Question
Clueless about drivers/specs... and frustrated
I'm a clueless newbie to Adobe Premiere Pro and Creative Cloud. I must summarize my saga before asking my question:
- I cluelessly installed PP on my old HP Envy, and was confronted with the System Compatibility Report that said my display graphics driver was not compatible, and I needed to update it.
- I cluelessly went hunting for what I thought was the correct update... updating other things like BIOS and other drivers in the process, before realizing that they weren't the updates referred to by PP. I finally realized the HP didn't have the update so I used the generic one provided by Intel (as suggested in the Adobe article) instead.
- I cluelessly wondered why my computer, which has always worked like a dream, began turning off without warning during use since those updates. I even did a system restore + drive wipe, and it's still turning off without warning if I do certain things.
- I GOT A CLUE! 🙂 The reason HP didn't provide the graphics display driver I needed was... hmmmm... a silly laptop like this probably isn't designed for fancy work like movie making. Time to go computer shopping, I guess.
- Being partial to Microsoft Surface products, I carefully compared the Adobe PP minimum/recommended specs with various Surface models to make sure I would pick the right one. I eventually settled on the Surface Book 2, configured in such a way to exceed the PP specs. I bought it, and I love this thing. It's so cool.
- I cluelessly wondered why, after installing PP on the Surface Book 2, I got ANOTHER System Compatibility Report that mentioned the NVIDIA driver this time. Once again, I was directed to update the NVIDIA drivers, or expect abnormalities in PP.
- I angrily double checked the specs on my brand new lovely computer, and they did indeed exceed the requirements.
- I called Adobe Support to ask for clarification on the System Compatibility Report, and I was told that I just needed to update the drivers, no biggie. I informed the rep (as politely as I could) that I would ABSOLUTELY NOT update anything by myself just yet, since that's how I cluelessly broke the last computer. This one costed over 3 grand and I can't break this one on the third day out of the box, or else I won't be able to do my job. (I already can't do part of it because I can't get PP to work yet.) Plus, I asked, why is PP telling me that a brand new shiny computer has an "old" driver version? Also, is there any way to know what computer I should buy that is guaranteed to work correctly? (Obviously the minimum/recommended specs page isn't enough.)
- I then called Microsoft to ask about how to correctly update the NVIDIA drivers, since I cluelessly did it incorrectly on the previous computer. They said that their agreement with NVIDIA is that all necessary updates to NVIDIA drivers will be provided through Windows Update, so I should not go to any third-party sites to download drivers.
Wow, that was much longer than I intended. So now I am cluelessly stuck with a brand new Surface Book 2, with NVIDIA drivers that are "too old" for Adobe Premiere Pro, and no clear way of updating them. This leaves me with a few questions:
- Can I hear from real life users the truth about updating drivers... is it actually necessary? And what's the correct way to do it?
- Can I hear from any real life PP users who use the Surface Book 2, if there are any? Is this a good machine to use with PP?
- I'm also considering returning this machine for a refund and purchasing a https://store.hp.com/us/en/pdp/hp-pavilion-all-in-one-24-xa0125st instead. It's a huge price drop, but apparently has better specs than even the Surface Book 2 did. Does anyone use this? Can I be confident that I won't get a System Compatibility flag after installing PP? I really just want to buy something that I can turn on, install PP, and start working with.
Thanks for tolerating my cluelessness and verbosity. I really need to be able to use Premiere Pro soon so I can get back to work.
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