Drivers: Have ATI and Nvidia switched?

[VIAN]

Lately, it seems as if Nvidia is having many more stability issues and bugs than ATI. Have you also noticed this or is it me?

 

[Megatomic]

It's just you. I'm using the latest official GeForce drivers with exceptional results.

 

[Shamrock]

umm, are you comparing Official Cat's vs beta leaks? Coz my official NV drivers havent failed me yet...no stability problems...or are you just trying to spread more ATI fud?

 

[Whizzy]

no they haven't switched.. both current driver sets 4.5 for Catalyst and the latest offical drivers from Nvidia do seem to handle the job very well !

 

[Lonyo]

There is no switch.
Both work. I've not had a single issue with Cat's, I did have issues with Det's.
Some people have issues no matter what, so they're both good and bad.

 

[NYHoustonman]

I have had no problems with the Cats on my 9800 Pro; I have had tons of problems with the Dets/FW on my Ti4400.

 

[Sahrin]

There was no switch. Stability wise, the only change is that ATi has caught up to nVidia (in a BIG way) so that now it is conceiable that the Cats are better drivers written than the Dets (or forceware, or whatever nv wants to call them today). Performance wise, ATI's design philosophy is...different than nVidia's, so that nVidia is now taking longer for *more* mature drivers to emerge, that get performance to the level that ATi was at at the beginning of the generation. I don't necessarily view this as an nVidia problem, just more complex hardware implementations.

 

[hysperion]

that get performance to the level that ATi was at at the beginning of the generation. I don't necessarily view this as an nVidia problem, just more complex hardware implementations.

Are you referring to the geforce fx series? Everyone spews their opinion....I have had more problems with my 9800xt then I had from the tnt2-geforce 4 combined and I owned every card in between there....
Call of Duty comes to mind....very rare to find issues caused by the video card in nvidia drivers....usually it's because people don't know what they're doing when they install them....on the other hand ATI has been notorious for putting out buggy drivers......have they gotten better, yes they've gotten alot better but don't spew information based on opinion rather then fact.....Do a search for driver issues, fact is there are alot more problems with catalyst in the last year...

 

[Schadenfroh]

nv drivers are still great, and not just in windows, nvidia is superior to ati in Linux and possibly windows xp 64bit

 

[gsellis]

ATI is still sane for me Vian. I have not had a single issue. And I do stress them (app uses GPU for video rendering).

My NLE vendor still seems to hesitate to recommend nVidia flatout. You could temper that with the partnership they do with ATI, but there have been issues with certain driver sets and the vid monitors or rendered video in certain circumstances (but it is a lovely shade of green). I think both the lastest nVidia and ATI drivers are stable for what I do with them. No slipage detected by either. Just more goodness.

 

[VIAN]

I'm not trying to start a war or spread crap, I'm just asking a serious question in which the answer might influence a decision.

I have had more problems with my 9800xt then I had from the tnt2-geforce 4 combined and I owned every card in between there....

That's all good and well, but those WERE the glory days, and Nvidia no longer enjoys them.

nv drivers are still great, and not just in windows, nvidia is superior to ati in Linux and possibly windows xp 64bit

Please stick to Windows XP 32-bit OS. When games galore are available and played on other OSes then it might matter.

So far so good, seems like both drivers are equally good.

 

[Shamrock]

Linux games are spreading, but at a slow pace...but games arent the ONLY thing people do. Win64 will play games when it's out, and Linux has great support from NV, while ATI's is there, it's lacking

so why just limit yourself to Windows 32 bit? when so much more is out there? Not EVERYONE games

 

[CaiNaM]

Originally posted by: Shamrock
umm, are you comparing Official Cat's vs beta leaks? Coz my official NV drivers havent failed me yet...no stability problems...or are you just trying to spread more ATI fud?

consider the source.

 

[BFG10K]

Drivers: Have ATI and Nvidia switched?

No, I'd probably still say nVidia have the edge. Also the entire batch of Catalyst 4.x have a lot of issues compared to the likes of 3.10, which I'm currently using for this very reason.

 

[ShawnD1]

I don't even think there are ATI drivers for Linux. When I tried to install Mandrake 10 with my 9600XT, I got the error saying there is no display. I put my FX5200 in the computer and the setup booted without a problem (but I quit since I want to use my fast card).
Hard to game in Linux with an ATI card when the install can't even see the card.

My 9600XT does a great job of playing games, but the ATI drivers don't have all the features the Nvidia drivers have.

 

[Gurck]

I had a problem with the 56.72 nvidia drivers where, when playing EverQuest in fullscreen, parts of my desktop would flicker on my (in-game) screen. I have a ti4600, went back to the 43.45 drivers, which fixed the problem and boosted my 3dmark scores by a lot. However, EverQuest is made by Sony and so is buggier as a finished product than most software going through beta-testing, so it may well have had nothing to do with Nvidia.

 

[Mem]

I`ve never had any problems with either Nvidia or ATi drivers,ATi have the edge in driver updates which are a lot more frequent then Nvidia.Using Driver Cleaner also helps with ensuring you`ve a clean install of drivers.

 

[nitromullet]

Originally posted by: ShawnD1
I don't even think there are ATI drivers for Linux. When I tried to install Mandrake 10 with my 9600XT, I got the error saying there is no display. I put my FX5200 in the computer and the setup booted without a problem (but I quit since I want to use my fast card).
Hard to game in Linux with an ATI card when the install can't even see the card.

My 9600XT does a great job of playing games, but the ATI drivers don't have all the features the Nvidia drivers have.

There are ATi drivers for Linux. The last time I tried them with my 9700 Pro (over a year ago), they were difficult to get working properly and offered really poor performance. Quake III would stutter and lock up frequently. I turned around and got an FX5900, got it up and running in about 5 mins, and never had a single issue with performance. Of course I game a lot less with Linux than I do Windows, but the point of it for me is that I bought an expensive piece of hardware and I would like for it to function properly in both the OSes I use. I also don't really see the benefit of ATi's move to coming out with a new driver every month or thereabouts, it just means I would have to constantly upgrade. Give me drivers less often, but make them good.

 

[Keysplayr]

When anyone says "The drivers work perfectly" make sure you add the words "for me" at the end.

 

[clicknext]

I've been using ATI drivers since the Radeon 8500 days and no a single problem for me. Similarly, I've been using 3 or 4 different FX5600 systems at school with no problems either.

 

[Acanthus]

Ive used:

ATi Rage XL 8MB
NVIDIA TNT 2 Ultra 64MB
NVIDIA Geforce 256 32MB
NVIDIA Geforce 2 Ultra 64MB
NVIDIA Geforce 3 Ti500
ATi Radeon 8500
NVIDIA Geforce 4 Ti4200 64MB
NVIDIA Geforce 4 Ti4200 128MB VIVO
NVIDIA Geforce FX5600 128MB
NVIDIA Geforce FX5600 256MB
ATi Radeon 9700 Pro 128MB
ATi Radeon 9800 128MB
NVIDIA Geforce FX5900 128MB

All of the cards have ran fine with the exception of the 8500 (HUGE laundry lists of problems), and the recent game bugs on the 9700p and 9800.

 

[Keysplayr]

Lets see, I have had:

Voodoo2 12MB PCI no probs
TNT 16MB AGP no probs
TNT2 32MB no probs
GeForce 256 no probs
GeForce2 MX200/400 no probs/fan died
GeForce 2 Ti no probs
GeForce 4 Ti4200 no probs
GeForce 4 Ti4600 no probs
GeForce FX 5600U rev.2 no probs
GeForce FX 5900nu no probs
GeForce FX 5900U 256 no probs

Radeon 9000pro no probs
Radeon 9500pro wavy lines and UT issue
Radeon 9700np Unstable no matter what driver used up to Cat 4.2 then sold it.

For me, if you look at this ratio, Nvidia overwhelms ATI for not having issues. FOR ME.
And If ever I am asked why I prefer nvidia, this is why.

Sure, there are a lot more nv cards in this list than ATI, but for the ratio to be equal, at least seven of the nvidia card would have had to have problems.

 

[VIAN]

My friend Mark said that he saw a ninja totally uppercut some kid just because the kid opened a window.

LOL

Impressive list, some of you have.

TNT2 M64 - no probs
GeForce2 MX - no probs
Radeon 8500 - a couple of quickly fixed probs
GeForce Ti 4600 - a couple of problems
Voodoo5 5500 - no probs
GeForce FX 5900 - a couple of problems
Radeon 9700 Pro - a couple of quickly fixed probs

 

[rbV5]

I also don't really see the benefit of ATi's move to coming out with a new driver every month or thereabouts, it just means I would have to constantly upgrade. Give me drivers less often, but make them good.

Why does it mean you have to constantly upgrade? The release notes are pretty straightforward as to what is fixed in the release, and to which new or improved features have been enabled. If they don't pertain to you, simply don't upgrade. The users affected by the fixes or new functionality appreciate the drivers sooner rather than later, which makes for a compelling reason to offer them regularly.

 

[VIAN]

Why does it mean you have to constantly upgrade? The release notes are pretty straightforward as to what is fixed in the release, and to which new or improved features have been enabled. If they don't pertain to you, simply don't upgrade. The users affected by the fixes or new functionality appreciate the drivers sooner rather than later, which makes for a compelling reason to offer them regularly.

Agreed.