10 replies to this topic

[JDPower]

I'm considering installing the Omega drivers for my graphics card (as I do a little bit of online gaming) and wondered if anyone could tell me if it is worthwhile on a relatively low spec PC - ATI Mobility Radeon 7000 graphics card, 3Gb Pentium 4, 512Mb RAM.
Also I was told I should make sure I remove all traces of the original ATI drivers but I'm not really sure what I should do, so could someone give me a basic step by step guide on how to go about installing the Omega drivers please (and what to do beforehand)

Thanks.

[Eldmannen]

3Gb Pentium 4! OMG!

[Inu-Ya]

Your graphics card is a low-End card. Anyhow, it would not hurt. Omega does good. But first... Go here and run the ATI drivers clean up - Driver cleaner professional

*Others members may provide different and other App. such as the one I provided*

[Tarun]

ATI offers their own driver cleanup utility, I'd aim for that one.

[Inu-Ya]

Didn't know that. Where is it located on the main site?

[JDPower]

Eldmannen, on Mar 2 2006, 04:27 PM, said:

3Gb Pentium 4! OMG!

Whoops

Thanks for the replies. Is it just a case of uninstalling the drivers (in device manager), running the driver cleaner then installing the Omega drivers? Or is there more to it than that?

(BTW It seems the Omega drivers are the only way to update my graphics drivers now anyway. Emailed ATI to ask what drivers they recommend as there didn't seem to be any on their website for my graphics card. Got a reply today saying they no longer support laptops/notebooks )

[lokoike]

JDPower, on Mar 2 2006, 04:23 PM, said:

Got a reply today saying they no longer support laptops/notebooks )

Oh, well that's just fricken peachy!!!

[Inu-Ya]

The Omega drivers [Should] have your Inboard card listed in the drivers. Just Uninstall as you advised and then use Driver cleaner after words and... then install Omega drivers. Let me know if you run into problems

[JDPower]

lokoike, on Mar 3 2006, 07:38 AM, said:

Oh, well that's just fricken peachy!!!

Exactly what I was thinking

Inu-Ya, on Mar 3 2006, 03:01 PM, said:

The Omega drivers [Should] have your Inboard card listed in the drivers. Just Uninstall as you advised and then use Driver cleaner after words and... then install Omega drivers. Let me know if you run into problems

Thanks for that. I've never completely uninstalled drivers before replacing them, always just update/install over the top of the old ones, and thought it must have been more difficult than that

I'll let you know how I get on (hopefully problem free).

Cheers

[Inu-Ya]

Well, by going towards a different company who modded the drivers alittle. I'd say uninstall the ATI drivers completely and then move on from there. *Hope no problems come up*

[JDPower]

Inu-Ya, on Mar 3 2006, 10:28 PM, said:

*Hope no problems come up*

Oh well, problems did come up big style. Not with the drivers, in the end they installed without a problem, the Driver Cleaner program killed my computer. After running the cleaner I rebooted (as it said to do) and Windows crashed as soon as it started to load, wouldn't start up normally or in safe mode. Left me no choice but to do a complete reformat. And rather stupidly I thought I must have done something wrong so tried again making sure to follow the driver cleaner instructions exactly. And it happened again .
So started again, just removed the old drivers manually (using the ATI uninstall utility that was already on my comp), restarted, DIDN'T use Driver Cleaner, installed the Omega drivers and all was, and is, fine.

I'm pretty gutted cos I lost some important files that I haven't got backups of but thats a lesson learned I suppose

My question now is this - I'm pretty certain the ATI utility removed all traces of the actual drivers, but the Driver Cleaner instructions (and website) recommend running the 'cab cleaner' (though say its not essential).

Can anyone explain why this would be needed and what problems it may cause? I understand this has something to do with driver files in Windows>I386 folders and have read that the I386 folder isn't necessarily needed so would it be safe to delete it, or maybe just rename it?