Who's drivers are more stable?

[Bratboy]

Oh god more claptrap about how Valve is in league with ATI and deliberitly
screwing nvidia ppl. Get over it hehe. The truth is Nvidia didnt stick to
DX9 standard and ATI did, Valve spent a LOT of extra manpower/money trying
to fix the game to run better on Nvidia FX line WHEN THEY SHOULDNT OF HAD
TOO! and then, typical of nvidia, Nv tries to make out that the fact that
they DIDNT stick to the standard isnt the reason their card doesnt play it
as well its instead some conspiricy lol.

 

[Brian Jones]

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

Such as? You are rtalking out of your arse Lenny.

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

Isn't that *exactly* what you are dong? I'm basing my opinion on
actually having a GF4 and 9800pro and runninng the same games on the
same system. Kind of hard to argue with those facts don't you think?

 

[Brian Jones]

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

For sure. What we are seeing here is just a bunch of ATI shills
touting what they own. I own a 9800pro so I can't poissibly be accused
of being a Nvidia fanboy, but I'm sure someone will try anyway.

 

[Brian Jones]

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

Well, that's all fine and dandy Timmy, but it don't mean jack shit if
the drivers aren't compatible with the games you like to play. I have
no intention of buying Doom3 or HL2 so don't base my decisions on
possible future game performance. I did buy a R9800pro, but certainly
not because I thought the ATI drivers would be better. And since
buying the card I can easily see that they are not either.

 

[Tim Miser]

Well, that's all fine and dandy Timmy, but it don't mean jack shit if
the drivers aren't compatible with the games you like to play. I have
no intention of buying Doom3 or HL2 so don't base my decisions on
possible future game performance. I did buy a R9800pro, but certainly
not because I thought the ATI drivers would be better. And since
buying the card I can easily see that they are not either.

No question about it Brian, it all comes down to what games we plan on
playing. For myself, I do plan on playing. But I don't just play 3d
shooters, I play RTS, Sports, Racing, and Flight sims and all of those games
will be coming to me via DX9 so the question really isn't about if you'll be
playing HL2 or not, but really is about will you be playing any DX9 games?

-Tim

 

[Lenny]

Such as? You are rtalking out of your arse Lenny.

No I'm not.

Look dude, if you think even for one second Nvidia's drivers are bug free,
you're sadly mistaken. To prove my point, I direct you towards...
http://download.nvidia.com/Windows/45.23/NVIDIA_Driver_Release_Notes_v45.23.pdf

This file contains the bugs they killed just in THAT driver release. There's
still shit left in there, such as the age-old monitor powersaving bug where
it won't go fully to sleep.

Isn't that *exactly* what you are dong?

No, I actually use Nvidia's own documentation as witnessed above.

I'm basing my opinion on
actually having a GF4 and 9800pro and runninng the same games on the
same system. Kind of hard to argue with those facts don't you think?

Not really. With a sample size that small (still just 1 person) you can't
rule out your issues aren't because of some other aspect of your system,
including user error.

 

[i'm_tired]

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

The other fellow discussed specifics.

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

Your snip rather renders your statement neutered.

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?)...

I think he provided some evidence - that you snipped. Furthermore, no
matter how anyone wants to paint it, nVidia has always and still to this day
provides far superior Linux/Unix support (and indeed I can testify to that
as I own several cards from both manufacturers as well as a couple of Matrox
and some older cards from 3DFX etc). Got Unix? Get nVidia. =>> That should
be a slogan on a billboard somewhere. Microsoft isn't everything.

 

[J.Clarke]

The other fellow discussed specifics.


Your snip rather renders your statement neutered.


I think he provided some evidence - that you snipped. Furthermore, no
matter how anyone wants to paint it, nVidia has always and still to
this day provides far superior Linux/Unix support (and indeed I can
testify to that as I own several cards from both manufacturers as well
as a couple of Matrox and some older cards from 3DFX etc). Got Unix?
Get nVidia. =>> That should be a slogan on a billboard somewhere.
Microsoft isn't everything.

ROF,L. The only Linux drivers available for nvidia products are the
closed source proprietary ones that nvidia provides. ATI provides
drivers of that kind and also provides the information to the open
source community that is needed to roll the ATI drivers into the Linux
source tree.

 

[Ben Pope]

Oh god more claptrap about how Valve is in league with ATI and deliberitly
screwing nvidia ppl. Get over it hehe.

I take it you're supposed to be replying to the guy I replied to?

Ben

 

[Mustafa Krap]

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.

Don't know why it worked for me but after installing all the software from
the driver cd I upgraded the drivers using the 0425 update and upgraded the
DVD-A player using the 030403 update. When I tried to update the speaker and
EAX control panels it said I already had the latest versions installed and
cancelled the installation. Maybe there are differences in the files
depending on which site you download from, I downloaded from here
http://www.americas.creative.com/support/files/download2.asp?centric=280&maincat=11&os=10&subcat=42

Rob.

 

[Bratboy]

I take it you're supposed to be replying to the guy I replied to?

Ben

Hehe yes sorry bout thatif wanst clear. Its just the whole "Its a
conspiracy" claims that have been flying around so much lately its not
funny. If the shoe was on other foot and valve had made the game in such a
way that Nv's code path shinned and ATI sucked the Nv's would say ohhhh too
bad itsa "Optimizations" and "Suc it up" but since Valve didnt tailor it
just for them and instead coded it to the dx9 STANDARD their accused of some
dark conspiracy with ATI now lol.

An example in extreme:
6 car companies put out cars. 5 Comply with the epa and emmisions standards
and ship their cars to the states to sell em while the 6th uses REGULAR gas
lacks emmisions control and since doesnt conform they cant sell that car in
the states. Whos to blame, the 5 companies who all stuck to standards or is
it the one companies fault for NOT sticking to em?? Its illogical to think
that Valve or any other game maker is going to deliberatly cut out a %'age
of its potential customers by doing as some have implyed. Maybe some will do
an additional, Optimizied version but they want to first make a standard ver
that most can run as well and then if the card makers/chipmakers want to PAY
to have a card specific mod its diffrent. Problem is from what Ive seen
Nvidia wants Valve to make the base game customized to them right from the
start AND they want it for free. EVEN THO its their own darn fault the card
isnt working so well because of their decisions not Valves.

 

[Brian Jones]

No question about it Brian, it all comes down to what games we plan on
playing. For myself, I do plan on playing. But I don't just play 3d
shooters, I play RTS, Sports, Racing, and Flight sims and all of those games
will be coming to me via DX9 so the question really isn't about if you'll be
playing HL2 or not, but really is about will you be playing any DX9 games?

-Tim

Well, I plan on buying LOMAC for sure and that is a DX8.1 game, but it
does use pixel shaders. I might buy Doom3 if it matches the atmosphere
of the origianl Doom/2 but HL didn't do mutch for me for some reason,
I did finish the game though. I like the 9800pro and wouldn't have
bought it if I was too concerned about the drivers, I just don't think
the drivers match the Nvidia backwards compatibility area.

 

[Ben Pope]

ROF,L. The only Linux drivers available for nvidia products are the
closed source proprietary ones that nvidia provides. ATI provides
drivers of that kind and also provides the information to the open
source community that is needed to roll the ATI drivers into the Linux
source tree.

Not for the newer chipsets unfortunately. ATI are keeping very quiet from
what I understand.

Ben