I need help updating my Amd driver
[b]Please keep in mind that I have no idea what I'm doing, so I really need help.[/b] So in order to try and get better FPS rates for PC games, I've heard that I should check and see if there were any updates to my graphics driver. When I found out what mine was (ATI Radeon HD 4200), I tried to update it. According to the AMD VISION Engine Control Center, mine is at Catalyst 11.7, while the latest one is Catalyst 12.4. So then I downloaded it and installed it, and according to the installation process, everything was finished. The problem was after I hit the "Finish" button, nothing happened. I thought I'd have to do a system reboot to make changes apply, but no notification popped up. Then when I checked the AMD control center thing again, I was still on Catalyst 11.7. Now for someone like me, who has little experience in these kinds of things, I don't understand why an installation process wouldn't be applied after I hit the "Finish" button. I tried to install Catalyst 12.4 three times already, and kept getting the same result, where nothing happened. Could somebody help me with this?
For anybody who wants to know, my computer also has 4 GB of RAM, which I would assume isn't bad. I never updated any hardware, so I still have the same graphics card as I did when we got this thing. One reason why I don't get why PC games are superior to consoles is because of the horrible FPS rates I get on them too. Portal, while being really fun, was perhaps the worst gaming experience I ever had, because the framerate was downright [i][b]awful[/b][/i]. Same thing with TF2, I can barely play on it at all. I can't blame that on the games of course, but that made me never want to buy a PC game again. So now I have League of Legends, and the framerates are in the high teens to low 20's, and it's a serious bother, so I really would like tips on how to improve performance in general too.
Any help would be greatly appreciated, I'll try to provide any other system specs I can if you'd like to know.
2 Comments • Newest first
In other words, if you have a laptop, your experience is pretty much as expected and can't be improved.
If you have a desktop you can probably install a better video card fairly easily and get much improved graphic performance.
The cost can be anywhere from fairly inexpensive to "ouch", depending on how high performance you want to go.
The HD 4200 is an integrated graphics processor and so your gaming experience will be limited no matter what kind of software update you perform. Many (but not all) modern desktop PCs can have their graphics hardware upgraded. Laptop graphics cannot be upgraded.
The Radeon driver update procedure is as follows:
1. Uninstall old Radeon driver.
-Go to Control Panel and select "Uninstall a program." Select and run AMD Catalyst Install Manager. Proceed to uninstall all Catalyst components.
2. Restart your computer. The uninstall procedure might do this automatically.
3. Install new Catalyst Control Center and graphic drivers.