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Latest Graphic Card drivers on old cards. Worth it?

Forum Graphic & Displays : Graphics Cards - Latest Graphic Card drivers on old cards. Worth it?

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ghostwalker   08-09-2006 at 05:55:08 PM

Basically I have a Ati 9600 pro. I was just looking at a few things on the net the other day when I noticed that the next version of Catalyst is out, version 6.7 and I said to myself "I wonder if I actually get any improvement in the games I play as I have an old card". So, would I? Do the latest drivers just have updates for the latest cards? Is it worth me still keeping my graphics card drivers in the most up-to-date version?

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Slava   08-09-2006 at 05:57:03 PM
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Read driver release notes and see if there are any improvements for your card. Most likely there are none to write home about but it will not hurt to check to be sure.

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Silver Graphics badge TheGreatGrapeApe   08-09-2006 at 05:57:25 PM
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The R9600P would likely benifit from some updates in the drivers.

Really it's only the R8500/9000/9100/9200 that are better served by older drivers.

However if everything is working and you aren't playing new games that you experience new issues in, then stick with the old drivers, newer drivers bring marginal boosts.

Some exceptions are games like FartCry where recent drivers have derived good boosts in the older cards.

EDIT Oooops typo.

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Gary_Busey   08-09-2006 at 06:06:17 PM
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Be careful though, I tried updating my old 9600 when I had it and couldn't use any drivers past 5.1. Upon restart of instally anything above 5.1, I'd get a fuzzy colored screen and couldn't see anything. Was probably something wrong with the card or my system, but still, if you're content with your card's performance and there's no technical problems, then there's really no need to update.

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Silver Graphics badge TheGreatGrapeApe   08-09-2006 at 06:23:44 PM
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That reminds me of my Fasywrites issue, where the drivers were made for the latest chipset/bios version of my mobo, but I hadn't kept those as up to date as my video drivers. Got massive corruption on Boot, but once I updated my MoBo I was good as gold again.

I used that R9600 into the Cat 6.1 generation, no problem, then I gave it away so can't check anymore.

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Gary_Busey   08-09-2006 at 06:33:17 PM
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Actually, I think it was a Fastwrites issue because I remember seeing a Fastwrites option that mentioned something about 9600's.

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