Video Drivers

Video drivers have been in every operating system ever made and are one of the earliest driver families in the industry. Your video driver controls information throughput from and to your video card. Each video card series has its own individual video driver that will need to be installed to get the maximum performance from your video card. Video drivers are responsible for processing all of the information you see on your screen while you are reading this article. There are literally thousands of video drivers that were created throughout history but with the introduction of the Windows WDM framework and later the KMDF framework the creation of video drivers became at once a simpler and harder task.

These frameworks allow a developer to create video drivers that work on current and future Microsoft operating systems. Creating video drivers using these frameworks requires a different set of programming skills and thousands of lines of supporting code to insure that the video driver will continue to work even if the user switches to a new operating system. Manufacturers frequently update video drivers in order to maintain the best quality performance within an environment where changes are occurring every week.

Common Video Drivers Problems

As much as the video card industry hates to admit it, video driver problems are quite common. The issues you will encounter than can be tracked back to a poorly written video driver are vast. Some of the more common video driver problems you will encounter are:

1. No images on your monitor.

2. Blurred images on your monitor.

3. Slow frame rate in 2D and 3D applications.

4. Various types of artifacts appearing throughout your video work.

If you turn on your computer and you do not see a boot-up routine you probably have a faulty monitor or video card rather than a video driver problem. If your screen goes blank after your operating system has finished loading then you may have a video driver problem. If your desktop is blurry you may have a video driver problem but it is just as likely that your monitor is failing. Underpowered video cards cause slow frame rates in 2D and 3D applications but if you are using a brand new video card the video driver may not yet be optimized for your particular operating system or brand of computer. Artifacts on your screen are a sure sign that your video driver has been corrupted in one fashion or another.

Troubleshooting Video Drivers

The first thing you should do to repair your video driver is to restore your computer to an earlier state where everything worked correctly. If this does not work then you can try installing your video drivers again or looking for an updated driver on your video card manufacturer’s web site. If none of the above solutions work for you then try reinstalling your computer using factory settings and allow the computer to install the necessary drivers during installation. If you are still having problems with your video then you probably have a faulty video card rather than a video driver issue.