nVidia's not so "Unified" Driver Support

[Lonyo]

Populartechnology story

Almost posted this earlier, then I thought some people would claim it was inciting flames and trolling, since it dealt with only old cards, but it seems it is relevant.

This news is six months old but for various reasons is still not widely known. nVidia dropped "Unified" driver support in Windows XP/2000 for certain GPUs (Graphics Processing Units), starting with driver v77.72. This is not the first time they have done this with their "Unified" driver architecture but it is significant in its disparity. The irony is the lack of "Unification".

Support Dropped
TNT2
TNT2 Pro
TNT2 Ultra
TNT2 Model 64 (M64)
TNT2 Model 64 (M64) Pro
Vanta
Vanta LT
GeForce 256
GeForce DDR
GeForce2 GTS
GeForce2 Pro
GeForce2 Ti
GeForce2 Ultra
GeForce2 MX Integrated graphics
Quadro
Quadro2 Pro
Quadro2 EX

The last driver version to support these is v71.84.

 

[Ackmed]

There are still plenty of older drivers they can use. Not a big deal to me. If someone is using one of those cards, they should worry about upgrading it, as I seriously doubt newer drivers are going to do anything for them anyways.

 

[Lonyo]

Originally posted by: Ackmed
There are still plenty of older drivers they can use. Not a big deal to me. If someone is using one of those cards, they should worry about upgrading it, as I seriously doubt newer drivers are going to do anything for them anyways.

Unless (as in another thread) they are using a PCI card for extra monitor support, in which case the card it seems won't work with newer drivers.

 

[Hacp]

This is old news.

 

[Rage187]

Whoopty doo.

In other news, FORD has stop making parts for cars pre 1998. Lets all spam them with hate mail.

 

[Ackmed]

Originally posted by: Lonyo

Originally posted by: Ackmed
There are still plenty of older drivers they can use. Not a big deal to me. If someone is using one of those cards, they should worry about upgrading it, as I seriously doubt newer drivers are going to do anything for them anyways.

Unless (as in another thread) they are using a PCI card for extra monitor support, in which case the card it seems won't work with newer drivers.

I didnt think about that. Thats a pretty valid concern. Does it not work at all, or what? Not many people do this, but for the small majority who do, it sucks.

 

[imported_Rampage]

In that case, woudlnt you just install the drivers for the older card, and also the newer card?
Thats nothing out of the ordinary. They ARE two different devices.



I suppose they did make GF2 PCI cards. The rest of the cards on that list I doubt are out there in quantity in usage anymore at all, but I bet theres alot more GF2 AGP out there than PCI cards.
I cant think of anyone I know that has a GF2 PCI.

I use my old GF2 AGP cards for older crappy PCs that need GUI acceleration.

Pretty much the only worthy PCI card that I would use is the one in my sig regardless.

 

[blurredvision]

Originally posted by: Ackmed

Originally posted by: Lonyo

Originally posted by: Ackmed
There are still plenty of older drivers they can use. Not a big deal to me. If someone is using one of those cards, they should worry about upgrading it, as I seriously doubt newer drivers are going to do anything for them anyways.

Unless (as in another thread) they are using a PCI card for extra monitor support, in which case the card it seems won't work with newer drivers.

I didnt think about that. Thats a pretty valid concern. Does it not work at all, or what? Not many people do this, but for the small majority who do, it sucks.

If you have an older card, use the damn drivers that came on the CD with it. If you don't have the CD, the power of google is unmatched.

This is like bitching about Microsoft dropping all support for Windows95 some time ago. It old news, and if you're still using it, you are definitely at the bottom of the barrel as far as minority goes. Do I want 40MB forceware drivers so the 17 people in the world still using their original GeForce256 can upgrade their drivers every month? Hell no. Upgrade your computer for christ's sake.

 

[Chacranajxy]

If people who had those cards really cared about being up to date, they'd upgrade...

 

[Lonyo]

BTW: They still support the Geforce 2 MX cards....all of them, regular, 100, 200 and 400.

 

[beatle]

The OP must be the only one who read my thread.

For everyone lambasting people with older hardware, please tell me the importance of a modern 3d accelerator when it is being used solely as a 2d display card. The news about the newer cards is certainly news to me, since nvidia's driver selector page STILL tells you to download the 81.85 drivers.

If you want to complain about legacy support ballooning the size of a unified driver package, at least complain about the fact that unified drivers exist. They're nice until they stop being unified because you apparently can't use separate drivers for each card. If there is a way to load a separate nVidia driver for my TNT2, I'm all ears.

I'm probably going to put my Matrox Millenium II back in the box in the meantime.

 

[Acanthus]

Oh nos! now you wont be able to play riddick on your TNT. :shocked:

 

[Lonyo]

Originally posted by: Acanthus
Oh nos! now you wont be able to play riddick on your TNT. :shocked:

System:
Windows XP Pro - SP2
Athlon 64 3200+ Winchester @ 260x10, 1.55v
Asus A8V
1 gig TwinMos PC3200 (2x512) @ 186MHz 2-2-2-10-1T 2.8v

Video:
BFG 6800OC, pipes and vertex shader unlocked, 360/860
19" Hitachi CM772 1280x960/32bpp @ 85Hz
19" ViewSonic E790B 1280x960/32bpp @ 85Hz
PCI TNT2 M64 16MB
17" CTX flat CRT 1024x768/32bpp @ 85Hz

Riddick on TNT2? No.
On 6800OC, yes. And oh look, they're in the same PC ^^ see poster above).

 

[jiffylube1024]

Blah. They're still unified drivers - every GeForce still works on them. The TNT2 is a VERY old card; time to get a new card, even for multi-monitor support.

Edit: didn't notice the GF2 cards in there. Whoops!

 

[Acanthus]

Originally posted by: Lonyo

Originally posted by: Acanthus
Oh nos! now you wont be able to play riddick on your TNT. :shocked:

System:
Windows XP Pro - SP2
Athlon 64 3200+ Winchester @ 260x10, 1.55v
Asus A8V
1 gig TwinMos PC3200 (2x512) @ 186MHz 2-2-2-10-1T 2.8v

Video:
BFG 6800OC, pipes and vertex shader unlocked, 360/860
19" Hitachi CM772 1280x960/32bpp @ 85Hz
19" ViewSonic E790B 1280x960/32bpp @ 85Hz
PCI TNT2 M64 16MB
17" CTX flat CRT 1024x768/32bpp @ 85Hz

Riddick on TNT2? No.
On 6800OC, yes. And oh look, they're in the same PC ^^ see poster above).

Is your sarcasm meter broken? In ashes? Good god man.

Also, there is nothing stopping you from installing the new drivers on the 6800OC, and the old working drivers on the TNT2.

 

[BFG10K]

Where are the nVidia trolls who were slamming ATi for not supporting less than the R3xx under Vista and thereby claiming nVidia has driver better support?

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: beatle
The OP must be the only one who read my thread.

For everyone lambasting people with older hardware, please tell me the importance of a modern 3d accelerator when it is being used solely as a 2d display card. The news about the newer cards is certainly news to me, since nvidia's driver selector page STILL tells you to download the 81.85 drivers.

If you want to complain about legacy support ballooning the size of a unified driver package, at least complain about the fact that unified drivers exist. They're nice until they stop being unified because you apparently can't use separate drivers for each card. If there is a way to load a separate nVidia driver for my TNT2, I'm all ears.

I'm probably going to put my Matrox Millenium II back in the box in the meantime.

exactly.

The point is - nVidia CLAIMS they are "unified" . . . they are not.

that's all

No big deal to most of us . . . UNLESS we are using an older card for 2D.
:roll:


what does ati do with the ancient Radeons? Same drivers?

edit: Yep. just looked . . . the ancient Radeon64 DDR uses the same cats as the x1800xt.

of course the Rage and earlier GPUs are supported by different drivers.

 

[toyota]

no delete button??

 

[toyota]

Originally posted by: Rage187
Whoopty doo.

In other news, FORD has stop making parts for cars pre 1998. Lets all spam them with hate mail.

now that would be stupid since older cars need parts more than newer ones. that was a VERY bad analogy.

 

[Gstanfor]

Originally posted by: BFG10K
Where are the nVidia trolls who were slamming ATi for not supporting less than the R3xx under Vista and thereby claiming nVidia has driver better support?

(I'll probably regret answering BFG10K, but I'll bite).

At the time those criticisms wer being leveled at ATI (and I wasn't one of the criticisers, at least not in public) ATi were still selling (and still do to this day) DirectX 8.x level hardware - the R2xx variants.

nVidia has yet to drop support for its DirectX 8.x hardware, and has not yet completely dropped support for its DirectX 7 hardware.

 

[BFG10K]

But Vista won't be here until next year and when it arrives I doubt anything older than the R3xx will be sold.

 

[Gstanfor]

People will still have PC's containing R2xx cards however and some of those people will want to try Microsoft's new OS without purchasing new hardware.

Due to the stance ATi has taken, these people will have to rely on whatever builtin driver Microsoft chooses to make available in Vista, and even then will be resticted to not using Aero at all - they will have to use the legacy GUI.

THose people with GeForce3 and above will be able to use Vista with a lower level of Aero (Aero will work on DX8 cards, with reduced functionality).

As for ATi not selling R2xx by the time Vista gets here - only ATi knows the answer to that, I'm pretty certain one of their upcoming motherboards has integrated R2xx graphics, and most people who purchase integrated motherboards expect at least 3 years of usable life from them.

 

[BFG10K]

Due to the stance ATi has taken, these people will have to rely on whatever builtin driver Microsoft chooses to make available in Vista, and even then will be resticted to not using Aero at all - they will have to use the legacy GUI.

Not necessarily; there's no reason why Microsoft's driver won't support DX 8.1 functionality (in fact it most likely will).

THose people with GeForce3 and above will be able to use Vista with a lower level of Aero

You're making the assumption that nVidia will still be supporting these cards when Vista arrives.

 

[Schadenfroh]

I like their unified nforce drivers.:roll:

 

[Gstanfor]

Originally posted by: BFG10K

Due to the stance ATi has taken, these people will have to rely on whatever builtin driver Microsoft chooses to make available in Vista, and even then will be resticted to not using Aero at all - they will have to use the legacy GUI.

Not necessarily; there's no reason why Microsoft's driver won't support DX 8.1 functionality (in fact it most likely will).

THose people with GeForce3 and above will be able to use Vista with a lower level of Aero

You're making the assumption that nVidia will still be supporting these cards when Vista arrives.

The builtin drivers that come with microsoft opertating systems are based off of driver code provided to them by the hardware vendors. ATi has stated there will be no Vista support in its drivers for anything below R300, so where is Microsoft going to get the DX8.1 code from? Write it themselves? (not bloody likely...)

As for my assumption that nVidia will continue to support DX8.x cards in their drivers when Vista is released, I've got a nice hat here that I'll happily eat for you if they don't...