Any pre-cautions for when installing new video card drivers?

I was just wondering if there are any pre-cautions I should take when installing new video drivers? - I have always heard that if its working good then dont bother updating drivers and also that you should completly wipe out all of the old video card drivers before installing the new to avoid complications? - Installing the new drivers would enable me to use my graphics card using nvidias "CUDA" which would help me with cutting down the rendering time in my video editing software (power director 7 deluxe) becuase it would throw in my graphics card's power to help. Windows Update has an optional update for my Geforce 8600M GT drivers sitting there ready to go but I'm not sure if I should go for it or not. - ?|||There are really no precautions to take when installing a new video driver. Just to be sure that you're getting the right one, go to nVidia's website (link posted below under sources) and choose the proper graphics card and operating system that you have. Also, nVidia CUDA has it's own type of programming language that you would need to learn in order to use the CUDA application. I'm not one for programming or learning how, so when I downloaded the CUDA system tools and such separately from the graphics card drivers and tried to find documentation referencing the coding for CUDA, I didn't get anywhere. Best of luck mate.|||it would be best to make sure your anti-virus is working|||The golden aged words of wisdom help us out here "if it ain't broke, don't fix it." While updating drivers is a part of important preventative maintenance, we have to look at graphics drivers differently. When a new driver release is made, it normally has bugs. These bugs can interfere with your ability to make full use of your graphics card and can in turn be more troubling than the old driver. Only update drivers for video cards if it is 100% needed, such as a new installation of something or a program that needs an updated driver. ATI is very poor with drivers, however I haven't had too many problems with Nvidia drivers. Also if you have a EVGA built graphics card. They offer an overclocking tool that could up your core, shader, and memory clocks.



Hope this helps,

Zack