I'm beginning to wonder about nVidia's drivers lately

[Rand]

It's been typically accepted that nVidia has fantastic drivers... and I've always agreed with that, indeed I still do... mostly.
But of late I've been noticing a few rather severe issues with NV's Detonator drivers....

We've got nVidia's Personal Cinema... with it's incredibly poor drivers, that never seems to work properly at all.... but then the Personal Cinema is an exception to nVidia's typically stellar driver support.

But now we've also got the nv4_disp infinite loop bug when running under WinXP/Win2k.
It's most often seen when running VIA/Ali boards though occasionally also seen under Intel/SiS chipset as well.
That's a pretty severe bug that has been aggravating many nVidia board users since the Det4's first appeared.

Now we've also got the NMI error popping up and killing compatibility with anyone using Dually Athlon boards.

It's only a few issues, but their pretty major issues IMHO.

I've revised my opinion of nVidia's driver support:
Their generally excellent, and game compatibility is extremely good.... but they seem to have a few severe reliability issues that they could do with working on.
For once, I think nVidia has been getting a little lax on ensuring reliability.
Ironic, ATi has starts making definite strides to improve their poor driver support... just as nVidia starts getting a little less reliabile.


Edit: Yes, I'm fully aware I will most likely be flamed, and told I'm biased or otherwise full of $hit for daring to question the reliability of nVidia's drivers.

 

[cjsketchy]

Agreed... the nv4_disp bug alone is a serious cause for concern. Why/how they haven't fixed it yet is beyond me. Must be one hard bug to kill.

 

[rickn]

well, you cant complain about leaked drivers. There are no guarantees with the NED's. Now release drivers you can. I myself still run Win98SE, I have no problems with most drive releases. It seems almost every manufacturer has had a lot of issues with NT kernel based OS's, XP isnt the first. Maybe it is a just a fundemental flaw in basing your codebase off the same code. I am sure the XP drivers have not been written from scratch. That would take a tremendous amount of resources and man power. I cant comment on the personal cinema. ATI is a tough act to follow

 

[Rand]

<< Agreed... the nv4_disp bug alone is a serious cause for concern. Why/how they haven't fixed it yet is beyond me. Must be one hard bug to kill. >>



Some have proposed it's a VIA issue rather then an nVidia issue but I've never put any faith in that theory as it only seems to impact nVidia boards, and it also happens rarely on SiS/Intel chipsets, and somewhat more frequently ALi boards as well.

 

[Rand]

<< well, you cant complain about leaked drivers. There are no guarantees with the NED's. Now release drivers you can. I myself still run Win98SE, I have no problems with most drive releases. It seems almost every manufacturer has had a lot of issues with NT kernel based OS's, XP isnt the first. Maybe it is a just a fundemental flaw in basing your codebase off the same code. I am sure the XP drivers have not been written from scratch. That would take a tremendous amount of resources and man power. I cant comment on the personal cinema. ATI is a tough act to follow >>



I have no qualms with the leaked drivers... I LOVE the fact that we get so many frequenct leaked drivers from Nvidia, and I can accept the possibilit of bugs in beta drivers, but these bugs are also in the WHQL certified drivers also. Indeed, the WHQL 23.12's seem to have more problems with the n4_disp infinite loop bug then the beta's according to most reports.

As for the Personal Cinema... well I tend to take that as a fluke. Every company has at least one bad product, this seems to be nVidia's.

 

[nj]

"well, you cant complain about leaked drivers"


It's the official ones that I complain about. The leaked ones finally fixed my problem. 23.11's completely hosed my system for a month and a half.

With my BX system + 21.83's (and every det before that), I was able to run my computer rock solid in 2d or 3d. After installing 23.11's I crashed on the simplest of 3d programs.

And what's worse is after installing 23.11's I couldn't go back to 21.83's. I would get the exact same nv4_disp.dll (infinite loop) error every time with ANY det. Talk about countless hours of wasted trial and error.

I tried every trick in the book and NOTHING worked. Finally the 27.10's let me run 3d stable but only after setting it to 1x agp and turning down everything. I would try 27.00's to see if they are more stable, but I'm having too much fun with MOHAA right now.

I really missed my 3d card

 

[Migroo]

I agree that drivers are becoming something to watch.

Without making this an Ati/NV debate.. I tend to choose a card that has a reputation for being very compatible with the hardware I intend using it with.

 

[Basie]

After reading so much about the GeForce Cards and the exceptional Drivers that Nvidia released, I was
persuaded to get a Gainward GF3 Ti 200. I had Matrox and ATI and so Nvidia was next. I am really pleased with my Card and though I had trouble finding the right drivers for WinXP ( the 23.12's are working fine so far) Win98SE and Win2K Pro worked straight away. ATI was getting such flack about the quality of their drivers but I found that recently my Radeon 64mb Vivo was playing all of the games at 1024x768 very nicely. As far as Quality of Image and Performance the GF3 is outstanding.

 

[nortexoid]

the latest couple releases of dets have been UTTER GARBAGE...no question about it.

they're struggling to outpace the 8500, so it seems...jeopardize stability, increase performance...a poor trade off...

 

[BFG10K]

But now we've also got the nv4_disp infinite loop bug when running under WinXP/Win2k.

Which is not nVidia's fault at all. If the motherboard manufacturers did what they were supposed to do we wouldn't have any problems. I have not had a single serious problem with any of nVidia's drivers ever, and that includes the entire line of 2xxx drivers.

the latest couple releases of dets have been UTTER GARBAGE...no question about it.

Funny, I've not had any serious problems with them whatsoever. I agree there a few minor issues but then nobody claimed that nVidia's drivers were perfect.

 

[Mem]

It`s funny since I`ve read similar problems with Matrox and ATi owners ( not many)getting loop errors in XP, yes it`s very much more common with Nvidia drivers and I`ve only had it happen once under my XP PC,my 98 PC which has the same drivers never gets the problem,yes it`s does happened on different chipset boards as well.

There really is no 100 % pattern to this since who do you blame XP/Win2k OS,Nvidia(bearing in mind some people don`t have the problem with Nvidia drivers,and others with Ati and Matrox have had the problem) or chipsets?

It also seems to me if you take XP/2K out of the equation the problem is more or less gone,anyway it`s an interesting problem.

All I know is my 98 PC has never had the problem where`s my XP PC has had it once,I`m really not worried about the driver quality by Nvidia at the moment since I know both Nvidia and Microsoft and the rest know about the problem and are working on it so it`s only a matter of time until it`s fixed.

I`m still happy with Nvidia drivers since I always stick with official drivers(which never give me problems) and as I`ve stated XP has only given me the loop error once in DMC(and my cousin was playing the game at the time not me).

 

[AGodspeed]

Personally, nVidia's drivers have been very good to me. I've never been able to detect a problem with my computer that was directly linked to nVidia's drivers (however much that's worth is up to you).

However Rand, I'd like to know what percentage of people have actually had the now infamous infinite loop error. Clearly there have been a lot of complaints on many different message boards, but I don't think it's that widespread that we're talking about a MAJOR issue here.

In my belief, it's essentially the motherboard that's at fault. I have now set up 2 completely different systems (Athlon just recently and a P4 a while back) with the 23.11 drivers and both never experienced any problems (this doesn?t include the 2 systems I?ve built for myself, that are running without error in WinXP Home with the 23.11 drivers). I'm not saying I can set up any system perfectly, however I just don't think it's that wide spread. I could be wrong.

My point is that even though nVidia's most recent drivers haven't been perfect, they're certainly stable and compatible with just about anything you throw at them. Really now, the infinite loop problem is just one bug (that has already been fixed in the recently leaked alpha/beta 27.xx drivers).

EDIT: I do understand the point of your thread topic though Rand (although I've never heard of Dual processor nVidia driver bugs before). nVidia's recent drivers have not been their best, but nothing MAJOR IMO.

 

[Willoughbyva]

Hi,
I had the infinite loop when I first installed XPHome. Since the 21.83 (I think ) I haven't had any problems, but I haven't played any games either.

I always thought Nvidia had great drivers, but the infinite loop bug made me question that. I still like their cards and all, but I think I want to try an AIW from Ati and see what they offer. Ati used to give me all kind of video problems because of their poor drivers, but I have heard that they are getting better.

I guess in the end it all comes down to what type of card you want and what you are willing to put up with. The reason I am considering an AIW is because I have an Hauppage Win TVGO card and have tried about 5 different drivers for XP including the win2000 ones. Now that has been a nightmare in and of itself. I still can't capture video either and I have invested money in video software I can't use. I know I can go back to Win9X, but I really don't want to do that.

Sorry if I got a little off topic. All I want is a stable system to do the few things I like doing on it. Sometimes drivers are a nightmare, but there are always competitors that are striving to make better products.

Peace
Will

 

[AA0]

This is what I've been thinking too. ATI has never given me a problem on system compatibility, no matter how many cards and drivers I've put it. But their game support isn't the best. nvidia seems to be the opposite, where as you need to try numerous driver versions, but all your games will work easily once you find the proper one. For most of the systems I set up, I need the system reliability factor more than anything else.

 

[EMAN]

However Rand, I'd like to know what percentage of people have actually had the now infamous infinite loop error. Clearly there have been a lot of complaints on many different message boards, but I don't think it's that widespread that we're talking about a MAJOR issue here.

But not everybody uses winxp. Maybe that is the reason majority of people are not complaining.

You can always use older drivers and not install the new ones. Since I didn't install winxp I have not had any problems.

 

[Rand]

<<

Which is not nVidia's fault at all. If the motherboard manufacturers did what they were supposed to do we wouldn't have any problems. I have not had a single serious problem with any of nVidia's drivers ever, and that includes the entire line of 2xxx drivers.
>>



That's what I've heard before, but when it happens under multiple chipsets, under two different Operating Systems (Win2k, WinXP). The only common factor seems to be nVidia- and nVidia display adapter.... no other vendors seem to have such problems, only nVidia.
If it was the motherboard it seems to me you'd see it with other manufacturers products also.... instead we only see it with nVidia.
It keeps coming back to nVidia.



<< However Rand, I'd like to know what percentage of people have actually had the now infamous infinite loop error. Clearly there have been a lot of complaints on many different message boards, but I don't think it's that widespread that we're talking about a MAJOR issue here. >>



I don't know an exact number, I do know the Hercules messageboards are literally filled with complaints about it. As are VIA's messageboards, as are/were Guru3D's message boards.
I don't know an exact number, but I've seen an extremely large number of complaints about it.... far more then I've seen about any other single issue.



<< Really now, the infinite loop problem is just one bug (that has already been fixed in the recently leaked alpha/beta 27.xx drivers). >>



Only one bug, but I pointed out other bugs in my first post. This NMI bug seems even more severe, if not as wide-spread.
The infinite loop bug has not been fixed in the 27.00/27.10 drivers. I thought it had also, as it fixed my problems... but checking other messageboards as well as a few posts in General Hardware have made it clear that a number of people are still having problems with it.


I love nVidia's drivers... even now they are still extremely good on the whole. But I no longer consider nVidia the basic assurance of compatibility/reliability I once did. It's becoming increasingly often that serious bugs are popping up with nVidia's drivers, and that concerns me.

 

[BFG10K]

That's what I've heard before, but when it happens under multiple chipsets, under two different Operating Systems (Win2k, WinXP). The only common factor seems to be nVidia- and nVidia display adapter....

If nVidia uses widespread memory tweaks it's not their fault that certain motherboard manufacturers aren't doing what they should. It's exactly the same deal as the GF DDRs not getting enough power and being unstable. Those cards were within the AGP spec so any problems were with the manufacturers, not with nVidia.

If it was the motherboard it seems to me you'd see it with other manufacturers products also.... instead we only see it with nVidia.
It keeps coming back to nVidia.

Not necessarily. nVidia is likely the only one who tweaks their drivers in such a fashion. If Radeons didn't crash in the same motherboards that GF DDRs did does that make it an nVidia issue because the commonality is nVidia? No, it doesn't. It just means the Radeon isn't doing anything to expose the underlying problems of the motherboard.

BTW Rand, do you have the latest BIOS for your motherboard? If you don't I highly suggest you get it ASAP.

 

[Rand]

<<

If nVidia uses widespread memory tweaks it's not their fault that certain motherboard manufacturers aren't doing what they should. It's exactly the same deal as the GF DDRs not getting enough power and being unstable. Those cards were within the AGP spec so any problems were with the manufacturers, not with nVidia. >>




In the case of the GF DDR it was well known that the GF DDR was within AGP specifications insofar as power consumption was concerned, therefore it was clearly a motherboard issue with not supplying sufficient power through the AGP slot.
In this case it's not quite so clear, as we don't know specifically what it is that's causing the issue besides that is has something to do with the memory.
We have no evidence that proves that it's the motherboards causing the problem, while we do have evidence that it specifically resolves around nVidia based graphics cards.
Even some of the highest quality motherboards available from such reknowned manufacturers as Asus, Tyan and Intel... companies known specifically for stability above all else have evidences the problem in many cases.



<<
BTW Rand, do you have the latest BIOS for your motherboard? If you don't I highly suggest you get it ASAP. >>



Yep, I do. Thanks anyway though.

 

[Mem]

<< We have no evidence that proves that it's the motherboards causing the problem, while we do have evidence that it specifically resolves around nVidia based graphics cards >>



I will have to agree with that even though some people with Matrox and ATi cards have had similar problems(with loop errors),but when you look at the percentage ,the only conclusion is it seems to be mainly XP/2K with Nvidia cards.

As for chipsets well they are all seem to be effected so I would also rule them out.