nVidia is better than ATI because they have better drivers?

[dredd2929]

I've noticed that a lot of my older games work fine with my 5900 Ultra (and also my 7800GTX on my other system), but my friend has all kinds of problems with his 9800 Pro getting older games to work. For this reason I feel that nVidia is a safer buy with less hassle getting programs to work right.

How do you all feel about this?

 

[dug777]

Give us some more details, more than likely your friend is a n00blet and user ignorance is the problem

Nothing like a few blanket statement (totally unsupported of course) to get a flamebait thread going

 

[BFG10K]

ATi tends to have more rendering glitches and compatibility issues but nVidia tends to have more serious issue such as crashing, hard locks and reboots.

 

[dredd2929]

Originally posted by: dug777Nothing like a few blanket statement (totally unsupported of course) to get a flamebait thread going

I can't think of any specific game titles, I would have to ask my friend...who isn't a noob by the way. Plus, blanket statements are always a source of good clean fun right?

 

[dredd2929]

Originally posted by: BFG10K
ATi tends to have more rendering glitches and compatibility issues but nVidia tends to have more serious issue such as crashing, hard locks and reboots.

Well I guess I've just lucked out then b/c I've never traced lockup problems to an nVidia card, hardware or software. Obviously I agree with your statement about ATi's compatibility issues.

 

[Zenoth]

I had a 9800 Pro (well, I still "have" it, but I'm not using it anymore, got a new system, it's resting in peace in its original box) before.

I had it since late 2003 until three days ago.

Went through many Catalyst versions (WHQL versions that is).

I tell you mate, I never, ever had a single issue due to drivers. Other than the casual "performance changes" it provided, or not (it was usually just in-game bug fixes, and rarely actual optimizations for specific games).

The best driver (if I recall correctly) I've personally ever tried, were Catalyst 4.11 / 4.12, followed by 5.2 and 5.11.

Perhaps I was lucky, but none of my games crashed due to drivers ... from what I know anyway.

Oh, and, so far, and since I know and buy ATi products (Although I do own nVidia products as well right now), I haven't even tried that famous Catalyst Control Center.

All I did was downloading the Display Driver only, and make changes via Rage3D Tweak, or ATi Tray Tools. It worked like a charm.

Eventually (not so long ago), Rage3D decided to move to CCC with their Tweaking application. It now only works with CCC. Sad, just because ATi themselves don't "support" the good ol' Control Panels anymore.

It just looks more fancy, but I hate the interface according to pictures I've seen.

Right now it's: ATi Tray Tools 4 teh w33n.

And if I might add: Vive Catalysts.

 

[dug777]

Originally posted by: dredd2929

Originally posted by: dug777Nothing like a few blanket statement (totally unsupported of course) to get a flamebait thread going

I can't think of any specific game titles, I would have to ask my friend...who isn't a noob by the way. Plus, blanket statements are always a source of good clean fun right?

true

 

[Compellor]

5 or 6 years ago ATI had crappy drivers, but today they are as good if not better than NVIDIA's. My 9800 Pro never gave me problems. It ran on several different driver versions without a hitch. The 4.12s were the best for it and I suggest you tell your friend to use them with their 9800 Pro.

Really old games may have issues with newer ATI or NVIDIA video cards. But sometimes it's just a matter of using an older driver to get them to work without issues.

 

[Mem]

ATi tends to have more rendering glitches and compatibility issues but nVidia tends to have more serious issue such as crashing, hard locks and reboots.

I been using ATI for last 3 years before that Nvidia,anyway went back to Nvidia lastweek only because the FX7800 GT was a great buy for the money and guess what?... I get artifact odd glitches in DoD that I never had with ATI drivers,now V-Sync is on and it only comes up around the rifle or when it is snowing now and then in DoD only, so not severe.


Also this is a new PC so no others drivers (like ATI) would cause any conflicts,anyway only happens in that game so I can live with it for now but so far for me ATI drivers have been better.

 

[tuteja1986]

Originally posted by: dug777

Give us some more details, more than likely your friend is a n00blet and user ignorance is the problem

Nothing like a few blanket statement (totally unsupported of course) to get a flamebait thread going

lol so true bugs ! anyways its like some pr dude trying to convince me that Intel P4 are faster , more reliable and they don?t burn like AMD 64bit and ALSO AMD aren?t good at anything but gaming?. !

 

[Griswold]

I prefer ATI's drivers any day of the week. My old ATI cards still does its duty in another box, using 5.2 catas, whereas I already went through 4 sets of forceware (not even beta crap) since I got my 7800GT last month.

 

[Mem]

I think my problem with my Nvidia DoD glitch is one of the video settings ,I'll play around with them and see if I'm right.

Personally I have always been happy with both ATI and Nvidia drivers.

 

[Genx87]

ATi hasnt been very impressive with my 9600 Pro AIW card. Their drivers are close to complete crap.

Nvidia has been pretty damn stable in terms of drivers for me until the 70 and 80 series drivers. There is some issue between the 6800 series card, NF3, and those driver sets. The stutter is still there in the 80 series although not as frequent, but it is enough to make me still use the 60 series drivers.

So I have to say right now neither company is really impressing me on the driver front.
Oh I also found a nice bug in WoW where enabling triple buffering causes the mouse cursor to become non-functional. The mouse works fine because I can get it to click things and it moves, but the cursor itself is hard locked. It requires a reboot of the computer to fix the issue. Disabling triple-buffering within the game fixes the issue.

 

[GOREGRINDER]

ATI'a drivers have gottem alot beter than they use to be,.every year they get a lil better and better,...i dont think they are better than foreceware however,..but i dont think its that "ATI drivers suck" ,..i just think people hold on too much to what "use to be" with vid card manufacturer's,..the ati driver sux thing is a bit stale imo

maybe if you could give more info on what the problem actually is,...you may find it has nothin to do with the gpu driver at all,...for example back in the day with my 9800pro,. on my via chipset boards it had to be set to 4xAGP for it to work correctly,....like what os is he using?,..what are his specs?,..do you know for a fact that his pc isnt infected with something?,..is he installing new drivers overtop of his old ones?

 

[Wolfshanze]

Let me say this... I've been an Nvidia-only user since the days of the TNT2... I've had them all... GeForce1, GeForce2, GeForce3, GeForce4, GeForce5 and GeForce6 in various computers over the years. I've never used an ATI card (so won't comment on that).

I am also an avid "old school" gamer. I play many old games (see my sig-line, for my favorite game from 1997).

Now I am not a noob, I do love old games, so I think I have something obvious to say here that I'm surprised nobody has mentioned yet.

Did anyone stop to ask/think if WinXP is the culprit, not ATI video drivers? I'm under the assumption your friend has a relatively current OS, if that's the case, and he has WinXP, I can almost assure you without the slightest doubt that WinXP is the culprit, not ATI.

WinXP is NOTORIOUSLY bad at compatability problems with old games... I myself maintain a dual-boot system with both WinXP and WinME to ensure full compatability with old games... there are multiple games simply will not run under WinXP, and for that I use WinME. Even WinXP "Compatability Mode" is a joke... it works sometimes but certainly not all the time.

Unless you tell me your friend doesn't have WinXP, I will assure you now, the problem is with the OS, not the video card (now if he's running a Win9X system... maybe it is ATI).

 

[GOREGRINDER]

thats true,.and the more windows gets updated the more so it is,..

 

[Munky]

I've been using Ati drivers for the past 3 years, and I never had issues like game glitches, artifacting, crashes, or having to try a million beta drivers to fix some annoying issue. Maybe I got lucky, but I know people who used Nv cards (mainly the geforce 4 and 6 series) and they had issues that I never had in the same games.

 

[xtknight]

I've never had any issues with ATI drivers or NVIDIA drivers with my Radeon or GeForce.

 

[sandorski]

ATI's drivers haven't been "crappy" for many years, but old events keep lingering. Another recent thread I read was of an Intel user that hadn't even considered AMD after an experience he had with a K5! The K5 was >10 years ago, yet the effect it had still affects(ed) an opinion to this day. Things change and so have ATI's Drivers.

 

[dredd2929]

Originally posted by: GOREGRINDER
...ATI'a drivers have gottem alot beter than they use to be,.every year they get a lil better and better,...

Hey cool that sounded like how the Indian Chief on Disney's Peter Pan talks (the old cartoon movie)! ("Go gettem firewood...")

Originally posted by: GOREGRINDER
..the ati driver sux thing is a bit stale imo

I never said "they suck", I just wanted to get other peoples' opinion/experiences on it (see my original post). I just had to bring it up because I see all these people running to buy ATi and I'm sitting here eating dinner and I just don't understand what they are doing. ATi is Canadian right?

Originally posted by: Wolfshanze
Did anyone stop to ask/think if WinXP is the culprit, not ATI video drivers? I'm under the assumption your friend has a relatively current OS, if that's the case, and he has WinXP, I can almost assure you without the slightest doubt that WinXP is the culprit, not ATI.

Yes I remember some voices in my head suggesting that, was that you? A valid proposition, however since I don't have any problems with my system, and I'm using WinXP as well...

 

[lopri]

ATI's WDM drivers are, to say the least, junk. Their graphics drivers are decent, however.

Edit: I still remember how excited I was when I first got my AIW 9700Pro, only to reformat 3 times. Since then, I always recommend AIW cards to people that I don't like.

 

[vanvock]

I've got an 8500(built by ATI) that has an infinite loop problem that AFAIK ATI never acknowleged. From what I could gather it was not a driver issue but a BIOS prob. I think the possible fix was flashing to a vendor card BIOS. By the time I found all that out it was time to upgrade anyway so I got a 9500pro. No prob with it at all, it's in the wife's web surfer comp now.

 

[KeepItRed]

Catalyst for the win! I think everything ATI had before Catalyst wasn't so great. Once the Control Center was introduced they made a big step up.

 

[xtknight]

Originally posted by: lopri
ATI's WDM drivers are, to say the least, junk. Their graphics drivers are decent, however

Graphics drivers are WDM drivers. Any driver for 2K/XP uses the WDM (Windows Driver Model). Do you mean capture drivers by any chance? I think they're just fine. What problems do you have with them?

 

[lopri]

Oh.. my bad.. I thought WDM drivers are used for AIW versions? Anyway I tried 2 AIW cards (9700, 9800) without any luck. Both ended up with heavy reformatting. After that I gave up and got a regular 9800Pro and it just worked beautifully.