Nvidia fan regrets ATI purchase

[A_Dying_Wren]

Idk... but isn't using driver sweeper more or less common sense on these forums? I've never had a *proper* gaming computer and even I know that well enough.

You should have been using driver sweeper already with your nvidia drivers with your previous cards. Now's a good time to pick it up before bashing ati.

Worst comes to worst those nvidia remnants in your system can't be found using driver sweeper and you may have to do a full reinstall of windows.

 

[slag]

Well honestly it left a bad taste in my mouth. 2 of 2 ATI cards for me in 6 years with driver issues is enough for me. I will use this 4850 until I drive my machine into the ground. But my next machine will most likely have an Nvidia card. Some of the shit I see with ATI just baffles me to this day. The CCC issue aside. Their drivers have problems dealing with my DLP. Sometimes out of the blue it will set the resolution outside what the TV can do and give me a blank screen. This never happens with any of the Nvidia cards I have tried on the set. And I had a hell of a time getting it to initially set the correct resolution on my old Dell LCD. It wouldnt set it correctly at 1600X1200 until I told the driver to allow all resolutions. For some reason the driver thought the LCD couldnt do 1600X1200.

/facepalm

Never had any problems with my ati 4350 and htpc/dlp setup. none, zip, zero, nada.

 

[SpatiallyAware]

FWIW - I've dealt with Ati and nVidia in a corporate environment for a long time. I have significant experience with drivers and hardware from both manufacturers in regular and ISV certified situations on clean installs and etc.



Without a doubt Ati drivers are a POS. The CCC is a joke, all of their software looks (and has always looked) like 4th graders designed the layout and then colored it in. In a 'perfect situation' Ati drivers work fine, but I've found tons of oddball incompatibility and crashing issues (relating to problems with chipsets and etc, even with latest drivers all around) that are seemingly ONLY resolved by going to an nvidia card.


This is both in 3d apps and just plain desktop outlook/office sorta stuff. I've been burned so many times by ridiculous driver crashes and issues that I won't even touch Ati for personal stuff and avoid it for business if possible.


So.. I believe there are tons of home users that don't see much issue with Ati, but across the board I agree with the OP 100%.

 

[Genx87]

I've never had a problem with CCC, stop making it sound like every person with an ATI card has CCC problems GenX87.

How did you get that from what I said? I "suggested" he uninstall it and see what happens. You know how many times that clears up issues??????

This is a msgboard about video cards right? A place for people to gather information and take suggestions right?

 

[Voo]

Idk... but isn't using driver sweeper more or less common sense on these forums? I've never had a *proper* gaming computer and even I know that well enough.

Yeah I'm not sure how that thread became a 4page monstrum when the OP clearly ignored even the most basic things when changing from one side to the other. It's either messed up drivers because of the remains of the Nvidia drivers or a bad card, if we've excluded both of these things it would be interesting but so far? Seems like the problem sits in fron of the pc.

 

[RadiclDreamer]

I have owned 4 ATI cards. The only thing I can remember causing a crash is overclocking. Either this is software related or PLBCAK.

You are one of the few. I'll admit their drivers are better than when i had my 9800xt, but they still pale in comparison to big greens

 

[RadiclDreamer]

Seems like the problem sits in fron of the pc.

That was uncalled for. He came asking for help and you berate him?

 

[LuxZg]

Anyway, I just wanted to say that I went from nVidia to ATI few years ago, changed 3 ATI cards in the meantime (X1950, HD4870, HD4890) and never had any of these issues on non-overclocked card.

Since you're experiencing troubles in 2D, this means that card is not capable on working on it's stock 2D clock. Which means it's defective and should be returned. It's same thing as if it didn't work in 3D, it won't do the task intended on clock settings setup by manufacturer. I see no driver problem here, driver just tels the card "you're in 2D now", BIOS of the card is the one interpreting "ok, we're in 2D now, driver just told me, let's go to xxx MHz". So it's either BIOS that's setup in factory to value that's too low, or chip is defective and can't run at those speeds. Either way it's hardware failure, and product should be returned.

Of course, to eliminate any software issues that could be causing this you should:
- uninstall all ATI and nVidia drivers and supplementary applications
- reboot
- clean with DriverSweeper or similar utility
- reboot again
- install DRIVERS ONLY (available from http://game.amd.com/us-en/drivers_catalyst.aspx )

If you still have same problems, it's hardware issue and you should return it. If you're not 100% sure, you can try installing different OS from what you currently have on another drive, and try there - with DRIVER ONLY again.

And yeah, nice thread title Bait all the way!

 

[QuantumPion]

You say this after over half the people in this thread told you it's a hardware issue, then you post this: Ah, may have found an actual fix at last. http://forums.amd.com/game/messagevi...hreadid=123699. Problem is either bad video card bios, and/or tweaking the idle card speed higher. Will report back tomorrow.



He's an ass, don't help him.

Dude, ATI fanboys are retarded.

You quoted "bad video card" and left out the word "bios". Not to mention the fact that that post was regarding a different brand of video card from mine.

 

[StrangerGuy]

You are one of the few. I'll admit their drivers are better than when i had my 9800xt, but they still pale in comparison to big greens

You are making me laugh. Green drivers that can kill cards, and employs questionable AF tricks that cannot be turned off even when the hardware was (7800GTX) already far above the competition back then.

 

[QuantumPion]

I never understood when people cannot diagnose at least the nature of a problem like this - pull out a new HDD and install a brand new OS with minimal set: drivers, MS Security Essentials and say, Firefox with Flash. Test it.

FYI hw-accelerated Flash is not out yet it's still an Adobe Labs release IIRC and it crashes all the time both on my .tablet and my wife's Macbook.

What? Hardware accelerated flash has been out for over a year. Youtube works fine when I disable the hardware acceleration, but crashes immediately with it on. I've already linked to several forum posts with people that have the same problem but no fix yet.

Reinstalling OS is certainly an option that I will inevitably have to try if I can't find a fix otherwise.

 

[Voo]

That was uncalled for. He came asking for help and you berate him?

No he came saying how bad the drivers are and how great the Nvidia ones are, when the problem has most probably absolutely nothing to do with the drivers at all - or at least we can't know till he has tried the most basic things..

 

[QuantumPion]

Another similar post: http://forums.amd.com/game/messageview.cfm?catid=260&threadid=132959&enterthread=y

So, who here has a 5870 with win7 x64 and does not have any 2d problems? Please state which drivers you are using and if you have done any kind of fix (e.g. hotfix, software tweak, bios update, etc).

 

[pmv]

Idk... but isn't using driver sweeper more or less common sense on these forums? I've never had a *proper* gaming computer and even I know that well enough.

You should have been using driver sweeper already with your nvidia drivers with your previous cards. Now's a good time to pick it up before bashing ati.

Worst comes to worst those nvidia remnants in your system can't be found using driver sweeper and you may have to do a full reinstall of windows.

Regardless of nvida vs ATI, this point says something to be about the general dismal standards of quality control in software generally. I mean, why should this kind of crap even be necessary? A piece of software should have an uninstall routine that actually uninstalls it, no hunting around for third-party utilities should be necessary, yet alone as a matter of 'common sense'. See also Securom and that bloody installshield update program.

 

[Hardlin]

I have an ASUS 5870 with Win7 Ultimate x64 and have only had one problem with my system. I had the monitor not going into sleep mode with the system but I didn't have that problem after I installed the 10.1 driver. The current drivers I am running (I usually update every other month) are 10.3a. The card has not been modified in any way and I have at this point only mildly overclocked it to 950/1300 to see how it performs.

 

[VashHT]

Another similar post: http://forums.amd.com/game/messageview.cfm?catid=260&threadid=132959&enterthread=y

So, who here has a 5870 with win7 x64 and does not have any 2d problems? Please state which drivers you are using and if you have done any kind of fix (e.g. hotfix, software tweak, bios update, etc).

I bought my 5870 when they first came out, I've used a lot of different drivers and am now using 10.4. The only problem you listed that I experienced was with flash crashing my browser if I had hardware acceleration on. That doesn't happen to me anymore though. Seriously everyone would be more helpful if you weren't being such an ass, it doesn't even sound like you want your 5870 to work, it's like you hope it continues to fail just so you can bash ATI.

EDIT: I just wanted to add that about 3 weeks ago I switched between my 8800gt 512 and my 5870 a few times while testing out a new TV I got. I didn't even use driver cleaner and it hasn't caused me any problems. Also, I've been using CCC with my 5870 and it has been fine. Back when I had a X1900 CC was pretty terrible and I didn't use it, but now it works fine for me. It may look like crap but it doesn't crash my system or anything.

 

[RussianSensation]

875/1250 are not factory clocks. Factory clock speeds are 850/1200. Downclock your videocard to its factory clocks and see if it solves any of your problems. It doesn't hurt to try.

 

[QuantumPion]

875/1250 are not factory clocks. Factory clock speeds are 850/1200. Downclock your videocard to its factory clocks and see if it solves any of your problems. It doesn't hurt to try.

They are factory clock speeds for a factory overclocked card. I am aware they are not the default ATI chip speeds.

I am currently trying to read through this 100 page thread on the AMD forum regarding driver problems to find a solution but I haven't found anything yet.

I bought my 5870 when they first came out, I've used a lot of different drivers and am now using 10.4. The only problem you listed that I experienced was with flash crashing my browser if I had hardware acceleration on. That doesn't happen to me anymore though. Seriously everyone would be more helpful if you weren't being such an ass, it doesn't even sound like you want your 5870 to work, it's like you hope it continues to fail just so you can bash ATI.

The only people being asses in this thread are the people saying they have had no problems with their card, and that I must be an idiot for having any kind of problem with ATI.

What did you change on your system that solved the 2d video hardware acceleration crashing? Or did you just disable the hardware acceleration?

 

[ermasta]

Dont worry .....there are plenty of people having all kinds of problems with ATI cards.


Anyone can google ATI and issues and see how many hits you get.

I went from ATI to Nvidia back to ATI and i feel your pain. I just didnt spend alot of money for my card so i just wait for drivers that actually work.

Gl

 

[Maximilian]

Idk... but isn't using driver sweeper more or less common sense on these forums? I've never had a *proper* gaming computer and even I know that well enough.

You should have been using driver sweeper already with your nvidia drivers with your previous cards. Now's a good time to pick it up before bashing ati.

Worst comes to worst those nvidia remnants in your system can't be found using driver sweeper and you may have to do a full reinstall of windows.

I dont think driver sweeper is neccessary with vista and 7. More of an XP thing.

 

[akugami]

First, go through standard trouble shooting steps in diagnosing your hardware. Again, sometimes a failure might not be obvious. As someone else stated, he was getting what seemed like video card issues when it was really a bad stick of RAM. If you have a spare video card (can get a cheapie for like $20) then use that in trouble shooting your computer.

Try to make sure that it all of your hardware, and I do mean all, is 100% stable.

If you have second computer (unlikely), try the card in that as well. What we're trying to do is isolate the exact faulty part.

Try re-installing a clean OS and driver. While today's drivers are relatively stable and aren't too bad with installing over old drivers it doesn't hurt to use some utility to clean up after leftover driver files.

And a new nugget of info seems to have dropped in your latest post. This may come as something you are not aware of but just because a card is factory overclocked doesn't mean it is stable. This goes for nVidia as well as ATI. There have definitely been cases of unstable factory overclocked cards from nVidia. It's not an nVidia or ATI only issue.

Try the card at stock speeds, not stock overclocked speeds, and see if the issues persist. If they do, it's likely a bad card. Get it RMA'ed.

ATI's drivers have been no more troublesome (at least on Windows) for me than nVidia ones. I've never had any major issues with drivers from either company but I research what I buy, whether for home or work, and I also take standard stability testing into account whenever I get a new part.

 

[VashHT]

They are factory clock speeds for a factory overclocked card. I am aware they are not the default ATI chip speeds.

I am currently trying to read through this 100 page thread on the AMD forum regarding driver problems to find a solution but I haven't found anything yet.




The only people being asses in this thread are the people saying they have had no problems with their card, and that I must be an idiot for having any kind of problem with ATI.

What did you change on your system that solved the 2d video hardware acceleration crashing? Or did you just disable the hardware acceleration?

I only had a problem with flash, and I did just disable HW acceleration for it. I haven't tried it in a while though, I could see if it still crashes when I use it. Don't pretend like you've been civil in this entire thread either, you didn't even ask for help in your OP you just posted to say how you knew ATI sucked and you're never getting an ATI card again. If you actually want help there are plenty of suggestions in this thread, but so far all you've been doing is trying to prove that ATI is as bad as you think they are.

 

[QuantumPion]

I only had a problem with flash, and I did just disable HW acceleration for it. I haven't tried it in a while though, I could see if it still crashes when I use it. Don't pretend like you've been civil in this entire thread either, you didn't even ask for help in your OP you just posted to say how you knew ATI sucked and you're never getting an ATI card again. If you actually want help there are plenty of suggestions in this thread, but so far all you've been doing is trying to prove that ATI is as bad as you think they are.

The reason for my troll-ish OP is because there does not seem to be any known solution for these various 2d issues, which have apparently been going on for months or even longer (after having searched the AMD official forums). I think I have been perfectly civil (except to that one troll) though.

 

[VashHT]

The reason for my troll-ish OP is because there does not seem to be any known solution for these various 2d issues, which have apparently been going on for months or even longer (after having searched the AMD official forums). I think I have been perfectly civil (except to that one troll) though.

Well like other people are suggesting it sounds like you have some serious problems, and possibly a defective card. You need to troubleshoot your card, you're having a lot more problems that just 2d video acceleration so it's possible they're all linked. If your drivers are constantly crashing and restarting I don't know how you can expect your video card to work right at all, you should focus on fixing big issues like that first I'd say.

 

[tk149]

Nice rig, OP.

I've used both ATI and Nvidia, and haven't really noticed either's drivers being superior to the other. I don't tweak much though.