Nvidia fan regrets ATI purchase

[Obsoleet]

I dont know why people are saying CCC causes stability issues. I've never heard that nor ever experienced that. It's fast and works well.

I think the OP needs to list the rig this is in. I disable hardware acceleration for flash videos and the sort, but it's because I've had jittery sound over HDMI when it isn't. Other than that, everything works great. That might have been fixed in a new flash version or driver update too... I don't know, my CPU is fast enough to push out flash upscaled to 1080 to my 50" plasma.


I was a longtime Nvidia loyalist, but I did have the 9700 (non-Pro, flashed to a Pro) and was a NV diehard after 3dfx died... (Geforce2 onward).

Today, ATI has better drivers than Nvidia. I've seen and experienced more problems with NV in the past 4 years than ATI, sure it's anecdotal but it's there. You might need a format, or have something else wrong. Hard to say, the first post is mostly a tirade and not really asking for help.. so I guess no one can help you try to enjoy your purchase.

edit to add-

OP, I think you should go buy two 480s.

 

[BD231]

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.

BIOS is a piece of hardware. I could care less who pushes my frames as long as I'm enjoying the game. For instance, the only reason I left nVidia in the GeForce days was due to poor drivers and poor 2d quality, the 9700pro treated me well. 6 years later when I decided to upgrade, a 4850 was the best bang for the buck. That's called being a mindful consumer, not fanboy.

You have no argument on drivers and your thread displays your poor attitude over nothing definite but your own problems. You ignore advice like you're some kind of guru yet you state you've had no expeirence with ATI hardware. Adobe software is crap, most people complain about it, but you failed to even make mention of this.

 

[Grooveriding]

Having used cards from both camps, I'm always mystified by these reports of 'histories of issues' with drivers from one group or the other.

I've come into problems with video drivers from both card makers but they've always been resolved at some point by myself or actual driver changes from the company. These drastic examples are pebkac imo.

 

[Tempered81]

So I've always been somewhat of an Nvidia loyalist, ever since the first Geforce. The 5900 sucked bad and in hindsight I should have gotten a 9700 instead but every other Nvidia card has been as good or better than its ATI counterpart as far as I can remember.

Anyways, for my newest upgrade I decided with all the bad press around the Fermi, I'd might as well try out an ATI for once. So I picked up a Powercolor 5870 LCS for my new watercooled build. This is an upgrade from an EVGA 285gtx so it's not a huge expected jump in performance. However so far I have been extremely disappointed and regret not just getting a Fermi after all.

The ATI drivers are beyond terrible. I thought all the complaining I used to hear about ATI having bad drivers was just an exaggeration or minor complaint. However I can now safely say that these complaints really understate how terrible the drivers actually are. So far in just one week of ownership, I've had the following issues using drivers 10.1 through 10.4:

1) Firefox crashes with hardware accelerated flash videos frequently
2) hardware accelerated videos have artifacts or become corrupted if the window is minimized or moved
3) anomalous flashing grey boxes on the desktop
4) monitor power saving mode does not work - monitor just displays full black instead of actually going into standby mode
5) graphics driver frequently crashes and is recovered and restarted by windows, in games, while playing videos, or just doing nothing.
6) multiple games have significant issues, ranging from frame rate glitchyness (frame rate jumps from 5 to 100 fps about once per second) to artifacts to crashes.

Even the most supposedly stable catalyst driver pales in comparison to the greenest nvidia beta driver I've ever used. This is my first and last ATI card I will ever purchase. :thumbsdown:

You're right, Ati drivers are a pile of crap.

 

[Keysplayr]

The next hostile post in this thread will meet action.
Anandtech Moderator - Keysplayr

 

[T2k]

T2k is just a troll.
Yesterday I chaught him lying twice about "Fermi" and overclocking, just ignore him.

The next hostile post in this thread will meet action.
Anandtech Moderator - Keysplayr

Glad I see this decisive post...

...so can I get finally some moderator to do something with this guy, seriously or is he enjoying a "free clueless troll" position with a "free adhom attack card"?

I reported him already and nothing ever happened... just how long do I have to tolerate his adhom attacks, lies about me et cetera, may I ask?

All this is while we have yet to see one post from him with at least some clue...

Thank you for volunteering an example. See you in one month in escalation
of your previous 3 week time off.
Anandtech Moderator - Keysplayr

 

[Obsoleet]

You're right, Ati drivers are a pile of crap.

How come they work for everyone else then? There are thousands of satisfied ATI users.. yet magically a few can't seem to get anything working correctly.

For those who don't like ATI drivers, I wish you'd just go buy and use Nvidia forever and stop yakking about how you can't get your rig to work properly with an ATI card.. I personally don't think the unhappiness (if it's real and legit) does you any good.

if you want more anecdotal evidence, the drivers are better than Nvidia in my experience. I don't choose one or the other based on drivers, but if I did, I'd take ATI's drivers anyday. CCC even works fine here, but then again I'm not using a spindle-based drive from 1985 to power my rig so a lot of things are faster.

For me, considering all things, the best single GPU based card out there is the 5870 still. I wouldn't trade mine for a 480 (for one, I might have to upgrade my PSU to do so). The 5870 for me was the closest thing to the experience of buying my Diamond Monster 3D back in the 90's. Great card, great features, works well and has really improved the experience for me gaming (the 50' HDMI/audio to my TV has been a huge boon for me for gaming and videos).

ATI's HDMI output with audio on the 4870 was what really made me pay attention to them again, glad I did because I doubt I'll ever go back to Nvidia.. it's just better on the other side.

 

[BladeVenom]

ATI drivers are clearly more stable than Nvidia's. Anyone who has ever seen Microsoft's crash report data knows that Nvidia drivers were the number one cause of Vista crashes.

 

[MrK6]

Wouldn't NVIDIA's drivers actively frying their own cards declare the "NVIDIA has better drivers" nonsense null and void? Both companies have their driver issues. Either way, if everyone else is not having problems and you are, then it's your problem ; troubleshoot until it's fixed.

 

[QuantumPion]

BIOS is a piece of hardware.

The BIOS is stored on its own memory chip on the card however the BIOS itself is software.

Wouldn't NVIDIA's drivers actively frying their own cards declare the "NVIDIA has better drivers" nonsense null and void? Both companies have their driver issues. Either way, if everyone else is not having problems and you are, then it's your problem ; troubleshoot until it's fixed.

I never claimed that Nvidia did not have driver issues of their own. However, I do claim that driver problems which Nvidia suffers are usually promptly acknowledged and addressed. As opposed to the problems I and several hundred others are experiencing, with apparently not a peep from ATI for months.

 

[Nemesis 1]

I have owned many ATI and sold alot of them in systems . I haven't had many problems at all . When I did it wasn't the GPU it was the memory on the M/B causing problem . Very few problems with customer machines including NV / ATI gpus.

This ATI driver problem is a flag carried arounf by NV fan club.

 

[QuantumPion]

I have owned many ATI and sold alot of them in systems . I haven't had many problems at all . When I did it wasn't the GPU it was the memory on the M/B causing problem . Very few problems with customer machines including NV / ATI gpus.

This ATI driver problem is a flag carried arounf by NV fan club.

Read this thread and then get back to me.

http://forums.amd.com/game/messageview.cfm?catid=260&threadid=124747&enterthread=y&STARTPAGE=97

Please, no more posts regarding "I have an ATI and it works just fine, you suck", it's getting old. I would like to get my card working properly at some point.

 

[Nemesis 1]

The BIOS is stored on its own memory chip on the card however the BIOS itself is software.



I never claimed that Nvidia did not have driver issues of their own. However, I do claim that driver problems which Nvidia suffers are usually promptly acknowledged and addressed. As opposed to the problems I and several hundred others are experiencing, with apparently not a peep from ATI for months.

The last NV card I had was the TI 4800. I went threw 2 ti 4600s . The interesting thing is this . My cousin who bought the TI 4800 from me stopped using it . This PC is basicly that same set up . He was over about a month ago I asked about the card . He said he removed it and it still runs . So I offered him $10 for it . i never do a thing like this without reason . I like the old game BHD . But the TI 4800 hundred had some issues with that game . I am not a game hack cheating is down right unexceptable. But with this card I didn't have to cheat LOL . I could see threw buildings no textures on the maps . LOL . I installed and played it 2 weeks ago . Guess what I can still see threw the walls lol . I played a weekend that way than removed not much fun seeing people locations . But I did piss a few off . In smoke I actually speed up with that card LOL. Oh ya it was a the way its meant to be played game . LOL.

 

[VashHT]

The BIOS is stored on its own memory chip on the card however the BIOS itself is software.



I never claimed that Nvidia did not have driver issues of their own. However, I do claim that driver problems which Nvidia suffers are usually promptly acknowledged and addressed. As opposed to the problems I and several hundred others are experiencing, with apparently not a peep from ATI for months.

Are you actually going to troubleshoot your card or just keep bashing ATI man? BTW I tried enabling HW accel for flash and haven't seen any crashes yet. I bet if you search nvidia forums you'll find problems that "haven't" been resolved either. I find it amazing that you are so willing to believe people complaining on ATI forums but not people here telling you they have no problems.

It comes down to this, plenty of people DON'T have the problems you're complaining about, either you can try to get your system to work or just return the card. The fact is that ATI cards can work fine, so stop acting like every ATI user has problems.

Maybe you should try doing something, I haven't read a single post of you actually trying anything, you just keep complaining. Many people have suggested a lot of things, you haven't given ANY feedback about actually trying anything. I won't call you out but you're making youself extremely suspect.

 

[Nemesis 1]

Read this thread and then get back to me.

http://forums.amd.com/game/messageview.cfm?catid=260&threadid=124747&enterthread=y&STARTPAGE=97

Please, no more posts regarding "I have an ATI and it works just fine, you suck", it's getting old. I would like to get my card working properly at some point.

So whats that link prove . I read all the time about problems people have that I don't as do millions of others. I had a memory problem once and a PS once . I use only The finest power supplies and memory . I had issues with those not the ATI cards.

 

[Axon]

Are you actually going to troubleshoot your card or just keep bashing ATI man? BTW I tried enabling HW accel for flash and haven't seen any crashes yet. I bet if you search nvidia forums you'll find problems that "haven't" been resolved either. I find it amazing that you are so willing to believe people complaining on ATI forums but not people here telling you they have no problems.

It comes down to this, plenty of people DON'T have the problems you're complaining about, either you can try to get your system to work or just return the card. The fact is that ATI cards can work fine, so stop acting like every ATI user has problems.

Maybe you should try doing something, I haven't read a single post of you actually trying anything, you just keep complaining. Many people have suggested a lot of things, you haven't given ANY feedback about actually trying anything. I won't call you out but you're making youself extremely suspect.

Hate to be this aggressive, but Vash has a point. You're limiting your troubleshooting options with your current approach.

Given all you've done, you're left with 3 options:

1. RMA the Card.
2. format windows, because the error may well be in some minor registry file and you will never find it, ever.
3. Continue with the issue as is.

Or, I guess, buy something else.

 

[Tempered81]

How come they work for everyone else then? There are thousands of satisfied ATI users.. yet magically a few can't seem to get anything working correctly.

For those who don't like ATI drivers, I wish you'd just go buy and use Nvidia forever and stop yakking about how you can't get your rig to work properly with an ATI card.. I personally don't think the unhappiness (if it's real and legit) does you any good.

if you want more anecdotal evidence, the drivers are better than Nvidia in my experience. I don't choose one or the other based on drivers, but if I did, I'd take ATI's drivers anyday. CCC even works fine here, but then again I'm not using a spindle-based drive from 1985 to power my rig so a lot of things are faster.

For me, considering all things, the best single GPU based card out there is the 5870 still. I wouldn't trade mine for a 480 (for one, I might have to upgrade my PSU to do so). The 5870 for me was the closest thing to the experience of buying my Diamond Monster 3D back in the 90's. Great card, great features, works well and has really improved the experience for me gaming (the 50' HDMI/audio to my TV has been a huge boon for me for gaming and videos).

ATI's HDMI output with audio on the 4870 was what really made me pay attention to them again, glad I did because I doubt I'll ever go back to Nvidia.. it's just better on the other side.

Well I have a 260 & 4890, and I prefer Forceware. I use the 4890 as my main gaming rig. My opinion is that the CCC driver suites have a long way to go to reach the level Forceware is at. Same can be said about Nvidias less than stellar silicon engineering that pales in comparison to rv770 & Cypress.

Forceware (when compared to CCC) just has that clean, crisp, effective, robust, useful feel to it.

That said, I still prefer my 4890 over the Nvidia cards. But, I'll take Forceware over CCC any day. Maybe someone can hack it to power the Radeons.... lol.

I actually saw one program that looked worse than CCC for the first time the other day. It was a small bootdisk creator proggie that looked like it was drawn in paint. With the aesthetics of a broken cinder block, it had slightly worse appeal than CCC.

 

[bryanW1995]

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 have MANY times in the past few years gone from ati to nvidia (and even nvidia-ati-nvidia once). I've never used driver sweeper, never had a TRUE driver issue. I've THOUGHT that I had driver issues, but they always ended up being pebkac or hardware.

 

[SolMiester]

ATI drivers don't suck, but I think they're more quirky than Nvidia drivers.

I moved from an ATI 4850 to a 5770 and have this weird issue of my compter locking before the windows welcome screen comes up if using the DVI connection when ATI drivers are installed. HDMI and VGA work fine, and DVI works too if I use a generic VGA driver.

Finally gave up and used the VGA connection.

Sounds like a bad card, or ATi drivers suck....LOL

 

[Kantastic]

I've had a 4830, 4850, 4870, 5750, 5770, and a 5870 and have never experienced any of these issues. I'm sure many people can relate to me, whereas only a very minuscule percentage of the AAT population have experienced issues like yours. It's quite obvious that the problem occurs on the user's end and is not a fault of the hardware itself.

 

[Friendo]

So I've always been somewhat of an Nvidia loyalist, ever since the first Geforce. The 5900 sucked bad and in hindsight I should have gotten a 9700 instead but every other Nvidia card has been as good or better than its ATI counterpart as far as I can remember.

Anyways, for my newest upgrade I decided with all the bad press around the Fermi, I'd might as well try out an ATI for once. So I picked up a Powercolor 5870 LCS for my new watercooled build. This is an upgrade from an EVGA 285gtx so it's not a huge expected jump in performance. However so far I have been extremely disappointed and regret not just getting a Fermi after all.

The ATI drivers are beyond terrible. I thought all the complaining I used to hear about ATI having bad drivers was just an exaggeration or minor complaint. However I can now safely say that these complaints really understate how terrible the drivers actually are. So far in just one week of ownership, I've had the following issues using drivers 10.1 through 10.4:

1) Firefox crashes with hardware accelerated flash videos frequently
2) hardware accelerated videos have artifacts or become corrupted if the window is minimized or moved
3) anomalous flashing grey boxes on the desktop
4) monitor power saving mode does not work - monitor just displays full black instead of actually going into standby mode
5) graphics driver frequently crashes and is recovered and restarted by windows, in games, while playing videos, or just doing nothing.
6) multiple games have significant issues, ranging from frame rate glitchyness (frame rate jumps from 5 to 100 fps about once per second) to artifacts to crashes.

Even the most supposedly stable catalyst driver pales in comparison to the greenest nvidia beta driver I've ever used. This is my first and last ATI card I will ever purchase. :thumbsdown:

based on your 3), I'd say you should've rma a million years ago instead of complaining here like a noob.

 

[evolucion8]

Sounds like a bad card, or ATi drivers suck....LOL

Thanks for your incredibly great apportation to this thread, you're the best!!

Back on topic, definitively is a dud card, I've been using ATi for more than 8 years and besides of some issues with Anti Aliasing with very few games or other minor issues with Crossfire, such artifacts is not normal of a driver issue. Just change the card and wait some.

 

[bryanW1995]

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?

lol

why not just replace the damn card already? that would certainly end up being much faster, anyway.

 

[QuantumPion]

Are you actually going to troubleshoot your card or just keep bashing ATI man? BTW I tried enabling HW accel for flash and haven't seen any crashes yet. I bet if you search nvidia forums you'll find problems that "haven't" been resolved either. I find it amazing that you are so willing to believe people complaining on ATI forums but not people here telling you they have no problems.

It comes down to this, plenty of people DON'T have the problems you're complaining about, either you can try to get your system to work or just return the card. The fact is that ATI cards can work fine, so stop acting like every ATI user has problems.

Maybe you should try doing something, I haven't read a single post of you actually trying anything, you just keep complaining. Many people have suggested a lot of things, you haven't given ANY feedback about actually trying anything. I won't call you out but you're making youself extremely suspect.

Well it's hard to tell since this thread went to shit since page 6 but if you go back a little ways and actually read all of my posts, as opposed to to just the last two, you will see that I have indeed been troubleshooting and using people's suggestions to try to solve my problems. The reason why I did not have immediate feedback is because my computer is at home and I am at work.

Anyways I may have fixed a few of the issues I was having. I'm not sure which fix did it, but I guess it was some combination of uninstalling/reinstalling drivers 10 times over, uninstalling all c++ packages, using driver sweeper, and making several registry changes and adding some manual fixes in safe mode. The flickering boxes are gone, as well as the 2d driver crashes. I still have the monitor-won't-standby problem. I haven't had a chance to test a 3d game yet to see if if the fps jitter is gone but I think it may be based on using OCCT. I'll have more time to test everything tonight.

 

[MrK6]

I never claimed that Nvidia did not have driver issues of their own. However, I do claim that driver problems which Nvidia suffers are usually promptly acknowledged and addressed. As opposed to the problems I and several hundred others are experiencing, with apparently not a peep from ATI for months.

Not saying you did, just saying that it's amazing this argument still comes up in these types of threads. Again though, millions of other people aren't having any issues, so what do you think is more likely: it's the AMD card's problem or your problem? I'm not saying you're at fault, but that your specific system might have something awry that isn't playing nice, and so you have to figure it out.

Anyways I may have fixed a few of the issues I was having. I'm not sure which fix did it, but I guess it was some combination of uninstalling/reinstalling drivers 10 times over, uninstalling all c++ packages, using driver sweeper, and making several registry changes and adding some manual fixes in safe mode. The flickering boxes are gone, as well as the 2d driver crashes. I still have the monitor-won't-standby problem. I haven't had a chance to test a 3d game yet to see if if the fps jitter is gone but I think it may be based on using OCCT. I'll have more time to test everything tonight.

I just loaded up the official 10.4's and my monitor is going into stand-by with no issue (it hadn't previously with some of the early betas, so I know it's an issue). Let us know how your testing turns out so we can help you reach a conclusion.