Reply With QuotePerhaps, but stability is far more important, IMHO: plenty of times ATI's regularly scheduled driver updates haven't been up to snuff; I'd much rather see both companies release drivers "when they're ready."Originally Posted by Incendiary Lemon
Spotted at NeoWin.net - Link
I really like ATIs monthly update schedule, predictability is a wonderful thing.
Perhaps, but stability is far more important, IMHO: plenty of times ATI's regularly scheduled driver updates haven't been up to snuff; I'd much rather see both companies release drivers "when they're ready."
This is hilarious, considering I'm dealing with tons of shitty drivers with my 8800 GTS, whereas I went four years with ATI without a single driver problem.
Lucky you: when I used ATI, I wasn't so fortunate. :-( OTOH, I haven't had any problems with my 8800GTX, but I haven't had it long: what's plaguing you?
Anyway, my point is I don't want nVidia to switch to a monthly schedule if it makes matters worse: don't give me four crappy driver releases in four months, gimme one that's (relatively) rock-solid.
In Terokkar Forest in WoW, the 8800GTS locks up in the videodrivers.
I've tried all three of the driver versions available, happens in all of them.
Nvidia historically has released much better drivers than ATI. Since 2004 or so ATI's drivers have steadily improved in quality until now they're roughly equal; ATI's only real problem is the ridiculously slow and crappy control panel.
Both companies' drivers suck in vista right now. But nvidia's suck more.
MONTHLY driver updates? Reminds me of that old joke--
"Sure we're lost, but we're making great time!"
"The food may be shitty, but there's lots of it!"
What a crazy coinkadink! I've just recently begun wondering why it's been since 02Nov06 since I've seen a new driver from NVidia even though there are "known issues" that need to be taken out back and shot. Monthly driver updates may not solve anything or even be better, but it'll be nice to see that they are actually doing something, even if it's one little bug at a time. I didn't update my card drivers every month when I used ATI cards, and I don't intend on updating every month just because NVidia offers it. It'd just be a fine deal for those that have issues that could be taken care of in a shorter time period than a few months, though.
So what the fuck I'm going to update my drivers every month?
You don't have to. But when you have a problem, there should be a driver no more than a month old waiting for you.
As bloo said, why do you think you'd have to update your drivers every month? Most driver release notes or readmes or whatnot specifically say not to update your drivers unless there's a need (to fix a bug) or because there are improvements for your card. That's why I usually update drivers every 2-3 months regardless of whether there's a new one available earlier.
That's why I'm particularly antsy about there being no new driver since 02Nov06 from NVidia. That's overshooting my target time frame.
Maybe they'll finally get around to fixing the sky and transparency rendering in Thief. They broke that about a year ago.
Ah who am I kidding. Screw backward compatibility, apparently.
One thing I've noticed in the past is how they simply drop known issues from their list without fixing them after a period of time. If I recall correctly, there was an issue with Fable:TLC for a while and then on a particular release there was just no mention of it being fixed or as a known issue anymore. As far as I know, it was never corrected (it was display issues with the text in the game on the Dell widescreens). Of course, by that time, I had moved on to other things anyway.
I guess they just hope that people move on (like I did) and don't care anymore. But we remember, don't we?
So anyway, the lockups turned out to be non-videodriver related, so great.
HOWEVER, there's still an annoying bug where with WoW's maximized windowed mode where it won't draw the game properly if there's a window in front. Annoying as shit. I've found a workaround (having my temperature monitor on top, or displaying a tooltip), but I'm pretty sure it's some weird issue of the videodriver incorrectly handling dirty rects in paint messages.
Of coruse, all that assumes that Blizz isn't just passing the bug. They claim it's not their fault. Bug didn't exist with my ati card though.
In WoW under Vista, in 100.54 drivers, it freaks out for a split-second when you click on a different character in the post-login character selection screen. I think it's setting the coordinates or something and transforming and you're seeing it when you shouldn't be.
Man, this just shows you how far out of the PC gaming world I've gone: Back in my day, Nvidia had the great drivers, and ATI had suck drivers.
It still is your day.
Your day = when you aren't not alive.
Dude, I've been a zombie ever since the end of the first QT3 Vampire Game. Didn't you know that?
Frickin' noob.
Nvidia released new Beta drivers yesterday, version 100.64. They suck equally hard under Vista as the previous drivers, but allow room for the new 320MB 8800GTS to join the sad dance.
Exciting news, mono! Glad to see they are doing absolutely nothing with the XP drivers while doing practically nothing with the Vista drivers. Makes me all warm and fuzzy inside.
Well, Gothic 3 now runs ;-)
What if the 8800 never runs well in Vista?
Well, despite the lackluster 2D & gaming support under Vista thus far, this 1st ever DX 10 Nvidia demo shows promise. The water effects were impressive on my rig.
I'm still of the opinion that getting a DX10 card is really jumping the gun at this point.
Moving to Vista & worrying about DX10 may be premature, but the 8800 series cards are amazing performers on DX 9 under XP.
Depends on what you are looking for. If you are looking for an upgrade that results in a blazing fast card for today's 3d, you cannot go wrong with an 8800. That's 90% of the reason I bought mine and I'm pretty damn happy with it, except for the odd driver issue.
You can if you're running Vista. Wake me up when the 8000-series Vista drivers stop crashing and/or bluescreening on a regular basis.you cannot go wrong with an 8800
I shouldn't complain. This state of affairs saves me 400+ bucks.
As you said, ATI has been doing easily just as good a job as Nvidia on the driver front for at least two years. It's time to stop this rediculous "company X has obviously better drivers" stuff.
I used Nvidia and ATI cards regularly at work and at home. All the time, all kinds of flavors. On the whole and over time, each of them has about the same number and severity of problems as the other.
Now, at this very point in time, Nvidia is having some trouble with their 8800 drivers, and in particular has some bugs and missing features to fix in the Vista versions.
I think "suck" is strong language here. ATI's drivers aren't as fast as they should be in Vista, but reliability is pretty darn good so far. Even performance is really impressive in some games.Both companies' drivers suck in vista right now. But nvidia's suck more.
As for the slow ATI control panel - I'm not the biggest fan either, but they did speed it up in the latest release (Vista) and those speedups should roll into the XP version next month.
I like the idea of monthly driver updates, but if you can't even deliver a solid WHQL certified driver, the frequency is irrelevant. It's encouraging to read about Nvidia thinking about going monthly, but each month it better be solid.
FYI DX9 works just fine under Vista. ;) I'm running Vista Ultimate on my X2 4400+ / 7900GTO no problem and run WoW at about 60-80 FPS with 1280x1024 (no AA) and everything maxed except for aniso which is set to two notches from the bottom.
I should note that since switching to the 100.64 drivers I have had WoW crash out a couple times with an Xfire exception error, so I would suggest killing Xfire until either a new Nvidia driver or Xfire update comes out.
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