Do Gaming laptops let you update graphics drivers from Nvidia/AMD?

[Winterlude72]

Hello,
I have an Acer laptop with discrete graphics and was never successful in updating the graphics driver straight from Nvidia. Nvidia's driver update software told me that I had to get my update from Acer directly. But Acer only supported driver updates fro a few months.

My machine is pretty low end, but I'm wondering if I would have the same experience with a $1-2K gaming laptop (i.e. that I must depend on the manufacturer to update drivers) or do most gaming laptop manufacturers (not the boutique ones, but Lenovo, HP, Acer etc... ones in this price range) allow/encourage end users to get their drivers directly from Nvidia/AMD like I can from a discrete desktop card?

Thanks in advance!

 

[KingFatty]

Weird, I have an old 2008-vintage dell laptop with a discrete gaming Nvidia GPU and the Nvidia drivers work fine. I'm wondering if there isn't a way around the limitation you are seeing, like maybe digging through the files of the Nvidia driver update to find one that won't do the check?

 

[Aikouka]

I update my MSI GT72's GPU drivers with the ones from Nvidia's website, and I've had no issues doing so. I also did the same with my old, old Dell XPS M1530.

 

[xorbe]

Asus G751 took nv drivers okay. The igpu is disabled / cut out of the loop entirely.

 

[Techhog]

It depends on the laptop. It should be fine in most cases these days unless you have AMD graphics with an Intel CPU and switchable graphics.

 

[Zodiark1593]

Nvidia had a program alongside Optimus where they can allow reference drivers to be used on an OEM laptop. However, OEMs can opt-out, either entirely or of specific models. AMD didn't even officially support switchable graphics with Intel until Enduro (2011). Case in point, my own laptop has drivers from HP that were last updated in 2010.

 

[homebrew2ny]

I have had the last few series of asus g series laptops, all took driver updates directly from the vendors (ati\nvidia) site.

 

[Winterlude72]

Thanks for the feedback.

Okay, so it sounds like AMD only or Intel+Nvidia on a newer gaming laptop will allow "indefinite" driver updates then.

The laptop I have is older... Acer Aspire 5745G with Nvidia Geforce GT 330M purchased at the tail end of 2010. I was able to force the driver to update a few years ago by editing the text in the driver INF file to fool the computer (following an article or forum post explaining it). It was pretty tedious to do, but it more or less worked. I reverted to my original drivers though because, like what happened to Xorbe, the intel igpu was disabled without even freeing up the RAM. Since I only game occasionally, it didn't seem worth it to have my laptop overheating most of the time, so I reverted to the original drivers.

Last night though, I completed the Windows 10 upgrade (from win 7). Last month, the upgrade said I couldn't proceed because I didn't have compatible video drivers, but there was no such warning when I checked last night, so I thought "maybe I'm good to go and Microsoft/Nvidia sorted it out." But after the upgrade, there was no Hybrid graphics switch in my notifications. I installed the original Nvidia drivers again, but still no switch... just running off the Intel igpu. So I decided to switch back to Windows 7.

Since my laptop is getting long in the tooth (but still decent after an SSD upgrade), I am curious about getting a new gaming laptop, but don't want to run into these types of driver issues again.

I think it was the reference drivers Zodiark1593 mentioned that I manipulated a few years ago to try to work around the Acer driver limitations, but I will look into it again.

 

[EarthwormJim]

Just contact whatever company makes the laptop and ask.

 

[WhoBeDaPlaya]

No issues using any drivers direct from nVIDIA with my Clevo w230ss.

 

[CP5670]

It depends on the laptop. It should be fine in most cases these days unless you have AMD graphics with an Intel CPU and switchable graphics.

I have an older laptop with this (Acer 5820 with 6550+Intel IGP) and can use the standard AMD mobility drivers by disabling the Intel graphics in the BIOS, updating the drivers and then enabling it again. I haven't done it in a while since I don't use it much for gaming, but it can be done.

 

[Ventanni]

My laptop, which is an Asus N53S with a Geforce 540m in it, had that same exact issue where I wasn't allowed to update the video drivers. Asus surely wasn't updating them, so I was kinda stuck using some really old drivers.

When I upgraded it to Windows 10 though, Windows 10 automatically updated the drivers to the latest. That was a huge boost to some games I had tried playing on it.

 

[cholley]

just download the driver package and extract it to a folder, winrar or 7zip are better that winzip at this.

after that, tell windows to update the driver for your VGA adapter, and point it to the folder and let windows do the rest