Monday, November 03, 2008

All This Time! Possible Fix for iMac Graphics in Vista?

Wow - I can't believe the number of hours I've put into this, and I've just now stumbled upon what will probably be the solution.

Vista is very unstable when gaming under Boot Camp on my Leopard-based iMac. I've read many, many reports of similar experiences, and have tried many solutions, including using stock ATI video drivers, blah blah blah. None worked well, much less better than the ones in Boot Camp. I'd get blue screens indicating that my video driver was stuck in an infinite loop.

I've wracked my brain for months over this, literally. I only use Windows to play a game (Ultima Online), and to have that ONE experience ruined daily by frequent crashing is just infuriating.

Nobody could figure it out. Apple put out an update, and Windows said it applied the update, but it didn't help.

Last night, I noticed something. The version on my Boot Camp install was version 1.4... beta. Now, I *know* I've run an update since then! WTF??

I downloaded the latest Boot Camp Update last night, version 2.1. It wouldn't unpack, let alone install. Pulled my hair out for another hour or so looking for answers. No luck.

Today, it hit me. I needed to install version 2.0 before the 2.1 update would work. 2.0 is on my Leopard CD. While I could have sworn I'd already done that, maybe I didn't.

I just ran the Boot Camp installer from the CD (2.0). Sure enough, the 2.1 update went as planned.

I saw my video drivers get updated... twice.

I was 2 versions behind on my video drivers - which I suspected! I just couldn't nail down how to get the updates!

What a simple solution. What a numbskull I am.

I am so positive that this is going to solve my crashing problems that I'm going to proclaim victory over this problem right now!

HOORAH!!