The great Nvidia vs ATI graphics driver debate!

[Exceededgoku]

Phew, well it was getting a bit crowded in the HD4800 series driver news thread so I thought it sensible to start the conversation here.
First of all we have the original news story:
http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2008/03/28/nvidia_vista_drivers/
http://www.engadget.com/2008/03/27/nvidia-drivers-responsible-for-nearly-30-of-vista-crashes-in-20/

Nearly 30% of logged Vista crashes were due to NVIDIA driver problems, according to Microsoft data included in the bundle. That's some 479,326 hung systems, if you're keeping score at home, and it's in first place by a large margin -- Microsoft clocks in at number two at 17.9 percent, and ATI is fourth with 9.3 percent. Now, the chart doesn't contain a ton of additional information that would help put it in context -- a specific time period in 2007 would be nice, as would and driver and OS versions -- but we've been hearing about NVIDIA issues with Vista from the start, and this seems to confirm it.

But there is further information relating to this data:
http://www.guru3d.com/news/nvidia-grabs-71-of-discrete-graphics-card-market/

Pretty good news for NVIDIA as Forbes has an positive article on NVIDIA and cites data from Jon Peddie Research that team green had a marketshare of 71% in the discrete graphics card market in Q4 2007

Now discuss at your own discretion, please keep it clean. I don't expect there to not be fanboyism but please keep it clean...

 

[vega22]

what that doesnt say is that its rivatuners intervetion on the forceware that causes it to crash.

what has surprised me tho is their ability to not crash the os like they used to tho.

 

[ShadowFold]

All my crashes are from unstable clocks and doing stupid things.

 

[Steevo]

I doubt that your overclocks failing account for almost half a million driver issues reported by the system. Most of my overclocks result in the system becoming unstable and needing a hard shutdown and restart, thus not sending a hung application or driver report. However the 8.3 hotfix jacked a couple file playing abilities of WMP causing it to fault.

 

[HTC]

Yep. The resetting of drivers by ati is very good. Does nvidia do the same?

Right you are, dude!

When i overclock for 3DMark 06 runs, i get lots of instability and many driver crashes but it resets itself and i figure this to be an EXCELLENT feature. Don't know if nVidia does the same but, if it doesn't, it should.

 

[Megasty]

Right you are, dude!

When i overclock for 3DMark 06 runs, i get lots of instability and many driver crashes but it resets itself and i figure this to be an EXCELLENT feature. Don't know if nVidia does the same but, if it doesn't, it should.

It doesn't. Whenever I pushed my 9800GTX or GX2 to the max where they would heat up too much or something, the whole sys would freeze & die. Thats why I left those pos's alone

I won't leave anything to the imagination when talking about the uber disappointment I have in the GX2. Its fast & all but it slows down to a crawl whenever it gets alittle warm. Putting a fan on it nearly doubled the playing time but then the drivers would crash whenever I would do anything that makes the surrounding background move quickly like run, fall, drive over 240 in nfsps, etc. It was a pure nightmare that I never was able to fix. I would have to play for 8 straight hrs for the 3870x2 to heat up enough in order for it to crash & the drivers would just reset & allow me to go right back in the game. The GX2 would crash about 3 or 4 more times b4 it could game again. The card is fine, it just don't like heat - but what does. But atleast it shouldn't have to tell me by crashing after an hour of gameplay

 

[newtekie1]

You know, now that I think about it. I have never actually had a crash caused by nVidia overclocking, so I don't know if they have the same feature. Usually nVidia cards artifact like crazy, but don't crash. I have had applications crash due to unstable overclocked(Crysis mostly) but never the whole OS.

As for using the original data to say nVidia drivers are worse than the others. Without actually knowing how many total users of each are actually using each we can't say that.

The fact is simply that there are more nVidia users running Vista. The 71% descrete market share is just some evidence to this. Intel has a larger chipset share, but nVidia is way up there also, and I don't think AMD's chipsets are lumped in with the ATi number. Intel is obviously on their Driver game, they have the largest market share and the least crashes. But usually the debate is that this article shows that nVidia has worse drivers than ATi, which simply isn't true.

Lets just round the numbers for easy math. Lets say nVidia caused 30% of crashes, and ATi caused 10%. Now lets just traslate those into actual numbers. Lets just say 100 people had crashes that were reported. 30 people had crashes caused by nVidia drivers, and 10 had crashes caused by ATi drivers. Just because more people had crashes that doesn't mean nVidia is worse. You can't draw that conclusion just from those numbers.

Now let me add some made up numbers to show you why. Lets say nVidia's market share is 45%, and ATi's is 15%. Lets say the overall user base of Vista is 1,000 people. So there are 450 nVidia users and 150 ATi users. Now out of those 450 nVidia users 30 had crashes, and out of the 150 ATi users 10 had crashes. Now that is 6.66% of nVidia users that had crashes, and would you look at that 6.66% of ATi users too!!! That paints a different picture.

Now obviously those numbers aren't accurate, I just pulled them out of my ass to prove a point. The point is that you need those number to properly draw the picture that nVidia's drivers are worse than ATi's. The correct data to look at is the number of nVidia users that had crashes caused by nVidia and the number of ATi users caused by ATi, NOT the number of Vista users that cause crashes by either. Since we don't have the correct data, we can't make that conclusion.

 

[devilhood]

nVidia has more leaked BETA drivers than you can shake a stick at, this isn't a bad thing, it allows a wider audience to provide feedback to ensure their next Forcewares are better.
Their early Vista compatible drivers were embarrassingly bad and prone to many crashes, but their recent releases are extremely stable by comparison.

These reported crashes are because there are many people willing to test BETA drivers, force-install using modded INF's on cards that aren't officially supported and also overclock their cards.
There are also a lot of other variables involved when overclocking a system that can cause the graphics card to crash, such as improperly setting the PCI-E frequency.

The causes of logged Vista crashes are sensationalised, and they will be misconstrued by the casual computer user that only grabs WHQL sets from the nVidia web-site.

Just to note, 174.74 Forcewares have never crashed for me thus far

 

[Exceededgoku]

Yes but theen what you have to take into account is that what Nvidia calls beta drivers, ATI calls full releases. These are full WHQL certified releases that are coming out every month, if nvidia did the same then perhaps people wouldn't need to mod infs and overclock their cards to get decent performance. Fact of the matter is ATI is releasing solid drivers month after month whilst Nvidia is failing to, their final releases are usually soo late to the ball game that a whole generation has passed.
Having both Nvidia and ATI graphics cards I can say that neither has crashed on me (I had a laptop with a IGP320M which crashed whenever I tried to install modded drivers but that doesn't count.. ) after all the abuse I give them. I usually test overclocks by running 3dmark for 12ish hours in a loop. I've always found nvidia cards to be more flexible in overclocking, however.

 

[devilhood]

Yes but theen what you have to take into account is that what Nvidia calls beta drivers, ATI calls full releases. These are full WHQL certified releases that are coming out every month, if nvidia did the same then perhaps people wouldn't need to mod infs and overclock their cards to get decent performance. Fact of the matter is ATI is releasing solid drivers month after month whilst Nvidia is failing to, their final releases are usually soo late to the ball game that a whole generation has passed.
Having both Nvidia and ATI graphics cards I can say that neither has crashed on me (I had a laptop with a IGP320M which crashed whenever I tried to install modded drivers but that doesn't count.. ) after all the abuse I give them. I usually test overclocks by running 3dmark for 12ish hours in a loop. I've always found nvidia cards to be more flexible in overclocking, however.

The modded INF issue is purely because of nVidia's reluctancy to embrace a unified approach for Desktop and Mobile setups during their testing phases, which is fair enough, because a lot of newer BETA's are specifically geared towards ironing out issues with newer cards.

I completely disagree with what you're saying about nVidia failing to release solid drivers though, either you haven't dabbled with their cards recently, or you're basing that opinion purely on the rough release of the 9800 GX2.

 

[Joshmcmillan]

I don't like Nvidia drivers. My first video card was an Nvidia and it's drivers were absolute crap. Direct 3D barely worked and yes it was meant too. I tried several drivers from old too new and eventually found one that worked better then the rest. My next card was an ATI I borrowed and it worked flawlessly for months, but then I had to give it back so I used an Nvidia for a while. I could barely play Half Life 2 without it crashing due to driver errors. Then I got my HD3850, never had any problems with drivers at all.

I would still probably buy an Nvidia card if I was buying one now because most people say there good, I was just saying my experiences, .

 

[newtekie1]

Yes but theen what you have to take into account is that what Nvidia calls beta drivers, ATI calls full releases.

Not really, in the time ATi releases one full release, nVidia usually gets out two or more Betas. The only reason nVidia's aren't full releases is they aren't WHQL certified. Personally, WHQL doesn't mean shit. It is just microsoft dabbling with the drivers and calling them OK, do you really thing the same people that say Vista is a good bug free piece of software is capable of making that judgement? Usually, nVidia's official releases are identical to their betas.

ATi and Nvidia does things differently, and frankly I wish ATi did the same thing. I think their drivers would progress even faster if they would release betas and had much higher feedback.

These are full WHQL certified releases that are coming out every month, if nvidia did the same then perhaps people wouldn't need to mod infs and overclock their cards to get decent performance.

Again, WHQL is just Microsoft saying they approve of the driver. I don't care what Microsoft approves. I haven't had to mod or use a modded INF in months.

And people definitely don't have to overclock their nVidia cards to get good performance, that is just pure fanboy talk right there. The fact of the matter is that nVidia cards are still providing better price/performance ratios at STOCK speeds than ATi.

Fact of the matter is ATI is releasing solid drivers month after month whilst Nvidia is failing to, their final releases are usually soo late to the ball game that a whole generation has passed.

NVidia is putting out solid drivers, usually week after week or every other week anymore. What you call a final release is nothing more than WHQL certification, which again is complete BS and nothing more than Microsoft marketting BS.

Having both Nvidia and ATI graphics cards I can say that neither has crashed on me (I had a laptop with a IGP320M which crashed whenever I tried to install modded drivers but that doesn't count.. ) after all the abuse I give them. I usually test overclocks by running 3dmark for 12ish hours in a loop. I've always found nvidia cards to be more flexible in overclocking, however.

I question the fact that you have had nVidia cards recently. You lack of knowledge about the current state of their drivers makes me really disbelieve that you have used any of their cards, and your lack of knowledge of their performance makes me have the same doubts. Some one who has used nVidia cards recently would definitely not claim that you NEED to overclock them to get good performance.

 

[HTC]

Not really, in the time ATi releases one full release, nVidia usually gets out two or more Betas. The only reason nVidia's aren't full releases is they aren't WHQL certified. Personally, WHQL doesn't mean shit. It is just microsoft dabbling with the drivers and calling them OK, do you really thing the same people that say Vista is a good bug free piece of software is capable of making that judgement? Usually, nVidia's official releases are identical to their betas.

I must disagree: it's my belief that WHQL means the drivers have been fully tested under rigorous conditions. Also, and i don't know if you're aware of this: to get a WHQL certification, you have to pay SERIOUS money and, if i were to venture a guess, i would bet that's the reason why there are so many nVidia beta drivers and few nVidia WHQL drivers.

 

[newtekie1]

I must disagree: it's my belief that WHQL means the drivers have been fully tested under rigorous conditions. Also, and i don't know if you're aware of this: to get a WHQL certification, you have to pay SERIOUS money and, if i were to venture a guess, i would bet that's the reason why there are so many nVidia beta drivers and few nVidia WHQL drivers.

If you believe that then you are falling for Microsoft's marketing BS. Microsoft doesn't actually test anything, I bet you didn't know that. All WHQL consist of is the company itself running a VERY small series of tests and submitting the log files to Microsoft. Microsoft then reads the logs and if nothing failed the give out WHQL.

 

[HTC]

If you believe that then you are falling for Microsoft's marketing BS. Microsoft doesn't actually test anything, I bet you didn't know that. All WHQL consist of is the company itself running a VERY small series of tests and submitting the log files to Microsoft. Microsoft then reads the logs and if nothing failed the give out WHQL.

WHQL - (Windows Hardware Quality Labs) A Microsoft facility that provides testing services for hardware and drivers for compliance with its operating systems. WHQL administers various logos that compliant vendors may reprint on their packages. Formerly called Microsoft Compatibility Labs (MCL), Microsoft also refers to the WHQL program as Winqual, or Windows Quality Online Services.

 

[devilhood]

I don't like Nvidia drivers. My first video card was an Nvidia and it's drivers were absolute crap. Direct 3D barely worked and yes it was meant too. I tried several drivers from old too new and eventually found one that worked better then the rest. My next card was an ATI I borrowed and it worked flawlessly for months, but then I had to give it back so I used an Nvidia for a while. I could barely play Half Life 2 without it crashing due to driver errors. Then I got my HD3850, never had any problems with drivers at all.

I would still probably buy an Nvidia card if I was buying one now because most people say there good, I was just saying my experiences, .

Sounds like you had a bad luck streak, D3D has always performed flawlessly for me.

 

[oli_ramsay]

The only issues I have had with Ati and nvidia drivers is that I can't get TV out to work through svideo/vivo to RCA converter. I bought a little s-video aapter for my old x850xt and I never got TV out to work. Same for my 8800gt, can't get it to work for shit. Apparently according to nvidia forums this isuue has been around for a while.

I occasionally just get random BSODs, but I don't think it's a video driver issue, as it always says something different, like irql_not_less_or_equal.

 

[tkpenalty]

And people definitely don't have to overclock their nVidia cards to get good performance, that is just pure fanboy talk right there. The fact of the matter is that nVidia cards are still providing better price/performance ratios at STOCK speeds than ATi.

How about image quality? I'm the one who actually cares about image quality. The HD3850 had very smooth AA, whilst the 8800 still has some noticeable jaggies everywhere. I've once had a HD3850 for a week and I was impressed by the AA quality.

NVidia is putting out solid drivers, usually week after week or every other week anymore. What you call a final release is nothing more than WHQL certification, which again is complete BS and nothing more than Microsoft marketting BS.

Nvidia DOES NOT put out solid drivers. In my opinion solid means "stable"-which they arent; none of the BETA drivers work without random crashes for my 8800GT, as well as other users who have cards from Nvidia. That leads me to my second point, that is why none of them have WHQL certification-simply because they are not stable in any way.

I question the fact that you have had nVidia cards recently. You lack of knowledge about the current state of their drivers makes me really disbelieve that you have used any of their cards, and your lack of knowledge of their performance makes me have the same doubts. Some one who has used nVidia cards recently would definitely not claim that you NEED to overclock them to get good performance.

Grow up. The forum isn't a game. If it was you would have been GG'ed because of this:

If you believe that then you are falling for Microsoft's marketing BS. Microsoft doesn't actually test anything, I bet you didn't know that. All WHQL consist of is the company itself running a VERY small series of tests and submitting the log files to Microsoft. Microsoft then reads the logs and if nothing failed the give out WHQL.

You REALLY need to do some research before you make stuff up from your own intuition. Thanks HTC for pointing that out. But no Nvidia does not have to pay money; its just that their BETA drivers dont work properly

Let me ask you newtekie, going somewhat OT. But WHY do you hate MS so much? Is it because your peers hate it too?

Just to note, 174.74 Forcewares have never crashed for me thus far

You are lucky

 

[newtekie1]

How about image quality? I'm the one who actually cares about image quality. The HD3850 had very smooth AA, whilst the 8800 still has some noticeable jaggies everywhere. I've once had a HD3850 for a week and I was impressed by the AA quality.

I'm sure you aren't the only one that cares about IQ, and IQ is usually a big selling point for ATi fans. The IQ debate can be argued until both sides are blue in the face, but the fact is that there isn't a noticeable IQ difference.

Nvidia DOES NOT put out solid drivers. In my opinion solid means "stable"-which they arent; none of the BETA drivers work without random crashes for my 8800GT, as well as other users who have cards from Nvidia. That leads me to my second point, that is why none of them have WHQL certification-simply because they are not stable in any way.

They all have been working just fine without random crashes for me. My 8800GTS, 8800GS, 7900GT's, and 7600GT's have all been working on the beta and WHQL drivers released by nVidia. The biggest problem I have had was not being able to enable SLI using beta drivers, however that was the 169 drivers and it happened on the WHQL also, it was fixed in the 170 series releases. And most of their Beta releases get WHQL certification, their WHQL drivers are identical to most of their Betas.

Grow up. The forum isn't a game. If it was you would have been GG'ed because of this:

No, I really have to question him owning an nVidia card recently. He claims he has, but yet doesn't seem to realize that even at stock speeds they have been outperforming ATi, he also seem to have no knowledge of recent drivers from nVidia.

You REALLY need to do some research before you make stuff up from your own intuition. Thanks HTC for pointing that out. But no Nvidia does not have to pay money; its just that their BETA drivers dont work properly

I think you need to do some research. The large majority of WHQL certificated drivers consist exactly of the company just sending logs in to Microsoft for review. Microsoft does elect to test some things, but the chances are that the drivers you are downloading have need seen microsoft testing.

Let me ask you newtekie, going somewhat OT. But WHY do you hate MS so much? Is it because your peers hate it too?

I don't hate microsoft, I just know how they work. I hate marketting BS, which is what WHQL is.

You are lucky

Actually, no he isn't. 174.74 drivers are damn good, and VERY VERY stable. nVidia drivers have been very good every since the 170s.

 

[eidairaman1]

The Drivers I had no problems with were 3.8s-7.7s after 7.8s and higher i was having the DX Detection Flaw, Which was Fixed with the Hotfix Found in 8.1s and Higher- 8.1 Hotfix are flawless, i hope in another month to update to 8.5s

 

[philbrown23]

OK here I go. I bought 2 8800GTS 512's. sli'd them, what did I get CRAP! Why did I get?? NO/Crappy driver support, read release notes, where they say "Sli Bug NOT FIXED" they mean NOT F I X E D! I tried betas, I tried full releases, then I started to read the release notes, thats where it says, sorry but you just wasted money bescuase SLI is a joke! So I switched to Ati, never had a crossfire problem since, ever. I run 3Xhd3870's and get great benches and fps, but even when I was running 2 hd3870's they outperformed 2 8800GTS 512's why, because of ATI/ AMD releasing SOLID drivers. Facts are facts, I owned 2 8800GT's, 2 8800GTS's, 2 7950 GT KO's, 2 7300GT's, and all of them scaled like crap in sli, I will never go back to nvidia, if you ask me they are over rated and over priced for all the headaches that go with it.

 

[newtekie1]

OK here I go. I bought 2 8800GTS 512's. sli'd them, what did I get CRAP! Why did I get?? NO/Crappy driver support, read release notes, where they say "Sli Bug NOT FIXED" they mean NOT F I X E D! I tried betas, I tried full releases, then I started to read the release notes, thats where it says, sorry but you just wasted money bescuase SLI is a joke! So I switched to Ati, never had a crossfire problem since, ever. I run 3Xhd3870's and get great benches and fps, but even when I was running 2 hd3870's they outperformed 2 8800GTS 512's why, because of ATI/ AMD releasing SOLID drivers. Facts are facts, I owned 2 8800GT's, 2 8800GTS's, 2 7950 GT KO's, 2 7300GT's, and all of them scaled like crap in sli, I will never go back to nvidia, if you ask me they are over rated and over priced for all the headaches that go with it.

Lies. I odd how I didn't have any problem running my 7900GTs and 7600GTs in SLI. Not only that, but performance scaling was great.

A single 7900GT scored 5972 in 3dMark06, in SLI two scored 10249. That is a 71% gain from SLI.
A single 7600GT scored 4237 in 3dmark06, in SLI two scored 7564. That is a 78% gain from SLI.(With this setup I was able to play Crysis on Medium@1280x1024 2xaa 8xaf).

Granted, all games react differently to SLI. Just like all games react differently to Crossfire. I gave up on crossfire when it still wasn't working in Crysis after the game had been out for 3 months. 3 months down the road and ATi still hadn't fixed their drivers to work with the most popular game out! But yeah, they are really releasing solid drivers.

Then there is the fact that Crossfire is a PAIN in the ass to get setup properly because the drivers are such a pain to deal with. You have to put the first card in the machine, install drivers for it, then shut the machine down and install the second card, then install the drivers again for the second card, THEN shut the machine down and install the crossfire bridges. Then cross your fingers and hope Crossfire actually works when you enable it and the second card is actually being used. There is a whole thread on this forum dealing with the proper way to enable Crossfire and dealing with the issues with enabling Crossfire.

Setting up SLI is much easier. Install both cards with the bridge, install the drivers, enable SLI, play games. The drivers automatically handle installing itself for both cards.

I'm not saying nVidia's process has always been great, like I already said I had problems with the 169 series and enabling SLI on my 7 series cards. It just wouldn't work some times.

Of course ATi is ahead of the game with getting their drivers to allow multi-card solutions with different cards. I wish nVidia was that far along on their drivers. I would love to be able to SLI and 8800GTS with an 8800GT, 9800GX2, or 8800GS. I love how ATi allows crossfire on any card as long as they use the same core, where nVidia has to be the exact same model number.

Either way you look at it both sides have their strengths, and both sides have their weaknesses. They are both releasing solid drivers, but neither side is perfect. Is either worse than the other? IMO, no.

 

[eidairaman1]

well to settle this, everyone has their own views etc, some people have better luck with Nvidia, others ATi, and others that dont have luck with either or have luck with both, its up to us to tell what drivers work best for what hardware.

 

[eidairaman1]

well newtekie, i think the proper way for crossfire is this, install the motherboard drivers, then install the Graphics Driver with both cards in.

 

[philbrown23]

all I do to set up crossfire is, install all 3 cards, install the bridge, start the pc, install the drivers, restart the pc. done