Where are my NVIDIA Drivers for Vista?

I don't think Nvidia has been resting on their laurels. They are, and probably have been, working on these drivers as fast as they can.

What really needs to happen is to get the marketing department to stop writing checks the driver coding department can't cash.
 
Riptide_NVN said:
I don't think Nvidia has been resting on their laurels. They are, and probably have been, working on these drivers as fast as they can.

What really needs to happen is to get the marketing department to stop writing checks the driver coding department can't cash.
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I posted this over at nForums but I can't think of any way to put it better:

I find nVidia's silence disheartening considering all the "Vista Ready" marketing that went on. I mean we wouldn't have any idea unless Kyle from HardOCP didn't shake them down. I mean, I don't expect a big "we dropped the ball" banner across their homepage. Maybe just a little link titled "A message to all our loyal customers" which would lead to page outlining any problems they are having and that they are diligently working on them. I don't even expect an ETA of any sort just an acknowledgment of what their customers want and expect from them. Not Silence. :rolleyes:

And of course with any new OS there are going to be driver issues and people and their "outdated" hardware being left behind (my ISA slot modem doesn't work). I think that the time between beta 2 and now would be sufficient to get out a forceware package that covered DX9 compatibility from FX5200 and up. To not have support at least that far back is unacceptable. I figure they would be writing and compiling XP and Vista drivers concurrently (much like apple had versions of OS X for PowerPC and x86 for almost five before doing the switch). :confused:

And SLI, their bread and butter gaming technology should work (bugs and all) for all previous compatible cards now.... :eek:
 
Doesn't bother me.. I don't plan on upgrading to vista anytime soon at all.
 
Prior to my 8800GTX my last nVidia card was GeForce 4. I was a huge 3Dfx fan back in the day, and long resented nVidia for all the shady crap they pulled with "tuning" their drivers to allow their cards to appear to benchmark better. So even that GeForce 4 was hard to swallow at the time. Then it was ATI 9800 Pro, followed by X800XT. I was just about to get a X1950XTX when the 8800GTX was announced. As much as I didn't want to go back to nVidia, the idea of such a powerful card, plus DX10 support was too much to resist.

So here I am, nearly two months after purchasing my 8800GTX, and over a month after getting Windows Vista, and all I have are BETA drivers. I feel like I've been scammed, like I've been sold something under false pretenses. I doubt I'll buy another nVidia card for a long time.

Vista was in BETA for most of 2006. The RC1 was released in September, RC2 in October, and RTM was in November. So nvidia has had *plenty* of time to work on drivers. Hell, they've had two full months with final release Vista, and yet they still can't get it right. What the hell have they been doing for a year?
 
I just put together a new system today with an 8800GTS and Vista. To say that I'm disappointed with the driver situation is an understatement. Talk about not standing behind your product. Sheesh...
 
I've been running Vista on various machines since build 5040. I have run nearly every build. I understood that it was a beta OS, and I understood that drivers would be immature. Even back then, ATI's drivers were better - ATI had WDDM drivers first, their drivers are faster (both for gaming and general Aero Glass use). But that was OK. I was running an unsupported configuration, so I accepted the flaws.

Fast forward to today. Vista RTM isn't all that different from the December 2005 CTP. Tweaked, bugfixed, and polished - yes - but not vastly different.

Yet, here we are, 14 months after the December CTP (which had, among other things, the Aero Glass UI and full WDDM support). And NVIDIA's drivers still suck. There's no other way to slice it - they are buggy, slow, and incomplete. I still can't change the display scaling settings (BIG problem on my notebook), antialiasing settings don't work properly, PureVideo doesn't work, PowerMizer doesn't work, nor do most of the other features I expect from an NVIDIA GPU.

AMD's Catalyst 7.1 for Vista is - with few exceptions - as good as its XP counterpart. The same cannot be said for Forceware. Forceware has been going downhill for years (seperate 8800GTX driver bullshit, crappy new control panel), but it still astounds me that NVIDIA would put out something this bad.

So, screw you NVIDIA. Vista has been in the works for over five years. You have had at least a year to produce a driver that doesn't completely suck.

My Realtek ALC250 audio in my notebook works fine. So does the RTL8169 Ethernet, Intel PRO/Wireless 2915, webcam, chipset, SD reader, modem (to my knolwedge), touchpad, USB, and everything else. The only thing in the notebook with incomplete, buggy drivers is the NVIDIA graphics.

I'm going to buy a new PCIe graphics card in the next 6 months (DX10). Unless NVIDIA gets their drivers in line SOON, it's going to be a Radeon.
 
I think I can use my PC for e-mail and stuff now without driver errors. I loaded the 100.59 drivers then turned off everything in the 3D panel. I mead set everything to the basic, no, off, force off settings.

It works for now. I have a whole hour of stability on my quad core 680i 8800 gtx system.

I wonder how all these places were able to run benchmarks and pump the 8800 when I can barely get it to run. I can't even use areo. Areo is way to advanced for nVidia in feb 2007.
 
I am running the 100.59 's without issue with Areo running in all it glory. Granted that i have not had time to really put them to work but I have full functionality and acceptable enough performance to keep me in the game a little longer. I must admit that if R600 is compelling enough and Nvidia does not have its shit together by the time of its release, I will be jumping to Red.

I suspect that will be the case for most of us. Nvidia must be aware of this virtual deadline and is most likely working 24/7 to avoid such a circumstance
 
I honestly believe that nVidia does not care if they have drivers ready soon. They know that a small percentage of customers, those of us that live here on the [H] and are enthusiasts, will either wait for drivers or go to ATI.

"Well, they will lose us as a customer if we jump to ATI right?" Not entirely. Many will move to ATI for a while, and then come back to nVidia. Most people want to stay on teh cutting edge and will jump back and forth with little consequence. So both major players will get our business one way or another.
 
MrFace said:
Moral of the story: Don't buy Vista.


nVidia isn't the only company that is having driver issues.
Click to expand...

Moral of the story :

Hardware manufacturers are incompetent. Vista has been available to them for a YEAR+ in one level or another. There is no reason they can't have written an acceptable driver in this time.

If I knew the hardware intimately, I could have done so, and I'm only an AMATEUR coder.

Nvidia is a multibillion dollar company. (As are amd, ati, etc..)

It's not as if microsoft has been hiding the way things are done in vista. Why does ATI have a functional driver, and nvidia does not?


The real moral of the story is .. "don't expect companies to live up to their promises"



seanmcd said:
Do you people not see the 100.59 drivers on Nvidia.com?
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Yes, we see them. But, you don't seem to understand that these drivers are incomplete.

NVIDIA said:
Release Highlights:

* Beta driver for NVIDIA SLI™ support for GeForce 8800 GTX/GTS GPUs
* This driver supports the following features:
o Single GPU support
+ DirectX 9 support for GeForce 6/7/8 series GPUs
+ DirectX 10 support for GeForce 8800 GPUs
+ OpenGL support for GeForce 6/7/8 series GPUs
o NVIDIA SLI support
+ DirectX 9 support for GeForce 8800 GPUs
+ OpenGL support for GeForce 8800 GPUs
* DirectX 9 and OpenGL NVIDIA SLI support for GeForce 6 and 7 series GPUs and DirectX 10 NVIDIA SLI support for GeForce 8800 GPUs will be available in a future driver
Click to expand...

This means : No or Unstable SLI DX10 Capabilities. For the next several months, most likely.
Flaky single GPU dx10
Flaky single GPU dx9
Flaky single GPU openGL
Flaky SLI dx9
Flaky SLI openGL

System goes to sleep? reboot it, cause it's not coming back up.

Yet, somehow, ati was able to get a working, WDDM, crossfire, dx10 solution, that's actually quick, all this while being taken over by amd.

Now, as an owner of a SINGLE 8800 series card. I am glad I can finally turn on aero, and run above 1024x768 without using a hacked driver.
 
seanmcd said:
sorry, I think every argument is about 8800 series drivers :D
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well, in this channel, maybe.

Hows it sit with you that S3 has vista certified drivers, but nVIDIA doesn't?
BTW, the s3 "chrome" cards [yes, performance wise, they are probably inferior] even have a CABLELESS/CONNECTORLESS multiGPU bridging technology, that works, in vista, with a certified driver.
 
This driver barely works. Constant failures. Time to return the 8800 to Newegg and use my old ATI Radeon and just wait a few months for other DX10 choices. Maybe get a Cyrsis bundle with it.
 
Well, let me put it this way: is there anyone in here that thinks complaining about this is going to make a new driver come out faster? Or do you think nVidia is working as fast as possible?

I think this argument is pointless...
 
CyberDeus-RagDoll said:
Yet, somehow, ati was able to get a working, WDDM, crossfire, dx10 solution, that's actually quick, all this while being taken over by amd.
Click to expand...

ATi does NOT have a working dx10 solution. A small but perhaps significant point in all this.

CyberDeus-RagDoll said:
Hows it sit with you that S3 has vista certified drivers, but nVIDIA doesn't?
BTW, the s3 "chrome" cards [yes, performance wise, they are probably inferior] even have a CABLELESS/CONNECTORLESS multiGPU bridging technology, that works, in vista, with a certified driver.
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I must admit, the S3 Chrome news was like salt in the wound for the nVidia situation, but still definitely good for a laugh. "We're a has-been, irrelevant GPU company with a staff of three counting the mailroom clerk, and 'technology capable of running last millenium's games today'(tm), but we have a stable, certified Vista driver and you don't!" That has got to hurt.
 
quadster mad said:
This driver barely works. Constant failures. Time to return the 8800 to Newegg and use my old ATI Radeon and just wait a few months for other DX10 choices. Maybe get a Cyrsis bundle with it.
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This is a little extreme. The G80 cards are the fastest consumer level graphics cards you can purchase today. Period. I'd advise holding out for a better driver. Just because NVIDIA has dropped the ball so far with the 8800 doesn't mean that it will be this way forever. I think real working drivers for Vista are coming soon.

I understand the desire that some people have to run Vista today, and I understand that when you want something you want it now.

I want to upgrade to Vista more than most people. I am tired of looking at Windows XP. For 10 years I have been working in the computer industry as a technician or in the IT world or sometimes both. Five years of that time or so I've been dealing with literally thousands of Windows XP systems I've had my fill of it. I want something new just because it's old. I've used the Beta of Vista since it was released to the public on a limited basis a few months ago. I actually like it and it ran great on my machines that I tested it with.

Even so, my computer not only is used for my motherboard reviews but playing games as well. While I want Vista, game playing is the primary thing I use my PC for. I am unsure if Vista is going to work half ass decently given the current state of drivers. I don't know that I will be able to rely on it for my motherboard review work or even for playing games. So when I install Vista I'll do it on a spare drive and I'll "test drive" it to see how well it will work for me. I'd advise that anyone chomping at the bit to install Vista take similar precautions like I have and be preppared to revert back to Windows XP if it gets ugly.

Anyone who installed Vista on or near launch day and expect to depend on it and have decent drivers, stability and or whatever is delusional. It is absolutely insane to expect Vista to work for all your needs right now. Frankly, while I think it's reasonable to purchase something that's been in development for five years and expect it to work nearly perfectly, that is just not realistic. History tells us that such a scenario won't happen and it obviously hasn't. While I don't think this is Microsoft's fault necessarily or completely it certainly is the fault of the hardware manufacturers who needed to give us better and complete (or in some cases available) drivers.

Like Windows 2000 and Windows XP before it, it will take time for Vista's drivers to improve to the point where performance and stability match those of Windows XP. NVIDIA not having their drivers in better shape than this is hard to forgive and is dissappointing to say the least. It's a bad move on their part and no excuses they have can soften the blow of that to the consumer.

Two things need to happen now: Hardware companies need to get off their dead asses and get these driver issues solved. The second thing is forum posters need to chill out and wait for new drivers. Vista will get better, faster, more reliable and the hardware companies will get their drivers completed and in working order. Unfortunaely, it will take some time for this to happen.

If you are dumb enough to load Vista on your only computer, or a computer you use for work, a computer you need to depend on for any reason, or even on a gaming computer I don't feel sorry for you because you made a stupid decision. Shame on Microsoft and the hardware companies for not making this experience better out of the gate, but shame on your for expecting that they would and trusting them to do so.
 
seanmcd said:
Do you people not see the 100.59 drivers on Nvidia.com?
Click to expand...


I suppose I should have been more specific:

I have the 100.59 drivers but apparently YOU do not see that there are many gaping holes in them. They are incomplete and they are a "quick" fix for a glaring problem.
 
Dan_D said:
If you are dumb enough to load Vista on your only computer, or a computer you use for work, a computer you need to depend on for any reason, or even on a gaming computer I don't feel sorry for you because you made a stupid decision. Shame on Microsoft and the hardware companies for not making this experience better out of the gate, but shame on your for expecting that they would and trusting them to do so.
Click to expand...


I understand what your saying with your post but the statement above is just pure BS. If nvidia claims this ( http://www.nvidia.com/page/home.html ) on their web page then they should be able to deliver. Shame on them for deceiving their customers. To say shame on us for expecting that they would deliver a product that works with Vista is irresponsible, especially with their statement that their products are essential for the best vista experience. With your logic, we shouldn't be buying redesigned, latest model cars then because it is too much to expect them to make the "experience better out of the gate". Instead we should expect those cars to only intermittently work and if the brake goes and we end up in the hospital, well shame on us because we shouldn't have expected the damned thing to work out of the gate. BS!
 
^eMpTy^ said:
Well, let me put it this way: is there anyone in here that thinks complaining about this is going to make a new driver come out faster? Or do you think nVidia is working as fast as possible?

I think this argument is pointless...
Click to expand...

Bad rep at the hardware elite is probably not something Nvidia is craving, so yes, I believe this thread and argument is more than valid. Right now they've shown something that has been underway for years: Their "superior driversupport" is a bleak ghost of the former glory .
 
quadster mad said:
This driver barely works. Constant failures. Time to return the 8800 to Newegg and use my old ATI Radeon and just wait a few months for other DX10 choices. Maybe get a Cyrsis bundle with it.
Click to expand...


I think you need to check your system build methods and overall knowledge. I am no big time expert or anything, but my rig is running fast, stable, and all of my games play at a fairly acceptable rate, yes, less than 10% slower than the fastest XP speeds...but no graphical issues or crashes.

If you can't get your 8800 series card to run decent on the 100.59 driver....you need to look in the mirror....
 
^eMpTy^ said:
Well, let me put it this way: is there anyone in here that thinks complaining about this is going to make a new driver come out faster? Or do you think nVidia is working as fast as possible?

I think this argument is pointless...
Click to expand...

So we should just ignore the issues and not discuss such things at all?

Personally I think that unwise.
 
I agree 100% with this article.
To the people that say 'wait a while to upgrade to Vista' I say I have been waiting. I have been putting off buying a new PC until dual cores were fast (done) a good DX-10 GPU came out (done) and Vista came out (done) I had planned on ordering this week! I wanted to run 2 G80s in SLI on Vista and I thought Nvidia had that covered as I did see the DX10 ready ads. I think that I and others have a right to be, uhm, upset.
 
TheRapture said:
I think you need to check your system build methods and overall knowledge. I am no big time expert or anything, but my rig is running fast, stable, and all of my games play at a fairly acceptable rate, yes, less than 10% slower than the fastest XP speeds...but no graphical issues or crashes.

If you can't get your 8800 series card to run decent on the 100.59 driver....you need to look in the mirror....
Click to expand...

Well...Throw another 8800 in your system (SLI) than tell me how well the 100.59 driver is doing....hence my issue....plus what about the 95% of the masses that have SLI..They all have 6 series or 7 series cards....the are SOL....

-M
 
teenk said:
I understand what your saying with your post but the statement above is just pure BS. If nvidia claims this ( http://www.nvidia.com/page/home.html ) on their web page then they should be able to deliver. Shame on them for deceiving their customers. To say shame on us for expecting that they would deliver a product that works with Vista is irresponsible, especially with their statement that their products are essential for the best vista experience. With your logic, we shouldn't be buying redesigned, latest model cars then because it is too much to expect them to make the "experience better out of the gate". Instead we should expect those cars to only intermittently work and if the brake goes and we end up in the hospital, well shame on us because we shouldn't have expected the damned thing to work out of the gate. BS!
Click to expand...

I understand what you are saying. I agree with what you are saying about NVIDIA and not delivering on their promises. What I am saying is That I think people are overreacting to this and blowing the problem somewhat out of proportion. I think anyone upgrading to Vista for a production machine, or a machine that has to be depended on, is a fool. Like me, if you throw Vista on your box, you need to have a backup plan just in case something doesn't work right and you need to go back to Windows XP.

In a perfect world the Vista drivers would be better and it would be relatively safe to install right now. The fact is that history has shown us otherwise. Yes NVIDIA dropped the ball on this. I don't think they deceived the customers, I just think they fell short of reaching their goals. I doubt some evil goatee having super villian was sitting there in a meeting sayig, "let;s release Vista Ready cards that can't be used with Vista, or at least let's release shitty drivers and take three months to fix them." That sort of thing does not happen. (Not to my knowledge anyway.) So while NVIDIA screwed up, it isn't the end of the world. I can understand people's rage on this issue and I share it. I want to ditch XP really badly myself.
 
culthuu said:
I just got my 8800 GTS yesterday and today I installed Vista business. Even though I've been using Longhorn and Vista betas for two years I'm not ready to start any serious gaming on Vista until I'm more comfortable with it. The beta driver seems to work good for general use and until then I'll continue to dual boot with XP. I can say I'm a lot more irritated with ATI/AMD for not releasing any TV tuner drivers for any of their All In Wonder cards. I've got three of them and I'll never be able to use them in the Vista MCE. Now I learn that drivers for Vista will never be coming and the entire All In Wonder line has been dropped. That may just be a rumor but I've never had much use for AMD and this just reinforces my belief they're capable of screwing just about anything up,.
Click to expand...

I have an ATI 650 and it works in MCE. I could not get it to work until I ran the setup within the MCE application. Give it a try.
 
Dan_D said:
In a perfect world the Vista drivers would be better and it would be relatively safe to install right now. The fact is that history has shown us otherwise. Yes NVIDIA dropped the ball on this. I don't think they deceived the customers, I just think they fell short of reaching their goals.
Click to expand...
While I understand your point, I submit, respectfully then, that nVidia's home page should not currently say:

NVIDIA: Essential for the Best Windows Vista Experience

and should not until they are better at obtaining a good Windows Vista Experience. Until they have a non-beta driver (with working SLI support), I believe that marketing-speak like this, in their current situation, is deceptive.

I'd agree that most enthusiasts could see through such hype, but that doesn't make such marketing right, either. It's like a company that hypes the features of their software, so you buy it, find that feature is broken, and then notice fine print on the company's website that notifies you that some people may experience issues with these features, and that until a (listed for the future) 1.0a patch is released, the feature they touted will not be fully supported.

I'd cut nVidia a lot more slack if their marketing didn't seem so deceptive, and if they admitted mistakes to users when they made them. A simple "We goofed, and here's our timetable to make it right" would suffice for me, but I doubt that will ever happen in a marketing department --and perhaps the legal dept. wouldn't let it happen, either.
 
Some have posted they get the 100.59 to work. So, please tell the world how to get it to work. Maybe my selection of hardware is just not suited for 100.59?? Maybe I have settings all wrong?

I spent 6K on this:
Dell 30 and 20 inch monitors (yep, need the high res)
Asus P5n32 sli (what a name but I am not overclocking and tring to just make it stable)
Thermalake 700 watt power (just one HD and DVD)
G8800 GTX
Quadcore (yeah it rocks)
OZC memory (It was $399 a pair, very good level. I have 4GB and I am not overclocking, just 667 with the voltage and timings from their website)

So, if I stick my old ATI card and run 7.1, perfect. but if I try my 8800GTX, I get driver failures every 5 seconds. Can't read e-mail.

So, some of you make fun that I did not know what I was doing. So tell me, what settings do I need to get 100.59 stable like you say your's is. Or are you just a shill for nVidia and 100.59 just does not work for anyone.

Remember, I just want my single Dell 30 running under areo with business apps and no constant failures. That is all. And before you flame me, thanks in advance if you have any ideas that will help. I just wanted the fastest workstation using vista 32 I could spend 6K on.
 
defuseme2k said:
What about the huge post on the last page about the DRM and how it affects the drivers. While it might not be an excuse, that is certainly interesting. Wouldn't it be damning if we got a public statement from nvidia/ati confirming this and it was posted on hardocp making headlines. DRM isn't all bad, but this just stinks of the mess sony had with their rootkits. It shouldn't be affecting shit to this level, and Microsoft is to blame here. They should answer for that, just like sony did, in the bank account.
Click to expand...
Thanks defuseme2k
I wish people would read what Peter Gutman wrote in his article about DRM and how it would effect graphics cards in Windows Vista. All of this because of "Trusted Computing" and making sure you cannot capture the video or the sound stream unmolested and make pirated DVD's or CD's

He predicted that this would be a suicide note for MS and would cause hardware vendors endless problems writing the code necessary to pass MS's new standards for DRM content protection in their drivers.

The following links demonstrate what nvidia is dealing with in writing drivers for Vista:

Output Content Protection and Windows Vista
Longhorn Output Content Protection
How To Implement Windows Vista Content Output Protection
Protected Media Path and Driver Interoperability Requirements
All the encryption of the video signal is mandatory or NVIDIA, ATI or any other hardware manufacturers cannot get drivers approved by MS for Vista.

Because people here are game oriented, they probably do not think about this very seriously but the content protection measures effect all video cards and sound cards that intend to be allowed to work with VISTA.

I just looked at the front page for NVIDIA http://www.nvidia.com/page/home.html that teenk posted and not only is it an insult right now it should be taken down until they can demonstrate it.
(Talk about false advertising)

They still have not fixed my 7600GT installing 3 phantom monitors in device manager in XP and I returned my 8800GTX because I have no intention of getting stuck with a $500 hunk of silicon if they cannot fix the drivers for Vista.

I cannot even watch HD on my so called vista ready 24 inch LCD because they changed the HDCP specs before launch. My screen goes black when I click on any HD content and it refers me to nvidia for new drivers.
NVIDIA has alot to explain but I suspect MS is the one that is responsible for most of the problems due to the DRM they are shoving down everyones throats.
Vista is not ready for prime time and if they do not get DRM out of the OS, it will never be ready.
 
quadster mad said:
Some have posted they get the 100.59 to work. So, please tell the world how to get it to work. Maybe my selection of hardware is just not suited for 100.59?? Maybe I have settings all wrong?
Click to expand...
I am not trying to be a smart ass but I returned mine.
Have you thought about that possibility and just cut your losses and get another card down the road.
 
Dan_D said:
I understand what you are saying. I agree with what you are saying about NVIDIA and not delivering on their promises. What I am saying is That I think people are overreacting to this and blowing the problem somewhat out of proportion. I think anyone upgrading to Vista for a production machine, or a machine that has to be depended on, is a fool. Like me, if you throw Vista on your box, you need to have a backup plan just in case something doesn't work right and you need to go back to Windows XP.

In a perfect world the Vista drivers would be better and it would be relatively safe to install right now. The fact is that history has shown us otherwise. Yes NVIDIA dropped the ball on this. I don't think they deceived the customers, I just think they fell short of reaching their goals. I doubt some evil goatee having super villian was sitting there in a meeting sayig, "let;s release Vista Ready cards that can't be used with Vista, or at least let's release shitty drivers and take three months to fix them." That sort of thing does not happen. (Not to my knowledge anyway.) So while NVIDIA screwed up, it isn't the end of the world. I can understand people's rage on this issue and I share it. I want to ditch XP really badly myself.
Click to expand...


Agree. By the time it matters ( a real DX10 application ) there's a very good chance that we will have drivers.

SLI Users: PULL OUT ONE OF THE CARDS FOR NOW. Use the 100.59's. It's also my understanding that 64bit vista can use 32bit WHQL drivers, has anyone tried those? Even if (SLI) doesn't work, you can just use one card for now. Chances are good in just a few months you will be able to put it back in.

The Nvidia 'marketing' that says 'Vista Ready': Well I think it is good to know that when buying a product it is going to be capable of running Vista, DX10, Aeroglass to the fullest. At the moment the only real hardware that can do this IS the 8800GPU. I can agree to be a dissapointed it isn't 100% ready yet driver wise.

When I think of what 'Vista Ready' means to me, is that once the drivers are done, this will be a full on DX10 + Vista card, HDCP, etc. The statement is actually rather vague, and doesn't directly imply DX10, or HDCP support. I do believe they will in fact add all these features to the drivers as soon as they can. If I bothered to read the fine print, it very likely says something like "not all features may be available in all driver versions.." or something to that effect. So for saying they "Promised" one thing and did another, you should read all the print before turning your underwear brown. (Of course I might be wrong, I have not actually read the fine print myself)

"But they've had 4 years<-->1 years to get this driver working?!?!" Not exactly. The OS ship date has kept moving. The Vista OS had a large portion gutted and was re-written from the ground up half-way thru development. The RTM goal was to get the list of known bugs to less than 500 (yet another thing causing the ship date to shift). The 8800 GPU is a totally new architechture that came out when, November 8th? In reality they have probably had 4 maybe 5 months maximum for 8800 (Vista) driver work, starting from scratch. No small part of this whole problem must be blamed on Microsoft. The goal is Less than 500 bugs, and good enough lets ship? A moving target for a ship date, gutting the code, forcing DRM crap for the RIAA's of Hollywood on everything Vista... all of this has had to have an impact on driver coding, especially for the DX10 parts. Aeroglass is 3d/embedded into the core of the OS, and has to be the touchiest, toughest part of Vista to have to deal with from a hardware driver standpoint.

The reality is, 4 to 6 months Crysis will be out, and theres a very very good chance both ATI and Nvidia will have fairly decent DX10 support by then. The smart thing to do for now with Vista is DUAL BOOT XP. If you were naive enough to believe that your applications would all just "work" under vista (out of the gate), you shouldn't be buying high end video cards or building your own shit to begin with. Let's say for argument's sake, Nvidia had fully working DX10 drivers with SLI for everything, today. Well guess what, then next fucking problem would be *insert your favorite game here* not working quite right under vista, or UT2k7 isn't Anti-aliasing!?!?!, or something else. When an OS is this new, if it isn't one thing, it's another.

I think you should all chill out a bit. Nvidia drivers have historically been excellent. Ati drivers have been ass in the past, but finally started coming on par with nvidia's quality this last year and a half. Chances are both are working hard on the drivers for Vista, and I fully expect both to deliver in due time.

GoodBoy
 
LoneWolf said:
While I understand your point, I submit, respectfully then, that nVidia's home page should not currently say:

NVIDIA: Essential for the Best Windows Vista Experience

and should not until they are better at obtaining a good Windows Vista Experience. Until they have a non-beta driver (with working SLI support), I believe that marketing-speak like this, in their current situation, is deceptive.

I'd agree that most enthusiasts could see through such hype, but that doesn't make such marketing right, either. It's like a company that hypes the features of their software, so you buy it, find that feature is broken, and then notice fine print on the company's website that notifies you that some people may experience issues with these features, and that until a (listed for the future) 1.0a patch is released, the feature they touted will not be fully supported.

I'd cut nVidia a lot more slack if their marketing didn't seem so deceptive, and if they admitted mistakes to users when they made them. A simple "We goofed, and here's our timetable to make it right" would suffice for me, but I doubt that will ever happen in a marketing department --and perhaps the legal dept. wouldn't let it happen, either.
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To that I would agree.
 
quadster mad said:
This driver barely works. Constant failures. Time to return the 8800 to Newegg and use my old ATI Radeon and just wait a few months for other DX10 choices. Maybe get a Cyrsis bundle with it.
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I think returning your video card to newegg based on the fact that it doesn't work with the O/S you wish to use it with is irresponsible.
 
Someone should call the geek squad and tell them that their new computer won't work in sli with 8800's.
Maybe they can fix it...
I am curious as to what they would say, or charge...:D
 
CyberDeus-RagDoll said:
I think returning your video card to newegg based on the fact that it doesn't work with the O/S you wish to use it with is irresponsible.
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How so? NE will charge a restocking fee just to make you think about such decisions. It falls within their return policy if he's within time constraints and other return requirements and if the products DON'T work as they are supposed to then I think it's the customer's call if he wants to keep it. The issues are not just with Vista either as good XP support isn't really there either.

I've got a number of gaming customers that just had to jump on board with 8800s and of course now Vista too. Oh, the XP drivers leave a lot to be desired at this point also. I held off the 8800 for this very reason. Given how as the article this discussion hangs off of points out how NVidia isn't refraining from marketing something they can't deliver I don't get all the defense of them in this discussion.
 
GoodBoy said:
Agree. By the time it matters ( a real DX10 application ) there's a very good chance that we will have drivers.

SLI Users: PULL OUT ONE OF THE CARDS FOR NOW. Use the 100.59's. It's also my understanding that 64bit vista can use 32bit WHQL drivers, has anyone tried those? Even if (SLI) doesn't work, you can just use one card for now. Chances are good in just a few months you will be able to put it back in.

snip

GoodBoy
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This is what I've suggested to customers with Vista at this point. However, it's hard for them to stomach pulling a $800 card out of their system and putting it on the shelf in a box for a "few months" (or who knows how long) when they will all likely sell for a lot less than they do now.
 
woofagooba said:
Oh, the XP drivers leave a lot to be desired at this point also. I held off the 8800 for this very reason. Given how as the article this discussion hangs off of points out how NVidia isn't refraining from marketing something they can't deliver I don't get all the defense of them in this discussion.
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The card is out, there ARE indeed drivers out, you DON't have to buy one, so shut up about it. The FACT is, the majority of us 8800 owners are enjoying the card because even though the drivers are rough right now, they perform decent and the card is STILL the fastest out by a wide margin.


For fucks sake, the 100.59 drivers work acceptable, that is, if you have a clue about system setup.
 
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