My take on Drivers: or why I don't use Nvidia stuff (longish)

Once upon a time there were products that were released for Windows and those products worked right out of the box. These days that is becoming a rarity. Even the first set of 3dfx driver for the V5 series had problems. But today's 'driver hell' is quite something all together. I have had a bias against Nvidia for several years now, I freely admit that, but the company has done very little to change my viewpoint. Here are some of the reasons why. The current mess with F1 2001 is appalling to me. I will dole out blame to both the sim developers, ISI and Nvidia, the chip/driver manufacturer. ISI has really dropped the ball here, their shoddy compatibility with Nvidia drivers is frightenly bad. I have seen many posts here from users here stating ISI should have been able to produce a product that works with existing drivers for the Nvidia line. But my question is...Where do you stop development and choose a driver. Nvidia has been blasting out broken drivers now for the last several months at an astonishing rate. If I'm a code monkey(thankfully not) do I focus on the newest whizbang features to trully show off my product or do I fall back on stodgy drivers that don't work with the new DX8 stuff? It seems to me that it would be very hard to hit a moving target. If you spend months rebuilding your graphics engine only to have Nvidia keep releasing version after version of their drivers, how do you get funding to start over and over until your product matches the current en-vogue driver versions? The average RAS user I would guess has a great deal more computering knowledge than the general gaming population. If we here have sooo much trouble finding driver combos and background programs and using window modes....imagine how BEWILDERING it must be for a console user who just spent 2 thousands dollars on a hot new system. "Sure AOL works, why doesn't F1?" Earlier in this post, I wrote of 'broken' Nvidia drivers. I believe that is the case. I believe the basic core of the Nvidia drivers has some inherrant problem or fault that totally corrupts the excellant hardware. Either that or the Nvidia engineers took such liberties with the DX libraries & Opengl api's that the whole Nvidia line is functionally incompatible with a windows enviroment. Is that too strong a statement? I'm not sure. With sooo many driver versions out and sooo many hardware options, who is to say any current Nvidia owner is getting the full potential of the product? Why can't we have a comfortable level of compatiblity? Why can't developers and Hardware engineers work together to ensure 100% operation? Why have users allowed themselves to put up with such continual problems? I have this notion that a driver upgrade should be all-inclusive. By that I mean, if the drivers had to be modified to run Half-life, then modified to run Unreal, I shouldn't lose my Half-life compatibility in newer versions. Once version 12.xxx came out..version 11.xxx.should NOT be needed. There should be ABSOLUTELY no reason why a newer version of drivers doesn't work with programs that were addressed previously. I won't pick solely on Nvidia here, Voodoo 2 users had to drop a custom driver in thier GPL folders to get those working right. BTW does nvidia have that capability? Can I plop v12.90 drivers in the F1 2001 folder and get that working while using 23.85 drivers on the rest of the system?(I'm asking I don't know). So all this blabbering has been about this: There is a dramatic lack of consistantcy between Nvidia coding of it's drivers. The sheer number alone is cause for concern, but the fact that some features work only some of the time in some versions and some don't should be a huge cause for alarm. I would think product liability lawyers could make a killing off of the Nvidia predictament. I have always come across sounding like a 3dfx Fanboy...but mainly thats because for our little world here in RAS: 3dfx has, and still does, work quite well. I could NOT recomend anyone go out and purchase a V5 5500 any more,due to the collapse of the company and the lack of development, but I also can't see why, with the exception of N4 users, yanking out a V5 for a Gee Force makes economic sense. As time goes by V5 users will have to migrate to something newer and better, I am certainly not planning on hanging on to my V5 forever. But until titles come out that specifically benefit from working features in new cards, I'll be holding onto my Voodoo. Since the new Radeons show many of the same problems that Nvidia has...the inconsistant availailability of features, I can't get too excited about those either. I love the sheer brute speed of the GF3's and Radeon 8500's. But the continual driver problems...going on for years now...really quells any enthusiasm I have for either product. I am sure, since WSC seems to be pointed at the GF3 family, I will probably have to eat my words and get somthing along that line someday. But nothing I have here now in my cd rack compells me. dave henrie

On Thu, 25 Oct 2001 23:50:06 GMT, Dave Henrie wrote: > Nvidia has been blasting out broken > drivers now for the last several months at an astonishing rate. They have? Oh, you must be referring to leaked BETA drivers that are "use at your own risk". Last time I checked at 3DChipset, there are only 6 official driver versions since the 6.50 version. > Earlier in this post, I wrote of 'broken' Nvidia drivers. I believe > that is the case. I believe the basic core of the Nvidia drivers has some > inherrant problem or fault that totally corrupts the excellant hardware. Strange, everything works fine on my end with multiple versions of their drivers, official and Beta. -- Skotty Flynn http://www.nascar-racing-sims.com

On Thu, 25 Oct 2001 23:50:06 GMT, "Dave Henrie" <[email hidden]> wrote: > The average RAS user I would guess has a great deal more computering >knowledge than the general gaming population. Really? And why is that? I go to all the gaming groups and nothing in this group leads me to believe what you say above. If any group has superior knowledge it is the flight-sim group.

On Thu, 25 Oct 2001 20:51:41 -0400, Skotty Flynn <[email hidden]> wrote: >Strange, everything works fine on my end with multiple versions of their >drivers, official and Beta. Yep. I must admit I took back my first GF2 and got a V5 mainly because the Nvidia drivers did suck. But, that was then and is not the case now, or in at least the past six months.

I almost completely agree with Dave. The reason I do not own an nVidia product right now is because of all of the problems I have had with three that I owned (Riva 128, TnT, and GF2 MX) and a half dozen or so that friends have had (mostly TnT2's and GF2's). My Radeon 32 DDR OTOH has been almost completely trouble free. The one problem I have had is that there is only one version of the Radeon drivers that work with N4. But that was easy to fix by simply sticking the compatible driver in the N4 directory. I have not had any other problems. I also put one in my son's PC and a couple of friends bought them based on my recommendation. No problems. nVidia's reputation for being driver wizards is completely unfounded. That rep started with the TnT, due to the fact that Quake 2 had come out less than a year prior to the release of the TnT, and the TnT was the only card that had sufficient OpenGL ICD support to be able to run Q2 in OpenGL mode (3DFX had to run a special compatibility driver). People quickly forgot how bad the Riva 128 was. The next year when review sites were comparing multiple versions of multiple nVidia chipsets to the V2/V3's and Rage 128's many of them commented on how nice it was to be able to use one nVidia driver set for so many different chipsets without reinstalling the drivers. That was when nVidia started getting compliments about their supposed driver wizardry. It's all based on the fact that they were first to support OpenGL and the first to use a unified driver architecture. It never had anything to do with reliability. All it takes is a scan of just about any game related newsgroup to show that nVidia's drivers are still just as screwed up as they have always been. Every game that employs new graphics code (as opposed to something like Deus Ex which uses an existing engine) requires new drivers from nVidia before it will run well. And every new driver set from nVidia breaks an existing game. That's how it was with the cards I had, that's how it has been for my friends, and I see no sign that it has changed. nVidia owners are just in denial. If you have owned both, you know the difference. The problems with the Radeon are no worse than they have been with nVidia cards. Most of the problems people have had are due to incorrect driver installation, incorrect BIOS settings, or incorrect uninstallation of previous drivers. This is admittedly complicated by the fact that ATI's recommended method of uninstalling old drivers and installing the new ones is different than many people expect. Most people assumed they knew how to do it, and screwed up. If they had RTFM they likely wouldn't have had problems. There are many satisfied Radeon owners out there. ATI just does not deserve the reputation they have; they are still being beat up for the Rage 128. I'll admit that nVidia has the performance lead, but people seem to be forgetting something else. Performance is primarily a function of your CPU. This is still true even with T&L. Benchmarking shows this clearly. The purpose of buying a good video card is and has always been to increase graphics quality without giving up performance. And in graphics quality the Radeon is still superior. So I'll stick with a Radeon and a fast CPU, and the rest of you can have your GF3's. Regarding F1 2001, don't forget that a game typically goes gold about a month before you see it in stores. And before that it requires final testing, packaging, and the creation and testing of the installer (AFAIK usually done by the publisher, not the developer). In all likelihood the last time ISI touched the code prior to its release was August. Don't know what nVidia drivers were available at that time, but it wouldn't surprise me if F1 2001 worked just fine with the official release drivers that were then available, and has only been screwed up by the newer drivers that were released to support the new nVidia chipsets. That would be typical. Sorry if I've pissed off any nVidia owners. I'm not trying to knock GF's specifically, I'm just tired of hearing nVidia being treated like they can do no wrong and ATI being treated like they are incapable of doing anything right. It's just not true. "Dave Henrie" <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:Oy1C7.50287$[email hidden]... > Once upon a time there were products that were released forWindows and > those products worked right out of the box. These days that isbecoming a > rarity. Even the first set of 3dfx driver for the V5 series hadproblems. > But today's 'driver hell' is quite something all together. > I have had a bias against Nvidia for several years now, I freelyadmit > that, but the company has done very little to change my viewpoint.Here are > some of the reasons why. > The current mess with F1 2001 is appalling to me. I will dole outblame > to both the sim developers, ISI and Nvidia, the chip/drivermanufacturer. > ISI has really dropped the ball here, their shoddy compatibility withNvidia > drivers is frightenly bad. I have seen many posts here from usershere > stating ISI should have been able to produce a product that works with > existing drivers for the Nvidia line. But my question is...Where doyou > stop development and choose a driver. Nvidia has been blasting outbroken > drivers now for the last several months at an astonishing rate. IfI'm a > code monkey(thankfully not) do I focus on the newest whizbang featuresto > trully show off my product or do I fall back on stodgy drivers thatdon't > work with the new DX8 stuff? > It seems to me that it would be very hard to hit a moving target.If you > spend months rebuilding your graphics engine only to have Nvidia keep > releasing version after version of their drivers, how do you getfunding to > start over and over until your product matches the current en-voguedriver > versions? > The average RAS user I would guess has a great deal morecomputering > knowledge than the general gaming population. If we here have sooomuch > trouble finding driver combos and background programs and using window > modes....imagine how BEWILDERING it must be for a console user whojust > spent 2 thousands dollars on a hot new system. "Sure AOL works, whydoesn't > F1?" > Earlier in this post, I wrote of 'broken' Nvidia drivers. Ibelieve > that is the case. I believe the basic core of the Nvidia drivers hassome > inherrant problem or fault that totally corrupts the excellanthardware. > Either that or the Nvidia engineers took such liberties with the DX > libraries & Opengl api's that the whole Nvidia line is functionally > incompatible with a windows enviroment. Is that too strong astatement? > I'm not sure. With sooo many driver versions out and sooo manyhardware > options, who is to say any current Nvidia owner is getting the full > potential of the product? Why can't we have a comfortable level of > compatiblity? Why can't developers and Hardware engineers worktogether to > ensure 100% operation? Why have users allowed themselves to put upwith > such continual problems? > I have this notion that a driver upgrade should be all-inclusive.By that > I mean, if the drivers had to be modified to run Half-life, thenmodified to > run Unreal, I shouldn't lose my Half-life compatibility in newerversions. > Once version 12.xxx came out..version 11.xxx.should NOT be needed.There > should be ABSOLUTELY no reason why a newer version of driversdoesn't work > with programs that were addressed previously. I won't pick solely onNvidia > here, Voodoo 2 users had to drop a custom driver in thier GPL foldersto > get those working right. BTW does nvidia have that capability? CanI plop > v12.90 drivers in the F1 2001 folder and get that working while using23.85 > drivers on the rest of the system?(I'm asking I don't know). > So all this blabbering has been about this: There is a dramaticlack of > consistantcy between Nvidia coding of it's drivers. The sheer numberalone > is cause for concern, but the fact that some features work only someof the > time in some versions and some don't should be a huge cause for alarm.I > would think product liability lawyers could make a killing off of theNvidia > predictament. > I have always come across sounding like a 3dfx Fanboy...but mainlythats > because for our little world here in RAS: 3dfx has, and still does,work > quite well. I could NOT recomend anyone go out and purchase a V5 5500any > more,due to the collapse of the company and the lack of development,but I > also can't see why, with the exception of N4 users, yanking out a V5for a > Gee Force makes economic sense. As time goes by V5 users will have to > migrate to something newer and better, I am certainly not planning on > hanging on to my V5 forever. But until titles come out thatspecifically > benefit from working features in new cards, I'll be holding onto myVoodoo. > Since the new Radeons show many of the same problems that Nvidiahas...the > inconsistant availailability of features, I can't get too excitedabout > those either. I love the sheer brute speed of the GF3's and Radeon8500's. > But the continual driver problems...going on for years now...reallyquells > any enthusiasm I have for either product. I am sure, since WSC seemsto be > pointed at the GF3 family, I will probably have to eat my words andget > somthing along that line someday. But nothing I have here now in mycd rack > compells me. > dave henrie > > > >

Dave Ryerson <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:[email hidden]...

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> On Thu, 25 Oct 2001 23:50:06 GMT, "Dave Henrie" <[email hidden]> > wrote: > > The average RAS user I would guess has a great deal more computering > >knowledge than the general gaming population. > > Really? And why is that? I go to all the gaming groups and nothing in > this group leads me to believe what you say above. If any group has > superior knowledge it is the flight-sim group.

Realistically, anyone who reads gaming groups in usenet will gradually accumulate some technical knowledge. While a lot of this is theoretical, it stands to reason that someone who reads a lot of pc gaming related usenet discussions will have more "computering" knowledge than the general PC mag and web site reading gamers. (as for console...hehe) It's the difference between looking at glossy print and web based reviews, often softened by the view of a journalist with a large base to write to, vs the views and experiences of real people who are working with the platform trying to get best performance out of their software. How often do you read a review in a mag or on a web site which says "the game is great once you tweak settings x, y and z and configure your OS this way and your BIOS that way".? In terms of technical knowledge - too many people in the past 5 years have asked questions about their Crapard Hell computers in this group for the "average computering knowledge" to be all *that* high. Averages are like that :) iksteh

On Fri, 26 Oct 2001 02:28:17 GMT, Haqsau wrote: > Every game that employs new graphics code (as opposed to > something like Deus Ex which uses an existing engine) requires new > drivers from nVidia before it will run well. I've had a GF2 Ultra for 10 months, and it's the first nVidia product for me. What games I have bought since then that employs new graphics code is not known to me, but I haven't had one compatibility problem with any of the games I have purchased this year or have played. > And every new driver set > from nVidia breaks an existing game. Notta once here. And I have tried multiple driver versions. Question: What games etc did you have problems with? I have a whole slew of games that I have played since purchasing my nVidia card, including many, many demos with not as much as a glitch. > That's how it was with the cards I > had, that's how it has been for my friends, and I see no sign that it > has changed. nVidia owners are just in denial. If you have owned both, > you know the difference. Before my GF2 Ultra, I used a Voodoo3, also with no problems. Can't say I am in denial, I just haven't come across the problems that are plaguing you guys. Yet that is <g> > The problems with the Radeon are no worse than they have been with > nVidia cards. Most of the problems people have had are due to incorrect > driver installation, incorrect BIOS settings, or incorrect > uninstallation of previous drivers. Yeah improper procedures of changing drivers can complicate things, but if one is unsure how to do it, then they shouldn't IMHO. > There are many satisfied Radeon > owners out there. ATI just does not deserve the reputation they have; > they are still being beat up for the Rage 128. I have nothing against them, because I have never used an ATI product. The only cards I have ever used are from Intergraph, 3dfx, S3, and nVidia. Never once have I had a problem with a game with any of them, besides the technology/speed falling behind the times. I surely am not defending nVidia, I'm just baffled that you guys have had problems with their products and/or drivers. I am very happy with my card and might be just as happy with an ATI product. -- Skotty Flynn http://www.nascar-racing-sims.com

In message <Oy1C7.50287$[email hidden]> "Dave Henrie" <[email hidden]> wrote: > Why can't developers and Hardware engineers work together to ensure 100% > operation? Why should they? What's in it for them? :-/ > Why have users allowed themselves to put up with such continual problems? Because there is *no* choice. If you want to run proper simulations (racing cars, flight sims etc.) then you have to have a beefy Windows box. Normal people can and should stick with a console for games and a Macintosh for general PC-type tasks. But do they? No. They all follow the crowd, and assume all the typical Windows problems are 'normal'. Morons! :-/ -- Richard. "I look at you all... see the love there that's sleeping."

Oh God, now Dave is starting to write Tom-Pabst-length articles. ;-) Hmmmm...maybe that's his way of getting back at Tom, making him read all this. Let 'em have it Dave but try not to take out any bystanders. :-) Ken Dave Henrie wrote:

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> Once upon a time there were products that were released for Windows and > those products worked right out of the box. These days that is becoming a > rarity. Even the first set of 3dfx driver for the V5 series had problems. > But today's 'driver hell' is quite something all together. > I have had a bias against Nvidia for several years now, I freely admit > that, but the company has done very little to change my viewpoint. Here are > some of the reasons why. > The current mess with F1 2001 is appalling to me. I will dole out blame > to both the sim developers, ISI and Nvidia, the chip/driver manufacturer. > ISI has really dropped the ball here, their shoddy compatibility with Nvidia > drivers is frightenly bad. I have seen many posts here from users here > stating ISI should have been able to produce a product that works with > existing drivers for the Nvidia line. But my question is...Where do you > stop development and choose a driver. Nvidia has been blasting out broken > drivers now for the last several months at an astonishing rate. If I'm a > code monkey(thankfully not) do I focus on the newest whizbang features to > trully show off my product or do I fall back on stodgy drivers that don't > work with the new DX8 stuff? > It seems to me that it would be very hard to hit a moving target. If you > spend months rebuilding your graphics engine only to have Nvidia keep > releasing version after version of their drivers, how do you get funding to > start over and over until your product matches the current en-vogue driver > versions? > The average RAS user I would guess has a great deal more computering > knowledge than the general gaming population. If we here have sooo much > trouble finding driver combos and background programs and using window > modes....imagine how BEWILDERING it must be for a console user who just > spent 2 thousands dollars on a hot new system. "Sure AOL works, why doesn't > F1?" > Earlier in this post, I wrote of 'broken' Nvidia drivers. I believe > that is the case. I believe the basic core of the Nvidia drivers has some > inherrant problem or fault that totally corrupts the excellant hardware. > Either that or the Nvidia engineers took such liberties with the DX > libraries & Opengl api's that the whole Nvidia line is functionally > incompatible with a windows enviroment. Is that too strong a statement? > I'm not sure. With sooo many driver versions out and sooo many hardware > options, who is to say any current Nvidia owner is getting the full > potential of the product? Why can't we have a comfortable level of > compatiblity? Why can't developers and Hardware engineers work together to > ensure 100% operation? Why have users allowed themselves to put up with > such continual problems? > I have this notion that a driver upgrade should be all-inclusive. By that > I mean, if the drivers had to be modified to run Half-life, then modified to > run Unreal, I shouldn't lose my Half-life compatibility in newer versions. > Once version 12.xxx came out..version 11.xxx.should NOT be needed. There > should be ABSOLUTELY no reason why a newer version of drivers doesn't work > with programs that were addressed previously. I won't pick solely on Nvidia > here, Voodoo 2 users had to drop a custom driver in thier GPL folders to > get those working right. BTW does nvidia have that capability? Can I plop > v12.90 drivers in the F1 2001 folder and get that working while using 23.85 > drivers on the rest of the system?(I'm asking I don't know). > So all this blabbering has been about this: There is a dramatic lack of > consistantcy between Nvidia coding of it's drivers. The sheer number alone > is cause for concern, but the fact that some features work only some of the > time in some versions and some don't should be a huge cause for alarm. I > would think product liability lawyers could make a killing off of the Nvidia > predictament. > I have always come across sounding like a 3dfx Fanboy...but mainly thats > because for our little world here in RAS: 3dfx has, and still does, work > quite well. I could NOT recomend anyone go out and purchase a V5 5500 any > more,due to the collapse of the company and the lack of development, but I > also can't see why, with the exception of N4 users, yanking out a V5 for a > Gee Force makes economic sense. As time goes by V5 users will have to > migrate to something newer and better, I am certainly not planning on > hanging on to my V5 forever. But until titles come out that specifically > benefit from working features in new cards, I'll be holding onto my Voodoo. > Since the new Radeons show many of the same problems that Nvidia has...the > inconsistant availailability of features, I can't get too excited about > those either. I love the sheer brute speed of the GF3's and Radeon 8500's. > But the continual driver problems...going on for years now...really quells > any enthusiasm I have for either product. I am sure, since WSC seems to be > pointed at the GF3 family, I will probably have to eat my words and get > somthing along that line someday. But nothing I have here now in my cd rack > compells me. > dave henrie

Oops, my apologies for not snipping the post. My bad. Ken MacKay wrote:

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> Oh God, now Dave is starting to write Tom-Pabst-length articles. ;-) > Hmmmm...maybe that's his way of getting back at Tom, making him read all this. > Let 'em have it Dave but try not to take out any bystanders. :-) > > Ken > > Dave Henrie wrote: > > > Once upon a time there were products that were released for Windows and > > t<snip>

Dave, since you're not an NVidia owner that's largely guess work based on what you've read. For a start, as you've said in the past yourself, there are probably 5x as many nvidia owners on the group than 3dfx owners, so you would naturally expect there to be 5x as many problems. Plus the only people who post about card compatibility are the people who actually have problems. You don't see posts from the silent majority saying 'my cards still working fine' so it gives the impression that almost everyone has problems when they don't. I've owned two GeForce 2 cards, both from Creative Labs, a GF2 GTS and a GF2 Pro and they've both worked flawlessly since the day I got them. On the other hand I actually had to sell my V5 5500 AGP because of driver bugs which made it impossible to program D3D with. And from what I read regularly on 3d programming forums, I believe those driver bugs are still there even today (it's possible to test this if you fancy). As for drivers, I've used the official 6.50 drivers without a single problem. I've used the official 10.80 drivers without a problem. And I've used the official 12.41 drivers without a problem. I've also briefly tried a few of the beta drivers over the last year, and never found a problem with them. Plus I play a lot of different games, and btw F1 2001 worked flawlessly straight out of the box on my PC. I'm not saying the people who post with problem haven't really got problems of course, but I have to wonder whether some of them don't know anything about PCs. They're probably all using cheap Via chipset motherboards without the 4-in-1 drivers installed. Simon. "Dave Henrie" <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:Oy1C7.50287$[email hidden]... > Once upon a time there were products that were released for Windowsand < snip> > somthing along that line someday. But nothing I have here now in my cdrack > compells me. > dave henrie

Dave... You might want to wonder on over to Creative.Products.Sound_Blaster.audigy There you will find hundreds of posts from high-tech gamers and sound hobbyists (even more high-tech than us) who can't install, or ortherwise make work.....their new SB Audigy card (any of them in the series). Most of whom have just uninstalled their SB Live (series) sound cards. By the way, that's the new sound card from Creative Labs, released a few weeks back, that replaces the SB Live series of sound cards. Now, with a marketshare of something like 70% and 3 years plus to engineer and refine the hardware and software of the famous SB Live "replacement" or upgrade product, don't you think that if writing drivers for hardware were such a straightforward and simple issue as you describe....that surely something not nearly as complicated as a sound card....would have no problems with drivers on product launch? Certainly, maybe a "few" problems huh? Why not take a 15 minute gander over on Creative.Products.Sound_Blaster.audigy and come back here and give us your opinion of how "simple" or how "few" problems are going on right now....... and how easy of a time everyone (well, almost everyone) is having installing this simple piece of hardware into their XP boxes, or maybe there Win2000 boxes, or maybe...well surely no problems with Win98SE boxes...heck that's an operating system that's mature and been out for years...nearly bug free now (they say)? If you own an Audigy sound card and also just about any AMD platform computer....either don't plan on having any sound on your computer any time soon. Or, don't plan on being able to use your computer for anything, anytime soon.....depends on whether you leave the sound car installed, or of course, decide to uninstall it, Fdisk and reinstall WindowsXX so your computer can work again. Dave, and you thought Nvidia was bad? Tom "Dave Henrie" <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:Oy1C7.50287$[email hidden]... > Once upon a time there were products that were released for Windowsand > those products worked right out of the box. These days that is becoming a > rarity. Even the first set of 3dfx driver for the V5 series had problems. > But today's 'driver hell' is quite something all together. > I have had a bias against Nvidia for several years now, I freely admit > that, but the company has done very little to change my viewpoint. Hereare > some of the reasons why. > The current mess with F1 2001 is appalling to me. I will dole outblame > to both the sim developers, ISI and Nvidia, the chip/driver manufacturer. > ISI has really dropped the ball here, their shoddy compatibility withNvidia

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> drivers is frightenly bad. I have seen many posts here from users here > stating ISI should have been able to produce a product that works with > existing drivers for the Nvidia line. But my question is...Where do you > stop development and choose a driver. Nvidia has been blasting out broken > drivers now for the last several months at an astonishing rate. If I'm a > code monkey(thankfully not) do I focus on the newest whizbang features to > trully show off my product or do I fall back on stodgy drivers that don't > work with the new DX8 stuff? > It seems to me that it would be very hard to hit a moving target. If

you > spend months rebuilding your graphics engine only to have Nvidia keep > releasing version after version of their drivers, how do you get fundingto

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> start over and over until your product matches the current en-vogue driver > versions? > The average RAS user I would guess has a great deal more computering > knowledge than the general gaming population. If we here have sooo much > trouble finding driver combos and background programs and using window > modes....imagine how BEWILDERING it must be for a console user who just > spent 2 thousands dollars on a hot new system. "Sure AOL works, why

doesn't

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> F1?" > Earlier in this post, I wrote of 'broken' Nvidia drivers. I believe > that is the case. I believe the basic core of the Nvidia drivers has some > inherrant problem or fault that totally corrupts the excellant hardware. > Either that or the Nvidia engineers took such liberties with the DX > libraries & Opengl api's that the whole Nvidia line is functionally > incompatible with a windows enviroment. Is that too strong a statement? > I'm not sure. With sooo many driver versions out and sooo many hardware > options, who is to say any current Nvidia owner is getting the full > potential of the product? Why can't we have a comfortable level of > compatiblity? Why can't developers and Hardware engineers work together

to > ensure 100% operation? Why have users allowed themselves to put up with > such continual problems? > I have this notion that a driver upgrade should be all-inclusive. Bythat > I mean, if the drivers had to be modified to run Half-life, then modifiedto > run Unreal, I shouldn't lose my Half-life compatibility in newerversions. > Once version 12.xxx came out..version 11.xxx.should NOT be needed. There > should be ABSOLUTELY no reason why a newer version of drivers doesn'twork > with programs that were addressed previously. I won't pick solely onNvidia > here, Voodoo 2 users had to drop a custom driver in thier GPL folders to > get those working right. BTW does nvidia have that capability? Can Iplop > v12.90 drivers in the F1 2001 folder and get that working while using23.85 > drivers on the rest of the system?(I'm asking I don't know). > So all this blabbering has been about this: There is a dramatic lack of > consistantcy between Nvidia coding of it's drivers. The sheer numberalone > is cause for concern, but the fact that some features work only some ofthe > time in some versions and some don't should be a huge cause for alarm. I > would think product liability lawyers could make a killing off of theNvidia > predictament. > I have always come across sounding like a 3dfx Fanboy...but mainlythats > because for our little world here in RAS: 3dfx has, and still does, work > quite well. I could NOT recomend anyone go out and purchase a V5 5500 any > more,due to the collapse of the company and the lack of development, butI > also can't see why, with the exception of N4 users, yanking out a V5 for a > Gee Force makes economic sense. As time goes by V5 users will have to > migrate to something newer and better, I am certainly not planning on > hanging on to my V5 forever. But until titles come out that specifically > benefit from working features in new cards, I'll be holding onto myVoodoo. > Since the new Radeons show many of the same problems that Nvidiahas...the > inconsistant availailability of features, I can't get too excited about > those either. I love the sheer brute speed of the GF3's and Radeon8500's. > But the continual driver problems...going on for years now...really quells > any enthusiasm I have for either product. I am sure, since WSC seems tobe > pointed at the GF3 family, I will probably have to eat my words and get > somthing along that line someday. But nothing I have here now in my cdrack > compells me. > dave henrie > > > >

"Skotty Flynn" <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:[email hidden]... > On Fri, 26 Oct 2001 02:28:17 GMT, Haqsau wrote: > > Notta once here. And I have tried multiple driver versions. > Question: What games etc did you have problems with? Let me preface this by repeating that for me performance is not the bottom line for a graphics card. It is important, but it's not the only thing I look at. One of the reasons that I started using nVidia products in the first place is that unlike 3DFX they embraced open standards, and with the TnT at least it appeared like they had made a concerted effort to make an all-around good video card, not just a hot gamer's card. So what I wanted was a card that would provide good all-around performance and image quality regardless of application or API. With that in mind here is a rough list of problems I can recall with the TnT and GF2 (leaving out the Riva 128 because it just seems irrelevant at this point). TnT: Extremely poor performance in Unreal Extremely poor performance in Tribes Heroes of Might and Magic required several driver revisions to fix a crashing problem Image quality and performance problems in Shogo Menu corruption in Half-Life (never fixed) Artifacts in Quake 3 (required new drivers) 2D speed poor in OpenGL map editors (never fixed) GF2 MX: Horrible image quality in Q3 with compressed textures (known to be a hardware problem) Menu corruption in Half-Life (never fixed) Artifacts in Q3 with several official released drivers 2D speed poor in OpenGL map editors That may not seem like much but you have to realize that each of those represents several months of trying different drivers, game patches, BIOS settings, etc. and several months of frustration because I could not play the game in the way that I expected to. And I'm sure there were more that I have forgotten. Although looking at this list I can see that there were relatively few real crashes. Mostly I had problems with artifacts, thrashing, or performance (I know I said performance was not the bottom line, but in each of those cases the card was performing poorly relative to its own benchmarks, poorly relative to its competition, and leading to an unusable product on hardware that more than met the recommended requirements for the game). For example, at a time when the TnT card was getting kudos for its excellent OpenGL support in Quake engined games, it was also falling down badly for games that were ported from Glide. Unreal and Tribes on the TnT were actually slower in hardware mode than in software mode for many people. A lot of mud slinging went on between nVidia and the developers, and it was never really clear who was at fault. The underlying problem seemed to be inadequate texture management, which led to excessive bus usage, which led to texture thrashing. This has largely been rendered moot by the hardware improvements we have had since then, so people have forgotten I guess. The two that I think most turned me off to nVidia though are the 2D performance problems and the Q3 texture compression problem. I used to do a lot of map editing for FPS games. Never was any good at it, and never published much of it, but it was something I enjoyed. nVidia drivers had and I believe still have a big problem with 2D line drawing code. It was never properly optimized, and as a result trying to manipulate line based objects in 2D was excruciatingly slow. The Radeon does not have this problem. In fact a Virge would be faster at 2D line drawing than an nVidia card. The Q3 texture compression problem has been pretty well documented. It only affects one particular mode, but it happened to be a mode that is used in Q3. Quite a few developers are convinced that the texture compression code in the GF2 is broken at a hardware level and therefore you simply have to work around it. Id, who is known to refuse to employ workarounds for a driver's inadequacies, eventually gave up and turned off texture compression by default, a sure sign that there is no fix. Bottom line is that after several years of putting up with nVidia's quirks, I became convinced that despite my initial good impressions of them that they were only interested in making cards that have fast benchmark scores and that reliability (from a software standpoint), image quality, and so forth is not a priority for them. ATI OTOH still seems to be interested in making an all-around good card. Not that they are without weaknesses. There are a few games which are known to have issues with Radeons. And even though their line drawing code is far superior to nVidia's, their overall 2D performance is a tad lower. Nobody's perfect, I just feel like I have had fewer problems with the Radeon than I did with any of my nVidia cards. It is entirely possible that my next card will end up being an nVidia again, or something entirely different. I didn't mean to imply that I either hate nVidia or love ATI, I was just trying to say that the reputation that both companies have is not in accordance with my experience. And I know I am not the only one who feels that way. Regards, Hal

Dave Henrie wrote: > Once upon a time there were products that were released for > Windows and > those products worked right out of the box. These days that is > becoming a > rarity. Even the first set of 3dfx driver for the V5 series had > problems. But today's 'driver hell' is quite something all together. Today's driver hell is largely Microsoft's fault, not nVidia or anyone elses. A lot of people in the board-design business will tell you that. Just one simple screwup out of thousands, which has resulted in man-centuries of frustration, is Microsoft's violation of the PCI standard. PCI slot number and physical slot are not required to be the same. But, Microsoft code assumes that slot a is both logically AND physically slot a. That's why some Windows problems, even with recent releases, can be fixed by just rearranging your cards. One of the major points behind PCI was to eliminate just that kind of physical dependence. The list goes on and on. While I don't like the way a lot of card producers operate these days, it is a situation (bad software) that Microsoft legimitized first. Writing software, especially real-time game software and bleeding edge graphics code, for Windows is an absolute nightmare. It's a testament to the incredible efforts of (some) game designers that anything runs reliably at all, the foundation is so poor. Debugging is especially difficult, because with each bug you find, you first have to make sure it's actually your code that is the problem. Hopefully, one of these days, they'll either die or finally start producing quality instead of grunting out steaming mounds of new features. -- UNIX/Perl/C/[email hidden]

And Creative will not write a driver for the SB PCI128 card under Win2000. :-( Sure, it's a budget card but if you are unable to use speakers for gaming, it's a "good enuff" card. At least under Win98SE... /Jens "Tom Pabst" <[email hidden]> skrev i en meddelelse news:VDjC7.73828$[email hidden]... > Dave... > > You might want to wonder on over to Creative.Products.Sound_Blaster.audigy<Snip!>

I ran a SB PCI 128 soundcard under Windows 2000 with the drivers that came with Win2K. Ian P Jens H. Kruuse <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:ibAC7.1258$[email hidden]... > And Creative will not write a driver for the SB PCI128 card under Win2000. > :-( > Sure, it's a budget card but if you are unable to use speakers for gaming, > it's a "good enuff" card. At least under Win98SE... > > /Jens

Don't make me laugh! A MACINTOSH ? ROFLMAF >Normal people can and should stick with a console for games >>>>and aMacintosh >for general PC-type tasks.<<<<< But do they? No. They all follow thecrowd, >and assume all the typical Windows problems are 'normal'. Morons! :-/ -- Macintosh = Most Applications Crash, If Not The Operating System Hangs

I own both, NVidia is garbage IMAO. In a previous (RANT) post, I stated on how well my GeFarce card worked in Unreal Tournament. Well Guess What? since installing the drivers that work best in Nascar 4 (4.12.01.0797) UT frame rate is crap now. Not to mention general Windows GUI performance in all NVidia drivers is poor. Thus I agree with Dave's post My History of Video Cards: ATI Mach 32 - Win311wg = Crap, new drivers, Still Crap in Windows GUI, Games OK. Purchase price = Hand me down Intel 486 Low Profile PCI/Classic onboard Video - Cirrus Logic 2mb = OK (Doom, N1, days) Intel 486 Low Profile PCI/Classic Matrox ???? PCI = Fine at the time with the Matrox Nascar 1.exe Windows GUI, bugs. Purchase price = Found at Dump. STB Velocity 128 4mb = Windows GUI OK, 2 games bought for it (or vise a versa) NICE. Purchase price = $69 Creative Labs Banshee = Sweet ! nice to see the Jaggie's disappear, Windows GUI OK. Purchase price = $49 w/rebate. Hurlcules Rendition Thriller = From the start this card was doomed, Lockups on OS install, and Resolution switching problems. (I'll never buy anything with Hercules on the box again). Picked it up in a close out sale 1yr before Herc. went out of business, CHEAP. Purchase price = $29. 3Dfx V3-2000 = Very nice card, does have some installation (OS Win95/98) problems. Windows GUI, other than Hyper text selection in Windows Word 6.0, OK. Would kick Q3 LPBer's ass's, with no vid tweaks. < pre aimbot days. UT, Crap. Purchase price = $79 w/rebate. 3D Blaster Annihilator = Paid big bucks for this card, ($299.99) was not impressed, (Jaggie's) not much testing 14 day return policy. Purchase price = RETURNED ! ATI Radeon VE = Last card on the store shelf, Crap. It is going through further testing on another HD with the release of new video drivers from ATI (Finally). Kept past the return date, lol. N4 w/1.3.0.6 patch, geee I can actually drive with all graphics on @ 20-30fps. Purchase price = $99 w/rebate. Current: GeFarce II Pro = I've tried just about ever driver version out there and agree with Dave completely. Windows GUI erratic menu's (slow). N4 with current drivers corrupt shadows. Q3 with tweaks it does kick ass, - but......... At least I didn't pay Big Bucks for this one. Purchase price = $129.99 + shipping. When I was thinking about putting this box together, there was some (5) V5-5500 on the store shelves at Best Buy for $149.99. Which at the time was Big Bucks for a video card for me. But they had been bought out............ :((( But buy the time that I had collected most everything else up they were gone. :(( Now I can get one (OEM) on the net for $100. Hmmmmmmmmmmmmm........ >Dave, since you're not an NVidia owner that's largely guess work based on >what you've read. -- R.I.P. - William Joseph Dunlop OBE MBE 2/25/52 - 7/2/2000 http://www.roadracers.uk.com/legend.htm

In message <FlGC7.15501$[email hidden]> "REDLINE426" <[email hidden]> wrote:

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> > Normal people can and should stick with a console for games and a > > Macintosh for general PC-type tasks. But do they? No. They all follow > > the crowd, and assume all the typical Windows problems are 'normal'. > > Morons! :-/ > > Don't make me laugh! A MACINTOSH ? ROFLMAF > > Macintosh = Most Applications Crash, If Not The Operating System Hangs

Why? What exactly is wrong with a Mac that makes a Windows PC look better? Oh, and your *Microsoft* Outlook Express made a right mess of your article formatting. As usual for any OE user... -- Richard. "Watching the skirts you start to flirt now you're in gear."

No problems here with UT. "REDLINE426" <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:oSHC7.68776$[email hidden]... > I own both, NVidia is garbage IMAO.

Naaa the article formatting is all my fault, I'll take credit for that. I never "Include Message in Reply" so what you see is what I snipped an pasted. I was going to do it in HTML to get some format/highlight, but I know that is a major no no. I have my screen resolution set at 1024x768 so things my look funky at resolutions lower than that. What I see here is that we have an "Evil Empire" hater here. LOL Believe me, I started learning computers on Macs (512k) and still have many. The reason I started on Macs is that I couldn't find a complete PC at the dump........ LOL. But after OS 8.6 < (I liked) and a Norton Utilities Update ruined a 4 gig hard drive on my PowerMac, it doesn't get turned on much anymore, except to play Marathon for old times sake. What's this about OS X (10) that you need OS 9.whatever for compatibility? Naaaa my Windows machines take more of a beating and keeps on ticking! I wouldn't have all the Nascar 1, 2, 99, and 3 experience if I kept with a Apple/Macintosh only platform. "Flame Retardant Suit Is On" -- Apple = Arrogance Produces Profit Losing Entity

In message <NIeD7.77898$[email hidden]> "REDLINE426" <[email hidden]> wrote: > Naaa the article formatting is all my fault, I'll take credit for that. I > never "Include Message in Reply" so what you see is what I snipped an > pasted. Problem with removing the original message is that no-one can follow the conversation... > I was going to do it in HTML to get some format/highlight, but I know that > is a major no no. Indeed. HTML email/news is evil. > I have my screen resolution set at 1024x768 so things my look funky at > resolutions lower than that. More evil... > What I see here is that we have an "Evil Empire" hater here. LOL Well, maybe... ;-)

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> Believe me, I started learning computers on Macs (512k) and still have > many. The reason I started on Macs is that I couldn't find a complete PC > at the dump........ LOL. > > But after OS 8.6 < (I liked) and a Norton Utilities Update ruined a 4 gig > hard drive on my PowerMac, it doesn't get turned on much anymore, except > to play Marathon for old times sake.

I've seen just as many PCs get screwed by dodgy utilities, though... > What's this about OS X (10) that you need OS 9.whatever for compatibility? A heck of a lot of applications are still written for OS 9. This is why OS 9 is still there. If you want, you can stick with pure OS X applications and not have OS 9 at all. People like Adobe were a bit slow to alter their apps to work on OS X. > Naaaa my Windows machines take more of a beating and keeps on ticking! > > I wouldn't have all the Nascar 1, 2, 99, and 3 experience if I kept with a > Apple/Macintosh only platform. Note: I'm not an Apple Mac user myself. I'm actually a RISC OS user, but I couldn't actually recommend that platform to anyone at the moment! ;-) I've got a Windows Me PC for games. It runs GPL, NASCAR 4, GP 3, Viper Racing etc. all very well. That's why I own it, and it's all it does. For doing real work, and keeping up with email/news, I use my RISC OS machine. Why? Because it's got better applications (Microsoft Office is horrible) and I prefer the environment. I also trust the computer more - I don't worry about 're-installing' the OS and all that crap. I believe that these points are exactly the kind of arguments a Macintosh user would agree with. If the RISC OS market doesn't improve, when I need to upgrade, I'll be getting a Mac. No way would I want those horrible Microsoft interfaces, subscriptions, bugs etc. It's all nasty! I can keep sane by using my preferred platform. Heck, before too long, Linux/BSD could be a viable desktop OS. If I didn't play 'in depth' racing sims, I would have a console for games, then I'd be completely Windows-free, and much saner! :-) -- Richard. "I've got everything that you want, Like a heart that is oh, so true."

Ummmmmmmmm not if your using OE heh heh. <ducks> -- R.I.P. - William Joseph Dunlop OBE MBE 2/25/52 - 7/2/2000 http://www.roadracers.uk.com/legend.htm

Ian P wrote:

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> > I ran a SB PCI 128 soundcard under Windows 2000 with the drivers that came > with Win2K. > > Ian P > > Jens H. Kruuse <[email hidden]> wrote in message > news:ibAC7.1258$[email hidden]... > > And Creative will not write a driver for the SB PCI128 card under Win2000. > > :-( > > Sure, it's a budget card but if you are unable to use speakers for gaming, > > it's a "good enuff" card. At least under Win98SE... > > > > /Jens

Same here Ian, SB128 in my "office" PC running Win2k, no problems yet, although I don't play that much on this PC it has to be said, but I try to sneak in a couple of hours every now and then, no racing sims though....bit too obvious :-) Beers and cheers (uncle) Goy "The Pits" http://www.theuspits.com/ * Spam is for losers who can't get business any other way * "Spamkiller" http://www.spamkiller.com

On Fri, 26 Oct 2001 21:48:33 GMT, "Haqsau" <[email hidden]> wrote: >ATI OTOH still seems to be interested in making an all-around good card. >Not that they are without weaknesses. There are a few games which are >known to have issues with Radeons. And even though their line drawing >code is far superior to nVidia's, their overall 2D performance is a tad >lower. And speaking the ATI Radeon ... Does anyone have any idea what settings I should have in my GPL core.ini to get the most out of having a Radeon? And also, does anyone know how to get Anti-Aliasing to work in GPL? thanks muchly -- Spadge Fromley ''collect your rubbsih and in my belly it will go ...''

I've got a radeon and it's crap for GPL..... in direct x at least , and since it won't go in open GL mode, that's what you're stuck with... now I've laboured long and hard to get 'the best drivers' for this ati card.... I just looked , I've been through 12 driver sets since I bought this card !! And that's in 8 months!!! It's lovely in open gl..... but as far as GPL goes ... yukk! I for one will be getting a new card just to run GPL properly , rather than struggling anymore ... jv Of course you are free to do what you like .. my latest rad drivers... are the Omega 1299a's (only a 10 meg download ) "Spadge Fromley" <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:[email hidden]...

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> On Fri, 26 Oct 2001 21:48:33 GMT, "Haqsau" <[email hidden]> > wrote: > > >ATI OTOH still seems to be interested in making an all-around good card. > >Not that they are without weaknesses. There are a few games which are > >known to have issues with Radeons. And even though their line drawing > >code is far superior to nVidia's, their overall 2D performance is a tad > >lower. > > And speaking the ATI Radeon ... > > Does anyone have any idea what settings I should have in my GPL > core.ini to get the most out of having a Radeon? > > And also, does anyone know how to get Anti-Aliasing to work in GPL? > > thanks muchly > > > -- > Spadge Fromley > ''collect your rubbsih > and in my belly it will go ...'' >

On Mon, 5 Nov 2001 16:48:21 -0000, "Juan Vizoso" <[email hidden]> wrote:

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>I've got a radeon and it's crap for GPL..... in direct x at least , and >since it won't go in open GL mode, that's what you're stuck with... > now I've laboured long and hard to get 'the best drivers' for this ati >card.... I just looked , I've been through 12 driver sets since I bought >this card !! And that's in 8 months!!! > It's lovely in open gl..... but as far as GPL goes ... yukk! I for one >will be getting a new card just to run GPL properly , rather than struggling >anymore ... jv > Of course you are free to do what you like .. my latest rad drivers... are >the Omega 1299a's (only a 10 meg download )

Thanks for that. I have to say that I'm pretty pleased with the way GPL looks on my Radeon. OK, so they've only had 12 driver sets in the past 8 months, but they have mostly been good. The driver set I'm using is the 6.13.3281 WinXP version. -- Spadge Fromley ''collect your rubbsih and in my belly it will go ...''