Eli5: what do graphics drivers do?

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and should i be updating them?

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4 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

They help your OS and your graphics processor (hardware) talk to each other, and optimize their usage.

Yes you should keep them up to date.

Anonymous 0 Comments

Video adapters have different design and capabilities. The driver presents the video card to the operating system in a standard manner where the peculiarities of each model get abstracted away.

Usually don’t fix what isn’t broken. If your system is stable don’t touch drivers. An exception might be if you have very recent bleeding edge hardware with early unpolished drivers.

Anonymous 0 Comments

Every piece of hardware in your computer speaks a different “language”. Even the same component (like a graphics card) across two different brands or generations speak slightly different languages, because they have different physical components in different places. Your drivers are the translators between all of those components. So when your computer wants to draw a game for instance on your screen, it doesn’t have to know exactly what inputs to turn on on the card and for what duration in order to get that specific brand of card to draw what it wants to draw. Instead it gives a generalized request to the driver, and then the driver translates that into the specific set of instructions for your card.

The reason to update them, is because that instruction interpretation layer gets updated semi regularly by developers, can do things like fix bugs or increase the performance of specific requests. Or even add additional instructions for specific games.

Anonymous 0 Comments

Its the translator between your OS and your video card. Your OS is a tourist and the video card is another country which speak a different language. There are different video card and to be able to be understood by all of them with a unique interface, you use a driver/translator