video card drivers

[lavaheadache]

First off i just want to say that I'm happy with the performance I'm getting with my setup and that I hope this doesn't turn into a mud slinging fest about Nvidia or ATi.


So off to my mini rant...

Is programming drivers for video cards really that hard? I mean not to the average "Joe", but to someone that has been in the field for say 10-20 years?

I just feel like both companies drivers lack a lot of polish sometimes, whether it be the G92 killer bug or other famous ATi blunders(mislabled CAT's and such)

Aren't these guys testing these things out before they get released. Same with WHQL, Don't they need to put these through the paces too? Too many trivial things get through the Q/A testing

 

[3DVagabond]

Writing code, and getting it to compile error free, can be very time consuming. ATI releases drivers every month. Less sometimes with beta drivers. It's also impossible to test every relevant configuration. You also can't plan for every OS update that might affect the GPU. Changes in the way the OS handles power saving functions, for example. Same goes for the game designers. They have a number of beta testers, but when something goes public a configuration pops up that has a show stopping bug. As long as you're dealing with PCs you're going to have things like this.

 

[Sylvanas]

An oldie but a goodie::

Finally, the complexity of these drivers is simply astounding. Diercks claimed that each of the six drivers that NVIDIA has to develop for Windows Vista is roughly 20 million lines of code long; about as much code as Windows NT 4! While I am sure there is some significant driver overlap between the six separate modules and the 20 million lines on each, projects of that magnitude are something most normal people couldn’t even begin to wrap their heads around.

As you can see, it's not simple and requires massive expenditure and teams of people working on them to maintain drivers in a workable and cutting edge state. You must keep in mind that there is a delicate balance between what is a driver problem, what is a problem in the OS and what is an application problem- sometimes they get mixed up and everyone from devs, MS and AMD/Nv get blamed for something that may be nothing to do with them. Take the example of a new game that has just been released (has gone through BETA testing where devs load it onto all sorts of computer configurations to look for problems) yet when it's released there may be a flaw that need fixing. Now unfortunately no matter how big your BETA program you are never going to be able to screen EVERY single combination of OS, drivers, applications and hardware so problems do arise and 99% of the time it's obviously not intentional and has slipped the net due to the sheer number of system configurations out there where things to go wrong.

If like ATI you have a monthly release schedule (and keep in mind AMD's drivers are finalised at least 1+ month before they actually get posted on their website) and a game breaking issue arises, it may take 1 month for the fix to first filter into their internal build then another month for it to be finalised and certified as a WQHL driver. In important cases that simply cannot wait that long, Nvidia and ATI release a 'hotfix' which is an unsupported driver version of the latest build with the fix incorporated but has not had time to go through extensive testing and verification.

Keep in mind Nvidia and ATI have to ensure that their drivers don't just work with the latest games, past games based on different architectures but also every conceivable application out there that may need to interface with the graphics drivers somehow. Literally thousands. Considering the often limited resources and fast paced development schedule, I'd say they do a good job.