Your operating system gets updated, your games get updates, and whether you like it or not,
your graphics card needs YOU to make sure its drivers are up to date. Let’s talk about why
that’s so important and then I’ll show you how to get those updates for your graphics card.
Whether you’re on team red or team green, I’ve got you covered.
Every operating system gets regular updates that improve their stability as
well as improve overall performance. That update treatment doesn’t stop at the operating system,
everything down the stack receives software updates,including your game launchers. And
while we’re at that level, your games get regular updates too... and it always seems to be
right when you have just enough time to get in a quick round of Call Of Duty or Rocket League.
Not only do all of these get regular software updates, but you also have new games coming out.
A recent one that comes to mind is Guardians of the Galaxy (a
great game by the way if you’re a fan of adventure brawlers.)
With those updates and new games comes the need to update your graphics card driver.
Most of the time these driver updates are designed to address stability issues,
but occasionally you’ll be treated to major driver updates that will boost
performance in a lot of games, or add new features to existing graphics cards.
But if you’re unsure of how to go about the whole process then I’m about to walk you through it
for both AMD Radeon and Nvidia GeForce graphics cards driver installation and update procedures.
In the red corner, we have the AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT and it’s time to get this puppy upgraded.
Assuming I’ve never updated drivers before, let’s head straight to AMD.com for the goods.
Once there you’ll find the Divers & Support tab at the top of the page, hit that. Now you’ll see
a couple of options.There’s an auto-detect option but you’re going to want to skip that because you
know what graphics card you’re running and you want no-fluff. If you aren’t sure of which card
you have, then go ahead with auto-detect. But I do, so we’ll keep going this route.
Okay, The next section down is where you’re wanting to be. There are a few options here and
since we’re updating the drivers for the Radeon RX 6800 XT we want to select “Graphics” and then “AMD
Radeon 6000 Series.” That’ll bring up the next options, where we’ll select the “AMD Radeon 6800
Series.” Now obviously you’ll be selecting the options that match your graphics card,
the RX 6800 XT is just what we’re using for this example. Once you’ve done this, hit ‘Submit’.
Okay, more options, great. From here you’ll select your operating system. For me, it’s still Windows
10 64-Bit Edition. Uh oh, more options. Which do you go with? Optional? Recommended? Pro? This is
going to be a personal choice here, but if you’re just gaming then skip the “Pro” option and go
for one of the others. Recommended is the WHQL version of the driver signed off on by Windows
and is the ‘official’ driver if you will. The ‘Optional’ driver is what used to be referred
to as the BETA driver. It’s not certified but typically has the latest bug fixes
and game patches in it. For this example, we’ll be playing it safe with the recommended,
but note that if you’re buying a hot new game on day one, you’ll often need to snag AMD’s
optional driver for bleeding-edge performance optimizations Now it’s time to download.
Once it’s downloaded simply run the installer to select its install path.
Default is fine here, no need to reinvent the wheel. Past this point, AMD will give
you several additional options unless you want to just forge ahead. By default, the driver
package will install the full suite where you’ll get all of the features from Radeon Software.
A Minimal Install is where you’ll get the driver plus the basic features of Radeon Software, while
a Driver Only version has, you guessed it, the driver only and nothing else.
We’re going ahead with the full install. This process only takes a couple of minutes, more
or less, depending on the overall speed of your computer. Once it’s done, simply hit the restart
button, or just go ahead and restart anyway just to be on the safe side. Aaaand, now you’re done.
Now that you have Radeon Software installed, all you need to do in order to update again is
to head into the Radeon Settings by right-clicking the desktop and selecting it. Once you’re in,
head to the settings tab via the cog on the right and BAM just check for updates there and you’re
golden. Radeon Software will also alert you when new drivers are available for install,
assuming you didn’t go the driver-only route. That’s it for AMD.
Now in the green corner, we have the Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080!
Once again assuming I’ve never updated drivers, getting this one going isn’t much different off
the start. We’re going to start this one off at GeForce.com. You can go one of two paths here:
you can install GeForce Experience and let it get the latest driver for you,
or you can head to the ‘Drivers’ tab like we’re going to do and get everything from there and you
decide later if we want to sign in and use GeForce Experience. So, to the ‘Drivers’ tab we go.
There is an option for Automatic or Manual. Manual is going to be my route,
but if you aren’t sure of which card you have hit auto. For manual, here are a series of
drop-down menus and thankfully we’re using a GeForce product, and we’re on Windows 10,
and speaking English, so no need to adjust those options. We aren’t using an RTX 3000
Series laptop, so we’re going to need to change that. Since we’re using an RTX 3080 desktop card
we’re going to change the ‘Product Series’ to the GeForce RTX 30 Series, then under
the ‘Product’ to GeForce RTX 3080. If you’re not using an RTX 3080 then make sure you’re choosing
the Series and Model for what you have, the process is the exact same regardless.
Once you’ve got it selected, hit the ‘Start Search’ button and you’ll be greeted by the
results just below there. Scroll on down and you’ll see a list of WHQL drivers
and their release dates. You’ll see two types of drivers, however, ‘GeForce Game Ready Driver’ and
‘Nvidia Studio Driver.’ The rule of thumb here is simple: gamers want ‘Game Ready’
and content creators likely want ‘Studio’, I do both, but for today I’m more worried about gaming
performance soI’m going with ‘Game Ready’ and hitting the ‘Get Download’ on the newest driver.
That takes you to that driver’s page where you can soak in the release highlights and
supported GPUs. There’s also a link to the release notes in case you want to check out known issues.
Okay, let’s get that puppy downloaded. Once downloaded the install will begin
and you’ll select the install path, and I’m going to leave this one on default.
But once it’s unpacked the first choice you’ll make is whether you want just the driver
or the driver and GeForce Experience. I want the total package and don’t mind logging into
an account with GeForce Experience, so I’m going that route for this guide.
If you don’t want to log in or have issues with that then feel free to go the driver-only route.
Then you have the options to go ‘express’ or ‘custom’ on the install.
‘Express’ just goes right on through with default options but ‘Custom’ will give you the option for
a clean install. This can be useful if you’ve recently experienced issues during an install as
it can wipe out all setting changes in the system and let the drivers go in as clean as possible.
We’re continuing on with ‘Express’ for this guide.
Now, sit back and let the installer do its thing, once it’s done so are you.
Now, if you want to update again and didn’t install GeForce Experience, then just rinse
and repeat these steps, but if you did install GeForce Experience then updating your drivers
from here is super easy. Just open up GeForce Experience and click the drivers’ tab. If you have
the latest it’ll tell you, if you don’t it’ll give you the option right there to download and update.
Similar to Radeon Software, if you have GFE installed, it will provide
a pop-up telling you when new drivers are available in the future. And, you’re done.
Well folks, at this point you are now armed with the knowledge
of not only why you and your friends need to update your drivers for your graphics cards,
but also how to go about doing so in the proper manner. I get it,
Windows does do a good job making sure when you slap in a new graphics card that things work,
but I can assure you it isn’t optimal, so you NEED to update them yourselves to stay on point.
Maybe you know all this already and just wanted to see if I messed up, that’s fair.
But I can assure you that at some point you’re going to have a friend new to the PC game.
They’re not going to know what to do and you’re not going to feel like holding their hand,
so let me. Feel free to shoot them this video. It’s time-stamped so you can send
them right to the right section depending on whether they’re using Radeon or GeForce.
Either way, I hope you all got something out
of today’s video. If you did let me know by hitting that thumbs up button
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