Question About Video Card/Drivers

**Legio XX Valeria Victrix** · January 08, 2007, 01:14 AM

Hello,

First off, I have an ATI Radeon 9800 Pro.

I was recently having some trouble with my video card. Namely, I followed directions for tweaking my card in this thread:http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=69555

Once I did this, I had some severe problems with older games. RTW had major graphical problems, CoD2 had an unplayable FPS drop, FEAR had an FPS drop, and NHL 2006 was also unplayable due to graphical errors, to name a few.

I have since discovered that it was the new ATI drivers that were causing the problem. I discovered this by accidentally reverting to August 2003 drivers in my Device Manager. Problem solved (in RTW anyways). Updated to newest drivers, and the problem recurred.

So, basically, what I'm asking is, what happens if I revert to 2003 drivers? Will it make my newer games run slower/not at all? Is there any way to get drivers just prior to those that caused the problems, for instance a list of them by date of release?

**Spart** · January 08, 2007, 02:59 AM

Not a huge difference, although I wonder why the new drivers don't work. Maybe some conflict with other drivers? Have you totally cleaned your old drivers before installing new ones? Well, I don't know...
You might try Omega drivers too, I had a little performance increase with them and not any problems..
http://www.omegadrivers.net/

**Legio XX Valeria Victrix** · January 08, 2007, 01:35 PM

Thanks for responding.

Total noob question, but how does one clean out the old drivers?

**Spart** · January 09, 2007, 11:34 AM

From the control panel's "add or remove applications" or something like that (don't have the english version Windows :p).
Just to make sure, you might use driver cleaner after that.

**Legio XX Valeria Victrix** · January 09, 2007, 03:02 PM

Originally Posted by Spartacus(FIN)

From the control panel's "add or remove applications" or something like that (don't have the english version Windows :p).
Just to make sure, you might use driver cleaner after that.

Ok, thanks again!

I uninstalled the driver and followed all the instructions through Driver Cleaner. A question about that, though: if I clean the old files in Driver Cleaner but nothing has to be removed from my Recycling Bin, has anything actually been deleted? I ran it several times, and I never had to remove anything from my Recycle Bin, as it says in the instructions.

Haven't tested anything yet, will see if it fixed anything.

EDIT: It seems that it fixed some problems but not others. RTW is still screwed, but CoD2 and NHL06 work fine. Bizarre...

**belson** · January 09, 2007, 06:04 PM

The step that says to empty the recycling bin is kind of an insurance step. Sometimes I've had stuff in there, sometimes not, but I do it all the same.

As far as the other stuff goes, now you only have a problem in RTW? That is interesting . . . what exactly is the problem?

**Legio XX Valeria Victrix** · January 10, 2007, 10:52 AM

Originally Posted by belson

The step that says to empty the recycling bin is kind of an insurance step. Sometimes I've had stuff in there, sometimes not, but I do it all the same.

As far as the other stuff goes, now you only have a problem in RTW? That is interesting . . . what exactly is the problem?

The problem is that I have major graphical errors right at the loading screen, and it only gets worse from there. Basically, during loading, the whole bottom half of the screen is distorted and weird colors. Then, during menu and play, its constantly flickering and distorting the entire screen.

Here's an example of the menu screen:

It doesn't stay like that always, but it flickers with a very high rate of rapidity.

**Hadrian** · January 09, 2007, 08:49 PM

Originally Posted by Legio XX Valeria Victrix

So, basically, what I'm asking is, what happens if I revert to 2003 drivers? Will it make my newer games run slower/not at all? Is there any way to get drivers just prior to those that caused the problems, for instance a list of them by date of release?

Legio XX,

The ATI Radeon 9800 Pro is definately one of your older video card, and the drivers for those cards are well established. Generally, after about 6-9 months, a year max, the driver's for a video card will be about as good as they are going to get. Don't change drivers after that time, especially for older cards, unless you start to experiencing problems with new games, as the game designers will have already taken into account the mature nature of the drivers for older cards. Some times a game will be configured in a way where you have no choice but to upgrade to the newest drivers, but then, that's normally a sign that your video card's nearing the end of the line, ie becoming out dated!
I have nVidia 7900GTX's and the drivers for my cards are mature. My video cards hit the market in Feb 06, and by Sept/Oct 06 the drivers for the 7900GTX's were about as good as they are going to get. I don't even watch the driver upgrades for them anymore because any drivers past those released in Sept/Oct are only going to make my cards perform worse....
Hope this helps and comforts you, reverting back to the correct drivers was the right move. Most of Robin's advice was for new/modern cards.

**belson** · January 10, 2007, 12:01 PM

Please forgive me if I am mistaken, but these problems started when you 'tweaked' your card, not when you updated the drivers right? So I would untweak the card. It seems to me that new, untweaked drivers would be better than old, tweaked drivers.

But if you prefer, theres nothing wrong with using old drivers that are proven to work. You may encounter problems in the future, but then again you may not.

**Legio XX Valeria Victrix** · January 10, 2007, 10:23 PM

Originally Posted by belson

Please forgive me if I am mistaken, but these problems started when you 'tweaked' your card, not when you updated the drivers right? So I would untweak the card. It seems to me that new, untweaked drivers would be better than old, tweaked drivers.

But if you prefer, theres nothing wrong with using old drivers that are proven to work. You may encounter problems in the future, but then again you may not.

Well, that's actually part of the problem. I updated drivers at the same time as I did the tweaking. Since then I've uninstalled and reinstalled new drivers more times than I care to ever again, lol.

All I know is that when I revert to August 2003 drivers, RTW works fine (but other games don't...), but when I have a newer driver (I've gone back at least 3 or 4, they all don't work) RTW does not work.

Thanks for replying!