AMD and Valve Provide Drivers to Gamers Over Steam

AMD announced a collaborative effort with Valve to provide ATI Catalyst Drivers to Steam client users. Steam will detect which AMD branded GPU you have and provide the relevant updates for it. This is a very important move as Drivers are quite often the number one external factor for games not working. Gamers already know the importance of keeping drivers up to date, but the vast majority of people that play games don’t necessarily update them on a regular basis, or even know how to.

The Steam platform makes for a prime candidate for such a roll out, and one I’m sure Nvidia and possibly Intel are looking into as well. Steam’s install base covers millions of computers and users, providing a perfect platform to make sure that users are both aware of updates and provides a means for users to download and install them. One possible problem that may arise is that of OEM drivers from companies like Asus, HP, Dell, et cetera, since quite often, standard drivers direct from the GPU manufacturer do not work with these OEM models. There is also a matter of the Hotfix versions, drivers that are released between major versions to cover minor fixes and new game releases, as well as drivers for AGP based graphics cards.

Overall, this is a very good thing, as this is another step in providing convenience and consolidating complex maintenance that often bewilders the average PC user/gamer. Just waiting on a similarly tuned statement from Nvidia.

AMD (NYSE: AMD) today announced its collaboration with Valve to deliver ATI Catalyst™ graphics driver updates via its Steam platform, a leading platform for PC games and digital entertainment. Steam users can now detect and install the latest ATI Catalyst driver for their ATI Radeon™ graphics card directly from within Steam. Valve’s most recent Steam Hardware Survey shows that fully 87 percent of DirectX® 11 gamers are enjoying ATI Radeon or ATI Mobility Radeon™ hardware.