New motherboard drivers give HUGE performance boost

[Civivist]

Hi,

Don't know if this has been discussed before, but it may help some people:

I have an Asus P4B266 Motherboard (few years old) with an intel 845 Chipset. I was using the standard windows drivers. But I just downloaded the Intel drivers for my specific chipset, and this makes a HUGE difference in performance. Can now do play civ on highest display quality, 4x antialiasing, animations enabled etc.

So if your motherboard also has an Intel chipset, you might want to try this. Try also the "application accelerator" (only for intel chipsets, of course) that intel offers on their website. If you have another chipset, you can still try updating your drivers of course...

If you don't know which Intel chipset you have, they also offer an identification utility.

Good luck! Hope it helps for some of you!

 

[asmodee]

I don't really feel comfortable with playing with the motherboard so I don't know if I'll change something with my drivers...

 

[Civivist]

I don't really feel comfortable with playing with the motherboard so I don't know if I'll change something with my drivers...

OK, you should decide that for yourself, of course. Can be worth trying though. You can always go back to the standard windows drivers if it's not working for you. (If your computer still boots... )

 

[markh]

I don't really feel comfortable with playing with the motherboard so I don't know if I'll change something with my drivers...

I think he means the motherboard drivers for Windows not the BIOS, so you do not need to be afraid to update/reinstall these. You get these on CD with your mainboard. I reinstalled mine, too when I noticed the game was not running well initially. This fixed many problems, but I still have random-CTDs. Will get me the patch at the weekend and see what it does.

 

[Civivist]

You get these on CD with your mainboard.

The drivers on the CD are most of the time already outdated when you buy the product... And you're right: I wasn't talking about upgrading your BIOS. Just about the motherboard drivers for windows.

 

[markh]

The drivers on the CD are most of the time already outdated when you buy the product

Yeah, right you are. For me even the drivers from CD helped a lot. I was too fed up getting the game running by searching for the newest drivers for all my hardware, so I just took the ones from CD to see what it does. Of course downloading the newest drivers may help even more.

 

[j0hnnnym]

Hi, thought I might try to update my motherboard drivers as I have never done it and I heard it can help improve the snails pace performance of civ. However I can't find where to find my motherboard make and model, I've looked in the device manager but I don't know which it is. Can someone help me out?

 

[Civivist]

Hi, thought I might try to update my motherboard drivers as I have never done it and I heard it can help improve the snails pace performance of civ. However I can't find where to find my motherboard make and model, I've looked in the device manager but I don't know which it is. Can someone help me out?

The best (and maybe only?) way is just to open up your comp... But maybe you still have a manual somewhere where it's in?

 

[alexti2]

Installing motherboard drivers can give a very big boost in performance in all applications. You need to have those installed unless you have really good reason not to. MS is usually includes some drivers in their OS installer, but considering how old XP is, they're not likely to have the right driver for most of the motherboards currently on the market.

 

[Civivist]

Installing motherboard drivers can give a very big boost in performance in all applications. You need to have those installed unless you have really good reason not to. MS is usually includes some drivers in their OS installer, but considering how old XP is, they're not likely to have the right driver for most of the motherboards currently on the market.

Too bad that I discover this three years after buying my PC...

Or, from a positive standpoint:

Great to discover something that can boost my three year old PC!

 

[Silver Marmot]

Sounds like a good idea. How do I do this? I don't even know what kind of motherboard I have, let alone how to update it.

 

[Civivist]

I don't know of a good way of identifying your motherboard other than opening your case and visual identification... Somebody correct me if I'm wrong.

You don't have the original box/documentation/cd/bill/whatever?

 

[Silver Marmot]

I don't think so.

 

[needledik]

Intel has a chipset identification utility on their website. It only works on motherboards with an Intel chipset, obviously.

 

[Mr.No]

I use a VIA chiset motherboard - they have a one pack of drivers and is useble for every chipset that VIA makes---That's why I love VIA.
But don't worry in hardware devices you can find what tipe of chipset do you have.And dl drivers from the page:http://developer.intel.com/design/motherbd/gendrive.htm

As for changing drivers...everybody should change drivers for almost everything(only for graphic card---the drivers that are good for you stick with it).Drivers tells the hardware how to act and what to do,so latest drivers tells the hardware much better what to do.For example,When I change the driver(I run the sound card 1 year without changing driver) for my on-board sound card Via AC'97 the sound was so better is like putting a profesional sound card(even changed the sound spectar) because of the fact that VIA has found a new way of decoding the sound.
Also in every edition of the driver VIA is making changes that effect the way hardware works(The link of the CPU and AGP,CPU and PCI and is always for better)---I'm sure that Intel is doing the same.
You should upgrade the drivers ALWAYS.
If you mess something up you can always uninstall them or reinstall the windows,but they will NEVER f..k your comp up.

 

[Silver Marmot]

I just updated my chipset and got the accelerator program. Yay! Still haven't tested the game though.

At any rate, I didn't have to open my comp to find out anything. I did a dxdiag to determine that it was a Dell Dimensino 8200, and I looked up the product on Dell's website and it told me everything. Then I downloaded something on Intel's website to identify my chipset just to be safe. Then I updated it.

 

[pygbe]

I don't know of a good way of identifying your motherboard other than opening your case and visual identification... Somebody correct me if I'm wrong.

You don't have the original box/documentation/cd/bill/whatever?

That is a way.

But Google for a program named Aida32 or EVEREST: they are similar (almost identical) little utilities which give you EVERY information about your system (chipset, northbridge, southbridge, bus frequency, monitor manufacturer and so on).

And they are safe, ask around and be comfortable.