Who's drivers are more stable?

[Aloke Prasad]

I am choosing between ATI 9600 and GeForce FX 5900 (non-Pro and non-Ultra)

My topmost criteria is stability of the drivers, i.e., no lockups, no
BSOD's, no interference with other PCI devices like soundcards, glitches in
displayed pictures etc.

Who has better drivers? ATI or Nvidia?

I was burned by poor drivers from ATI 3-4 years back, and bought the Riva
TNT back then. I have generally liked the Detonator drivers. However, I'm
seriously behind times (4 years is an eternity!!).

I'd like to know the net-opinion on the driver quality of ATI and Nvidia in
their current state of the art.

Thanks.

 

[Skid]

I am choosing between ATI 9600 and GeForce FX 5900 (non-Pro and non-Ultra)

My topmost criteria is stability of the drivers, i.e., no lockups, no
BSOD's, no interference with other PCI devices like soundcards, glitches in
displayed pictures etc.

Who has better drivers? ATI or Nvidia?

I was burned by poor drivers from ATI 3-4 years back, and bought the Riva
TNT back then. I have generally liked the Detonator drivers. However, I'm
seriously behind times (4 years is an eternity!!).

I'd like to know the net-opinion on the driver quality of ATI and Nvidia in
their current state of the art.

ATI's drivers have really matured. They are at least the equal of Nvidia at
this point. I can't promise you an SB Live won't screw them up, but Creative
software can bring almost any system to its knees under the right -- or
wrong -- circumstances.

 

[Ben Pope]

I am choosing between ATI 9600 and GeForce FX 5900 (non-Pro and non-Ultra)

My topmost criteria is stability of the drivers, i.e., no lockups, no
BSOD's, no interference with other PCI devices like soundcards, glitches
in displayed pictures etc.

Who has better drivers? ATI or Nvidia?

I was burned by poor drivers from ATI 3-4 years back, and bought the Riva
TNT back then. I have generally liked the Detonator drivers. However,
I'm seriously behind times (4 years is an eternity!!).

I'd like to know the net-opinion on the driver quality of ATI and Nvidia
in their current state of the art.

No stability or image quality problems with Cat3.6 / 3.7 here.

nVidia's Detonators seem to "adjusting" the image as they progress (i.e.,
the image displayed in 4x series is different to that in 5x series -
although the 5x's are currently beta). Additionally the benchmark scores
seem to be coming along leaps and bounds - the 5900 Ultra score has doubled
(in DX9/pixel shader - heavy benchmarks) over the last two revisions. Make
of that what you will.

Ben

 

[Lenny]

I am choosing between ATI 9600 and GeForce FX 5900 (non-Pro and non-Ultra)
My topmost criteria is stability of the drivers, i.e., no lockups

There are no guarantees about anything NOT crashing in the PC business. I
bet you can find a USB mouse that crashes some computers but not others, to
have something as complex as a videocard not crash SOME boxes or fail on
SOME games is more or less impossible. There is no bug-free software or
hardware on this level, there's problems with everything in some way or
another.

Choose the card that fits your demands and your wallet best, and hope for
the best. If it doesn't work, wait for a new driver, or do the refund thing.
On a hardware level, ATi has the edge at the moment and their drivers at
least aren't BAD (heh) and are updated frequently. That said however, nobody
can guarantee either manufacturer's card will work in your system.

Who has better drivers? ATI or Nvidia?

Any replies pointing in either direction will be based on nothing but
opinion.

 

[Tim]

doom3 meduim quality 1024 768

9600pro = 35fps
5600ultra = 48fps


9600pro wpuld be geting about lower than 30 frames..UNPLAYABLE

5600 would be geting 40 frames playable

now if u like half2 which doesn't even run at playable frames rates.
it gets me why a gaming company would code a game that is unplayable to most
gamers. Mabe they can code? who knows, mabe they like $$$ from ATI



Mabe they are tricking u to buy a Radeon

 

[Bratboy]

Creative software can bring almost any system to its knees under the right -- or
wrong -- circumstances.

LOL so true. Have to be honest tho my A2 isnt so bad only pain is how CL is
makeing you keep every darn patch since for each upgrade you have to have
the origonal ver and all prev patches applied to use...cant just install new
patch over a origonal install. And lets not foget all the BS surounding
"Liveware" and how it would keep your card updated with new n improved
features hehe.

 

[Bratboy]

"I am choosing between ATI 9600 and GeForce FX 5900 (non-Pro and non-Ultra)

My topmost criteria is stability of the drivers, i.e., no lockups, no
BSOD's, no interference with other PCI devices like soundcards, glitches in
displayed pictures etc.

Who has better drivers? ATI or Nvidia?"

Well to be honest having just switched from Nvidia myself Ive had no real
problems with either now. The ATI's run quite nice and have not seen a BSOD
yet from em. Then again never really saw that with nvidias either. I do
think that when I had a fx5600 here to compare with my 9800 that the image
was better with ATI's this time, which is why I kept it and gave roomy the
5600.

Just Jess

 

[Ben Pope]

doom3 meduim quality 1024 768

9600pro = 35fps
5600ultra = 48fps

Interesting scores... where do you get them from and how likely do you think
they will be representative of the released game?

9600pro wpuld be geting about lower than 30 frames..UNPLAYABLE

5600 would be geting 40 frames playable

Only a 20% drop from average? Hmm.

now if u like half2 which doesn't even run at playable frames rates.
it gets me why a gaming company would code a game that is unplayable to
most gamers. Mabe they can code? who knows, mabe they like $$$ from ATI

It's been said that the HL2 engine scales well for all sorts of cards. I
don't know where you get your information.

Mabe they are tricking u to buy a Radeon

Who? Valve? What about Carmacks comments on nVidia hardware? "struggles"
was the word I think he used. Maybe he's trying to trick you into buying an
ATI as well. Odd since they have a deal with nVidia.

Ben

 

[Brian]

ATI's drivers have really matured. They are at least the equal of Nvidia at
this point.

Sorry, but I disagree. Having just come from the GF4 to the 9800pro I
have already come across a some glitches with the ATI drivers in a few
older games.

Deadly Dozen2 the loading screen for saves has very sluggish mouse
movement.

The Ardense Offensive2 has problems with the mouse flickering

Baldurs Gate2 won't run using the 3D accelerated mode, luckily the
game also supports 2D only graphics which work fine.

None of these problems show up on the Nvidia drivers. There are other
games out there with issues too but I haven't personally tried to run
them yet. Two I know of are:
Project1: Strike Fighters, dismal performance on Radeon cards.
FS2004 has font issues unless using windowed mode on Radeon cards.

Not saying I don't like my R9800pro just saying the drivers are not
equal to the Nvidia drivers. Dem's the facts.

 

[Brian]

Any replies pointing in either direction will be based on nothing but
opinion.

Nope, I based my opinion on the fact I own both GF4 and 9800pro and my
own observations. Opinions can be an educated opinion too and not just
conjecture like many of you choose to submit.

 

[Tim Miser]

In my opinion I'd say ATI drivers are better. Here is why:

ATI drivers work fine with new games including dx9 games while with nvidia
drivers you have to wait for nvidia to 'optimize' their driver to work with
each dx9 game individually if you want playable framerates.

ATI drivers will generally run your ATI hardware close to it's maximum speed
at the time the hardware is released. With nviida drivers you have to wait
about 6 months for those optimized drivers that will "increase your speed
30-40 percent in all games."

ATI drivers turn on the full image quality capabilities in games while
Nviida drivers turn down the image quality so that the benchmark scores will
be up to the ATI levels.


-Tim

 

[Ben Pope]

In my opinion I'd say ATI drivers are better. Here is why:

ATI drivers work fine with new games including dx9 games while with nvidia
drivers you have to wait for nvidia to 'optimize' their driver to work
with each dx9 game individually if you want playable framerates.

ATI drivers will generally run your ATI hardware close to it's maximum
speed at the time the hardware is released. With nviida drivers you have
to wait about 6 months for those optimized drivers that will "increase
your speed 30-40 percent in all games."

ATI drivers turn on the full image quality capabilities in games while
Nviida drivers turn down the image quality so that the benchmark scores
will be up to the ATI levels.

Controversial!

We'll see how much the truth hurts. I hope you have your flame retardant
jacket on Tim!

Ben

 

[Lenny]

None of these problems show up on the Nvidia drivers.

No, Nvidia's drivers have entirely different compatibility issues.

A sample of 1 person determining manufacturer X has better drivers than
manufacturer Y isn't anything to pin any kind of significance to.

just saying the drivers are not
equal to the Nvidia drivers. Dem's the facts.

Well, according to ATi themselves from a little while back, they have fewer
bugs noted in Microsoft's official database than other manufacturers, so you
might want to reconsider that statement of "facts" (which are based on what,
really?)...

 

[Tim Miser]

Controversial!

We'll see how much the truth hurts. I hope you have your flame retardant
jacket on Tim!

Ben

Yep, I just hope that those who disagree will list intelligent reasons why
instead of the typical 9-year old, "YOU SUX" replies.

I CAN hope can't I?!

-Tim

 

[John Lewis]

Nope, I based my opinion on the fact I own both GF4 and 9800pro and my
own observations. Opinions can be an educated opinion too and not just
conjecture like many of you choose to submit.

Nice to see facts instead of conjecture.

I can back you up on the backward-compatibility of
the nVidia drivers. I bought a FX5900 a few weeks ago
Zero trouble so far with any of my large collection of
OpenGL/DirectX legacy games -- with 45.23 driver at
default settings. I own several of the games that are on
your list.

If you want to run legacy software as well as the new
releases and with minimum driver hassle, or performance
problems, nVidia does still seem to be the safer choice.

John Lewis

 

[Mustafa Krap]

LOL so true. Have to be honest tho my A2 isnt so bad only pain is how CL is
makeing you keep every darn patch since for each upgrade you have to have
the origonal ver and all prev patches applied to use...cant just install new
patch over a origonal install. And lets not foget all the BS surounding
"Liveware" and how it would keep your card updated with new n improved
features hehe.

Not sure what your problem might be but I just installed an A2 and upgraded
an original install straight to the latest version drivers without having
any previous updates installed. Did you use the web update or did you
download the full update file? I downloaded the full file as I've never
liked web updates.

Rob.

 

[Lenny]

And lets not foget all the BS surounding
"Liveware" and how it would keep your card updated with new n improved
features hehe.

You may want to look here then...
http://kxproject.lugosoft.com/

Have fun!

 

[Bratboy]

You may want to look here then...
http://kxproject.lugosoft.com/

Have fun!

Hehe well seeing as how a) I use an A2 now and b) Kx isnt creative or cl
liveware not sure what the point would be. Mainly was just pointing out how
cl loves to sell stuff on hype/empty promises like Liveware then drop the
ball.

 

[Bratboy]

Rob,
Drivers maybe but for all the other creative sw that works with the drivers,
player sfbm dvda etc, if read the site notes when go to dl patches each one
says must have prior patches applied to use.drivers onl;y sure you can just
up those but unless they changed it and didnt document it this is one issue
many in the Audigy ng at cl have grumbled about.

 

[Bratboy]

Nice to see facts instead of conjecture.

I can back you up on the backward-compatibility of
the nVidia drivers. I bought a FX5900 a few weeks ago
Zero trouble so far with any of my large collection of
OpenGL/DirectX legacy games -- with 45.23 driver at
default settings. I own several of the games that are on
your list.

If you want to run legacy software as well as the new
releases and with minimum driver hassle, or performance
problems, nVidia does still seem to be the safer choice.

John Lewis

Oddly I have had np with any of the games I have, some new and some really
old too hehe here, with EITHER companies drivers and I too have both fx5600
and a 9800 pro. Simple truth is both companies have their flaws. Nvidia is
putting out "FASTER" drivers for the fx line but at cost of overll IQ (not
my idea of good trade off) and some ppl have issues with ATI and some games
(something I've not ran into or had to deal with myself). Best to just read
as much as possible and just go from there as opinions are like Arses
....everyone has one hehe.