Upgrade a graphics card

When we think about the components that power our PCs, the main things that come to mind are the memory and processor. It’s easy to overlook the importance of some of the other hardware inside our computers ­ including the graphics card.

Without a graphics card, we wouldn’t see anything on our screens. And they can have a larger influence over the performance of a PC than you might think, particularly when it comes to gaming. In this article we’ll explain everything you need to know about graphics cards: what they do, how to get the most out of yours and how to upgrade if necessary.

It takes all sorts
A graphics card is a piece of hardware that sits inside a computer and produces all the images shown on the screen. It connects to the computer’s motherboard on one end, and to the screen at the other: either using a laptop’s built-in display or using a DVI or VGA socket. Every computer has a graphics card inside it, though quite often a graphics card won’t be a separate card at all. Computers with “integrated” or “onboard” graphics use a chip that’s built into the motherboard itself.

In all other cases, a graphics card is a separate piece of hardware that fits into a special slot on the PC’s motherboard. Loosely speaking there are two varieties of graphics card slot ­ AGP and PCI Express x16 ­ and these are incompatible with each other. AGP was the standard up until a few years ago, but PCI Express is a faster system used by more modern computers.

New and improved
If you don’t intend to upgrade your graphics card, then you may think that these details don’t particularly matter. In fact, it’s worth finding out a little bit about your graphics hardware, if only so that you can download and install the latest drivers for it.

A driver is the piece of software that helps a physical part of your computer interact with Windows. The manufacturers of graphics card chips improve their drivers all the time, so installing the latest ones will often make things run more smoothly. You may even find that some games won’t run properly unless you have the latest drivers for your graphics card.

Before you download anything, you’ll need to establish the type of graphics card you have. This in turn will help point you in the right direction as to which website you should visit to obtain the new driver software. Fortunately, this is relatively simple. Although there are dozens of companies producing graphics cards, the vast majority use chips made by one of only three big suppliers: Nvidia, ATI or Intel.

Driver lessons
To find out which type of card you have click Start, right-click on My Computer (just ‘Computer’ if you’re using Windows Vista) and select Manage. Vista users may also need to click Continue if a User Account Control warning pops up. In the window that appears, click on Device Manager on the left-hand side and then click the plus (+) sign next to Display adapters in the list of hardware on the right-hand side. Here you’ll be able to instantly establish the maker of your graphics chip ­ it should say ‘Nvidia’, ‘ATI’ or ‘Intel’ somewhere in the name of the adapter. Note down the whole name of the device listed, including any model number or other identifying information. This will come in handy when checking for the right software.

With that under your belt, head to the appropriate website for your card ­ either www.nvidia.co.uk for Nvidia, www.amd.com/gb-uk for ATI or http://downloadcenter.intel.com for Intel ­ look for a link labelled downloads, graphics drivers or similar. You may be offered an automated tool that detects your graphics hardware and locates the right software for you. Otherwise, use the details you noted down earlier to specify or search for the right driver for your card. Make sure you get the right one for your operating system ­ Windows XP and Windows Vista may use different drivers.