How do I update my video drivers?

[Moe]

This tutorial gives step-by-step instructions on how to update your video drivers.

Dawn of War and Company of Heroes support cards with either the ATI or the Nvidia chipset. ATI cards have the word "Radeon" in their name, such as "Radeon 9800 Pro" or "Radeon X800", while Nvidia cards are called "GeForce", for example "GeForce 8800GS".

If you're not sure which card you have, refer to the How do I find out which video card I have section.

The next two posts will tell you how to update your drivers depending on your type of card.

[Moe]

Updating drivers for Nvidia cards

1. Open your browser and go to the Nvidia homepage, which is located at http://www.nvidia.com (or simply click on this link).

The page will look something like this:
http://moe.hwcommunity.com/Pics/tutorials/nvidia1.jpg



2. Move your mouse over "Download drivers" in the upper navigation bar and click it. A little box with two sub-points will pop out.
http://moe.hwcommunity.com/Pics/tutorials/nvidia2.jpg
Click on "Download drivers".



3. You will now be taken to the main download page. Nvidia cards can be found in many different kinds of computers running all kinds of different software, so you'll have to specify which kind of driver you want. Don't worry, this is easy. This is how the page looks:
http://moe.hwcommunity.com/Pics/tutorials/nvidia3.jpg
The three boxes may be empty. Click anywhere inside the first box if it is empty, and a list of possible download types will appear. Since you want to download a graphics driver, click on "graphics driver".

Now a bunch of items will appear in the next box, asking you to specify which type of graphics card you have. Unless you have a GeForce 8800 series card,which is a very new one, or a GeForce Go 7 series card which is used in laptops (refer to the How do I find out which video card I have? section if you're not sure), you should select "GeForce and TNT2". The third box will now be filled with a list of possible operating systems from which you should choose yours. In most cases, this is Windows XP.

Finally, click on the "Go" button.



4. Pressing "Go" will take you to this page:
http://moe.hwcommunity.com/Pics/tutorials/nvidia4.jpg
which lets you decide from where you want to download your card. Just click the first link labelled "Primary download mirror".



5. You're almost done, all you have to do now is agree to the legal terms and conditions. Just click "I agree" at the bottom:
http://moe.hwcommunity.com/Pics/tutorials/nvidia5.jpg



6. Now your download should start. You can either save the driver to any convenient location on your hard drive, like your desktop for example, or simply select "open". Your browser may give you a security warning because you're trying to open an executable file, you can safely dismiss this warning and proceed though.
http://moe.hwcommunity.com/Pics/tutorials/nvidia6.jpg



7. Now you're ready to start installing the drivers. If you have saved the file you just downloaded somewhere, simply double-click on it. If you selected "open file" in your browser earlier it should start automatically.
http://moe.hwcommunity.com/Pics/tutorials/nvidia7.jpg
You will be greeted with the standard legal stuff. Select "I agree" and click "Next".



8. Just click "next" at this window, the location won't matter at all.
http://moe.hwcommunity.com/Pics/tutorials/nvidia8.jpg



9. The installation will now start. It may take a few minutes depending on the speed of your computer. If you are presented with any more choices in the following screens, just keep clicking "next".



10. The last step is rebooting your computer. All done, you now have the latest drivers installed!