Understand Software Technologies – Drivers

In this part of my blog I will be discussing and giving examples of what a driver is, and how driver issues can have impact on game creations and game installation, I will be using appropriate use of subject terminology.

A drive is a piece of software that allows your computer to communicate with hardware or devices. Without drivers, the hardware that you connect your computer will probably not work to its full extent or capacity, for example a video card or a printer. [i]

The biggest benefit indicated when discussing programming for the PlayStation, Xbox and Nintendo, is that one size fits all most of the time when it comes to hardware and compatibility. The same thing and rule applies to the handheld devices, games that work in the DS will work straight away on the DSX and DSi, there would be no need for us to download any additional downloads, or any need to install driver to configure for screen issues. Again the same rule applies for controllers, any Xbox controller will work on any Xbox system, as the keys are the same, the buttons are the same but possibly located somewhere, and there could also be a few extra things, but that would be just adding to what is already there, it would actually effect the game its self, as there is no need to change any of the coding of the game for it to work with a different control.

When it comes to PCs and Apples, there can be an issue. Compliant drivers for any game that you want to play could slow down the installation and quality of the game processes. On all games, the boxes that come in states on them what PC the game will play and work best on, this is due to the fact that different PCs have different hardware’s, this means that there would be different graphics cards, sound cards, screen sizes and resolutions, motherboards, different controllers on the keyboard and beyond the keyboard and different cameras and microphones. Bu when it comes to making these games for PCs, the gaming programmers cannot include a one size fits all for these; this is because every card is different and requires different drivers.

Companies and developers such as Windows, also produce the gaming console Xbox, this is very useful and handy when it comes to producing and building the devices and the technology and software that needs to go into them such as drivers. As they will both probably working off the same operating systems, there is no need to mess with the coding of any of the games that they produce and no need to download any extra plug-ins as they will be made to work exactly the same.

There is a solution for avoiding any disruption when playing games on PCs or gaming systems and that is to put the driver files on a site where you download plugins, add-ons, updates and bug fixes for free. If you do not have the right drivers there can be glitches dropped frame rates, dropped baud rates on the sound card, or lag on the network. Configuring a game on a PC or Apple for the right drivers will overcome most of these issues. .



[i] http://windows.microsoft.com/en-gb/windows/what-is-driver#1TC=windows-7


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