Graphics Upgrade

Does a video card driver upgrade make the graphics better?

I recently got into PC gaming, but my computer isn't a gaming PC. I've been looking into RAM cards, graphics card, all that. Anyway, my question is that will a video card driver upgrade make the card more powerful(thus giving me the ability to improve graphics in games), or just make it compatible and support certain things? Thanks in advance.

Public Comments

1. A video card driver can improve the quality a little, but only if there are issues in the previous software that are preventing the card from reaching it's full potential. So no. All drivers do are fix bugs and improve things (since all drivers are are pieces of software telling the hardware how to speak to the rest of the computer). To see any noticeable difference you'd need to get a new video card. I hope this helps.
2. nope
3. It could slightly improve performance, but it will most likely not be a noticeable improvement. The best way to gain performance is to buy a new card, or a new computer.
4. Well dude if you got the graphics card already it should be great in some games. The upgrade driver would make it support better things. For example playing games that you could not play before, you most likely to be able to play them, it also depends what the game requirements are.
5. That's awesome that your getting into PC gaming! PC has the best controls by far and the graphics / performance exceeds console gaming. To answer your question, no unfortunately driver upgrades will not make your card any more powerful. The point of driver upgrades is usually just to allow compatibility with new games and remedy any bugs that may occur when playing a game (bugs related to your graphics card anyways). A graphics card is the most important part of your PC if you are wanting to play games but it is also imperative that you have a powerful CPU (Dual core, about 2.0GHZ+ now a days) as well as a decent amount of RAM (2GB+ now a days). I would recommend a graphics card with 512MB memory and with a memory clock speed of 1500mhz or greater.. I normally use nVidia graphics cards.. I would look for an nVidia geForce 9600 or greater. I hope this helps you out! Feel free to ask me if you have any other questions! - Eric