Hi

Occasionally I receive a message from Nvidia to say there is a "driver update" available.

If I'm not experiencing any problems, do I need the update ??

AND if I do go for it, will all that's required be updated automatically or will I be expected to do stuff manually ??

Thanks in advance for any advice.

Cheers.

Mad

Hi Mad,

I receive the driver update notifications also.

They are not crucial -- but they cover updates and so forth for the most recent games out on the market.

If you are not playing any of the most recent games, then I wouldn't worry so much about it. If, on the other hand, you're playing lots of recently released games that call for higher-end graphics, then updating as they suggest would be a good idea.

The updates will pop up every so often and automatically, so it shouldn't ever be a procedure that you should need to do manually.

Hope that helps!

Hi Rushes

Thank you very much for your advice

I don't play the type of game I think you mean so I won't bother with any driver updating - certainly for now, anyway.

As for the future ?? Who knows WHAT I might get upto !!

Cheers.

Mad

The updates could also be fixing a problem brought to Nvidia's attention. If Nvidia is like Windows, each update relies on a previous update, so if you don't update now, it could be you'd have to go through a succession of updates in order to bring the drivers up to date. Something also to keep in mind, should you ever experience display problems one of the first things that will be asked is if the computer drivers are up to date. You will then have to update the drivers in order to rule out driver problems. It's much easier to keep drivers up to date then having to figure out how to update drivers when a problem arises.

Even if the updates don't relate to me, I do them for that reason, Homer6.

So if I click to update, do I have to manually uninstall my current driver before I go for the new one ??

Or do I just click on the new one and everything will be done automatically ??

And is installing a new driver whilst I'm in the middle of playing any games likely to cause problems with the games ??

As you can tell, I haven't ever updated any drivers on any of my computers in all the years I've been computing.
[I have always been too nervous in case I wrecked something ]
But, happily, I've never encountered any problems, either, from not updating.

Like Rushes said...

I don't update video drivers unless I'm having a graphics problem with a game. After all, the new drivers might fix one problem but cause another. But when I do update drivers, I always get them from the manufacturer's website. I don't let Windows do it.

With an Nvidia card, I'd go to
http://www.nvidia.com/Download/index.aspx?lang=en-us


I've never had graphic drivers that depended on having installed previous graphic drivers. Is that a new thing that you've encountered? I've never encountered a graphics driver that was an incremental update.
In fact, in the past I've often had to completely remove the old graphics drivers before installing the new ones -- a procedure recommended on the ATI or Nvidia website.

I don't know for sure, but some of the Nvidia drivers do seem to be incremental. Most of the time they are very small and just address a couple of things. It's been a long time since I had to install a completely new driver which involved removing the old one first.

Mostly what I do is what Nvidia recommends. Mad, every time I've done it, it's been completely automatic. But I wouldn't do it in the middle of a game.

Hi Jenny100 and Draclvr

Thank you both very much for your responses.

I've decided I will carry on with what I have - unless or until I might actually experience any graphics problems.

And if I do experience any, I'll ask my Son-in-Law to visit as I am a total coward as regards techie fiddling.

[And I definitely class manually uninstalling drivers as techie fiddling !!]

Cheers.

Mad

Sounds like a very good plan to me!

Jenny, like Drac, I don't know for sure if NVIDA drivers rely on past updates. But I error on the side of caution and keep NVIDA drivers up to date. So far, none of the updates have caused subsequent problems of any kind.

IMO "erring on the side of caution" means "if it ain't broke, don't fix it."

My newest Nvidia card is over two years old now. But it's good to know Nvidia is doing "incremental updates" instead of full ones. But I imagine it would be a much worse problem if your drivers somehow got corrupt -- you'd have to find which version of the drivers to start with, then all the incremental updates since then. You could probably figure out which drivers were "full" by the size of the download.

"IMO "erring on the side of caution" means "if it ain't broke, don't fix it."

That's my opinion too .... And over the many "computer" years it has proved to be a good maxim !!

But then I am influenced by the fact that I'm a coward when it comes to possibly having to mess with anything "techie"