What drivers to install on Windows Server 2008 R2?

Question

I just installed Win 2008 R2 on the Mainboard with the AMD 785G chipset.

Should I install any chipset drivers?

Should I install the ATI Catalyst drivers? Are there performance benefits (I use Remote Desktop only)?

Answer 1

RDP uses it's own video drivers. So the catalyst would only matter when you're logged in locally.

"On the server, RDP uses its own video driver to render display output by constructing the rendering information into network packets by using RDP protocol and sending them over the network to the client. On the client, RDP receives rendering data and interprets the packets into corresponding Microsoft Win32 graphics device interface (GDI) API calls. For the input path, client mouse and keyboard events are redirected from the client to the server. On the server, RDP uses its own on-screen keyboard and mouse driver to receive these keyboard and mouse events."

link

Chipset drivers ... I've always installed them if they were avalible, never really bothered to do a before and after benchmark. Does anyone have hard numbers on this?

If you can't find them, it may not be a big deal, unless there's a specific feature that you need from the chipset. (Of course, one of those features may increase performance ...)

Answer 2

I do the same as Joseph Kern - install them if available but not fuss otherwise. I'm quite happy to log on locally with nothing more than standard VGA drivers if that's all I have. Over RDP it really makes no difference because the server side drivers play no part in the video rendering on the client.

I once had to go through the exercise of proving that because a senior manager insisted in trying to watch video clips in an RDP session and, not surprisingly, found the performance inadequate. Even replacing the server's video card with a top notch one, complete with the latest drivers, made absolutely no difference. The only up side to that was that I got a new video card for my workstation out of it.