Installation of drivers

[mikeck]

Guys,
I have an athlon radeon Card. Running windows 7 64 but and I want to update to some new beta drivers. When I run the windows updated it tries to tell me my drivers are up to date...they are from 2011 so they clearly are not . Anyway, after I download the drivers from AMD support, do I have to uninstall my current drivers or just go ahead and install the new ones? I know you used to have to uninstall first but remember not doing that last time.

Edit: on a similar note, if I install a new radeon card, do I need to uninstall drivers or just pull out the old card, put in the new one and download the latest drivers (the drivers are likely the same for both actually)

[Staggerwing]

For upgrading the drivers on your old card I suggest using whatever utility that ATI offers. IIRC you can actually run it right from their web site. For a new card I usually download the installer to desktop or other easily accessible location and then remove all the drivers. I shut down the rig, swap the card, boot up into default resolution, then find the installer and run it.

[mikeck]

Ok. The new card will use the same drivers I think. Going from 6000 series to 7000 series

[mikeck]

For upgrading the drivers on your old card I suggest using whatever utility that ATI offers. IIRC you can actually run it right from their web site. For a new card I usually download the installer to desktop or other easily accessible location and then remove all the drivers. I shut down the rig, swap the card, boot up into default resolution, then find the installer and run it.

When you say "installer", do you mean the utility program or the actual driver exe (the latter should identify the correct place to go on its own right?)

[Staggerwing]

The downloadable install program. Just check the download page for instructions. Sometimes you can choose between one that installs just the basic drivers and one that also includes a graphics management program which lets you do things like adjust video options such as monitor types or screen alignment, among other things.

[mikeck]

Ok, thanks

[GDS_Starfury]

Ive owned nothing but ATI cards and I let the installer overwrite whatevers there already.  Ive never had a problem.
if Im reformatting I'll get whatever the latest drivers they have and use that as the baseline.  IIRC though always select custom install so you can uncheck the occasional fluff that they add.  for a year or 2 it was the WoW demo.  now its probably google chrome.  ::)

[Staggerwing]

^Good advice about custom install. Sometimes you get some POS 'toolbar' added to your browsers that messes up things.