Exactly. For those defending Nvidia, remember that Vista has been available to the public in a preview version for months now, and Nvidia has been getting test builds of it for YEARS. There is simply no excuse for the sorry state of drivers at this point. They knew this was coming for a long time, and they sat on their asses collecting profits instead of making it a priority and putting a team on it.
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Where are my NVIDIA Drivers for Vista?
- Thread starter FrgMstr
- Start date
Exactly. For those defending Nvidia, remember that Vista has been available to the public in a preview version for months now, and Nvidia has been getting test builds of it for YEARS. There is simply no excuse for the sorry state of drivers at this point. They knew this was coming for a long time, and they sat on their asses collecting profits instead of making it a priority and putting a team on it.
I think Nvidia is doing the best they can...
The 8800 is the only DX10-capable card on the market, meaning it's a whole new hardware architecture to code for.
DirectX10 is also a whole new coding model they have to support.
Vista's driver model is a whole new model they have to adhere to.
So, with 7-series cards, driver coders had the luxury of at least knowing the hardware and DirectX revision and in the case of XP, the driver model. In Vista, all they had to do was adhere to the new driver model since they don't need to support DirectX 10 or code for a new hardware design...
With 8-series cards under XP, they had the luxury of knowing both DirectX9 and the XP Driver model, and all they had to do was code for the unified hardware design.
But under vista with an 8-series card, EVERYTHING changes. The Driver model changed, so they have to learn that. The hardware is different, as it's a unified design. The DX10 equation is there as well, since they have to support that. The "lateness" of these drivers should be expected with all the things they have to do now, and the 8-series is still a *VERY* new card, just like Vista's driver model and DirectX 10 are very new technologies as well.
Considering what Nvidia has done in a short amount of time, I think they're actually doing pretty well under the circumstances. We might have to live with the pain of somewhat inferior drivers for a while, but that's what happens when you're an early adopter. We 8-series folks are early adopters in pretty much ALL respects when you run it under vista.
The 8800 is the only DX10-capable card on the market, meaning it's a whole new hardware architecture to code for.
DirectX10 is also a whole new coding model they have to support.
Vista's driver model is a whole new model they have to adhere to.
So, with 7-series cards, driver coders had the luxury of at least knowing the hardware and DirectX revision and in the case of XP, the driver model. In Vista, all they had to do was adhere to the new driver model since they don't need to support DirectX 10 or code for a new hardware design...
With 8-series cards under XP, they had the luxury of knowing both DirectX9 and the XP Driver model, and all they had to do was code for the unified hardware design.
But under vista with an 8-series card, EVERYTHING changes. The Driver model changed, so they have to learn that. The hardware is different, as it's a unified design. The DX10 equation is there as well, since they have to support that. The "lateness" of these drivers should be expected with all the things they have to do now, and the 8-series is still a *VERY* new card, just like Vista's driver model and DirectX 10 are very new technologies as well.
Considering what Nvidia has done in a short amount of time, I think they're actually doing pretty well under the circumstances. We might have to live with the pain of somewhat inferior drivers for a while, but that's what happens when you're an early adopter. We 8-series folks are early adopters in pretty much ALL respects when you run it under vista.
Fuck that, if my friend failed to deliver I would beat the shit out of him too. Seriously though, this is sad and very upsetting. It's becoming the norm now to release hardware with half ass software support. We know better about driver support as we take a trip down this road during every product launch. We know what to expect. We bitch anyway but you know what? We have every right to. It's a shame that companies release hardware that's crippled by the ESSENTIAL software that allows the heap of silicon to be of any use to us in the first place. Products are billed as best this, wonderful that, super advanced world class beyond anything you have ever seen, and you buy it only to find that it's just potential that you purchased because the bugs were never fully worked out or features were cut and aren't planned until some undetermined time in the future. It's one thing for third party software to not take advantage of key features for whatever reasons but the drivers for the card should be able to support all features and perform as advertised at launch and not a month or two months down the road. For that, just delay the card until it's ready. We have been conditioned to accept this. It's just really unfortunate that we do. It's tough because there are only two major players and they both do this.Seriously I think that the only way you can have a companys total and divine attention and expect them to change their policies is to beat them when they do not deliver. Now this is with a company, I do agree that with a living breathing friend things might be different. Personal opinion only
Again, we know what to expect but what about average Joe consumer that doesn't follow the [H] or Guru3D or Anandtech. That guy walks into a *insert store* and picks up that 8800GTX touting DX10 support and SLI support so he can run his games on that 24 or 30" display not knowing that this is all just potential. This wonderful next level, next gen, WOW, whiz bang experience won't be realized because the software drivers aren't ready to support it and are not fully optimized let alone being WHQL certified.
How do you spend 4 years developing hardware and work "closely" with Microsoft to ensure comptibility with an OS that has been in development just as long and not have drivers ready in time? WTF was going on over there?
The good news I guess is that this is nVidia and they will EVENTUALLY get it all sorted out so there is hope. It could have been worse, it could have been Creative making the cards and drivers and then we would really be in trouble.
And that concludes my little rant. I feel better now. Thank you in advance for not flaming me.
Hapatingjaky
Weaksauce
- Joined
- Sep 20, 2005
- Messages
- 71
Surprisingly ATI drivers are doing very well. Aside from the poor OpenGL performance but Nvidia suffers the same fate there aswell.
I purchased my 8800GTX on the recommendation of a few people from Nzone stating that driver support was excellent. It turns out that the 8800GTX drivers are the poorest Nvidia has ever released. Nvidia just gets embarassed over its Vista driver and the fact that the XP driver is in no better shape and most likely we will see limited XP releases from now on just makes things worse.
I have a copy of Vista Ultimate, but I'm not installing it till June, gonna give it atleast 6 months for drivers to mature.
I purchased my 8800GTX on the recommendation of a few people from Nzone stating that driver support was excellent. It turns out that the 8800GTX drivers are the poorest Nvidia has ever released. Nvidia just gets embarassed over its Vista driver and the fact that the XP driver is in no better shape and most likely we will see limited XP releases from now on just makes things worse.
I have a copy of Vista Ultimate, but I'm not installing it till June, gonna give it atleast 6 months for drivers to mature.
LadyInsane
n00b
- Joined
- Jul 22, 2006
- Messages
- 6
As for me, a.k.a. an impulsive early adopter, I have a copy of Vista Ultimate and the latest hardware to run DX10. Currently, I've decided not to bother installing Vista and playing around to see what's working and not working. I know there's no driver support for the 680i chipset; beta drivers for G80's are not SLI enabled; a new OS thats still in it infancy.
If there's anyone to blame, it's me. For allowing the marketing hype to guide my decisions on purchasing unproven and fully functioning hardware and software before it's ready.
So I will continue to use my older gaming system which has WinXP Pro x32; 7800GTX's running SLI on and old nForce4 chipset to get by until whenever. However, Ive learned from this whole fiasco. In the future, I will spend more time reading and waiting until theres verification on new hardware actually running and functioning as advertised. No more vaporware stories; unproven theories and hype from the manufacturers. Im no longer an impulsive early adopter. I will wait for [H]ard proof from this point on .
If there's anyone to blame, it's me. For allowing the marketing hype to guide my decisions on purchasing unproven and fully functioning hardware and software before it's ready.
So I will continue to use my older gaming system which has WinXP Pro x32; 7800GTX's running SLI on and old nForce4 chipset to get by until whenever. However, Ive learned from this whole fiasco. In the future, I will spend more time reading and waiting until theres verification on new hardware actually running and functioning as advertised. No more vaporware stories; unproven theories and hype from the manufacturers. Im no longer an impulsive early adopter. I will wait for [H]ard proof from this point on .
Hornswoggler
2[H]4U
- Joined
- Jun 29, 2004
- Messages
- 2,325
If we want something good to rant about, why not pick on the new crappy nvidia control panel?? I think the classic control panel is much better. This is a feature that impacts me NOW and I do not see nvidia making any progress to improve.
I think nvidia has been sitting back and watching all this crap and singing "A fool and his money are soon parted."
They're making fools out of everyone who bought an 8800. A certified driver should've been available no later that 1/30/07. I recall this to be the case when XP and 100s of vendors had drivers back in October '01.
Vista's launch was anti-climatic at best. Look at the sales numbers if you need clarification. nvidia, regardless of sales numbers, has done all Vista/8800 owners a huge disservice.
They're making fools out of everyone who bought an 8800. A certified driver should've been available no later that 1/30/07. I recall this to be the case when XP and 100s of vendors had drivers back in October '01.
Vista's launch was anti-climatic at best. Look at the sales numbers if you need clarification. nvidia, regardless of sales numbers, has done all Vista/8800 owners a huge disservice.
In my opinion all vista is doing is putting a giant spot light on nvidia's already lacking software program. This problem is nothing new, but they can't avoid this particular 1,000,000 watt Microsoft powered spotlight.
I've owned alot of Nv cards in the past. But I went back to ATI when the x800 was released and I owned an x1900.
With the 8800gtx, I finaly transitioned back to Nv and I was really shocked how bad the software was. Things like their CP, NAM and Ntune are shockingly bad. Nvidia always boasts of bell's and whistle's like tcip acceleration, but enabling the feature is like playing Russian roulette.
Nvidia really needs to slow things down and get back to basics. There really needs to be some accountability at nv, I think they should question their leadership's effectiveness and make some personnel changes.
ATI had similar problems with their driver program in recent years. They received alot of grief over it, and the result is their catalyst program. I'm not saying ATI is perfect by any means, but the program has done very well under Terry Makedon imo.
I've owned alot of Nv cards in the past. But I went back to ATI when the x800 was released and I owned an x1900.
With the 8800gtx, I finaly transitioned back to Nv and I was really shocked how bad the software was. Things like their CP, NAM and Ntune are shockingly bad. Nvidia always boasts of bell's and whistle's like tcip acceleration, but enabling the feature is like playing Russian roulette.
Nvidia really needs to slow things down and get back to basics. There really needs to be some accountability at nv, I think they should question their leadership's effectiveness and make some personnel changes.
ATI had similar problems with their driver program in recent years. They received alot of grief over it, and the result is their catalyst program. I'm not saying ATI is perfect by any means, but the program has done very well under Terry Makedon imo.
all we can do... is vote with our wallets! I just got an 8800GTS, but believe me, my next video card upgrade will probably not be nvidia.
Also, why are there only TWO companies offering high-end graphics cards anyways? We need more options, we vote for the best company by purchasing their products based on Hardware & Software functionality. We seem to have a monopoly situation here...and thats not good for the consumer.
Also, why are there only TWO companies offering high-end graphics cards anyways? We need more options, we vote for the best company by purchasing their products based on Hardware & Software functionality. We seem to have a monopoly situation here...and thats not good for the consumer.
Intel will shortly be a major player in the graphics card market: http://news.softpedia.com/news/Intel-to-Dethrone-AMD-ATI-and-Nvidia-45271.shtml
mentok1982
Supreme [H]ardness
- Joined
- Sep 17, 2004
- Messages
- 4,381
I am going to have my rig together on the weekend of February 24th and if I have to wait even
longer for Nvidia to deliver me a G80 WHQL driver for Vista I will be upset.
I will have one Evga 8800 GTX and I am not quite sure if I will get the 32bit or 64 bit version of
Ultimate. I am thinking 32bit would be a better choice because it allows for more drivers.
longer for Nvidia to deliver me a G80 WHQL driver for Vista I will be upset.
I will have one Evga 8800 GTX and I am not quite sure if I will get the 32bit or 64 bit version of
Ultimate. I am thinking 32bit would be a better choice because it allows for more drivers.
Cool. So is ATI's brand new card with brand new architecture doing pretty well too? Ah yes, it doesn't exist. The 8800 is new, cut NVidia some damn slack please. I'm tired of seeing all of these threads from a bunch of people whining over something that should have been considered when buying brand new tech.
I think not. NVIDIA is a mega-corporation at this point, and the pool of talent on hand is bar-none fantastic. NVIDIA simply didn't give the drivers the attention they deserve. They made a decision, and the decision was the wrong one for customers.
I agree. There's still room for improvement, but ATi has been impressing me solidly for the past six months or so. What AMD needs to ensure at this point is that they have up-to-date drivers available for new products from day one. In the past, this hasn't been the case, unfortunately.Lith1um said:
A very good question. I can't be sure, but I believe that NVIDIA is trying to pull some sort of veil over the entire platform at this point, which definitely concerns me.Ael said:
well i tried everything .. the 100.54s basically made my system crash with display driver stopped working but has recovered message .. installed the 100.59s seem to fix it for a night .. now all i get is that same message .. if i open a window or close it .. type in a message on a forum ..
so basically uninstalling the driver .. and running standard vga at 1600x1200 on a 30 inch lcd .. and its stable .. makes no damn sense .. everyone else is like gaming .. i cant even stay on the desktop
video card is not overclocked .. ram my system overclocked and stock .. no difference ..
any ideas ?
could be my 680i board .. who knows .. i have a badaxe II on the way as well as my evga rma
so basically uninstalling the driver .. and running standard vga at 1600x1200 on a 30 inch lcd .. and its stable .. makes no damn sense .. everyone else is like gaming .. i cant even stay on the desktop
video card is not overclocked .. ram my system overclocked and stock .. no difference ..
any ideas ?
could be my 680i board .. who knows .. i have a badaxe II on the way as well as my evga rma
Tempest_Prime
I choke on balls regularly
- Joined
- Jul 7, 2005
- Messages
- 376
I agree with the notion that Vista didn't sneak up on anyone, but NVIDIA isn't the only one pissing customers off. Creative is having the same issues, but the difference there is that people are switching to their on-board sound because it works. Go figure.
There are driver problems every time a new operating system is released. I have no idea why this is coming as some sort of grand surprise to people. You wait until the problems get shaken out, and then upgrade if you feel like it. Early adopters always get punished in some way.
That doesn't absolve nVidia from responsibility for over-promising and under-delivering, but then again, you knew what was coming when you stepped in that dark alley. Don't act all surprised and confused when things go wrong.
That doesn't absolve nVidia from responsibility for over-promising and under-delivering, but then again, you knew what was coming when you stepped in that dark alley. Don't act all surprised and confused when things go wrong.
I don't mean to come off as an ass here, but what makes you think they aren't going to release drivers with Crossfire and DX10 support with the R600 in March? I can't even wrap my mind around the idea that they would actually wait to develop these drivers until weeks before the release, let alone release the cards without any Vista support at all after Vista had been out for 2 months.
This is absolutely untrue. If you shelled out 5-600 dollars for a 8800GTX you are undoubtedly entitled to working Vista drivers and the speed of the G80 should be the icing on the cake, not the cards selling point. Yes the G80 is faster than the 1950 from ATi, but you can't tell me that speed alone justifies this kind of lax driver support from Nvidia. If you bought a card for DX10 and Vista it should work in DX10 and Vista. No excuses.
That is exactly the problem. I'm not arguing as to whether future performance will improve, I'm just saying that currently the drivers have lots of issues and they're pretty much inexcusable.
Ice Nine said:
I think you're giving them too much credit. I don't write drivers, so I'm not exactly sure what that entails, but even if it is a big transition it's a necessity that they write good competent drivers. I don't care what it takes them to do it, so if they're the first people to market with a DX10 card, make sure it has decent drivers before you release it. Just because it's so-called "revolutionary" doesn't excuse it from needing basic things like proper driver support.
I've owned a mid range to high end member of each nVidia series except the GF5xxx series and the drivers were almost always beta and the WHQL's that were released even had issues. Blue screens with NV{something}.sys(or .dll don't remember and don't care) as the culprit was a common thing and it didn't matter what system configuration I used. I went ATI and owned a 9800XT, x850XT and 1900XT. I the only issues I encountered with those cards were performance issues in certain games which were corrected by the next driver release. ATI hasn't dropped the ball since they started the Catalyst program and I hope they keep it up when the r600 hits. I'll be keeping an eye on ATI to see how thier r600 launch goes. If all goes well I may have to go back to ATI, especially if nVidia hasn't gotten their act together by then. My experiences with their products were just better.
Im not trying to sound like a bootlicking fan boy.... but Kyle is SPOT ON the money... Ive spent out for a 8800GTS and having drivers that are not up to par ticks me right off... If I can spend $420 and if this kind of SHIT support from the start, you can bet Ill be watching ATi/AMD and if they have their act together this 8800 will be in the FS/FT section pretty quick! however yes time must be given for Nvidia to get their act together... so its a race to see ATi or Nvidia get focused and see who shows they have their act together.
I'm a 8800 GTS owner - used to have ATI/AMD cards... Theres no doubt IMO; ATI has superior driversupport compared to their competition. Its been like that for years. Unfortunately I'll have to wait untill Nvidia gets their finger out as it is; or play some more Xbox360 - because even in XP x64 Pro, the Nvidia drivers are behaving erratic, and I'm pretty tired of wasting money on the upgrading circus, just to receive a rollercoaster ride in performance.
I really like this post and agree wholeheartedly with most of his points. One thing I would like to clear up is that AFAIK (and as much as I've read online), Flight Simulator X supports DirectX 10 out of the box. Granted, it's just one game in a niche market, but the folks I've talked with on various simulator forums seem to agree that once drivers begin supporting DX10 properly, that game will play like night and day compared to how it plays currently on XP with DX9.
This kind of mentality is WHY things are allowed to go wrong. We should just simply not stand for it as customers. I remember xp's arrival and things were very bad then true, but there were no $650 video cards then or the equivalent or you can be sure that people would have thrown the same fit that their high end hardware was being ignored by the manufacturer. The big issue here is not one of drivers imo, it's their poor attitude and support and basically a lack of ANY communication to the customers as to what the problems are, what the ETA is, and what they are doing about it. Putting the customer at ease would go a long way to diffusing this mess they have created. The lack of support is just mind boggling here and they are in dire need of a customer relations liaison.
The funny thing is that nvidia's drivers just flat out don't work for me on my 7900gt but creative's audigy 2 zs beta driver works perfectly. I have a x-fi in my gaming box along with an 8800 but I have chosen to not install vista on it now due to the state of these nvidia drivers.
Those of you who are saying that "this should not come as a suprise" are not looking at this from a business pespective. Ive been in Retail Management for the better part of 20 years. Ive seen it from the persective of a cashier to a store manager. It all boils down to customer service. A business is in the business of making money, yes. But they make their money by either providing a service/product or the promise of a service/product. The customer in turns puts their faith in this business to provide what they pay for. When this doesnt happen it is the customers right to either complain for a better service or return the product. In this case most of US who have purchased these cards early cannot return them because we placed our faith in a businees to deliver what they promised an as such have missed our window for return. Most who are upset are not upset about frames per-second but the violation of a business aggrement. We purchased a product that was promised to be "Vista Ready", and is not. I love Nvidia's products. They have always provided what I believe is to be the best video cards on the market. I have no dout that they will eventually fix this problem. However wrong is wrong. In this instance they failled to deliver as promised and there is no excuses. If the cards/drivers were not ready then they should have sat on it till it was ready, like ATI is doing. They however wanted to beat their competitors to the profit margin and as a result rushed an unfinished product and pissed of a lot of customers.
I appologize to all that see this as being preachy. But even the best businesses in the world can from time to time emit the poorest of customer service.
I appologize to all that see this as being preachy. But even the best businesses in the world can from time to time emit the poorest of customer service.
obviouslytom
Fully [H]
- Joined
- Feb 24, 2005
- Messages
- 30,164
Vista installed some driver for the 7900GS on my laptop but when I try to install the NVIDIA drivers, it tells me that I dont have vista installed and then told me its not the 32bit version or the 64bit version.
Basically without sounding too condescending everything in this post is wrong. FSX is not dx10 currently. There is a patch some time this year to make it dx10 but currently it is not. The game runs very poorly and they are currently writing an SP1 patch for it to address these issues and many others before they even start on the dx10 patch. Flight simming is also not a 'niche' market as you say. FSx has been in the top 5 of best selling pc games since its release in october. Also according to the devs at Aces, the screenshots you see on websites of fsx in its dx10 glory are pretty much nothing like what they will be in reality. Think much, much less than that, but better than dx9 at least.
Just wanted to pop in and say that I'm not too surprised at Nvidia's lack of progress on drivers for Vista considering their previous driver history. Sound corruption and static issues with SoundStorm drivers have gone unfixed for over 3 years. Drivers since series 8 on Geforce 4 Ti 4200, Geforce FX 5200, Geforce 6600 GT, Geforce 6800, and Geforce 7900 GT KO have massive issues with older DX7 and DX8 titles on WinNT5 systems. (e.g. : LithTech games "No One Lives Forever", it's sequel, NOFL2, Contract Jack, AvP2, Primal Hunt). Driver issues with texture corruption in non Lithtech engines titles like Planetside still abound with no apparent intent to address texture corruption. ( http://www.fcs-inc.biz/saist/ps/PSScreenShot0011.bmp ) City Of Heroes / City of Villains has massive shader issues that result in constant NVGL crashes across all of the Nvidia Cards listed above. Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic outright crashes under Nvidia drivers.
So, the Windows side of the drivers are a complete mess for the graphics cards. There hasn't been any updates or fixes for NT5 systems since the "beta" drivers on Release Date: November 28, 2006.
On the opposite side of the spectrum, looking at Linux support, not like that has been any pleasure either. Phoronix went over the year of Nvidia driver releases : http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=599&num=1
Now, it's pretty pathetic I think, when ATi, who started supported *Nix seriously for the home user over a calender year after Nvidia started, has already caught up and in passed Nvidia for driver support under *nix.
So, am I surprised that Nvidia can't manage drivers for NT6? Nope. Not at all. I've commented before (not here though) that Nvidia's driver team couldn't code their way out of a wet paper bag. Looking at near simultaneous flops across all driver development teams, it seems that my comment would appear to be true.
So, the Windows side of the drivers are a complete mess for the graphics cards. There hasn't been any updates or fixes for NT5 systems since the "beta" drivers on Release Date: November 28, 2006.
On the opposite side of the spectrum, looking at Linux support, not like that has been any pleasure either. Phoronix went over the year of Nvidia driver releases : http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=599&num=1
Now, it's pretty pathetic I think, when ATi, who started supported *Nix seriously for the home user over a calender year after Nvidia started, has already caught up and in passed Nvidia for driver support under *nix.
So, am I surprised that Nvidia can't manage drivers for NT6? Nope. Not at all. I've commented before (not here though) that Nvidia's driver team couldn't code their way out of a wet paper bag. Looking at near simultaneous flops across all driver development teams, it seems that my comment would appear to be true.
Agreed. Creative's X-Fi support is another good example. Since DirectSound isn't supported in DX10 for hardware acceleration, we have to rely on OpenAL for hardware support. Lets just say the X-Fi and Vista, especially if you have one that has the drive bay, sucks.
Anyways, there is something not right about the driver support for nVidia ATM. Going from my XP box to Vista Ultimate, I've had my 7900GTX running well. Slapped in my 8800GTX and it is actually slower in several games. Oh sure, the frame rates seem to be faster, but during intense battles, the screen would stutter like it was out of sync. First I thought it was simply an EA bug with the game, but I've found a couple of other FPS that seem to suffer from the framerate blues. It runs fast, gets choppy, and goes fast again.
Now, I am running the 100.54 drivers, and it could be an optimization issue, but dammit, I spent good money to go to the "next level" of gaming promised. Hell, when I packed up the 7900GTX, I noticed that it too had the "Ready for Vista" logo on it. I had to laugh.
-E
I was at Best Buy yesterday and walking near the Geeks counter where they do the computer repair and overheard two techs tell some woman that to stay away from Nvidia products as they were not releasing drivers for Windows Vista for several months.
At first, I was upset because I own Nvidia cards, that and I've yet to meet a Best Buy tech that really knew much about computers other than what most of the general public knew already. But, come to think of it, he is right. It will be several months before we have good solid performing drivers.
Sucks to be us.
At first, I was upset because I own Nvidia cards, that and I've yet to meet a Best Buy tech that really knew much about computers other than what most of the general public knew already. But, come to think of it, he is right. It will be several months before we have good solid performing drivers.
Sucks to be us.
Really impressed with the new beta drivers. The performance issue with MSAA is gone and I'm getting blistering framerates in WoW at 2560x1600 16AF 4MSAA. It feels much smoother than yesterday even in alpha texture heavy areas like Terrokar and have yet to see it dip below 40fps.
These are keepers for me! Can't comment on other games and to be honest, don't really care at this point. By the time Burning Crusade gets stale nVidia will have gotten their act together with current issues some people are having in their favourite titles.
These are keepers for me! Can't comment on other games and to be honest, don't really care at this point. By the time Burning Crusade gets stale nVidia will have gotten their act together with current issues some people are having in their favourite titles.
Not only are the drivers still very lacking in features for the 8800 serious.......
What about Pure Video HD for Vista? Get all these nice fancy Media Center Features in Premium and Ultimage just like on my MCE2005 install but no software to decode the recorded HDTV with your Video Card. Any sign of this coming soon?
What about Pure Video HD for Vista? Get all these nice fancy Media Center Features in Premium and Ultimage just like on my MCE2005 install but no software to decode the recorded HDTV with your Video Card. Any sign of this coming soon?
Brent_Justice
Moderator
- Joined
- Apr 17, 2000
- Messages
- 17,755
According to ATI, right now the reason games are slower in Vista is because in Vista the graphics driver has been moved out of Kernel space and into User space. This should provide better stability, but it sacrifices performance in Vista.
Hopefully improvements in driver optimizations in Vista can bring gaming performance in Vista up to at least XP performance, but hopefully beyond as they learn more working with the OS.
So while I agree that DX 9.0L is "suppose" to be faster in Vista than compared to DX9 in XP, so far those realities haven't been realized. The largest perf drop ATI has reported is 8% slower in Vista than XP so far, so it isn't a massive performance difference, at least on ATI's side.
OpenGL is another story, they chose to go with stability over performance initially, so now they will work on OGL performance in later driver versions.
I have no reported numbers from NV on performance in Vista compared to XP right now.
We will see what happens in time...
As far as Vista drivers problems goes, this was all predicted and I find it fascinating that no one here has mentioned it.
The dirty little word about drivers for sound cards and video cards for Vista is DRM. A guy by the name of Peter Gutman wrote about this back in December and predicted this would happen. The title of the article is "A Cost Analysis of Windows Vista Content Protection". I urge you all to read it.
I have noticed that most mainstream hardware review sites have completely ignored the DRM issues in Vista. I cannot understand why because if you read the latest press release from NVIDIA about why the drivers are taking so long they explain in a round about way it is because of the content protection that is required to be embedded in anything that runs on Vista.
I am pasting NVIDIA press release here to illustrate what they are hinting at about the DRM issues but pay particular attention to the comments about the 20 million lines of code that needs a rewrite for both the 7 and 8 series cards and the section on content protection problems because of Blu Ray and HD DVD.
Peter Gutman goes into great technical detail about why unified drivers will be problematic because of the DRM that MS has mandated in Vista. It seems his predictions about the driver problems that would occur are becoming a reality with Creative, Nvidia and ATI not being able to write stable drivers for windows Vista.
Of course, this does not explain the problems Nvidia has experienced with WinXP drivers.
NVIDIA wrote: Because G70 and G80 are radically different architectures, they each require a separate driver. Combine that with the fact that Windows Vista has completely changed the driver interface, similar in magnitude to what happened between Windows 3.1 and 95, and youve got a perfect storm of conditions for driver development. The end result is that for Windows Vista, two 20M line drivers have to be completely re-written (one for G80 and one from all previous architectures). In other words, this isnt a simple port, its a radical departure from the way things were written before.
There are other elements of Vista driver development that apparently require more work than before. DirectX 9, DX9 SLI, DX10 and DX10 SLI support is provided through four separate binaries, which increases the complexity of testing and the overall driver itself, whereas there was only a single driver in the past.
Interfaces for HD-DVD and Blu-ray video acceleration requires a lot more code than before, thanks to the support for a protected path for HD video under Vista. Supporting this protected path for HD content decode means that you cant re-use the video part of your driver when developing a Vista version.
The last major difference between Windows XP and Vista driver development is that the display engine connecting monitors to the GPUs has been completely redone.
Initial investment in driver development under Vista takes up quite a bit of time, and now we understand a little more of why. While it would be nice to have one today, theres always a tradeoff that has to be made especially when driver work this intense has to be done. Couple that with the recent launch of NVIDIAs G80 GPU and the decision was made to focus on DX9 and XP drivers in order to make the G80s launch as solid as possible, and commit to delivering an 8800 driver by Vistas launch.
When the driver is eventually available NVIDIA expects performance to be at par, slightly slower or slightly faster than the XP driver. What weve seen thus far from other Vista drivers is that performance is slower almost entirely across the board. As stability is currently the primary goal for both ATI and NVIDIA, many compiler optimizations and performance tweaks arent being used in order to get a good driver out in time for Vistas launch......"
The dirty little word about drivers for sound cards and video cards for Vista is DRM. A guy by the name of Peter Gutman wrote about this back in December and predicted this would happen. The title of the article is "A Cost Analysis of Windows Vista Content Protection". I urge you all to read it.
I have noticed that most mainstream hardware review sites have completely ignored the DRM issues in Vista. I cannot understand why because if you read the latest press release from NVIDIA about why the drivers are taking so long they explain in a round about way it is because of the content protection that is required to be embedded in anything that runs on Vista.
I am pasting NVIDIA press release here to illustrate what they are hinting at about the DRM issues but pay particular attention to the comments about the 20 million lines of code that needs a rewrite for both the 7 and 8 series cards and the section on content protection problems because of Blu Ray and HD DVD.
Peter Gutman goes into great technical detail about why unified drivers will be problematic because of the DRM that MS has mandated in Vista. It seems his predictions about the driver problems that would occur are becoming a reality with Creative, Nvidia and ATI not being able to write stable drivers for windows Vista.
Of course, this does not explain the problems Nvidia has experienced with WinXP drivers.
NVIDIA wrote: Because G70 and G80 are radically different architectures, they each require a separate driver. Combine that with the fact that Windows Vista has completely changed the driver interface, similar in magnitude to what happened between Windows 3.1 and 95, and youve got a perfect storm of conditions for driver development. The end result is that for Windows Vista, two 20M line drivers have to be completely re-written (one for G80 and one from all previous architectures). In other words, this isnt a simple port, its a radical departure from the way things were written before.
There are other elements of Vista driver development that apparently require more work than before. DirectX 9, DX9 SLI, DX10 and DX10 SLI support is provided through four separate binaries, which increases the complexity of testing and the overall driver itself, whereas there was only a single driver in the past.
Interfaces for HD-DVD and Blu-ray video acceleration requires a lot more code than before, thanks to the support for a protected path for HD video under Vista. Supporting this protected path for HD content decode means that you cant re-use the video part of your driver when developing a Vista version.
The last major difference between Windows XP and Vista driver development is that the display engine connecting monitors to the GPUs has been completely redone.
Initial investment in driver development under Vista takes up quite a bit of time, and now we understand a little more of why. While it would be nice to have one today, theres always a tradeoff that has to be made especially when driver work this intense has to be done. Couple that with the recent launch of NVIDIAs G80 GPU and the decision was made to focus on DX9 and XP drivers in order to make the G80s launch as solid as possible, and commit to delivering an 8800 driver by Vistas launch.
When the driver is eventually available NVIDIA expects performance to be at par, slightly slower or slightly faster than the XP driver. What weve seen thus far from other Vista drivers is that performance is slower almost entirely across the board. As stability is currently the primary goal for both ATI and NVIDIA, many compiler optimizations and performance tweaks arent being used in order to get a good driver out in time for Vistas launch......"
xenon expert
Limp Gawd
- Joined
- Nov 11, 2004
- Messages
- 167
I think it's time I buy a game console and leave my computer for serious stuff. I'm tired of spending money on new hardware that are at the top of their class for only a few months max. One high end video gaming card buys me a whole console setup....this is getting ridiculous. Plus with this whole Vista driver issue...My 7900GTX is probably the last high end card I bought.
My sig is old...I know.
My sig is old...I know.
I can say I am fairly angry myself about this whole thing.
I just finished building a new machine for both my wife and myself, Core2duo and 8800GTS, first time in years I have had a non AMD machine. I built these machines specifically for Vista, I used it in beta and enjoyed it highly. Given beta I expected driver problems and accepted that as such, I subscribed to the ideal of waiting until official launch.
Official launch is here, I have crap drivers, I am out an additional $800 between the two cards when I had 7900GT's that worked just fine, I have a Vista OS that is plagued with problems unless I take the 8800 out and put the 7900 back in, and to be frank about it, I am more then just a little pissed off. If nvidia is not going to deliver Drivers and fast, I am going to return the bleeding cards and just wait until drivers are fixed and I will likely save some money buying them later anyhow. I am angry because I spent an additional fairly large chunk of change to experience DX10, and Vista to its fullest, now I get told effectively to go piss up a rope and we "Might" have something by march. The way I see it, this is ATI's chance to pony up a top notch card and swing some market share back their way. I would snatch up a top performing ATI DX10 card right now vs waiting till march or later in a minute. I have owned top level Nvidia cards for many years now...as stated in the article, I will remember this for a long time to come.
I just finished building a new machine for both my wife and myself, Core2duo and 8800GTS, first time in years I have had a non AMD machine. I built these machines specifically for Vista, I used it in beta and enjoyed it highly. Given beta I expected driver problems and accepted that as such, I subscribed to the ideal of waiting until official launch.
Official launch is here, I have crap drivers, I am out an additional $800 between the two cards when I had 7900GT's that worked just fine, I have a Vista OS that is plagued with problems unless I take the 8800 out and put the 7900 back in, and to be frank about it, I am more then just a little pissed off. If nvidia is not going to deliver Drivers and fast, I am going to return the bleeding cards and just wait until drivers are fixed and I will likely save some money buying them later anyhow. I am angry because I spent an additional fairly large chunk of change to experience DX10, and Vista to its fullest, now I get told effectively to go piss up a rope and we "Might" have something by march. The way I see it, this is ATI's chance to pony up a top notch card and swing some market share back their way. I would snatch up a top performing ATI DX10 card right now vs waiting till march or later in a minute. I have owned top level Nvidia cards for many years now...as stated in the article, I will remember this for a long time to come.
Enduring_Warrior
[H]ard|Gawd
- Joined
- Sep 22, 2004
- Messages
- 1,973
OK, how about having to reboot your PC, every time it goes into suspend/sleep mode. Due to nvidia's lack of testing before releasing these buggy drivers on THEIR hardware. Yes, it's nvidia's hardware that we are talking about. nvidia develops drivers to work with THEIR hardware, and when it doesn't work, customers who spent money on THEIR hardware are gonna be pissed.
That is exactly how they (the customers) are being deprived.
Well in the end I think everyone is right and everyone is wrong.
The ones that feel cheated cause of Nvidias (and I quote the inquirer here on Pentium IV@10GHz) Marchitecture, referring to a promise not yet fullfilled are right they have been cheated.
The people who are only reasoning and thinking that the drivers are not yet needed are also needed and also right. It's naive and pointless to throw your money into fully field untested technology. And believe me its gonna get every time longer and longer to fulfill promises as the technology gets more and more complicated and stranded. But if it wasn't for those naive enough to get Vista right now it'll never get mature. So please bear and listen to the complainers. They suffer because of their hardcore fever and their naiveness or lack of consciousness, and at the same time are indispensable for the industry right now.
Its counterintuitive but its true.