Is it really necessary to always update video drivers?
Philippi_Child
Posts: 665
in The Commons
Is it always necessary to keep updating to the latest driver for DS? I read on these forums that some users still use older drivers. The driver I use was released bay in May of this year and I was wondering if it's a really old driver and I need to update.
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Comments
My philosophy is “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”
I only update when my software stops working with the current one (e.g. the introduction of dForce to DS needed an update for my video card)
Generally don't upgrade; if IRAY or a game requires it, then obviously try it. Drivers have a long tradition of breaking what was working just fine. Whilst there are often positive security considerations to upgrading, graphics drivers don't tend to have the same issue.
In the gaming world game patches frequently won't work if you're not up to date on your gpu driver as well. If you don't game then there is less reason to update drivers. But you should keep on eye out for driver updates that do improve things that do matter to you like iray.
A certain game keeps complaining that my graphic drivers are old. Iray works fine so does that game. I do not understand why it keeps complaining.
If you have windows setup to auto update, an update can change something that the old drivers depend on and they have to update also.
Video drivers may contain security updates so if you don't keep them up to date there is the potential your machine could be compromised.
Never set windows to auto update - at least not for graphic card drivers. Always use the drivers from your graphic card producer.
I don't update anything unless I absolutely have to. My newest updates for Photoshop CC won't install unless I update my pc to Windows10. Not happening. Ever. I have 10 on my laptop so if I feel the need to use something in the new updates, I will do it on my laptop.. I did have to update some video drivers for Dforce, but fortunately, it didn't break anything else.
Quite frequently, I've had games break from updating my video drivers. So I only do so when it's absolutely necessary to run a program I want to run, and when I do, I check whether I still have the instalation files for my current drivers, or whether I can still obtain them somewhere. Card manufacturers actually tend to have a "download previous drivers" feature hidden somewhere on their website, since they're fully aware that their drivers also tend to break stuff.
...I've been running on a driver from 2015 and no issues here. I tried an update and got frequent BSODs. Of course I am running older hardware and that might have something to do with it Nt ito gaming, just 3D.
Not what I meant at all.
OP,
I'm going against the grain here. While it's not always "neccessary", if you're not a 'Savvy Computer User', it's generally a good idea to keep your drivers updated as they become available. You don't need to be anal about this, but sometimes updating drivers make a big difference in the everyday aspects of using your computer.
When software updates are made, there is usually a readme article explaining the update. Take the time to look at it.
You have to remember that computers and the related software are an interactive experience. You have OS drivers, BIOS drivers, GPU drivers, CPU drivers, along with a host of individual software programs. Changes in one individual program can cause the need to update others. There are also often driver updates that deal solely with security exploits. Driver updates are often sent out to resolve problems with other programs.
Like someone else said, sometimes "If it ain't broke, don't fix it". But if your computer starts to do unusual things, updating drivers is a good place to start.
Actually, if you have a branded ready-made machine like Dell, HP, etc and you did not manually install a different GPU than it came with (i.e. if you didn't replace the included GPU with a GPU from EVGA or MSI or some other 3rd party vendor), get your driver updates from whoever made the machine, or from the 3rd party vendor if you did, as they usually make system-specific tweaks to various things for various reasons which might make drivers from Nvidia's site seem to malfunction.
And yeah, never let Windows Update do your GPU drivers. They're usually a few revisions behind and you may get stuck with an older driver than you already have.
But on the whole, if the GPU does what you want it to do, don't worry about driver updates unless it specifically references something you need, like OpenCL 1.5 support or OpenGL 9 or somesuch.
And I have never heard of being hacked through a display driver.
You can disable Driver Updates in Win 10 (at least in Pro, don't know about Home) in Local Group Policy Editor (gpedit.msc), Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > Windows Components > Windows Update
There are various ways to look at this and every way you can approach it is correct for somebody. It depends on what you need most. There’s no easy answer for this.
One thing I would point out is that Windows 8 has aged out of its mainstream support phase and currently MS is only offering security updates for this product. This is not really an optimal situation as there are no longer any “fixes” for issues that occur which are not security based. This also means that eventually any Windows 8 users are going to run into a situation where they may not be able to use newer versions of other software -as noted in a previous post referencing Adobe Photoshop. This will become the case for other countless other software products in the future if indeed it has not already.
Its really all about the trade offs and what is most important to the user.
in my case, I run Windows 10. I don’t really like some of how Microsoft handles things but in the areas of security and convenience it’s the best solution. It allows me to run the latest versions of software I find essential and I get regular operating system fixes and updates. I also immediately apply all security updates for my antivirus /firewall software and make sure to get my bios updates directly from the manufacturer of the motherboard. My vid card updates are gotten directly from Nvidia. Couple these things with a regular scheduled backup strategy and I have managed to avoid any serious issues other than hardware failure which WILL happen to everyone eventually in some form or another. Stuff breaks from time to time.