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May 7, 2005
Updating ATI's Catalyst drivers under Windows XP breaks DirectX
Since I moved to XP SP2, updating ATI's drivers for my Radeon has thoroughly broken DirectX. After a driver upgrade it is immediately obvious by the very slow screen redraws/updates. Running dxdiag and looking at a 'Screen--' tab will show DirectDraw and Direct3D to both be missing.
The solution is painfully simple; after running ATI's install utility and rebooting the computer (as requested), reinstall the driver via device manager:
- Open the device manager. (Right click on "My Computer", choose "Properties", Click the "Hardware" tab, and finally click the "Device Manager" button.)
- Expand the "Display adapters" item (click the plus sign), right click on one of the ATI display adapters, and choose "Update Driver".
- Choose the "Install from a specific list..." option and click "Next".
- Choose the "Search for the best driver in these locations" option (the default), and click "Next".
- Wait while Windows thinks very hard
- Continue clicking next until you're presented with a Finish Button. (Depending on something or other you'll get a varying number of wizard screens. The default always seems to be good.)
- Click "Finish"
- Restart the computer. (Windows should prompt you to anyway.)
Posted by spiffed at May 7, 2005 10:52 AM