GPU issues...

I recently picked up some new computer components a few days ago. I have an Intel Core i5 processor, a Gigabyte 970 DS3P motherboard, and 6 GB of Kingston 1600 MHz RAM. For my graphics card, I am still using an older Sapphire X 5750 Vapor X with 1 GB of VRAM. I managed to install everything correctly with Windows 7 Professional, but when I tried to run some newer games, they just wouldn't launch. I read somewhere that I might need to download the latest drivers, so I went ahead and downloaded the AMD Catalyst Omega 14.12. Unfortunately, after installing it, everything seems to have gone wrong. My resolution is messed up, and even though I installed that specific AMD Catalyst package, the system keeps telling me to install drivers for this graphics card. I even tried using the original driver CD that came with the card, but it throws an error halfway through the installation process. I guess I am a bit stuck here. What should I do? Does anyone know which drivers I should try installing instead? If you happen to have a link, that would be very helpful.

Man, looks like the drivers didn't quite land right on your end. I'd say just wipe everything clean with this and grab the latest drivers for your 64-bit Windows—then just do a fresh install from scratch.

It could be a DLL error. A common headache with games is missing DLL files if you don't have certain stuff installed. I ran into that issue all the time back when I was using Windows 7.

graniteharbor85 said:Man, looks like the drivers didn't quite land right on your end. I'd say just wipe everything clean with this and grab the latest drivers for your 64-bit Windows—then just do a fresh install from scratch.

Thanks. So, the plan is to clean them out first and then reinstall them!! I suppose I should ask, is a full Windows reinstallation absolutely necessary, or might it be okay to just try the drivers if everything goes smoothly? Starting from scratch all over again... oh boy..

So, if I’m following you right—you did a totally fresh install of Windows when you swapped out those new parts—then you should be golden. No biggie there. But, if you actually kept the old Windows setup from your previous build? Yeah... you're gonna have to wipe everything and start over from scratch.

graniteharbor85 said:So, if I’m following you right—you did a totally fresh install of Windows when you swapped out those new parts—then you should be golden. No biggie there. But, if you actually kept the old Windows setup from your previous build? Yeah... you're gonna have to wipe everything and start over from scratch.

Everything is brand new. It’s a completely fresh Windows install. So, I guess I just run that cleanup tool from the link you provided, then install the drivers using the other link you sent, and that should be everything? I suppose there isn't any need to install the drivers from the graphics card disc after that, right?

graniteharbor85 said:So, if I’m following you right—you did a totally fresh install of Windows when you swapped out those new parts—then you should be golden. No biggie there. But, if you actually kept the old Windows setup from your previous build? Yeah... you're gonna have to wipe everything and start over from scratch.

Everything has been freshly installed. So, I guess if I just clean things up and install the drivers using the link you provided, everything should hopefully work exactly as it should?

Pretty much.

Chris Robinson25 said:It could be a DLL error. A common headache with games is missing DLL files if you don't have certain stuff installed. I ran into that issue all the time back when I was using Windows 7.

You really ought to install the DirectX 9 package for Windows 7; otherwise, you're going to run into trouble with several games.