ATI / nVIDIA drivers

[Magic Carpet]

Is it just me.. or does nVIDIA have snappier 2D drivers, i.e. Desktop use ??

I have tested a number of video cards and whenever I switch back to nVIDIA, my web browsing experience improves. Not significantly, but I can feel the difference.

 

[96Firebird]

I haven't noticed a difference, but I've never used different cards one after the other. I don't see why they would be any different in 2D use, though.

 

[nitromullet]

What cpu and res are you running? I have a Radeon HD 2400 running with a Pentium E2140 in my secondary rig and it's pretty sluggish in terms of screen re-draw when I move a window. However, when I run the same card (I have two of them) in my i7 rig it's smooth as butter.

I used to run a GeForce 7300 in with that same rig and it wasn't sluggish at all. Although, it's not a fair comparison because I replaced the GeForce with the Radeon because it wouldn't support my native res (2560x1440), so it was running at 1920x1080.

 

[Qianglong]

When the 5870 was launched it had very bad 2D performance due to early drivers but it was then subsquently fixed. The same can be said for the 7970 but its nothing a driver can't fix.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/radeon-hd-7970-benchmark-tahiti-gcn,3104-15.html

 

[LtGoonRush]

What browser are you using? Firefox renders and composites on the GPU using Direct2D and Direct3D, so GDI performance should be irrelevent. Make sure you're testing with fully-updated Windows Vista/7 (preferably 64-bit), the latest drivers, and DirectX10+ hardware.