Whatever happened to the days of NVIDIA touting their "unified driver achitechure"?

[SickBeast]

I also would like to express my displeasure with NV's graphics.

The latest 174 driver release is disgusting and is in all likelihood completely marketing-driven.

The NV control panel is slow to load and generally unresponsive, even on high-end hardware.

I've had a string of BSOD's, all related to my NV driver. One time a window even popped up to basically say that the crash had been NV's fault.

My next graphics card will be AMD, so long as they offer something competetive in the high end, solely based on these issues. It's going on four months now since the 8800-series had a WHQL driver release. Ridiculous. :thumbsdown:

 

[nRollo]

Originally posted by: SickBeast

Originally posted by: nRollo
Another thing people seem to be forgetting about this 3:1 ratio of NVIDIA driver crashes is that there's about a 3:1 ratio of NVIDIA cards in people's computers, so they're going to have more Vista crashes as well.

Certainly not. That stat is pertaining to add-in graphics cards. 70% NV, 30% AMD. No intel, S3, or Matrox?

By far, most people use intel graphics in their comptuer. The overall stat is 80% or something ridiculous.

Using Intel graphics doesn't expose the user to most of the things that can cause a Vista display driver error report. No OCd hardware, no games being run, usually not even Aero being run.

Your argument doesn't work due to this.

 

[Janooo]

Originally posted by: nRollo

Originally posted by: SickBeast

Originally posted by: nRollo
Another thing people seem to be forgetting about this 3:1 ratio of NVIDIA driver crashes is that there's about a 3:1 ratio of NVIDIA cards in people's computers, so they're going to have more Vista crashes as well.

Certainly not. That stat is pertaining to add-in graphics cards. 70% NV, 30% AMD. No intel, S3, or Matrox?

By far, most people use intel graphics in their comptuer. The overall stat is 80% or something ridiculous.

Using Intel graphics doesn't expose the user to most of the things that can cause a Vista display driver error report. No OCd hardware, no games being run, usually not even Aero being run.

Your argument doesn't work due to this.

I doubt the ratio between NV and AMD is 3:1 for all the computers that run Vista. The numbers from your post don't mean anything. The article does not mention periods for the percentages.
This one is for Q4 of 2007, but still it can not reflect proper ratio for all Vista computers.

 

[nRollo]

Originally posted by: Janooo

Originally posted by: nRollo

Originally posted by: SickBeast

Originally posted by: nRollo
Another thing people seem to be forgetting about this 3:1 ratio of NVIDIA driver crashes is that there's about a 3:1 ratio of NVIDIA cards in people's computers, so they're going to have more Vista crashes as well.

Certainly not. That stat is pertaining to add-in graphics cards. 70% NV, 30% AMD. No intel, S3, or Matrox?

By far, most people use intel graphics in their comptuer. The overall stat is 80% or something ridiculous.

Using Intel graphics doesn't expose the user to most of the things that can cause a Vista display driver error report. No OCd hardware, no games being run, usually not even Aero being run.

Your argument doesn't work due to this.

I doubt the ratio between NV and AMD is 3:1 for all the computers that run Vista. The numbers from your post don't mean anything. The article does not mention periods for the percentages.
This one is for Q4 of 2007, but still it can not reflect proper ratio for all Vista computers.

As noted, for people like us, "desktop graphics" are pretty meaningless.

No one games with integrated, no enthusiasts use integrated, and computers with integrated don't run the software or contain the components that mainly cause Vista errors.

NVIDIA has the vast majority of the enthusiast level graphics marketshare, and really that's probably all anyone reading this board cares about.

I'm not surprised if someone's Grandma's computer with that newfangled Vista and MS Works on it doesn't get TDRs and BSODs using the OEM configuration with integrated graphics. (are you?)

I don't understand why you're trying to make this point in multiple threads.

 

[SickBeast]

Originally posted by: nRollo
I don't understand why you're trying to make this point in multiple threads.

I'm simply refuting your BS in multiple threads because I care about the integrity of our forums. You are blatantly spreading false information to advance your own agenda.

Some people do game with integrated. All modern IGPs run aero. My BSODs using NV drivers occured while running 2D apps in Vista. The NV control panel makes my modern processor feel like a 386.

Countless user accounts and statistics point to the fact that nVidia's drivers for Vista have been absolutely terrible.

If you're posting any of this on NV's behalf, I would think that they would want to explain themselves instead of making excuses and posting blatant falsehoods.

 

[chizow]

Originally posted by: SickBeast

Originally posted by: nRollo
I don't understand why you're trying to make this point in multiple threads.

I'm simply refuting your BS in multiple threads because I care about the integrity of our forums. You are blatantly spreading false information to advance your own agenda.

Some people do game with integrated. All modern IGPs run aero. My BSODs using NV drivers occured while running 2D apps in Vista. The NV control panel makes my modern processor feel like a 386.

Countless user accounts and statistics point to the fact that nVidia's drivers for Vista have been absolutely terrible.

If you're posting any of this on NV's behalf, I would think that they would want to explain themselves instead of making excuses and posting blatant falsehoods.

Just a few points, integrated really isn't part of the equation for gaming, particularly with Intel parts. This is the basis for the suit against Microsoft allowing "Vista Capable" stickers to be placed on machines with integrated Intel chipsets that couldn't even run basic Vista features such as Aero. Can double-check this, but I don't think Intel will even have an Aero-capable IGP until its next generation.

Laptops aren't really part of the equation either when talking about problematic drivers. Laptops don't share drivers with desktop add-in parts, as their drivers are often supplied by the OEM only. You can modify the .infs and hack desktop drivers otherwise, but that clearly exceeds the scope for which you can complain about buggy drivers. The supplied drivers will be rigorously tested with the possible hardware and software configurations for that particularly laptop model, something that cannot be realistically accomplished with desktop parts.

Do you have nTune installed? The NV control panel shouldn't be taking longer than a second to open.

I've been using Vista 64 since July or so and the 13X.XX drivers and have found driver support to be excellent. Sure I've had TDR errors that I definitely reported, but the TDR problems turned out to be bad memory in both cases. If anything, Vista is more stable than XP has been for me despite all of its problems and required hot fixes.

 

[Janooo]

Originally posted by: nRollo

Originally posted by: Janooo

Originally posted by: nRollo

Originally posted by: SickBeast

Originally posted by: nRollo
Another thing people seem to be forgetting about this 3:1 ratio of NVIDIA driver crashes is that there's about a 3:1 ratio of NVIDIA cards in people's computers, so they're going to have more Vista crashes as well.

Certainly not. That stat is pertaining to add-in graphics cards. 70% NV, 30% AMD. No intel, S3, or Matrox?

By far, most people use intel graphics in their comptuer. The overall stat is 80% or something ridiculous.

Using Intel graphics doesn't expose the user to most of the things that can cause a Vista display driver error report. No OCd hardware, no games being run, usually not even Aero being run.

Your argument doesn't work due to this.

I doubt the ratio between NV and AMD is 3:1 for all the computers that run Vista. The numbers from your post don't mean anything. The article does not mention periods for the percentages.
This one is for Q4 of 2007, but still it can not reflect proper ratio for all Vista computers.

As noted, for people like us, "desktop graphics" are pretty meaningless.

No one games with integrated, no enthusiasts use integrated, and computers with integrated don't run the software or contain the components that mainly cause Vista errors.

NVIDIA has the vast majority of the enthusiast level graphics marketshare, and really that's probably all anyone reading this board cares about.

I'm not surprised if someone's Grandma's computer with that newfangled Vista and MS Works on it doesn't get TDRs and BSODs using the OEM configuration with integrated graphics. (are you?)

I don't understand why you're trying to make this point in multiple threads.

The desktop does include discrete GPUs.

 

[SickBeast]

Originally posted by: chizow

Originally posted by: SickBeast

Originally posted by: nRollo
I don't understand why you're trying to make this point in multiple threads.

I'm simply refuting your BS in multiple threads because I care about the integrity of our forums. You are blatantly spreading false information to advance your own agenda.

Some people do game with integrated. All modern IGPs run aero. My BSODs using NV drivers occured while running 2D apps in Vista. The NV control panel makes my modern processor feel like a 386.

Countless user accounts and statistics point to the fact that nVidia's drivers for Vista have been absolutely terrible.

If you're posting any of this on NV's behalf, I would think that they would want to explain themselves instead of making excuses and posting blatant falsehoods.

Just a few points, integrated really isn't part of the equation for gaming, particularly with Intel parts. This is the basis for the suit against Microsoft allowing "Vista Capable" stickers to be placed on machines with integrated Intel chipsets that couldn't even run basic Vista features such as Aero. Can double-check this, but I don't think Intel will even have an Aero-capable IGP until its next generation.

Laptops aren't really part of the equation either when talking about problematic drivers. Laptops don't share drivers with desktop add-in parts, as their drivers are often supplied by the OEM only. You can modify the .infs and hack desktop drivers otherwise, but that clearly exceeds the scope for which you can complain about buggy drivers. The supplied drivers will be rigorously tested with the possible hardware and software configurations for that particularly laptop model, something that cannot be realistically accomplished with desktop parts.

Do you have nTune installed? The NV control panel shouldn't be taking longer than a second to open.

I've been using Vista 64 since July or so and the 13X.XX drivers and have found driver support to be excellent. Sure I've had TDR errors that I definitely reported, but the TDR problems turned out to be bad memory in both cases. If anything, Vista is more stable than XP has been for me despite all of its problems and required hot fixes.

Intel has had aero-capable chipsets since mid-2006.

Many people do indeed run relatively modern games on intel IGPs.

Laptop drivers are still based on the same core code as desktop drivers. Many AMD laptop GPUs are supported by their unified drivers.

I don't have nTune installed. The CP takes around 2 seconds to load, but then at least a second to switch between the various setting pages. On older drivers, it easily took twice as long as that. Plus, when I change settings, there is often a 5+ second delay before they're applied. I've used a variety of CP software before; none of it has been this sluggish (even the Catalyst one).

I'm surprised you've been happy with the driver support seeing as the last official release for your card was about 4 months ago.

 

[chizow]

Originally posted by: SickBeast

Originally posted by: chizow

Originally posted by: SickBeast

Originally posted by: nRollo
I don't understand why you're trying to make this point in multiple threads.

I'm simply refuting your BS in multiple threads because I care about the integrity of our forums. You are blatantly spreading false information to advance your own agenda.

Some people do game with integrated. All modern IGPs run aero. My BSODs using NV drivers occured while running 2D apps in Vista. The NV control panel makes my modern processor feel like a 386.

Countless user accounts and statistics point to the fact that nVidia's drivers for Vista have been absolutely terrible.

If you're posting any of this on NV's behalf, I would think that they would want to explain themselves instead of making excuses and posting blatant falsehoods.

Just a few points, integrated really isn't part of the equation for gaming, particularly with Intel parts. This is the basis for the suit against Microsoft allowing "Vista Capable" stickers to be placed on machines with integrated Intel chipsets that couldn't even run basic Vista features such as Aero. Can double-check this, but I don't think Intel will even have an Aero-capable IGP until its next generation.

Laptops aren't really part of the equation either when talking about problematic drivers. Laptops don't share drivers with desktop add-in parts, as their drivers are often supplied by the OEM only. You can modify the .infs and hack desktop drivers otherwise, but that clearly exceeds the scope for which you can complain about buggy drivers. The supplied drivers will be rigorously tested with the possible hardware and software configurations for that particularly laptop model, something that cannot be realistically accomplished with desktop parts.

Do you have nTune installed? The NV control panel shouldn't be taking longer than a second to open.

I've been using Vista 64 since July or so and the 13X.XX drivers and have found driver support to be excellent. Sure I've had TDR errors that I definitely reported, but the TDR problems turned out to be bad memory in both cases. If anything, Vista is more stable than XP has been for me despite all of its problems and required hot fixes.

Intel has had aero-capable chipsets since mid-2006.

Many people do indeed run relatively modern games on intel IGPs.

Laptop drivers are still based on the same core code as desktop drivers. Many AMD laptop GPUs are supported by their unified drivers.

I don't have nTune installed. The CP takes around 2 seconds to load, but then at least a second to switch between the various setting pages. On older drivers, it easily took twice as long as that. Plus, when I change settings, there is often a 5+ second delay before they're applied. I've used a variety of CP software before; none of it has been this sluggish (even the Catalyst one).

No, people don't play modern games on intel IGPs. I keep hearing the "Intel IGPs run Source fine!" argument here and the PC gaming forum, might as well go straight to the Sources mouth. And that's assuming you still consider Source a modern engine.

Valve Survey Summary

Sorting by driver name you'll find Intel at:

• ialmrnt5.dll 38,363 2.60 %

and NV at:

• nv4_disp.dll 721,642 48.83 %
  nvd3dum.dll 196,568 13.30 %

ATI carries about 30% with:

• ati2dvag.dll 410,137 27.75 %
  atiumdag.dll 46,616 3.15 %

Sure its not a perfect sample, but its just about the best market research you'll find for free.

Also, if you scroll down a bit, you'll find some particularly interesting data that fully supports some other's assertion that the overwhelming majority of gamers in Vista are using NV parts, which helps explain the large discrepancy in number of Windows Errors reported:

• NVIDIA GeForce 8800 59,177 4.00 %
  NVIDIA GeForce 8600 23,998 1.62 %
  NVIDIA GeForce 8600M 9,403 0.64 %
  NVIDIA GeForce 8500 9,079 0.61 %
  NVIDIA GeForce 8400M 7,937 0.54 %
  NVIDIA GeForce 8400 6,109 0.41 %
  ATI Radeon HD 2600 3,973 0.27 %
  ATI Radeon HD 2900 3,070 0.21 %
  ATI Radeon HD 2400 2,935 0.20 %
  ATI Mobility Radeon HD 2600 2,420 0.16 %
  ATI Radeon HD 3870 1,875 0.13 %
  NVIDIA GeForce 8300 1,515 0.10 %
  NVIDIA GeForce 8700M 1,269 0.09 %
  ATI Mobility Radeon HD 2400 1,238 0.08 %
  ATI Radeon HD 3850 1,010 0.07 %
  ATI Radeon HD 2350 313 0.02 %
  Intel Bearlake B Express Chipset 97 0.01 %

As you can clearly see with just 8800 parts alone, NV carries the overwhelming majority of parts used in Vista. Their % of reported errors is actually *LOWER* than their market share according to Steam.

You're right about the Intel IGPs though starting with the GMA X3000 parts, although they clearly weren't the parts shipped out when Vista launched with Vista Capable stickers on 915 boards.

I can't comment on all laptops, but if you have to hack .infs in order to get the driver to install that's not the same as claiming full support across all driver releases for laptops.

I'm surprised you've been happy with the driver support seeing as the last official release for your card was about 4 months ago.

Why wouldn't I be happy with them if they run all of my games without issue? I've probably installed and played two dozen titles with my current rig. I've never been one that expects magical performance boosts every 1-2 months, or one who expects magical performance boosts for parts that are 2-3 years old from a new driver. If they release a new driver that boosts performance, great, if not, no biggy, as long as my games continue to run flawlessly, which they have for over a year now on G80 parts.

 

[SickBeast]

Chizow, why does it even matter if people play games on their rig? I'll be that games aren't even the cause of most of these BSODs. I know that for me, they were all within 2D windows.

Besides, even if you go with the 50% NV to 30% AMD numbers at Source, the NV crash numbers look bad.

The simple fact that most Vista crashes are caused by drivers is troubling IMO. It illustrates why so many people use macs, despite their limitations.

 

[chizow]

Originally posted by: SickBeast
Chizow, why does it even matter if people play games on their rig? I'll be that games aren't even the cause of most of these BSODs. I know that for me, they were all within 2D windows.

Besides, even if you go with the 50% NV to 30% AMD numbers at Source, the NV crash numbers look bad.

The simple fact that most Vista crashes are caused by drivers is troubling IMO. It illustrates why so many people use macs, despite their limitations.

Gaming matters because unless you're a professional who requires 3D accelerated graphics, chances are you are buying a discrete GPU for the purpose of gaming. The application doesn't matter so much as the addition of more complex hardware and software that changes the composition of the system.

Also, I haven't seen any clarification as to what MS is logging for their crashes. If anything, Vista has drastically cut down on BSODs for me compared to XP (to the point I rarely get them unless its something catastrophic), so I highly doubt they're logging those only. The TDR errors for example do not typically result in a BSOD although they almost certainly would've in XP. If you're getting BSODs in 2D Windows I'd honestly look elsewhere as the source of your problems (perhaps mainboard/memory).

Again, the Source numbers show ~70% of Vista users gaming on NV parts, which is only ~10% of everyone polled. The 10% is pretty consistent with other reports and surveys regarding Vista users. 30% of errors with a 70% share of those most inclined to run into errors is pretty good, imo.

 

[vanvock]

Originally posted by: nRollo

Originally posted by: LOUISSSSS

Originally posted by: nRollo
My take on this:



2. Things other than NVIDIA drivers cause things Vista reports as "NVIDIA driver errors". (e.g. overheating, RAM failure from OCing, video card failure from OCing, PSU failure)
=
6. If you're MS, and being sued, you might well want to point out "it's other companies fault too".
aren't you doing the same thing for nvid right now? blaming someone else for nvidia driver errors

3. How many of the NVIDIA driver errors came from leaked/unfinished drivers?
how many official drivers have nvidia given us for 8 series and earlier cards?
beta drivers = unfinished driver?

just added in some comments there.. can u explain a bit to me?

6. I'm not doing anything for NVIDIA in regard to blaming others, just telling you what I've seen on the nZone driver forum, my own personal experience, and one of the reasons I was given ESA is a handy thing to have.

For example, the first 1200W power supply I bought for 3 way SLi had 2 of the 6 pin PCIE on one line, which I split between two 8800GTXs. (so they each had one single line, and one split line) When I start gaming, it would work for a little while, then I'd either starting getting the "nvkdm has stopped responding" TDR error, or sometimes even a BSOD that would reference the nvidia drivers. These would have reported to MS as "NVIDIA driver errors", when I really just needed a new PSU. When I got one, the errors stopped entirely. (and if I would have had an ESA system at the time, I could have seen the psu failure as my problem and known what to replace)
3. Beta drivers are not unofficial drivers, they've gone through the same QA as WHQL. They just haven't been sent to MS with a big check for MS certification, and MS certification has never meant "these drivers are guaranteed to work with everything". The drivers I was referring to are the leaked drivers NVIDIA hasn't finished QA on, but people at hardware OEMs or devs leak to the Internet.

Maybe, if it works as well as nTune, maybe not

 

[vanvock]

Originally posted by: nRollo

Originally posted by: hooflung
nRollo I will back you up on Vista's stupid error reporting not being 'kind' to Nvidia. Last night I had my ram out of spec, yeah I put 2 where a 5 should have been in my timings and Vista 64 kept blowing up in games with a BSOD blaming the Nvidia driver IRQ and it was easily resolved by just letting my motherboard pick the timings ( which it did properly ) and viola no crashes, memtest86 3.4 ran non stop for 45 minutes without a single hiccup just to make sure.

Ok so I can you and Nvidia some slack here. Microsoft released numbers and let people interpret them negatively to reduce flaq of Vista being somewhat of the abortion it, as nice as it looks and as good as some features actually ARE, is.

Thank you, I wish more people realized this.

Originally posted by: hooflung
However

People who believe you and think this is evidence of inferior drivers could probably buy an ATi card and get inferior hardware instead.

That is just is plain fainboi crap. Utter crap. The design of the ATI cards is actually far more impressive than the Nvidia 8 series. The Nvidia has their tried and true brute force method that still works for them but elegant it is not. Better 'cards' they are not. From a technology stand point AMD is a cut above and Nvidia is at the end of this generation with a marketing disaster because they can't seem to really improve past year long standards their past cards set. Not unlike the FX series from Nvidia years ago, and the Xenon Xbox 360 gpu, the R6 based cores are VLIW and that means 1) compiler tuning means everything 2) drivers mean everything and 3) developers need to account for them.

AMD has 1 and 2 down and slowly they are getting 3. Nvidia had neither 1, 2 or 3 when they released the FX. The Xbox 360 is a major console and console games that shine on the 360 that that eventually make their way to Gaming on Windows might shift the lime light to AMD and force Nvidia to turn their unified shaders into a VLIW arch, which might be very well what they are doing for the 200. If you want to make blatent statements about inferiority then do so with reason in your mouth instead of fanboi sword. Say, "Games are developed currently rely on old school brute force and more elegant solutions still run inefficient today." You might run the risk of games in 2009-2010 running fine on Todays AMD hardware while Nvidia suffer because the development shifted. PS3 games are less likely to hit the PC than Xbox 360. And the way gaming on the PC is going for AAA titles, we might see more 'console' friendly development close the gap and overtake the speed the Nvidia arch has over AMD Today

The problem with all this is that it never really matters a whole lot what the "games of tomorrow" run better on because by the time the "games of tomorrow" get here, the "cards of today" are the last thing you'd want to run them.
Whether the design of the R6XX line is more "forward thinking" remains to be seen, but it seems totally unlikely to me that games in 2009 and 2010 are going to kick ass on today's $175 mid range AMD card because they predicted a future where all games will be written to not have dependent instructions to increase parallelism for R600/cards like it, and games will no longer need TMUs so that deficiency won't matter either.

There's a lot of "ifs" in your suppositions, and people really shouldn't buy products based on "ifs" and what the console market is up to. PS3 is a decent size player in that market as well, and will likely become more so as it's the cheapest way to get a Blue Ray player and console by far.

There was no "fanboi sword" in my post, it's just more than fair if you're replying to a post that states "NVIDIA has inferior drivers" to note that drivers are in a constant state of developnment, and if the products using "inferior" driver are already the industry leaders by far at almost every price point, the "inferior" drivers become somewhat of a moot point.

nV will see to that, the card of today won't play with yesterday or tomorrow, they want you to buy a new card every damn day

 

[vanvock]

Originally posted by: nRollo

Originally posted by: Janooo

Originally posted by: nRollo

Originally posted by: SickBeast

Originally posted by: nRollo
Another thing people seem to be forgetting about this 3:1 ratio of NVIDIA driver crashes is that there's about a 3:1 ratio of NVIDIA cards in people's computers, so they're going to have more Vista crashes as well.

Certainly not. That stat is pertaining to add-in graphics cards. 70% NV, 30% AMD. No intel, S3, or Matrox?

By far, most people use intel graphics in their comptuer. The overall stat is 80% or something ridiculous.

Using Intel graphics doesn't expose the user to most of the things that can cause a Vista display driver error report. No OCd hardware, no games being run, usually not even Aero being run.

Your argument doesn't work due to this.

I doubt the ratio between NV and AMD is 3:1 for all the computers that run Vista. The numbers from your post don't mean anything. The article does not mention periods for the percentages.
This one is for Q4 of 2007, but still it can not reflect proper ratio for all Vista computers.

As noted, for people like us, "desktop graphics" are pretty meaningless.

No one games with integrated, no enthusiasts use integrated, and computers with integrated don't run the software or contain the components that mainly cause Vista errors.

NVIDIA has the vast majority of the enthusiast level graphics marketshare, and really that's probably all anyone reading this board cares about.

I'm not surprised if someone's Grandma's computer with that newfangled Vista and MS Works on it doesn't get TDRs and BSODs using the OEM configuration with integrated graphics. (are you?)

I don't understand why you're trying to make this point in multiple threads.

That can change

 

[taltamir]

Originally posted by: Janooo

Originally posted by: nRollo

Originally posted by: SickBeast

Originally posted by: nRollo
Another thing people seem to be forgetting about this 3:1 ratio of NVIDIA driver crashes is that there's about a 3:1 ratio of NVIDIA cards in people's computers, so they're going to have more Vista crashes as well.

Certainly not. That stat is pertaining to add-in graphics cards. 70% NV, 30% AMD. No intel, S3, or Matrox?

By far, most people use intel graphics in their comptuer. The overall stat is 80% or something ridiculous.

Using Intel graphics doesn't expose the user to most of the things that can cause a Vista display driver error report. No OCd hardware, no games being run, usually not even Aero being run.

Your argument doesn't work due to this.

I doubt the ratio between NV and AMD is 3:1 for all the computers that run Vista. The numbers from your post don't mean anything. The article does not mention periods for the percentages.
This one is for Q4 of 2007, but still it can not reflect proper ratio for all Vista computers.

Good point, vista users would be MORE likely to own an nvidia card, since the main reason to use vista is for a high end DX10 gaming experience... which means a high end nvidia video card for most people.

 

[Throckmorton]

Is nVidia going to screw 8 series owners by releasing drivers that only work on 9 series but not all G92?

 

[DerekWilson]

Originally posted by: keysplayr2003

Originally posted by: SunnyD

Originally posted by: nerp
I used to be one of those people that said ATI had horrible drivers.

But now that I have both nvidia and ATI cards in a pair of Vista boxes, I can say with assuredness that ATI has much better, tighter, cleaner and more stable drivers than nvidia hands down.

Using the nvidia control panel feels like poking around some college student's java app for class.

I should mention I didn't intend to single out NVIDIA. ATI is guilty of this as well, but ATI didn't start shouting "UNIFIED DRIVER" from the get go. In fact ATI has done a better job of incorporating a more unified solution to date than NVIDIA, going so far as to include several of their mobile products... but the key with ATI is that when a new chip comes out, the new drivers to support it also include all the down-level products that ATI "currently" supports. I still don't find it "cool" that ATI only supports some OEMs directly and not others (Dell *cough*).

Originally posted by: BFG10K
I think nVidia are holding back the 17x.xx series intentionally on older cards and will only release them after the 9xxx line is no longer ?hot? in the reviews.

I suspect the reason for this is the performance gains of the drivers make the 9xxx series look better compared to the 8xxx series.

And I agree completely as well. Marketing is fine, but if you're going to do it that way make it a beta driver, not a WHQL driver.

Sunny, what video card do you have that you need drivers for.
Unified drivers are great, but I don't see the "requirement" for them.
In other words, if you have a 9600GT, there are drivers for it. If you have that card, why on earth would you need a driver that includes all previous generations of nvidia card support?

I know I mentioned before that the current 9 series drivers need to go through QA testing with previous gens of cards, and will ultimately be a part of the unified driver, but I don't exactly see what the issue is. You need to explain it better. Like "why" you have to edit INF files. What is the reason you can't find a driver to support your current video card?

Let me know, maybe I can help.

to be fair -- let me first say i'm just starting to go through this thread and am noticing a lot that i want to comment on (both as a member and as an AnandTech representative) and i might double post ... deal with it

keys, i've run into issues lots of times where i needed a new driver to fix something on an older card ... people who upgrade their platform, os, and games every chance they get while still using older graphics cards will absolutely hit this issue.

i get that nvidia needs to push nforce first, but i've hit multiple problems on skulltrail that were fixed with the 174 drivers on 8 series cards. i couldn't have gotten done what i did from some previous reviews without early press access to these drivers for testing.

if you want one specific problem, 8 series hardware + skulltrail + crysis + any earlier driver will give you a lot of problems, especially if you use SLI.

i can't think of anything off the top of my head, but when new games come out and there is no nvidia driver available for the immediate previous gen hardware for ... what was the longest? 6 months? more? that's not cool.

 

[taltamir]

Originally posted by: Throckmorton
Is nVidia going to screw 8 series owners by releasing drivers that only work on 9 series but not all G92?

most likely. I originally switched to nvidia cause their drivers covered more cards (TNT Through GF7 in one up to date driver). But now they are only updated the very latest cards.
And on motherboards things are even WORSE.

Too bad the AMD chipsets don't work with intel CPUs, and the intel chipsets have the worst drivers of all.

 

[DerekWilson]

Originally posted by: nRollo

Originally posted by: LOUISSSSS

Originally posted by: nRollo
My take on this:



2. Things other than NVIDIA drivers cause things Vista reports as "NVIDIA driver errors". (e.g. overheating, RAM failure from OCing, video card failure from OCing, PSU failure)
=
6. If you're MS, and being sued, you might well want to point out "it's other companies fault too".
aren't you doing the same thing for nvid right now? blaming someone else for nvidia driver errors

3. How many of the NVIDIA driver errors came from leaked/unfinished drivers?
how many official drivers have nvidia given us for 8 series and earlier cards?
beta drivers = unfinished driver?

just added in some comments there.. can u explain a bit to me?

6. I'm not doing anything for NVIDIA in regard to blaming others, just telling you what I've seen on the nZone driver forum, my own personal experience, and one of the reasons I was given ESA is a handy thing to have.

For example, the first 1200W power supply I bought for 3 way SLi had 2 of the 6 pin PCIE on one line, which I split between two 8800GTXs. (so they each had one single line, and one split line) When I start gaming, it would work for a little while, then I'd either starting getting the "nvkdm has stopped responding" TDR error, or sometimes even a BSOD that would reference the nvidia drivers. These would have reported to MS as "NVIDIA driver errors", when I really just needed a new PSU. When I got one, the errors stopped entirely. (and if I would have had an ESA system at the time, I could have seen the psu failure as my problem and known what to replace)

3. Beta drivers are not unofficial drivers, they've gone through the same QA as WHQL. They just haven't been sent to MS with a big check for MS certification, and MS certification has never meant "these drivers are guaranteed to work with everything". The drivers I was referring to are the leaked drivers NVIDIA hasn't finished QA on, but people at hardware OEMs or devs leak to the Internet.

the bold part is your problem and it sounds more like user error than the PSU.

Unless all four pcie power plugs were on the same rail it's likely you would have had issues.

you want both power plugs that go into a single card to be running off the same rail (sharing the same common) whenever possible.

i'd be willing to bet you would have gotten more stability if you plugged both plugs from the split connector into the same card.

 

[DerekWilson]

Originally posted by: nRollo

4. There were NVIDIA driver errors because the unified arch was new, and Vista was new.
That's probably true, but look at the difference between the crashes: 28.8% vs 9.3%.

Even accounting for a unified architecture and possible nVidia market superiority (we don?t count Vista issues since Microsoft counts their own bugs), that's still over three times the crashes with nVidia.

That figure can?t totally be explained away by other factors so the bottom-line is that nVidia?s drivers are generally inferior to ATi?s, and now we have figures to prove it.

That and don?t forget the numerous driver problems on XP which obviously had nothing to do Vista or early adopters. Also feedback on XP of the 2900 was generally positive online; certainly more positive than my experiences with the G80 on XP.

I'm only going to address the unified arch point because I've discussed the monthly WHQL vs NVIDIAs release frequency in another current thread BFG.

MS changed some of the Vista specs relatively close to the launch of Vista, so some of the development had to be re-done.

The other thing is that it wouldn't surprise me if unifed vs non did have double or even triple the amount of driver errors.

When you consider those drivers had to be rewritten from the first line of code, and the differences in how a unified arch works compared to the old fixed function designs, it wouldn't surprise me at all.

The core design of the "newest" ATi product at Vista launch had been in place since late 2005 and didn't have to use DX10. For all we know, one of the reasons the R600 was delayed till late Q2 2007 could have been ATi trying to get the drivers to work with Vista.

In any case, this is all sort of ancient history, so really "who cares" except MS in their lawsuit?

Not like any of us are going to be travelling back in time today and using early Vista or NVIDIA's early release drivers.

As far as the "generally inferior drivers" thing goes, I could have been 3% of those errors myself with that (IMO) unfortunately designed PSU- when you start getting the TDR errors because of a hardware fault- you get a LOT.

People who believe you and think this is evidence of inferior drivers could probably buy an ATi card and get inferior hardware instead.
Drivers can be fixed, but the inefficient VLIW arch, lack of ROPs, lack of TMUs, and shader resolve AA are here to stay. (and in the absence of games coded for VLIW [which there aren't and won't be] I can't think of a situation any of these GPU design choices would be advantageous)

Something for readers of threads like this to think about.

i had more problems with 7 series hardware than 8 at vista launch and during beta.

nvidia hardware failures had nothing to do with DX10, as i doubt that many nvidia owners downloaded the MS SDK to play with the MS samples it as soon as it was available. There was no software out there that used it so it really isn't fair to say that this could have been the issue.

the problem is relevant because vista blows chunks and we will have windows 7 shortly. if you can't do an OS change smoothly that will cause problems, and history is important to understand if you don't want to repeat yourself.

despite the fact that AMD hardware is slower at the top end, it is inaccurate to call it inferior across the board. you need to look at price / perf at multiple points to understand what is best -- its all engineering and tis all about efficiency. For the price, AMD hold the lead in some price segments (though certainly not at the top end).

games get coded for DX and OGL, not the underlying architecture. AMD and NV chose different sets of limitations WRT how to implement shading ... you imply that NV doesn't have limitations with respect to the types of instrcutions it runs on its shader core, when in fact it does. each SP in a g80 or g90 is not completely independant of all other SPs ... i wouldn't have gone the same way AMD did, but they do a good job extracting performance independent of specific developer attention.

having only shader resolve AA is ridiculous though. theres no reason to lack hardware aa even if you want to include the option of custom resolve.

 

[thilanliyan]

Originally posted by: taltamir
Too bad the AMD chipsets don't work with intel CPUs, and the intel chipsets have the worst drivers of all.

You can't be serious...got any proof of that? I have run all Intel CPUs with Intel chipsets except for a AMD 3000+ for a couple of months and have never had any major issues with Intel chipsets and I have by far read most about issues with nforce chipsets.

 

[nRollo]

Originally posted by: DerekWilson

Originally posted by: nRollo

Originally posted by: LOUISSSSS

Originally posted by: nRollo
My take on this:



2. Things other than NVIDIA drivers cause things Vista reports as "NVIDIA driver errors". (e.g. overheating, RAM failure from OCing, video card failure from OCing, PSU failure)
=
6. If you're MS, and being sued, you might well want to point out "it's other companies fault too".
aren't you doing the same thing for nvid right now? blaming someone else for nvidia driver errors

3. How many of the NVIDIA driver errors came from leaked/unfinished drivers?
how many official drivers have nvidia given us for 8 series and earlier cards?
beta drivers = unfinished driver?

just added in some comments there.. can u explain a bit to me?

6. I'm not doing anything for NVIDIA in regard to blaming others, just telling you what I've seen on the nZone driver forum, my own personal experience, and one of the reasons I was given ESA is a handy thing to have.

For example, the first 1200W power supply I bought for 3 way SLi had 2 of the 6 pin PCIE on one line, which I split between two 8800GTXs. (so they each had one single line, and one split line) When I start gaming, it would work for a little while, then I'd either starting getting the "nvkdm has stopped responding" TDR error, or sometimes even a BSOD that would reference the nvidia drivers. These would have reported to MS as "NVIDIA driver errors", when I really just needed a new PSU. When I got one, the errors stopped entirely. (and if I would have had an ESA system at the time, I could have seen the psu failure as my problem and known what to replace)

3. Beta drivers are not unofficial drivers, they've gone through the same QA as WHQL. They just haven't been sent to MS with a big check for MS certification, and MS certification has never meant "these drivers are guaranteed to work with everything". The drivers I was referring to are the leaked drivers NVIDIA hasn't finished QA on, but people at hardware OEMs or devs leak to the Internet.

the bold part is your problem and it sounds more like user error than the PSU.

Unless all four pcie power plugs were on the same rail it's likely you would have had issues.

you want both power plugs that go into a single card to be running off the same rail (sharing the same common) whenever possible.

i'd be willing to bet you would have gotten more stability if you plugged both plugs from the split connector into the same card.

I'm pretty sure I tried that in my attempts at trouble shooting, but it's possible you're right. I only lost $60 or so returning the NZXT, so it's all good.

For me, I like 9800GX2 Quad better so far. Similar performance, nice big piece of open air space between the cards. (although I've seen good things about three way "rev. 2")

 

[DerekWilson]

Originally posted by: nRollo

Originally posted by: chizow

Originally posted by: BFG10K
That's probably true, but look at the difference between the crashes: 28.8% vs 9.3%.

Crash data that ultimately resulted in numerous Hot Fixes for MS' buggy OS. At one point NV listed 6 Vista Hot Fixes that should've probably been resolved before RTM, most notably the virtual memory allocation bug that also adversely affected numerous game titles in Vista (but not XP). Honestly this is the first time that I can remember IHV and ISVs directly linking to MS hot fixes on such a broad scale; made it much easier for the end-user at least.

Another thing people seem to be forgetting about this 3:1 ratio of NVIDIA driver crashes is that there's about a 3:1 ratio of NVIDIA cards in people's computers, so they're going to have more Vista crashes as well.

even if that 3:1 ratio is true ...

i doubt it was that way right at vista's launch. the 8800 had only come out months earlier and previous to that AMD was on top with the x1950xtx being the fastest and best thing out there. i don't think people were all up in an nvidia buying frenzy especially when there were some still waiting to see what R600 would do and even more who wouldn't be buying a top end card (it was a while before midrange 8 series cards were out).

 

[lopri]

At the early stage of Vista/drivers there were a lot of "nvkdm has stopped responding" in 2D, in conjunction with.. 680i. So yeah it might not be entirely the video cards' fault. :laugh:

 

[DerekWilson]

Originally posted by: SickBeast

Originally posted by: nRollo
Another thing people seem to be forgetting about this 3:1 ratio of NVIDIA driver crashes is that there's about a 3:1 ratio of NVIDIA cards in people's computers, so they're going to have more Vista crashes as well.

Certainly not. That stat is pertaining to add-in graphics cards. 70% NV, 30% AMD. No intel, S3, or Matrox?

By far, most people use intel graphics in their comptuer. The overall stat is 80% or something ridiculous.

oh yeah, that too