Video Card Upgrade
An Install Guide On How To Upgrade Your Own Video Card

Video Card Upgrade Install Guide

Video Card Reference Drivers

Reference video card drivers. This is optional since any retail boxed video card will come with drivers on a CD-ROM that should work just fine. But it's widely practiced to use the reference drivers and that's what I do.

The latest ATI reference drivers (referred to as CATALYST drivers) can be downloaded from directly from ATI. Once there, find the right drivers by first clicking on "Download Drivers". Then select your operating system in the first selection window ("Windows 98" in my case), then select "Graphic Driver" in the second selection windows, and then select "RADEON Family" in the third selection window. Since I have the "All In Wonder" version of the card, I'll include WDM Capture in my download as well as the Display Driver and the Control Panel.

The latest NVIDIA reference drivers can be downloaded directly from NVIDIA. Once there, find the right drivers by first clicking on "Download Drivers". Then select "Graphics Driver" in the first selection window, "GeForce and TNT2" in the second selection window, and your operating system in the third selection window.

It's fine to retrieve additional, prior versions of the reference drivers in case the first one does not work out, meaning it won't install without errors or it doesn't pass muster when the tests are run. It's also true that some people enjoy trying different versions of the reference video drivers and comparing how well each one does against the Futuremark benchmark programs.

The CATALYST driver I retrieved is CATALYST 3.9. It consists of three files totaling over 25MB in size. The files are the WDM capture driver, the video card driver and the Control Panel. Again, make sure you retrieve the drivers corresponding to your operating system. For now, the three files can just be saved onto the computer. They will be used later during the installation process..

Driver Uninstaller. This utility ensures that the driver for the existing video card is completely removed. If the video card being removed from the computer is NVIDIA based then use Driver Cleaner. If the video card being removed from the computer is ATI based then user CATALYST Uninstaller. Download the file containing the appropriate utility, but do not execute it at this time. It will be executed later. The download for DriverCleaner is a "zip" file. If the video card being removed from the computer is NVIDIA based then double-click on it now to decompress the contents and extract the files within, one of which is named "Readme.txt". This file contains the step-by-step instructions for using DriverCleaner. These steps will be done later.




Skip Ahead
  How To Update Your Own Computer Video Card - Home
  What You Need For A Video Card Upgrade
  The Video Card
  Tools
  DirectX
  Hard Drive Restore Utility
  Benchmark Utility
  Reference Video Card Drivers
  Motherboard/Chipset AGP Drivers
  Tour The Existing System Settings
  Things To Know Before You Start
  Enable AGP
  Windows 98 Steps To Remove The Old Video Card Driver
  Change Display Adapter
  Search For Updated Drivers
  Standard VGA Driver
  Install Standard VGA Driver
  Windows XP Steps To Remove The Old Video Card Driver
  How To Remove The Video Card Driver
  Installing The New Video Card
  Finding The Old Video Card
  Remove The Old Video Card
  Insert The New Video Card
  Windows 98 Steps To Add The New Video Card Driver
  Windows XP Steps To Add The New Video Card Driver
  After The Video Card Upgrade
  Tour The New System Settings
  Control Panel Display Properties
  Video Card Driver Settings
  Video Card Diagnostics And Tests
  DXDIAG - DirectX Diagnostics And Tests
  Benchmarks
  Boot Up Tests
  Troubleshooting Video Card Problems
  Advanced Topics
  Overclocking
  Tweaking Video Card Driver Settings
  Windows 2000/XP Monitor Refresh Rate Problem

© 2001-2015, Rob Williams, all rights reserved.
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