Updating your Video and/or Sound Drivers in Windows 2000 and Windows XP

To update your Video/Sound card drivers, first and most importantly, you need to find out what Video or Sound card you have in your system. There are two easy ways to do this:

1. Via DXDIAG

• Click Start
• Click Run
• Type in the word DXDIAG:
• You will see a screen similar to the one below:
• There are two tabs that you are concerned with: Display and Sound. Clicking on each tab will provide you with the information you need to determine what video or sound card you have, and what driver versions you are running (located under the Drivers area on the right side).

Here you see that the video card listed is a NVIDIA GeForce FX 5900 Ultra (as listed under the Device area), and that the sound card is listed as a SB Audigy.

2. Via Device Manager

• Right click on your My Computer icon, click on Properties, click on the Hardware Tab, then click the Device Manager button
• You will see a multitude of information, but you are only concerned about the Display adapters and Sound, video, and game controllers area. Pressing the + on both areas will show you something similar to what you see above, also telling you exactly which sound and video card you have.
• By double clicking on each piece of hardware, you can get more information, such as driver information.

So, now you know what video and sound card you're running. Now you need to go to our Audio (http://planetside.station.sony.com/support/tech_support/sound_cards.vm) or Video (http://planetside.station.sony.com/support/tech_support/video_cards.vm) support pages to download the latest supported drivers for EverQuest.

1. Find the card that is closest to what your card describes itself as and under which Operating System, and click on that file to download.

2. Select to SAVE the file and choose a location you are comfortable with and that is easy to find.

3. Most of the drivers provided by the manufacturers are self extracting executables, meaning you can just double click on them and run them, so you shouldn't need an external program to get at the files you need.

***Before installing new Video drivers, regardless of Make, Manufacturer, or Model # of card, you should always uninstall the drivers you are using currently before updating to the new drivers. Click on Start, click on Settings, click on ControlPanel, and then click on Add/Remove programs, your Video card drivers should be listed, and this is where you should uninstall them (just click on the driver and click the Change/Remove button)

When the uninstall is complete, reboot your computer and then continue with these instructions.

4. Go to the location you saved your driver file at, and double click on the file that you saved. This should start the installation process. If you get a window that looks like this: then extract the files to an easy to find folder, and continue with the instructions.

5. Most current ATi and nVidia driver files will do most of the work for you, and just double clicking that file you downloaded will be enough. Some other manufacturers require another step. In Step 4, we talked about an alternative to what double clicking the file you downloaded looks like. If it looks like the above picture, then you should go to the directory you extracted these files to, and look for the file SETUP.EXE. Double clicking on this file will begin the driver installation.

6. You may encounter a screen that looks similar to this: This is simply stating that the driver you are installing has not completed Windows Hardware Quality Labs Certification. This is ok,and clicking Continue Anyway will allow you to continue with your installation.

7. Once the installation is complete, you should be prompted to reboot your computer. Do so and when you're done, your computer should be updated with the drivers you just installed on your system.

If, after following these instructions, you still have issues, you can contact our Tech Support department via email, phone, or Live Chat.