Video Cards and Drivers -PT 2

So how can you find out if your drivers need to be updated? Fortunately there is an easy way get all the necessary information First, go to Start then Run in Windows XP. For Vista type the Start key and the letter R at the same time. Type dxdiag into the run command line and click OK. If you get a Yes or No pop-up window just click Yes. Once the DirectX Diagnostic Tools window opens you will see several tabs across the top. The System tab will give you information about your PC's Processor and System RAM. On the Display or Display 1 tab you will find the Name of the video card and the Approximate Total Mmemory in the left column. In the right column you will find the DATE of the driver that is currently installed. The date of the driver is important because it tells us what release of DirectX 9 the video card is operating under.

Example: If the date of the video driver is 5/13/06 and the software is using DirectX 9 instructions released in February of 07, then the Video card is not going to be able to process all the information.

So how can you update the drivers for your video card? For desktop PC's you simply need to go the the home page of the Video Card manufacturer's web site. It will most likely be NVIDIA or ATI if you have a dual head VGA card. Those you you who are using laptops will need to get the latest available drivers from your laptop manufacturer not the video card maker. For example; Dell laptop owners can go to the Drivers support page and enter the Service Tag number found on the bottom of their laptops. Once they enter the number they will get a list of all available updates for their computer. The Video Adapter will be last on the list and all updates for your video card will be listed with their release date. Most laptop manufacturers have a similar process for finding the drivers for your specific model.

What if my drivers are out of date and the manufacturer does not offer anything recent? Then you need to read the next post about getting "modified" drivers.