Question about Driver Update

[Verrucosus]

I plan to update the drivers for my graphics card as recommended in the "Any crash read this first" thread. The card is called "Geforce Go 6600" from Nvidia. Apparently, the "Go" type cards are for laptops.

When I follow the links I can choose the product type "Geforce M/Go", but then the oldest product series to choose is "Geforce Go 7". If I select plain "Geforce" as product type I can choose the Geforce 6 series, but I suppose that would not work with my laptop.

As you can probably see from my post, I am not too literate about these things, so I would appreciate any helpful advice. (I also understand that maybe my computer is just a little bit too old, but I did not have problems with EU3, so I thought I should at least try.)

 

[AndrewT]

I don't know where you are looking, but the nVidia site makes no such distinction, it's the same driver for all 6 series cards.

XP: http://www.nvidia.com/object/winxp_169.21_whql.html
Vista 32bit: http://www.nvidia.com/object/winvista_x86_169.25_whql.html

 

[Verrucosus]

Thank you for helping, AndrewT.

I was looking at the nvidia link given in the "Any crash, read this first" thread:
http://www.nvidia.com/Download/index.aspx

The distinction is made in the "product type" box.

If I choose "GeForce" as product type, "GeForce 6" series as product series and Windows XP as operating system (sorry, I should have mentioned that), I will get to the page with the 169.21 driver that you have linked to. However, if you check there under "products supported" you will find the "GeForce 6600", but not the "GeForce Go 6600" card.

If I choose "GeForce M/Go" as product type, the product series box will not allow me to choose a series 6.

My question is whether there is a specific driver for my card to be found elsewhere and (if not) whether it is safe to try to use the driver from the page that you have linked to. I'm worried about having to uninstall the present drivers (which came preinstalled with the computer) first and having to through all kinds of trouble to get them back if things should go wrong.

 

[AndrewT]

It is safe to use the driver I linked to. You can always roll back to the previous version if anything goes wrong.

 

[Verrucosus]

Thank you so much. I will try that next weekend.

 

[Verrucosus]

Just reporting back after finally updating my drivers. The 169.21 driver for the GeForce 6 series gave me some trouble: The screen flickered a little when I tried to run the laptop via battery. That is not how I would usually play Rome anyway, but I would rather not keep changing drivers back and forth. I looked at the laptop producer's home page and the most recent driver they have for the GeForce Go 6 series is just half a year more recent than the laptop itself, i.e. relatively old (late 2005). Still, I installed it and also turned off trees and reduced multisample level to 0. I have not yet experienced a crash after three years of play. I am not sure which of the changes did it, but I am just happy to have been able to play for more than just a few months. Now, I have just to find enough time to continue the game in order to find out whether the problem is solved or whether I just had a lucky day. For the moment, thank you for helping me and good luck to everyone else!