Is there any point in installing a monitor driver?

I'm guessing that most of the world's PCs are running with a default "Plug & Play Monitor" driver which seems to work well enough, and having just swapped to a 2005FPW, installed the driver and noticed zero difference - not even a flicker during install - I was just wondering if there is a point to installing the dedicated driver for your monitor?

I assume that for those concerned with accurate colour reproduction and the like the driver might make some difference, but for most users?

Lunatik

Posted 2009-09-17T07:41:30.380

Reputation: 4 973

Answers

With new monitors - no.

Old monitors didn't know how to send resolution information so not having driver meant that not all resolution and refresh combinations were available.

All new LCD screens that I saw know how to transfer this information through DCC channel and have no issues of any kind. Having monitor driver will give you no speed-up whatsoever.

Josip Medved

Posted 2009-09-17T07:41:30.380

Reputation: 8 582

1So, kind of no point at all. Makes you wonder why manufacturers bother though. – Lunatik – 2009-09-17T09:17:02.357

2@Lunatik: Because quite a few users will see "Plug & Play Monitor" instead of their monitor name and freak out. Because they learn not having a driver is bad thing. And for manufacturer creating driver for any monitor takes less then 15 minutes. Probably usually even less because they sell essentially same monitor electronics for quite a few models. – Josip Medved – 2009-09-17T11:48:41.410

Modern monitors usually only provide the color correction profile. Some however can also be configured via a USB cable instead of just via the onscreen menu.

Usually, it's not critical to install these drivers, but I'd do it anyways. It's nice when you can be sure that the colours are displayed as they are intended to be.

brandstaetter

Posted 2009-09-17T07:41:30.380

Reputation: 4 119

5The only way to get colors as they intended to be is with a colorimeter. The driver can't do very much. – Cristian Ciupitu – 2009-09-17T08:31:24.990

Yeah, ok. But the included colour profiles are better than nothing, usually. – brandstaetter – 2009-09-17T09:34:14.850

it depends on the monitor - any features beyond "display this image" will likely need drivers, it's possible to adjust settings on the monitor via the control panel, and that sort of thing with some monitors, others will return information (like the orientation of the monitor.

salmonmoose

Posted 2009-09-17T07:41:30.380

Reputation: 1 675

Maybe... If it has some additional features, like USB hub or something.

I've never installed any drivers for my monitors though, and they worked fine.

Kirill Strizhak

Posted 2009-09-17T07:41:30.380

Reputation: 1 119