ATI Video Card Software Question

I recently downloaded the February updates for my ATI Radeon 9550/X1050 Series Video Card. Since then in a game I play Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic: The Sith Lords I notice some strange things that never happened before. Overall it looks better, but a few things like when your running it's supposed to make things blur like your going fast. Instead I get things like white lines, weierd circuit board looking bars, or sometimes things will get dark. Only happens when I use Force Speed. Otherwise everything looks fine.http://game.amd.com/us-en/drivers_catalyst.aspx?p=xp/radeonx-xp As you can see

So I wondering could it be because of the bundle I downloaded and that I simply should have only downloaded the driver updates? What I downloaded is this: http://ati.amd.com/support/driver.html and then selected Windows XP Professional/Home>Radeon>9550 Series or X1050. You can do either they lead you to the same place. I then ended up here: http://game.amd.com/us-en/drivers_catalyst…p=xp/radeonx-xp

I downloaded as always the Catylyst Suite. So what is the Catalyst Control Center and WDM Integrated Drivers for? Should I keep those or just simply keep the display drivers? Simply trying to find out why the last time I updated I didn't have this problem and why now that I do.

My computer is a 2001 Dell Intel Pentium 4 XP Pro with 1024 MB of DDR RAM. It use to have a hard drive capacity of about 50GB disk space. But now has 200 GB disk space. The video card use to be a NVIDIA GeForce MX 420. Now it is an ATI Radeon 9550 /X1050 Series video card.

So what would you suggest I do to resolve this issue with this 2005 game with regards to the driver software issues, what do I not need and what's what, and anything else that you can suggest? Thank you.

Hello toruser,

Do I understand you correctly that included in your Windows Updates recently you enabled Hardware Driver downloads and installation from the Windows Update link?

Were you having driver problems before the latest Windows Updates?

From my experience regarding WU, is is not a good idea to install any hardware from the WU site. You should always go to the manufacturers website for your machine to update drivers if you are having issues with them.

Please post back with clarification of the above. If you did allow hardware installations from WU, then I would suggest you uninstall them, hide them on that site and only if you are having issues with your drivers go to the correct site for updating.

kind regards,

I said nothing about WU. I updated through the ATI website. Since right clicking on My Computer>going to hardware tab>and clicking Device Manager didn't have the updates when clicking update driver. So since I had only 2006 driver updates and I originally had trouble with the KOTOR 2 game when I would up the graphics. It would display things bent with some graphic options on. So I ask about this on hte Obsiden forums. They were the makers of the game. They point me to the ATI website where I'm to select my OS, my card type, and which series/version. I then download the updates. I did this and got the 2007 updates. Recently I find that their is an update for this February. I download the Catlyst Suite as usual. The game I can tell looks better when I play it. Howeever, when I use the force speed I get these lines down the screen. Sometimes it's circuit board looking bars or things get darker when running. So this makes me think maybe it has something to do with what I downloaded in the Suite. That's why I'm asking so I can determine what I installed that's causing the issue. I gave in my last post what my computer is and what was changed on it. I hope this now clarifies it for you.

Hello 'toruser' My apologies, I am not familiar with ATI Radeon 9550/X1050 Series Video Card at all. I misunderstood you regarding updates……… please wait for a more informed tech to come by to help you regarding your specific inquiry. Again my apologies. kind regards,

That's cool don't worry about it. I'll wait. And while I'm waiting there might be something you can answer. I use to take a Intro to Java class and I was recently looking through my add/remove programs list because recently I had my hard drive cloned to a bigger one. So for some strange reason there are all of these old programs I use to have on the computer and were uninstalled before the cloining. Well I see this program that I believe is the Java software I sued during that Intro to Java class. But I'm not sure. What is J2Se Development Kit 5.0 Update 4 & J2SE Runtime Environment 5.0 Update 4?

Hi Toruser,

Seems as if you have a decent rig for your gaming, though more RAM could possibly help.
Generally newer drivers are better when it comes to Video Cards, but not always.
As a last resort you may want to keep in mind that your prior Driver version was functioning well with your hardware.

Now it "seems" to me that you are describing specific video presentation issues that are peculiar to a specific function inside of a specific game. It further seems that you are not having any related problem when involved with other functions of a game or other games.

That's what you have all those setting controls for.
It would be beyond the scope of someone not having your video card/CPU/RAM "and" Monitor type setup and not being familiar with the game and game's features to tell you which of the many settings would be best in a particular instance.

Now that you have the video card Driver Updates installed, I'd head back to the game's own discussion forum to seek answers about specific settings for any particular game and function.

As you are probably suspecting, there are "generally good settings" to allow "generally good game presentation", but each game also has peculiarities.
We do not have a specific Games and Gamers Forum section, but you may notice that there are quite a few active online game plays here in our Membership. Your best bet here at WTT would be to open a New Topic in Other Software and include the "name of a specific game" in your topic description.
_________-

As to your JAVA related question…

JAVA scripting provides a convenient method for interaction with active content on Web Sites.
As such, it is a frequent target for the bad-guys (virus/trojan/malware) who wish to gain control of your computer.
As a result, Sun JAVA is constantly researching threats and frequently updating versions to patch vulnerabilities as they are discovered. You can assume that "any" version of a JAVA related product is "vulnerable" if it is not the latest version.

Before installing the latest version of JAVA Runtime Environment you should Uninstall "all" older versions of JAVA products via Control Panel - Add/Remove.

Then proceed to this site for the latest version of JRE JAVA Runtime Environment:
http://java.sun.com/javase/downloads/index.jsp
it is recommended that you download the "offline installation", then disconnect your machine from the Internet, before installing the updated version of JRE.

As to Development Kits (SDK's) and other varieties of JAVA utilities, they are not necessary for the end-user computer and are only of use if you are creating JAVA scripts for your own application and Website use.

Best Regards

Thanks I do as you suggest and consult a KOTOR 2 forum and do what you suggested with JRE and other items. Thanks.