4870x2 driver question

[keithallenlaw]

Greetings. I'm still running driver v8.12. Are there any worthy updates.
I was just gonna leave well enough alone because of the big hassle
to upgrade.

The last time I upgraded I lost everything and had to re-install my
OS because the GPU driver cleaner I used took out more than my
video card drivers apparently. Never again. I'm just gonna install a
new version over the old one and take my chances.

Saphire is my card.

 

[chanchan]

Install the latest Catalyst drivers, the newer ones have improved CCC GUI and changed around some aspects.

Also, new drivers will contain fixes for any new bugs/issues.

 

[unrealsword]

9.8 cats have huge improvements in the crossfire department. Totally worth it to upgrade.

 

[keithallenlaw]

Thanks guys...and really, are driver cleaners necessary? The only one I've
ever had for my 4870x2 is v8.12 so I'm not too cluttered. I hear folks saying
there's no harm in stacking these. Dunno???

 

[unrealsword]

Nah not really. Installing over old version should be fine. CCleaner is good if your registry gets corrupt somehow however as installing over a corrupt registry often screws things even further.

 

[keithallenlaw]

LOL...Thats the one i used on my Vista Ultimate 64 and I guess with Vista
being so new at the time wasn't fully supported by CC and crashed my whole
rig. ARRRGG! Like I said, I'll take my chance this time and install over v8.12,
the only driver this OS has ever seen.

Nah not really. Installing over old version should be fine. CCleaner is good if your registry gets corrupt somehow however as installing over a corrupt registry often screws things even further.

 

[xxEIEIOxx]

I've had good luck with the 9.5 and the 9.8 on my 4870x2. The 9.4 and 9.7 sucked badly, at least on my machine. As the others have said, an over the top install should be fine. I sometimes use Driver Cleaner.NET but it's not necessary unless you are having a problem.

 

[chanchan]

Thanks guys...and really, are driver cleaners necessary? The only one I've
ever had for my 4870x2 is v8.12 so I'm not too cluttered. I hear folks saying
there's no harm in stacking these. Dunno???

Well you could always go to Control Panel, and uninstall all your existing ATI driver software, before installing the newest driver.

Sometimes, driver installations aren't 100% clean and fragments are left behind, so it's up to the end-user if they want a squeaky clean machine before installing the latest drivers or not.

Personally, I've never even bothered with uninstalling drivers when installing new ones, for the most part I haven't ran into many problems. Then again you can never be to safe

 

[WozniakMac]

I have 2 4870x2's and I am using 9.8. I always use driver cleaner. I just want to make sure that all of the files are out of my system, and that there are no older variances of the previous driver left on my system. Also, I am on Windows 7 and it is leaps and bounds better than Vista 64 as far as performance goes.

 

[keithallenlaw]

Its time for W7. Thanks.

 

[RADEoN]

I have 2 4870x2's and I am using 9.8. I always use driver cleaner. I just want to make sure that all of the files are out of my system, and that there are no older variances of the previous driver left on my system. Also, I am on Windows 7 and it is leaps and bounds better than Vista 64 as far as performance goes.

So if ATi's catalyst installer overwrites a file, that's not OK, you'd much rather have a scenario like I did where I had to reformat because Driver Sweeper deleted files that windows needed to re-install catalyst. When that happens, you have to format. Formatting is the best way to make sure you don't have traces of old drivers left.

And Windows 7 may have a slight edge over vista in gaming, but not "leaps and bounds"

 

[kn00tcn]

i install (catalysts) overtop, no cleaning no uninstalling drivers

the need to update depends on the games (but when why would you have an x2 if you're not playing new/demanding/bug fixed games)