Are you happy with your GPU vendor's driver support?

[potato28]

I used to be unhappy with my driver support because my card was FUBAR'ed, and it died. Now I switched to nVidia, and everything is just great. Good drivers, great Linux drivers, and it hasn't crashed yet.

 

[Drsignguy]

Owned several Nvidia cards in my day and only 2 has given me trouble. The Ti 4600's. Still have them but finding the right driver was a problem. Still use the 6600 gt in my other rig and works great. Decided to try out Ati. Loaded the drivers for them, and everything worked perfectly. My HD 2900 pro works very well for what I do do with my rig.

 

[Extelleron]

I've owned nVidia cards since January 2007 (8800GTS 640MB), since then I've owned an 8800GT and now an 8800GTS 512MB.

I voted "happy" on your poll, I'd say that I am somewhere in between. nVidia's drivers have always worked fine for me, but I wish they would release more official drivers and that I wouldn't have to worry about so many betas, and not being sure which ones to use. With AMD, it's a new driver each month, with nVidia there hasn't been an official 8-series driver since December '07 and it's hard to know which beta to use.

 

[vanvock]

Originally posted by: nRollo

Originally posted by: keysplayr2003
BFG, what card do you still have in your rig? And why?

List reasons here:

I have UT2003. Does this game fall under your incompatability profile? If so, I'd be glad to try it out.
I actually disliked the game, but willing to try it out and see if I can observe what you are talking about.

I have CoD, but not UO. Is UO the only way I would see your problem? If so, I'm sure I can pick it up in the bargain bin somewhere.

I'd talk about this more, but I'm busy right now playing Diablo II on SLI'd 9800GTX's on Windows Vista32.

Don't bother dude- the UT2004 issue with XP is an old issue with this game and the unified shader NVIDIA cards.

It's fixed in Vista, and will be fixed in the 177 series of drivers for XP.

BFG is just angry NVIDIA didn't close the office and work round the clock on this issue because he wants them to, so he's exercising his freedom of speech to complain.

& Rollo's just doin' what he does on these forums- nVidia damage control

 

[nRollo]

Originally posted by: vanvock

Originally posted by: nRollo

Originally posted by: keysplayr2003
BFG, what card do you still have in your rig? And why?

List reasons here:

I have UT2003. Does this game fall under your incompatability profile? If so, I'd be glad to try it out.
I actually disliked the game, but willing to try it out and see if I can observe what you are talking about.

I have CoD, but not UO. Is UO the only way I would see your problem? If so, I'm sure I can pick it up in the bargain bin somewhere.

I'd talk about this more, but I'm busy right now playing Diablo II on SLI'd 9800GTX's on Windows Vista32.

Don't bother dude- the UT2004 issue with XP is an old issue with this game and the unified shader NVIDIA cards.

It's fixed in Vista, and will be fixed in the 177 series of drivers for XP.

BFG is just angry NVIDIA didn't close the office and work round the clock on this issue because he wants them to, so he's exercising his freedom of speech to complain.

& Rollo's just doin' what he does on these forums- nVidia damage control

Just telling it like it is dude.

Did anyone else post that the fix is coming in the 177 series of drivers, or that it's fixed in Vista? No.

This is useful stuff to know if you care about this issue. (not to mention Keys needed this info so he didn't waste any time on this)

 

[vanvock]

Which you could have done without smearing his motive. And What year might those betas be out?

 

[BFG10K]

BFG, what card do you still have in your rig? And why?

I have an 8800 Ultra because I paid a lot of money for it and because it?s the faster single card solution currently available.

I have UT2003. Does this game fall under your incompatability profile? If so, I'd be glad to try it out.
I actually disliked the game, but willing to try it out and see if I can observe what you are talking about.

Don?t worry about Unreal 2 games as 177.xx is supposed to fix that. The point is:

(1) We don?t know when 177.xx is coming.
(2) The issue has been around since Nov 06 and in TWIMTBP titles on nVidia?s flagship card such a situation is simply unacceptable, especially since a crappy Intel GMA has no such issues.

I have CoD, but not UO. Is UO the only way I would see your problem? If so, I'm sure I can pick it up in the bargain bin somewhere.

UO is worse but CoD will still show the issue. Enable full dynamic lights and try the first level in the field where the house explodes. You?ll see the game pause/stutter at the moment of the explosion if you?re looking at the house when it explodes.

This problem happens all over the game and again it?s more TWIMTBP titles that have had issues since Nov 06 while Intel?s GMA doesn?t have such problems.

More details here: http://forums.nvidia.com/index.php?showtopic=63056

 

[SunnyD]

Nope - still waiting to see official unified drivers from NVIDIA that work even on all mobile products.

 

[hans007]

the current nvidia drivers are well annoying. because they dont have a unified non beta still, there is still a problem with HDMI based monitors in the newest beta ... andi've noticed a problem with my HDMI based monitor where it doesnt send the "monitor standby" signal to my new HDMI monitor either.

 

[BenSkywalker]

I swapped to nV due to ATi's drivers, the game I play the most is WoW currently and ATi seems to fix 5 things they had wrong with the game ever driver release, and break 5 new things. Haven't had any driver issues under Vista with any of the games I have been playing at all, but that hasn't been the widest selection. I can understand there are only 10 million people playing the game, so it isn't that big of a concern.

Thanks to BFG for starting this thread and doing things the right way and not the underhanded ways in which other people associated with these forums operate. Open discussion instead of his viewpoint being the final word on the topic, others could learn a lot

 

[Jax Omen]

I can't stand the broken LCD scaling in Nvidia's drivers. It's completely inconsistent. SAME driver version in all three cases:

Girlfriend's WinXP 32-bit: Scaling is screwy, thinks the monitor is non-widescreen when it is, letterboxes 4:3 content instead of pillarboxing.

My WinXP 32-bit: Scaling works perfectly

My Vista 64-bit: Can't even select scaling, it deselects when I click "apply".



My girlfriend hasn't been able to play 4:3 games on her computer for well over a year. No version of the driver, old or new, fixes the problem. Fresh Windows install did not fix the problem. Very frustrating.

I'll be buying ATI when I get new cards.

 

[jaqie]

I am very pleased with nVidia ever since I switched from ATi after a several year long ATI 9800 PRO fiasco.

The only complaints I have are 1) disabling inf support in their UDA for older cards like the 440GO (a quick stop over at nVision fixes that) and 2) the fact that they have disabled the classic control panel in all recent drivers rubs me wrong (nice little reghack for that as well).

 

[magreen]

18:1 ati happy:unhappy.
18:21 nvidia happy:unhappy

That' a 95% happy rate for ATI and a 46% happy rate for nvidia. I think that's very telling.

 

[taltamir]

last official and support WHQL driver for my video card (8800GTS 512):
169.25 Release Date: December 20, 2007

Is it the end of the world? no... but AMD is releasing a new official WHQL driver once a month.

I switched to nVidia because ATI driver support was crap while nVidia's was amazingly good (TNT2 through GF7 single unified up to date driver for XP with very little issues and quality interface).
I might switch to AMD when the next gen (GT200 and RV770) arrive because nvidia's support went down the drain while AMD slapped the failed ATI driver department into shape. (in the first 2 months no less then 5 different installation issues were fixed with the drivers... installation issues I have been complaining and warning people about since 2002 (or was it 2004?) and which caused almost every single install procedure to have issues).

Now don't get me wrong, WHQL is crap. But nVidia should play along AND it should also release drivers for ALL products under 3 years of age once a month.

 

[Lithan]

Originally posted by: BFG10K

BFG, what card do you still have in your rig? And why?

I have an 8800 Ultra because I paid a lot of money for it and because it?s the faster single card solution currently available.

I have UT2003. Does this game fall under your incompatability profile? If so, I'd be glad to try it out.
I actually disliked the game, but willing to try it out and see if I can observe what you are talking about.

Don?t worry about Unreal 2 games as 177.xx is supposed to fix that. The point is:

(1) We don?t know when 177.xx is coming.
(2) The issue has been around since Nov 06 and in TWIMTBP titles on nVidia?s flagship card such a situation is simply unacceptable, especially since a crappy Intel GMA has no such issues.

I have CoD, but not UO. Is UO the only way I would see your problem? If so, I'm sure I can pick it up in the bargain bin somewhere.

UO is worse but CoD will still show the issue. Enable full dynamic lights and try the first level in the field where the house explodes. You?ll see the game pause/stutter at the moment of the explosion if you?re looking at the house when it explodes.

This problem happens all over the game and again it?s more TWIMTBP titles that have had issues since Nov 06 while Intel?s GMA doesn?t have such problems.

More details here: http://forums.nvidia.com/index.php?showtopic=63056

Since when has this problem existed? I played the everloving crap out of COD and COD:UO (Logged thousands of hours in that game) on a 6800ultra, 7800gt and 7800gtx and never had any problems. Is it 8x series exclusive?

 

[BFG10K]

Now don't get me wrong, WHQL is crap.

I'm not sure what you mean here. WHQL is a series of tests that ensure the driver does mess with the OS in ways it's not supposed to. It probably won?t affect game compatibility much but it can help with general stability.

Since when has this problem existed? I played the everloving crap out of COD and COD:UO (Logged thousands of hours in that game) on a 6800ultra, 7800gt and 7800gtx and never had any problems. Is it 8x series exclusive?

It's existed since launch on the 8xxx series (which is Nov 06) and yes, it's pretty much a problem to the G8x core and above.

I never had issues with UT2004, Red faction or CoD/UO on my 7900 GTX. Also the problems seems to affect SP rather than MP.

 

[evolucion8]

Strangely, the issues with the TWIMTBP program with nVidia cards existed since the era of Far Cry and before, remember the banding that ocurred with light maps due to NV3X optimizations on NV40 hardware? I never saw issues with the Get In The Game on Half Life 2 etc in any card, even on nVidia ones.

 

[Lithan]

Originally posted by: BFG10K

Now don't get me wrong, WHQL is crap.

I'm not sure what you mean here. WHQL is a series of tests that ensure the driver does mess with the OS in ways it's not supposed to. It probably won?t affect game compatibility much but it can help with general stability.

Since when has this problem existed? I played the everloving crap out of COD and COD:UO (Logged thousands of hours in that game) on a 6800ultra, 7800gt and 7800gtx and never had any problems. Is it 8x series exclusive?

It's existed since launch on the 8xxx series (which is Nov 06) and yes, it's pretty much a problem to the G8x core and above.

I never had issues with UT2004, Red faction or CoD/UO on my 7900 GTX. Also the problems seems to affect SP rather than MP.

Sp rather than MP? Hmm, that is a very wierd bug. Almost makes me suspect gfx memory addressing issues... but that should show up in MP too (less often) and certainly wouldn't be consistent in SP (IE wouldn't occur at the same part of the map regularly). I'll have to break out my old COD:UO disks and check this out. Can ya give me specifics on what I should look for and where?

 

[n7]

I run Vista & UT2k4 (& have for a long time now), so i can't speak for the recent drivers in XP, but when i was running my 8800 GTX with XP & UT2k4, i was almost ready to throw the card out the window.

There were very clear issues in multiplayer at that time...

Luckily, i was pretty much all transitioned to Vista by the time i'd gotten my 8800, or there's no chance i'd still have it (since i play UT2k4 more than any other game)

 

[BFG10K]

Sp rather than MP? Hmm, that is a very wierd bug

I haven't played MP much but I'd suspect SP has much more dynamic lighting than MP does. The dynamic lighting is causing the problem as the problem?s significantly reduced when you disable it in the game.

Incidentally this was the same problem with Jedi Academy (which was later fixed) and currently what causes Unreal 2 based games to stutter.

My current theory is that the problem is caused by nVidia?s drivers having issues mapping legacy T&L onto a unified architecture.

I'll have to break out my old COD:UO disks and check this out. Can ya give me specifics on what I should look for and where?

All of the details (including screenshots of problem spots) are posted in this thread:

http://forums.nvidia.com/index.php?showtopic=63056

But unless you have a G8x series card or higher you're probably wasting your time as older cards don?t have the issue the last time I checked.

 

[Lithan]

Got a save game @ the one worst problem spot (that field with the barb wire) so I can jump to it?

 

[BFG10K]

I'll try and upload one later.

 

[The Keeper]

In the old days of the original Radeon (to which I had upgraded from GF2 MX) I had significant driver issues with a lot of games. I ended up returning the card to reseller and get GF3 Ti200 instead. GF3 drivers weren't perfect but significantly better than Radeon drivers. I later returned to ATI's camp with Radeon 9700 XT, then later upgraded it to X850 Pro and again in a new rig to 3870. Of all the cards I've owned, only the original Radeon was a pain.

Since GF3 Ti200 I haven't personally owned an NVIDIA card, but I've still used them and given lots of tech support. I agree with the original poster of this topic that NVIDIA's driver policy and support is a major pain in the ass. They release stable WHQL certified drivers far too rarely. Telling customers to install unsupported beta drivers which may cause even more problems is a major inconvenience from tech support point of view. This is where I love ATI, they release stable WHQL certified drivers every month and you know the drivers are stable enough for everyday use. It is easy to recommend to update to the latest drivers. As opposed to NVIDIA, where the latest stable driver can be over six months old and you just don't know how stable a beta driver really is.

I'm not 100% sure of this because I haven't followed NVIDIA news as closely, but I don't think NVIDIA has ever released a driver hotfix to fix a serious bug in their stable driver releases. They release a new obscure beta driver instead. ATI on the other hand has release officially supported hotfixes several times in the past, instead of needing to wait a month for next stable driver release.

And this is a big plus in my books; ATI released hardware specifications for their latest Radeons. Finally the open source community can work on fully supported open source drivers for ATI cards. A huge service to the unix community. For this reason alone I'd be willing to support AMD/ATI.

So the bottom line is, today my favorite is by far ATI.

 

[coreyb]

Always had nvidia cards and havn't had a problem in years.

 

[mruffin75]

I've had the following (in no real order):

GeForce2MX
Radeon 9000
GeForce 3 Ti200
GeForce2 GTS
Radeon 9600XT
Radeon X800GT
Radeon X1600 Pro
Radeon 2900XT

The original GeForce cards were fine, although was running into driver problems with the GeForce cards in the end...

ATI drivers have been virtually rock solid for me since the 9600XT (well actually since the 9000, but that's too old to really make a difference now).

At present, the Radeon 9000 is still working away in my sisters PC, and the 9600XT is working fine in my mothers PC (they get my hand-me-down's).. and the 2900XT is working fine in my PC..

On the other hand, the GeForce Go 7200 in our Vista laptop is absolutely horrible...next time we'll be going for a Radeon Mobile chipset thanks...