Going back to green: a rant

[blanketyblank]

actually that's just DragonAge installing it and requiring physx(no idea why). I don't think there is even any benefit in DA if you had an nvidia capabale card so I'm not sure why it needs the files.

 

[happy medium]

actually that's just DragonAge installing it and requiring physx(no idea why). I don't think there is even any benefit in DA if you had an nvidia capabale card so I'm not sure why it needs the files.

Physx from your cpu. X box and Ps3 do the same thing.

 

[GaiaHunter]

Physx from your cpu. X box and Ps3 do the same thing.

This.

 

[Paratus]

Hey ATI! Imma let you finish in a minute but NV had the best Drivers of All Time!

 

[at80eighty]

my 0.02: lifetime Nvidia user, first time ATI & so far I've been extremely happy

 

[zerocool84]

This is my first ATI card and of course it's fast as hell. I've had the great video driver crash from Nvidia many times while playing games. Haven't had the ATI driver crash at all but can't overclock it without it crashing so here's hoping they fix it soon cus even the hotfix doesn't work for me. Stock it works fine but even trying to overclock it a little crashes.

 

[Apocalypse23]

This is my first ATI card and of course it's fast as hell. I've had the great video driver crash from Nvidia many times while playing games. Haven't had the ATI driver crash at all but can't overclock it without it crashing so here's hoping they fix it soon cus even the hotfix doesn't work for me. Stock it works fine but even trying to overclock it a little crashes.

Interesting, I oc'd my 5870 to 900/1250, it ran Crysis great, I was getting about 2-4 more fps with that alone. I will try pushing it further to test for stability.

 

[Ben90]

Now I wonder how much nVidia paid to you to post such non sense. Paying for an outdated card as the GTX 285 when there's faster cards that are cheaper and offers you the best bang of the buck is simply influences of dark sorcery.

K, allow me to turn off vsync on d3d6- applications on an ATI card under win 7.... Oh that's right, its impossible.

Im actually using two video cards right now, my old ass 7800 GTX and a 4890. There is no doubt the 4890 is faster, but about half the time I'm using my 7800 GTX because the 4890 wont work for what I need it to do.

If I had to pick either/or, I would stick with the 7800 GTX.

Call me a fanboi all you want, I really don't care. I'm just telling you my situation, and you can hate on me all you want because its different than yours. I believe the 5870 is the best card on the market right now for most users (5970 if you don't mind the xfire stuff), but if your one of the three users out there than need to run D3d6- code uncapped in windows 7, ATI is not a good choice.

 

[Skurge]

Out of curiosity, what do you use D3d6 for?

Anyway, I have had my 4870 1g for almost a year and the only issue iv had with drivers is the dirt2 menu, but a driver update fixed that issue.
My PC has never crashed either.

 

[digitaldurandal]

You switched from 2 GTX285s to a HD5870? Why on earth would you do such a thing? GTX285 SLi leaves a HD5870 in the dust performance wise. There is absolutely nothing that warrants such a downgrade - slower and no PhysX once you went AMD. There's DX11, but the only game that shows that is Dirt2 and it doesn't seem you have that one . At least you had PhysX and some cool eye-candy in a game you owned with the nVidia setup. You should have definitely waited for Fermi imo. Or bought a HD5970 to see any positive performance difference.

As for your driver issues, I'm pretty sure those are leftovers from nVidia. If a driver cleaner won't help, I guess you're stuck with reinstalling your OS. Good thing Win7 installs very fast (25 minutes last time I did it for a friend - from the DVD).

Batman and no AA on ATi? Known issue, you shouldn't be surprised (nVidia blocked it). You should've finished Batman on your old setup, you'd get PhysX and AA out of the box.

/rant
PowerPlay issues with ATi with multiple displays? Welcome to my world. I have a fresh Win7 installation, installed Cat 10.1 and the computer "decided" that it no longer likes to have 2 displays attached and won't boot (black screen). I unplugged the HDTV and it runs fine. But wait... it couldn't be all good, sleep is still broken, sometimes when the computer goes up again it greets me with a black or grey stripped screen. One good thing? At least now the card downclocks fine - with two displays attached it would run max clocks 24/7. I felt that one on my electricity bill last year when I still had my HD4870. Then again now I have an "office" card - HD4350, that should technically run fine as there's nothing state-of-the-art that I'm expecting from it. But it seems two screens and a properly working sleep is science-fiction for the ATi driver team - maybe I've been watching too many movies to expect basic things from a graphics card...

SLi didn't function in the games I was playing most, or didn't have a significant impact on minimum frames (which is really my biggest concern, I do not care if my ceiling is 100 or 1000, I really care about my minimum and my median range.)

Also welcome to being the fifth person who is unable to read a thread before responding and sounding like some Tom's hardware noob. I have stated about twenty times here that my installation is fresh and has NOTHING to do with Nvidia drivers. There have never been Nvidia drivers on this installation - hell there hasn't been an nvidia card in this motherboard. Also I have mentioned quite a few times that the driver issue is widespread please do a search.

There really should be a rule that people should read the thread before posting replies. If you just want to post whats on your mind you should have to throw out there, "Hey, I haven't really read your thread and have made the following three assumptions that are probably answered in it but I just felt like typing so I typed this.."

 

[digitaldurandal]

4890 here, does everything I want it to. You're obviously just not playing the right games.

The problem I have is not in a game.. its on the desktop.

You're number six and I hate you.

 

[digitaldurandal]

I can't speak for the OP, but perhaps he was planning on running two 5870s eventually. I've run a number of multi-card setups, and only once did I buy both cards at the same time.



I keep hearing this, and I have been hearing this for years... Does anyone have any proof of this whatsoever? Contrary to what your random computer muggle will have you believe, PC's don't contain Gremlins. Any issue that you have can be traced back to some error on the part of a piece of software, hardware, or end user.

If NV is leaving bothersome/malicious software on PCs that break ATI cards, why hasn't ATI proven this and sued the hell out of NV? ATI seem to be perfectly capable of finding the cause and blaming NV for Batman AA issues, but they seem to be incapable of finding that malware that NV puts on your computer that breaks basic functionality of their product...?

No the best part is that I have already said in my thread, perhaps this will make seven times. That I have no Nvidia drivers here.

People have a tendancy to point the finger away from themselves.

When i first got the second 285 I had issues (the first one I got had some defective vram) and when I played SLI games I had some issues. When I posted about the problems I was having with it on SLIforums the finger was pointed at anything and everything except Nvidia or the card itself. The problem ended up being hardware and was fixed when the card was replaced. But seriously people were saying: try a new install (it also was a new install, I run a new install anytime I have a big hardware change.), its vista, its corrupted dx install, it is user error, it is bad PSU, it is your motherboard.

Not a single person on there suggest it was Nvidia drivers (which it wasnt) or the card itself (which it was)

Just like here no one wants to just come out and say, Dude you are right ATi makes fast cards with poor drivers. No, no, no it must be your install.

 

[digitaldurandal]

If QBAH had read before posting he would have known the op said it was a clean install:
http://forums.anandtech.com/showpost.php?p=29356135&postcount=56

You give me hope for this forum. I keep feeling like I am in some kind of twilight world.

 

[Qbah]

SLi didn't function in the games I was playing most, or didn't have a significant impact on minimum frames (which is really my biggest concern, I do not care if my ceiling is 100 or 1000, I really care about my minimum and my median range.)

Also welcome to being the fifth person who is unable to read a thread before responding and sounding like some Tom's hardware noob. I have stated about twenty times here that my installation is fresh and has NOTHING to do with Nvidia drivers. There have never been Nvidia drivers on this installation - hell there hasn't been an nvidia card in this motherboard. Also I have mentioned quite a few times that the driver issue is widespread please do a search.

There really should be a rule that people should read the thread before posting replies. If you just want to post whats on your mind you should have to throw out there, "Hey, I haven't really read your thread and have made the following three assumptions that are probably answered in it but I just felt like typing so I typed this.."

I read your post, though looks like I wasn't careful enough. I didn't bother with the other replies as my usual way is OP -> reply. If you noticed, I addressed your black screen issue and stated I have something similar and also about downclocking issues - how would I know about those if I wouldn't read your post? I was tired after work and missed the fresh install part... Happens and I'm sorry. You could have dismissed my part about the leftovers and kindly skip the "noob" part as I have been troubleshooting PC hardware and software issues for many many years now.

Hopefully you will have your issue sorted eventually.

 

[GodisanAtheist]

Yawn. Anecdote mean nothing. I could find a similar rant about virtually any product just by scanning Newegg customer reviews.

There are tons of people happy with there 5870s. Just like I could find some people who had problems with there 285s. Just the way PC hardware works.

-And of course the one sane post here gets skipped over for more fanboi ranting. Fact is people have different experiences with different cards which makes some people swing one way or another.

I've never had driver problems with any ATI card I've owned (9800pro/x800/4850, although the x800 was just a piece of shit for its own reasons), but I've had a cavalcade of issues with my Nvidia cards (Geforce 2 MX was nice, GF4 TI was awesome, 7900GT was a god forsaken piece of crap [enabling shadows in games would cause artifacts up and down], 8800GTS 320 went belly up). Let alone the nightmarescape that was upgrading to Vista with not only the 7900GT but an Nforce4 motherboard (which was the one that was actually responsible for all my driver crashes, not the 7900).

A good friend of mine nearly killed himself on account of old ATI Rage, went Nvidia and never went back until he got the 5770. According to him, ATI's drivers are no better or worse than Nvidia's as far as performance and stability is concerned, they just lack some features which to him is no biggie.

Fact is, when relying on anecdotes, you can always find someone or something to back your claim. You just can't make generalized conclusions about it. after my recent Nvidia experiences I'll be staying with ATI for a bit, but that doesn't mean I wouldn't recommend an Nvidia card should it make sense or vice versa.

 

[Schmide]

You give me hope for this forum. I keep feeling like I am in some kind of twilight world.

You seem to perceive good intentions as affronts against yourself. Your original post was loaded with known issues and minor bugs blown out of proportion. It was almost such a perfect storm it seemed like a trolling setup. Most people gave you the benefit of the doubt.

I know nVidia is darn good with drivers, but if you believe that Fermi is going to enter the segment this late without such issues as ATI's cutting edge, all I have to say is good luck with that. You are seriously someone who should stay away from the latest and the greatest because you do not seem to have the patience to deal with it.

 

[nyker96]

I think 58xx still working out some issues with drivers. 285s are older tech. just wait a bit they'll get it fixed. when nv's dx11 parts comes in march they'll also experience some issues in the beginning that's why I like slightly older tech just not to worry about drivers as much. my 4850 works just fine.

 

[toyota]

I think 58xx still working out some issues with drivers. 285s are older tech. just wait a bit they'll get it fixed. when nv's dx11 parts comes in march they'll also experience some issues in the beginning that's why I like slightly older tech just not to worry about drivers as much. my 4850 works just fine.

so nearly five months isnt enough? so basically about the time we get a refresh the drivers should be better? lol

 

[blanketyblank]

so nearly five months isnt enough? so basically about the time we get a refresh the drivers should be better? lol

5 months isn't enough if you don't know what problems exist till several months later. It's not like these are all known problems that happen to everyone. Like grey screen problem doesn't happen to me. Also just looking at these forums there seems to be lots of little things that most people haven't tried yet like playing a 1080p movie while playing a game. Also apparently just found out that the new 5xxx cards have problems with 2d acceleration in Win 7 if aero is enabled. I've never noticed anything or used my card for extensive 2d work, but apparently Toms Hardware found the problem out so ATI has to work on that also.

There will almost always be issues with new hardware. The more revolutionary it is, the more problems there will likely to be. They can deal with the forseeable problems like slow performance, but stuff that happens to only a fraction to the cards or more unusual cases probably won't be looked into until customers find them. I'd be amazed if Fermi comes out without problems.

 

[bob4432]

Personally I think it has to do with new card generation, plus new DX, plus new OS= early adopter blues.

ding, ding, ding - we have a winner. this is the #1 reason i am never an early adopter of any new hardware, os, drivers, etc. it happens regardless of what company is making it. early adopters are just basically paying to be beta testers for the first 6mos imho.

 

[toyota]

ding, ding, ding - we have a winner. this is the #1 reason i am never an early adopter of any new hardware, os, drivers, etc. it happens regardless of what company is making it. early adopters are just basically paying to be beta testers for the first 6mos imho.

blame early adopters? besides Vista being crappy on release I cant think of any early adopter issues I have had. Windows 7 was tested out a lot more than Vista and I know of NO specific video card conflicts with it. I bought Nvidia DX10 8xxx cards back on release and never had any notable issues. I also bought the gtx260 not long after release and no notable issues there either.

really ATI is having quite a few issues and just to say its because its new hardware is no excuse at this point. even disregarding all their regular issues they have had 5 months to get their shit togther on the 5xxx series but still havent done it. hell didnt the newest ATI drivers screw up more than it fixed?

 

[Schmide]

I bought Nvidia DX10 8xxx cards back on release

Was that the 8xxx g80 release? If so I take it you weren't a UT2k4 player?

Edit: On an ironic side note, Vista actually solved the ut2k4 issue which is why I moved to it on my 8800gts 320mb.

 

[toyota]

Was that the 8xxx g80 release? If so I take it you weren't a UT2k4 player?

Edit: On an ironic side note, Vista actually solved the ut2k4 issue.

8600gt and then 8800gt. and no I didnt really play that game much.

 

[happy medium]

Now these 5xxx series cards are having problems with dual screen video....

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2050276

Looks like we are beta testers.....

 

[Schmide]

8600gt and then 8800gt. and no I didnt really play that game much.

Well those were kind of a half step (g84, g92), as the driver quirks were worked out from the g80 release. If you adopted on the g80, you would feel a bit different.