Do I need Ati drivers if I have Nvidia video card?

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I'm still learning.....

When I log on computer, screen shows "The ATI control panel
failed to initialize because no ATI driver is installed, or ATI driver is not working properly. The ATI control panel will now exit".

I know that has been discussed here, but this is my question: Isn't ATI a video card? I have Nvidea GeForce FX5500 in my system (XP, 1 G Ram)) yet this error message always appears. When I pull up display adaptors in device mgr, my Nvidea shows, nothing for ATI does.

So, do I need both? I just updated drivers on my video card and direct x due to a game freezing. That didn't help. Then I remembered this error message and wondered if it had something to do with it.

Thanks alot for any help.
Modmomm
 
You don't need ATI drivers-they are for AMD/ATI graphics cards- uninstall them.
Use Driver Sweeper here:
http://downloads.guru3d.com/Guru3D---Driver-Sweeper-(Setup)-download-1655.html
in preference to "Add and Remove Programs" in the control panel. I would uninstall both the ATI and nVidia drivers and re-install the applicable nVidia driver to ensure you get an uncorrupted install.
The DirectX update should be fine.

You should only have the graphics driver from your graphics card vendor ( the manufacturer) i.e. Gigabyte, MSI, XFX, EVGA etc. If the card is an OEM product then download from here http://www.nvidia.com/Download/index.aspx?lang=en-us

FX5xxx branded cards (not OEM) may not run with the nVidia Forceware drivers so make sure you use the manufacturers recommended download if available.
 
If I don't need the ATI, why do I get the error message? Also, I just updated the Nvidia drivers today. Wouldn't I have the latest? And lastly, I do not know what the diff is in Forceware driver or? Please keep in mind, I have absolutely no knowledge of this topic :(

P.S. What does Driver Sweeper do?

Thank you so much for your reply.
 
The error message occurs because the ATI Control Panel (a part of the ATI driver download) is looking for a non-existant ATI card. It will continue to look for the non-existant card at every computer start-up until you uninstall the ATI Control Panel utility- Driver Sweeper will do this.

Driver Sweeper is a utility that will COMPLETELY uninstall a driver from your system. Using "Add and Remove" programs may leave parts of the driver software still on your machine. For the sake of simplicity open "Add and Remove programs" ( Start > Control Panel > Add and Remove Programs) if you see ATI Control Panel in the list of populated programs see if you can uninstall it- if you cannot,or would prefer a recommended software uninstall then download Driver Sweeper it will remove the software in a few simple steps.If you use the program make sure that the only box checked is the ATI one.

If YOU DO NOT remove the ATI Control Panel then you may well run into conflicts with the nVidia driver causing the graphics card to work improperly.

Forceware is the name of nVidia's desktop driver package.

The nVidia driver you have updated and are using is correct for the card if you can right click on the desktop and "nVidia Control Panel" can be seen and accessed (i.e. you can change screen resolution)
You can also check the status of your card (or any other piece of hardware) by clicking the "System" tab in XP's control panel, click on "Device Manager" and in the list of devices click on "Display adapters" - Your card will be listed - if no yellow notification is shown next to it then it's working ok.

The recommended way of updating a graphics driver is to completely uninstall the previous one first, NOT simply overwrite the old driver with the new one. This is because remnants of the old driver can still be left in the operating system registry and corrupt the new driver- hence the use of Driver Sweeper.

As for whether you have the latest nVidia driver...well, that's pretty hard to tell without knowing how you updated the driver, what version of driver you have, or the manufacturer of your card.
You can find out who made the card (if it's not apparent from looking at it or its packaging) and the driver version it is running by downloading a small and very useful utility called GPU-Z - Go here http://www.techpowerup.com/downloads/SysInfo/GPU-Z/ Download, then open the program and click "Run" . On the screen you will see a small rectangular box next to the word "Subvendor" --it will have a four digit code and most likely the name of the card manufacturer.

Delete the ATI Control Panel first
Post back with the relevant information if you need assistance with the nVidia driver update.
 
Dividebyzero:

Thanks for "spelling it out" for me. I really appreciate the time you took to type all that. I will download the Sweeper. And yes, my Nvidiea card is only thing showing in device mgr(With no error marks).
 
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