A device driver or software driver is a computer program allowing higher-level computer programs to interact with a hardware device. -Wikipedia
There you go! That pretty much sums up just what a driver is!
I guess I can explain it a little bit nicer, because that probably doesn’t mean much to you. If it does then that’s great! I hope I get the translation correct.
Basically, that quote says that a driver is an application that runs in the background of your computer that you really don’t know is there. It’s not like other programs that run in the background, like virus’, it is very helpful and allows certain programs to communicate with peripherals or hardware inside your computer.
Just about everything has it’s own driver. Whenever you connect a new device, say a camera you got for Christmas, you’re computer will pop with a little box that says “Installing new hardware..” or something similar to that. When it is doing this, it is putting the drivers application files into the correct place to make your camera pop up and say “Hey! I’m here!”
Hardware inside the computer needs it as well, most often video cards and sound cards need to be updated frequently to stay up to date and in the best working condition. You might think to your self “but my video games are loading just fine, why do I need to update my drivers?”. Lot’s of times you may not notice what is going on in the circuitry on the physical card, there might be a small bug that is creating a lot of heat in the video card, or maybe the game could just run a little bit smoother than normal.
It is more important to just have a drive installed, if you don’t then the operating system will not work correctly with anything! This is the reason why when you first install a video card your icons on your monitor might be really huge, that’s because the resolution is really small and the drivers aren’t even installed. After they get installed, everything is good to go! This is the case with a lot different programs and applications, and that is why drivers are always needed to be installed and kept up to date.
Driver updates are important and should always be kept up to date, go to your manufacturers website and check to see if you have the most up to date drivers for just about everything, it won’t hurt
