feature and your system is stable, no real reason to upgrade. Video drivers are one of the top causes of odd/weird/unexplained hangs and lockups.
hugoharris wrote on 6/17/2003, 10:27 PM
I couldn't agree more with BillyBoy's "don't fix it" comment. My system is quite stable, but I decided to update to the latest M-Audio driver for my sound card when it passed beta testing recently; I thought I might be able to fine tune the performance of my apps, especially Cubase SX. Instead, Cubase SX stuttered away like it was on its death bed, and then XP crashed, and it took 2 hours to sort the mess out (at least system restore worked). Yikes.

Kevin.
TheHappyFriar wrote on 6/17/2003, 11:33 PM
I have an ATI Radeon card. Last year sometime they released drivers that didn't work for 99% of the programs out there (there were posts on this forum about it!). If you do update, keep the old drivers. I burn a CD every month or two of stuff i've downloaded. I have almost every driver for every piece of hardware I own for the past 2-3 years! :)

oh, as for which drivers to download, download the ABit ones. The NVidia ones will work, but the ABit ones are specificly for your card, and the nvidia ones wouldn't support any extras abit added to it.
adihead wrote on 6/18/2003, 10:20 AM
may be useful information for someone: i read somewhere that when updating drivers, windows xp pro saves the previous driver somewhere, so if you regret updating, you can always go back to the older version.

question regarding tweaking pc: are the various suggested teaks good for all editing platforms or are there tweaks that work better with premiere, tweaks that work better with vegas, tweaks that work better with xpress dv, and so on? i started reading through the videoguys tweak suggestions and realized that the author was running premiere.
mikkie wrote on 6/18/2003, 12:10 PM
FWIW and all that...

Many times newer drivers, such as with ati, feature increases in performance. Not updateing in those situations wouldn't cause a prob., but wouldn't be getting all there was to get out of whatever hardware. This is especially true of something like the Creative Audigy1/2 cards.

On the other hand, it's true that something could break, as often because of other, poorly written code on your machine, but regardless, what matters is something may break. When/if that does happen, XP pro has driver rollback, saves copies of older drivers, & you can always set a restore point, or simply install the older version of the driver again. So a matter of preference I guess. To the addage: "if it aint broke, don't fix it", I'd reply that if everyone felt that way, well, the Model T did pretty well in it's time...

When it comes to drivers and where to get them, it can become confusing. You have the chip (& board?) maker whom might release reference drivers. In many cases this is the way to go as the people putting their brand on the box often don't bother to update their version of the drivers, sometimes ever. Other times you might find that the branded drivers enable or contain extra features. Just asked, and it seems most users stick with the reference drivers rather then Abit's in your case FWIW.

When MS offers drivers, above and beyond the standard USB/firewire sort of stuff, they rely on what the manufacturer wants to give them, and so its often incomplete comparred to whatever the manufacturer offers. Great examples include sound cards, scanners, cameras etc... When MS has a driver update on the other hand, it's usually to fix something with the original driver that causes prob with whatever MS software. Personaly I'll install the MS update in this case, then update with the manufacturer's drivers, so any windows related file updates get done.

"are the various suggested teaks good for all editing platforms or are there tweaks that work better with premiere, tweaks that work better with vegas, tweaks that work better with xpress dv, and so on?"

I *Think* in general that whatever makes windows work better for video editing benefits all NLEs, so probably won't go too far afield otimizing for Prem and using Vegas. That said, someone may have found ways to tweak specifically for whatever prog., so it never hurts to ask, search, and try - can always test and go back.