Arg, it never ends! (Video Card Driver Problems...)

HemlockGrey · Post by **HemlockGrey** » 2005-06-16 12:15am

As those of you who follow my continuing tale of computer woe may know, I recently reformatted my HD to rid it of all these annoying slowdowns, glitches, and problems which I not otherwise resolve.

So I reinstalled Windows XP and reinstalled all my drivers from the CDs which came with my Dell Inspiron 600m, including the drivers for my Radeon 9000 graphics card. Then I downloaded and installed DirectX 9c. Then I reinstalled Sid Meier's Pirates! and proceeded to play it. I've never had any trouble running it before, apart from slowdowns which had begun to plague all my games shortly before I reformatted my HD.

Now, it runs through the opening cinametics, but when I actually get into the game, it freezes on the end of the last cinematic. I hear the sounds start to play, but the screen never makes the transition to the gameworld and the game locks up. I then am forced to reboot the computer, and am told that the Radeon driver is responsible for the problem. I went to the Radeon website and looked for their latest driver, all I found was this "Catalyst" thing which I tried to install only to find that it was "unable to find components that could be installed on your current hardware or software configuration" or something like that.

WTF is wrong? Why does this kind of stuff always happen to me?

Ace Pace · Post by **Ace Pace** » 2005-06-16 12:39am

Try this: download the latest Catalyst, uninstall your current drivers, restart, install new drivers,restart.

HemlockGrey · Post by **HemlockGrey** » 2005-06-16 01:14am

Well, the website says that the Catalyst thing is "only an update"; also, I never had those files before, and Pirates! ran fine.

Tiger Ace · Post by **Tiger Ace** » 2005-06-16 02:06am

Wait...your downloading..this?

HemlockGrey · Post by **HemlockGrey** » 2005-06-16 02:08am

Er, something similar. It was the only thing that came up when I tried to do a search for "Radeon drivers". I don't even think I should need updated drivers, since I ran Pirates! fine on the ones I got off the CD before I reformatted...

Tiger Ace · Post by **Tiger Ace** » 2005-06-16 02:12am

You should allways update drivers, they usually bring preformance improvements and bug fixs.

If your having serious problems with the new drivers, roll back to the original, then follow the path I gave on my 1st post here(as Pace) to install the newer drivers.

HemlockGrey · Post by **HemlockGrey** » 2005-06-16 02:16am

Well, I didn't even get to install the new drivers. I still have the ones I got off the disk, and nothing else.

HemlockGrey · Post by **HemlockGrey** » 2005-06-16 04:00am

FUCK. I tried that, and the goddamn new 8.14 driver from the Catalyst thing won't fucking install. FUCK this is starting to piss me off.

Ace Pace · Post by **Ace Pace** » 2005-06-16 08:38am

try This To check if you can even install the mobility drivers.