How to update video drivers fast
You may have heard of a video card before, or possibly any one of its other names: graphics card, display card, display adapter, or graphics adapter. This little piece of hardware that fits neatly into a computer supports the end quality of images displayed on a computer monitor. These are especially important when playing games or using image rendering software but video cards have much wider uses too.
The most common video cards are NVIDIA and AMD and both of these manufacturers release new drivers that significantly enhance performance with each new version. Now, they're not going to send you an email with every new release of their software. It's not their job to do that.
You should get the latest drivers when you perform a system update but if a release comes out before you update your system you'll already be using an outdated driver. Sometimes a system update won't find the latest version either. This means with these types of drivers, in particular, you should check for newer versions yourself on a regular basis.
There are a number of ways you can check for updates. We're going to show you two today: using Windows 10 and using a third-party updater tool (which is a much easier and safer way unless you're a technical whizz!).
How to update video drivers Windows 10
We recommend you use a tool to update graphics drivers rather than do this manually as it can be risky if you're unsure what to do (tools like CCleaner include a roll back function) but if you feel up to it, here's how.
As we mentioned before, Windows 10 system updates should identify new releases but there are a number of reasons when they can't so it's important to check you're running the latest version regularly.
Here's how to do this yourself:
- Go to the taskbar and enter "Device Manager" in the search box
- Choose "Device Manager"
- Click on the "Display Adaptors" category and find your video driver
- Right-click on your video driver
- Go to the "Driver" tab and then "Update Driver"
- Choose "Search automatically for drivers"
- If Windows can find a newer version you can follow the instructions to install it
- If it doesn't find a new version, compare your driver model and version against the manufacturer's most current driver listed on their website
- If you're running an older version, download and install the latest version, following the instructions on the manufacturer's page
How to update video card drivers using a tool
This is the quicker and easier way for most people, unless they have good technical knowledge and enjoy doing things manually. Technology keeps improving and making life easier for us all at impressive rates. New advances in home computing software allow people to keep their PCs in top shape with just a few clicks of a button.
We recently added our latest addition to the CCleaner Professional family: CCleaner Driver Updater. This powerful piece of software will help you update all your drivers at once, including the video driver. It has over 25 million drivers on its database and will quickly scan these and compare them to the ones your computer has installed and report back on any outdated versions it has found. Then it will seamlessly update them. Having all the latest drivers should make your PC run faster and more efficiently, especially if you have lots that are outdated!
So far, there have been 2.5 billion (2,500,000,000) downloads of CCleaner Professional, which is a collection of tools that help optimize and clear space on computers.
You can try CCleaner Professional and its Driver Updater for 14 days for free. You don't even need to enter your card details so there's no way you can forget to cancel your subscription (we've all done it!). If you like what it's done for you then you can sign up at the end of the trial period and keep your PC healthy and in optimum condition. If not, you can keep using CCleaner for free.