HOWTO: Identify the model of a graphics card from the command line

When installing a version of Windows listed at the end of this article�the installation process carries out a hardware detection and tries to automatically install any hardware it recognises. There are occasions where Windows cannot correctly identify your graphics card and your installation will complete with a default VGA adapter offering fewer colours and a lower resolution than the card can support due to the correct driver not being loaded. It is not always possible to identify the make of a graphics card by physical inspection, particularly when using laptop computers, and this makes it difficult to determine the correct driver to use.

Open a command prompt, type debug and hit enter. At the dash (-) prompt, type: d C000:0010. The command window will display a list of hexadecimal values with a translation on the right hand side. The information on the right hand side should help you determine what video card you have installed. To scroll down this detail, type d and enter at the dash prompt.

Here is a sample output from this command. You can see that it identifies the card as an ATI Mach 64 adapter.
�
-d c000:0010
C000:0010� 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00-3C 01 00 00 00 00 49 42�� ........<.....IB
C000:0020� 4D 00 16 7A 00 69 F7 00-00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00�� M..z.i..........
C000:0030� 20 37 36 31 32 39 35 35-32 30 FF FF 29 63 C2 DE��� 761295520..)c..
C000:0040� 33 3F 00 3C 00 00 00 00-E0 00 00 00 00 00 00 00�� 3?.<............
C000:0050� 31 39 39 39 2F 30 33 2F-30 33 20 31 35 3A 34 33�� 1999/03/03 15:43
C000:0060� 00 00 00 00 E9 8B 50 00-E9 80 50 00 E9 8F 13 00�� ......P...P.....
C000:0070� 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00-00 00 FF FF 29 63 C2 DE�� ............)c..
C000:0080� E9 D1 00 0D 0A 33 2E 30-39 36 0D 0A 00 28 43 29�� .....3.096...(C)
-d
C000:0090� 20 31 39 38 38 2D 39 37-2C 20 41 54 49 20 54 65��� 1988-97, ATI Te
C000:00A0� 63 68 6E 6F 6C 6F 67 69-65 73 20 49 6E 63 2E 42�� chnologies Inc.B
C000:00B0� 4B 33 2E 31 30 2E 31 2F-33 2E 30 39 36 20 67 74�� K3.10.1/3.096 gt
C000:00C0� 63 70 71 2E 30 32 33 20-36 20 00 4D 41 43 48 36�� cpq.023 6 .MACH6
C000:00D0� 34 47 56 50 43 49 4D 54-53 44 55 3F 00 00 4A 00�� 4GVPCIMTSDU?..J.
C000:00E0� 00 A0 03 60 EC 02 00 00-00 19 0F 80 04 04 04 04�� ...`............
C000:00F0� E4 07 83 00 CB 00 00 03-FF FC 00 10 FF EF CE 01�� ................
C000:0100� CE 03 00 00 00 00 FF FF-00 00 00 B0 FF FF FF 4F�� ...............O
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