Help with ATI drivers? Thanks, Civ4!

[Azazel]

Does anyone know where I might be able to find some ATI drivers that are about 6-8-10 months old? ATI's site only seems to have the latest versions.


Why?

So I rented Civ 4, tried to load it, and it gave me an error message.

I look up firaxis' site, and sure enough, it looks like this error is common. They even have a workaround.
http://www.2kgames.com/civ4/support_ati.htm

So, like a fucking idiot, I follow their instructions and go through the whole thing, uninstalling their game, my drivers, and installing the new ones after reinstalling Civ4.


Hm, these new drivers are giving me an error message whenever I boot up. Well, I'll try Civ4 anyway. Hey, I did everything they said int he exact order they told me to and I'm still getting the same error. Nice QA there, fuckers!

So I delete Civ4 (thank fuck it was only a rental and not a purchase), delete the new drivers, search around and find my disc that came with the Card. Install them.

Oh. Good. I must have had slightly newer drivers on it, since FEAR's shadows are all fucked up now, and my HUD (ammo counter) on HL2 is messed up, and Max Payne 1 suddenly no longer works. Awesome!

So now, I'm looking for somewhere I could download older ATI drivers, about 6-8-10 months old, so hopefully I can get everything working again.

[Trippy]

If you navigate the menu on the left hand side of the ATI Driver Support page you'll find a link for older drivers (nothing older than this year though):

https://support.ati.com/ics/support/KBList.asp?folderID=307

[Samwise]

Buy an NVIDIA card.  ATI drivers are complete and utter shit.

[schild]

Download the Omega Drivers. ATI drivers are complete and utter shit.

[Big Gulp]

Most importantly, how are you renting PC games?  Enquiring minds want to know...

[Azazel]

I'll buy a new card when I buy a new PC in just under a year. Easier/better to just buy a whole new box every couple of years that upgrade piecemeal. Thanks for the driver links, I'm lfollowing them now...

As for rentals, I live in Melbourne, Australia. Lots of video libraries rent console and PC titles here as well as at least one LAN place in the city. Occasionally a game store has done rentals as well. It's a more honest (to me) way to check out games that lack a proper demo than to abuse the EB games return policy...

Out of interest, I've been until now completely unawares of the existance of "modded drivers".. what's the deal with this stuff?

thanks,

[Trippy]

Out of interest, I've been until now completely unawares of the existance of "modded drivers".. what's the deal with this stuff?

They are just "pre-tweaked" drivers. They are the exact same underlying drivers as what you get from the official NVIDIA or ATI drivers though they often lag a version or two behind the official releases.

[Azazel]

Fair enough, I'm just a veg when it comes to things like this.. tweaking drivers and so forth.

[Kairos]

Most importantly, how are you renting PC games?  Enquiring minds want to know...

I used to live somewhere in Mississippi back in 1999 or so where there was some store or another that rented out PC games. They stopped doing it pretty quickly, for obvious enough reasons. I'm surprised there are still stores around that do it, now that it's even easier to rip 'em off.

Of course, "rent" here may simply be a euphemism for "download".

[stray]

I haven't seen PC game rentals around here (Texas) since the 386 days.

[HaemishM]

Most importantly, how are you renting PC games?  Enquiring minds want to know...

I used to live somewhere in Mississippi back in 1999 or so where there was some store or another that rented out PC games. They stopped doing it pretty quickly, for obvious enough reasons. I'm surprised there are still stores around that do it, now that it's even easier to rip 'em off.

Of course, "rent" here may simply be a euphemism for "download".

Video Library in Jackson, MS did it for a while in the 90's. But I don't think anybody does it much anymore. Hell, EB even stopped taking trade-ins on used PC games.

[Yegolev]

There was a store that rented PC games in Auburn, AL, circa 1994.  I got a lot of shitty games in a short period, and had plenty of money left for Camels and MtG.

[Azazel]

Most importantly, how are you renting PC games?  Enquiring minds want to know...

I used to live somewhere in Mississippi back in 1999 or so where there was some store or another that rented out PC games. They stopped doing it pretty quickly, for obvious enough reasons. I'm surprised there are still stores around that do it, now that it's even easier to rip 'em off.

Of course, "rent" here may simply be a euphemism for "download".

Nope, not at all. I can give you the phone number of my local video library or the LAN place on town if you'd like to ring them and ask directly. ;)

EB doesn't take PC game trades here either. As for PC game rentals, there's a few places locally that have always done it, and occasionally a place will pop up in town that rents them for awhile, then they usually stop after awhile. Really though, copying a PC game is probably more difficult than copying a PS2 game these days, and I can't see how Video Libraries would really care what you do with them for the couple of days that you've got them - they make their money from billions of 1-off rentals rather than game sales.

[Azazel]

There was a store that rented PC games in Auburn, AL, circa 1994.  I got a lot of shitty games in a short period, and had plenty of money left for Camels and MtG.

Well, that's the thing about mass-rental-burnage. If you have a stack of shit that you've paid to rent, will never play, and also bought the blank media to put it on, what have you actually gained?

OTOH, rentals to find out that, say, Civ4 doesnt fucking work acts as a good option to save yourself 90-odd dollars. I'll patch those drivers one day soon. Then I'll rerent it and try again.

[Sky]

Some smaller libraries loan out games. I can't do it, because even though my town is smallish, it's very ghetto. We'd have no games in a month. I'd love to make my library of old games available for kids to play.

[Azazel]

Download the Omega Drivers. ATI drivers are complete and utter shit.

Done and done. After Buying BF2:SF and finding that the 3-D game models were fuxored in the same way that FEAR had been, I got off my fat arse and installed them.

Much better than the original ones that came with the card, and no error messages on bootup, like the lastest offical ATI ones had given me.

thanks a ton for that link!

[Strazos]

One of my local EBs told me that I could trade in PC games, within the last year or so.

I asked him if stuff like license keys would be a problem, and he just said, "Oh, that's usually not a problem."

Not that it's an issue for me, as I don't really trade my games in anyway.

[schild]

Can't trade in PC Games anymore.

Because of the license keys.

This applies to both EB and Gamestop.

[Strazos]

That's what I thought...perhaps the policy has changed in the past year. I don't remember, exactly, when the guy told me this...perhaps around the time of Jade Empire?

[HaemishM]

It changed within the last month or so, as that's when I heard the local EB guys talking about it.

[Azazel]

Can't trade in PC Games anymore.

Because of the license keys.

This applies to both EB and Gamestop.

We don't have Gamestop here in Australia, but they've never allowed PC game trade-ins here to my knowledge. Not that EBgames has really been around that long here for that matter...

You can return games within 7 days though, which is why I've recommended that my older (47yo) brother, (who's just gotten a new computer to replace his p2 or whatever old POS he had) buys all his PC games from there, since he's not up to date like us kids.