do video cards come with the newest drivers?

I don't know if that question makes since because I don't even really understand what a driver is. I'm curious because I just bought a new laptop and I want to know if I'll have to download anything to play older games like Diablo 2 and Descent: Freespace, or if they'll work right off the bat. the laptop is coming with vista if that makes any difference.

 

Usually, its fine, but for best results, get the newest drivers.


However if D2 and D:F works fine, then there is no need to fix whats not broken eh?

 

No they dont always come with the newest drivers, but it depends when/where you get your computer.

Nvidia has been having some pretty big problems with their graphics cards and vista compatibility, and there will be a need to update the drivers for those having problems soon.

but usually drivers can be downloaded on-site from the manufacturer or using a driver update program such as Driver Genius Pro 2007

 

Video cards are usually mass produced and sit on store shelves for a long while meaning that the CDs in them usually contain drivers that aren't nearly up to date.

 

They come with the newest drivers they can. If the card was packaged 6 months ago, then they can't possibly put drivers from 3 months ago on the cd.

As for your other comment, a driver is the software that handles a piece of hardware. The hardware just has a few registers that the CPU can put data into, but you need some software to figure out what to put there to make stuff happen, and basically what it all means. That's the driver's responsibility.

That way, individual applications can just ask the driver to do some "high level" action (say, render these 4000 polygons to the screen), and then the the driver will figure out how to coax the graphics card into actually doing this, sending data to it, handling the data that comes back from it, all of which involves a ton of low-level instruction that varies from card to card

 

I think they answered your question, but weather older games like that will work with vista is another question.

 

I tried starcraft Brood war on vista and it worked fine.
so I dont think there would be a compatibility issue with those older games.

 

Your questions were sufficiently answered above but I thought it was worth reiterating what Cori said above.

If it ain't broke, don't fix it .