Ha ha I enjoy these very much...

[T2k]

Have plenty of ultra-high-end Quadros here (high-end scientific visualization/3D firm), numerous GTX and GTS desktop cards and a ton of ATI 48xx/58xx - and I hate to tell you but NV drivers give us at least 2-3x more headache, let alone crippling features from GTX to force you to go for a Quadro (ie 10-bit/DP).

FWIW we don't run any multi-card (CF, SLI) setup here.

 

[ModestGamer]

Have plenty of ultra-high-end Quadros here (high-end scientific visualization/3D firm), numerous GTX and GTS desktop cards and a ton of ATI 48xx/58xx - and I hate to tell you but NV drivers give us at least 2-3x more headache, let alone crippling features from GTX to force you to go for a Quadro (ie 10-bit/DP).

FWIW we don't run any multi-card (CF, SLI) setup here.

Its becuase of non standard API features, Features that are lacking in windows and the driver model.

this is why to some degree all the habdashery between all these companys needs to end and some form of standardized ISA needs to be implemented.

The shenanigans must stop.That would also require windows to open up the code though and tell compiler writers how to properly implement API features. which isn't going to happen soon I fear.

but are viable options comming. maybe ?

You shouldn't even really have to do anything other then use the Windows API to be honest to do everything you want to do. It shows a myriad of problems that you can't. Ie the Os can not in anyway capitolize on the GPU properly. If you watch GPU core activity you can see in most GPU type applications that the core is vastly underutilized.

Why is a deep question with questions going back to the card driver model and the kernel itself.

 

[distinctively]

I don't get how any one person having driver issues is in any way indicative of overall driver issues for a particular vendor...

If anyone felt like posting otherwise I suspect you could find a huge number of individuals with SLI issues.

Guess what, in almost every single occasion you'd find some user specific issue was behind the problem...

It terminally doesn't matter that you think you've managed the issue perfectly and it's 'dreadful' that hardware/software vendor X forgot your particular amazing and entirely unique install and usage profile

So how does it usually work?

Are there thousands and thousands of people (well, that's what it would take to get a statistically significant sample, and then some) reporting this issue?

Uhhhh, no.

Well, gee, I've managed to find three people on teh intarwebs who have the same issue.

Therefore, it must be that all company X drivers are bollocks and that everyone who uses them will have huge issues

Or alternatively: it's just possible that some of the hundreds of pieces of software I have installed/my os has installed are conflicting in some way that the driver team for company X had not considered.

Which seems more likely? I think that anyone who isn't a giant douche can probably answer that question as follows:

Both vendors' drivers are not perfect, and people sometimes have issues, particularly with multi-GPU setups. The vast majority of people don't (common sense and some pretty basic maths indicates that if everyone who installed a forceware or catalyst driver experienced epic ass-failure you may, just slightly, hear about it).

Just gotta say that this is the most reasonable way of looking at this situation IMO. I'm definitely not interested in a clash of "who had the most supposed driver problems". However, threads where we help each other out with similar problems.... thats awesome.

 

[Tsavo]

How much lower do you want 5770 to drop? It has been on sale for $115 on several occassions. Besides, GTX470 / Barts XT (most likely) both "guarantee" 5770 CF performance, without all the downsides of dual card setups.

I don't buy the cheapest cards out there if they are made by a brand I don't trust, and I was looking at the single slot 5770's which are $160+. Not to mention I'm paying a mortgage on a house that's sitting empty in another state and paying rent where I live now. Have you ever heard the sound of money evaporating? It wakes me up at night.

I keep leaning towards the GTX 470 and I'd have one if it weren't for the fan noise. I need to sit down with Newegg and a pint of vodka and find out the next morning what card I bought. :whiste:

 

[ShawnD1]

Too bad ati makes excellent hardware that is power efficient, cool running, small, complex, and powerful and then offers very little to no quality software support at all. Kinda defeats the purpose of making great hardware when you don't back it up with a quality driver suite.

Haha. That's basically ATI over the past 10 years. The first video card I ever bought was a Radeon 7200. There was a huge performance difference between the CD drivers and the website drivers. The CD drivers were really fast, and most games worked. If I downloaded the latest updates from the website, every single game would be less than half the original speed. The next ATI I bought after that was a Radeon 9600. That was a good little card, but the drivers were somewhat inconsistent. Much better than before, but still pretty bad. After that I had a laptop with something like x200 graphics, and the driver installation would often fail.

That's pretty much the reason I stick with Nvidia these days. The hardware is inconsistent, but the drivers are always good. I've had some pretty slow Nvidia products before, but I can't complain about any of the drivers.

 

[yhelothar]

lol just on the first page of the video forum is 7 threads about ATI driver issues. I count 0 with nvidia issues. They really need to up the ante on their software because their hardware is excellent.

 

[RussianSensation]

I keep leaning towards the GTX 470 and I'd have one if it weren't for the fan noise.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...-073-_-Product

If you are going to spend $300+ on a videocard, just for for HD6000. At least 470's/5850's prices will likely fall.

 

[MrK6]

lol just on the first page of the video forum is 7 threads about ATI driver issues. I count 0 with nvidia issues. They really need to up the ante on their software because their hardware is excellent.

I didn't find seven, but conveniently, you missed these:
http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2107967
http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2108106

Or how about having crap hardware in the first place?
http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2107551

The point is, both side have issues, pick your poison.