6970m drivers

Hi all,

It's been a long, long time since I updated the GPU drivers on this thing. I am currently on catalyst 12.1 which whilst newer than the dell shipped ones (I got my laptop back in April 2011) are pretty old. I got fed up of the constant driver revisions and the pressure I heaped on myself to stay upto date so I adopted a 'if it aint broke, don't fix it approach' and decided if there was no compelling reason to update I would save myself the stress. Now many months have passed I wonder if it is still beneficial to try and update. I run Windows 7 and have no issues with anything, I don't really play any games anymore. Most of my favourites are routed to the days of directx 9 and some titles released circa 2011/12. So should I be worrying about updating. As long as not updating doesn't cause me any grief with say viewing internet videos etc I'd probably hope not to have to worry. Does anyone on older drivers have any negative experiences?

When I did used to update this forum would normally post a direct link to the requisite AMD driver package which I would then without issue just install over the old ones. I cannot see that this really happens anymore. Out of interest I looked around on the net and it is so confusing. Trying AMD's site more often than not you get directed to desktop drivers or if you get to the mobility drivers you need to run the verification tool which I know doesn't work due to the switchable graphics inside the machine. So how on earth do you get them or find a direct link to the safe ones to install. It's not even clear what the latest drivers are as mostly I stumble across beta drivers. I'd prefer to find the latest certified/official ones. What package is that now, I guess seeing as we are in march 14 they might be 14.2 or something like that?

I did notice on the dell website under drivers and downloads there was a newer package released around the middle of 2013 although I did so a couple of forum posts saying they were buggy and hopeless so I guess I wouldn't want to touch them. Anyone use those ones at all? Did they just install over the top?

I guess in a long winded way is should I even be worried. 12.1 seem to work for me. I never lost the ability to switch or control FN+brightness unlike many other stories I have read. Should I stay. Will recent games run with the 12.1 drivers or just flat out refuse (I'm not too bothered about minimal percentage gains and mostly the fixes surround newer 7900 cards or crossfire)?

Sorry for all the questions.

Cheers
Wayne