The video card act as a mediator between the video application and the monitor. As such it is responsible for displaying the video picture, decoded from the format in use. Be it mp4, avi or mpg, your monitor depends on the functionality of the drivers in order to decipher the code. When your video card ceases to function altogether it is all too obvious that you need to upgrade your video driver. But not all corrupt drivers manifest themselves in such an extreme way. Sometimes high definition movies will display as low resolution or otherwise falter in displaying the video sequence. This is a more common sign of an updated driver.
While many problems can be fixed by proper installation of the card, this article discusses software, not hardware problems. Whether your card has not been inserted properly, your system has corrupt slots, or improper power usage, this is not the scope of this article.
Video drivers keep being updated and improved by their respective manufacturers (like AMD) in an attempt to meet up with the new imams presented by the market and evolving technologies. As a result you might need to upgrade your driver several times a year just to keep up with new developments online. In most cases your video card drivers are already outdated when you first purchase and install the card, as it has been laying around in the store for a few months, thus rendering the drivers already obsolete (technology waits for no one).
The process for checking down your updated drivers is pretty much similar regardless of the hardware device that needs to be updated. Video card drivers are no different in that respect from any other drivers on your computer. You might want to browse your manufacturer's website (for example: NVIDIA) and try to look at the driver manually. This way you're sure to have the correct driver and the most updated one. Utilizing Windows device manager is quite pointless in this respect, as it hardly ever identifies outdated video card drivers, let alone is it able to successfully download them. Utilizing an automatic driver downloader software might be the most comfortable and easiest way to go about it, should you be willing to invest the 20+- dollars for that purpose. You might also try the Windows Aero Troubleshooter
Video card drivers can also be tracked down by submitting search engine queries and trying to find online forums dedicated to gaming and video editing. Sometimes this might be your best choice, as professional video editors are a very close knit community, I like to share new developments and help each other in maintaining their equipment fully functional.
Video Cards PDF , Video Cards Drivers XLSX
