Are the drivers that come with video cards customized to that specific card? If they are, are they actually better for being made for that card? Or are they crap?
Most the drivers are customized to that specific line of cards. Like Nvidia cards all use the same drivers, and ATI cards all use the same drivers (unless of course you download some 3rd party ones).
Since around the time of the Catalyst 3 release, ATI drivers have been standardized for all cards from all manufacturers. The only differences you might see will be some logo changes, or a few manufacturers (such as Dell) having access to and releasing a mid-release driver, like in the case of the Cat 3.8 that was actually a hybrid between 3.8 and 3.9. Aside from that, ATI has standardized, instead of releasing seperate catalysts for "built-by" and "powered-by" products.
I think everyone is missing the point, it sounds like he is asking if the drivers you get with the cards when you buy them (i.e. the Driver CDs) are better than the manufacturers off their site.
Fudgam: The drivers that come with the cards aren't customised version of the drivers, they are just whatever the latest drivers were out for that card at the time. So if you bought an ATi card, it will just be an older version of the Catalysts, not a special driver or anything.
Wow, I was unaware you could use ATi drivers with other kinds of cards.
Er, thats not what I said. I said that the drivers you get on the driver CD with the card itself are just normally an old version of the drivers from the actual generic manufacturer (i.e. a Hercules or Gigabyte Radeon will just be using some old Catalysts with the resellers logo plastered all over it). So you are better off getting the drivers from the actual generic manufacturers site (which in this case would be ATi).
It's pretty obvious that ATi's drivers aren't going to work on the GeForce line of cards.
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Fudgam: The drivers that come with the cards aren't customised version of the drivers, they are just whatever the latest drivers were out for that card at the time. So if you bought an ATi card, it will just be an older version of the Catalysts, not a special driver or anything.
Er, thats not what I said. I said that the drivers you get on the driver CD with the card itself are just normally an old version of the drivers from the actual generic manufacturer (i.e. a Hercules or Gigabyte Radeon will just be using some old Catalysts with the resellers logo plastered all over it). So you are better off getting the drivers from the actual generic manufacturers site (which in this case would be ATi).
It's pretty obvious that ATi's drivers aren't going to work on the GeForce line of cards.