ATI drivers question.

[KenM]

I have a nvidia card, thinking of upgrading. But have to upgrade to an ATI card. How hard are the ATI drivers to roll back if the ones you put on don't work? ATI just came out with beta 4.9 or something to help with Doom 3, but if they don't work good, I want to know how easy it its to go back to old ATI drivers.

 

[cybertalus]

I believe ATI keeps an archive of old driver versions available for download.

Though unless you're on XP I think ATI has stopped releasing new driver versions. Something about Microsoft not accepting certifcations for Windows ME any longer.

On XP I've only rolled back my drivers once (after downloading a set providied by Microsoft's Windows Update-- ugh VERY bad idea) and it was very simple, I just clicked on the button labelled "roll back driver". I think a reboot was required and I was back in business. Although creating a Restore Point before updating and rolling back to that should've worked just as well.

 

[KenM]

I have a 220 watt power supply, I was also thinking of getting a Nvidia card that says you need a 250 watt power supply. could that work?

 

[cybertalus]

I don't know, though obviously the safe answer is "no". Unless your case is too small to house a standard power supply, a new power supply shouldn't cost that much. A quick search on newegg revealed 250-watt P4-compatible power supplies costing betwen $15 and $68.

If you're not a DIY computer type, a local computer shop would probably sell you a mid-range 250-watt power supply and install it for less than $100. That may sound a tad expensive, but if you like and know nVidia cards it's probably worth it for the peace of mind of not having to switch to ATI.

Video cards are definitely the area where my computer knowledge is weakest, but if you ever plan to play games I would recommend avoiding the ATI Radeon 7500 All In Wonder, at least on XP. It's fine for non-game applications, but it crashes a lot on anything that uses full screen / Direct X. It gets better with each driver update, and DirectX 9 really helped, but if I game two hours a day I still expect to crash and reboot 1 to 2 times a week on average.

 

[KenM]

I think just to be safr I'll go woth the ATI card, don't want to damage anything.

 

[Krieg]

ATI used to have a lot of problems when it came to driver updates. Fortunately they fixed their problems and have been very good about keeping their drivers updated the last couple of years.

Rolling back the drivers is not a problem at all.

Regarding the 220w power supply working with the Nvidia card, it would really depend upon what else is in your system. If your CPU isnt too power hungry and you're not running a lot of accs, it would possibly work fine...but their isnt a whole lot of margin for error, and it would kill any chance of adding other boards, more drives etc.