[fellix]

Download and Release Highlights: http://www.geforce.com/drivers/results/45970

[John Reynolds]

Broke Diablo 3 for me.

Edit: Fixed it by forcing triple buffering and vsync in the CP.

[Grall]

Quite unrelated really, but why start a whole new thread about it?

Nvidia has released a utility to force PCIe 3.0 for GTX 680 users on Sandybridge-E platforms. They warn it might not work in all systems, due to signal timing variations or somesuch.

[Davros]

Have you noticed how different a geforce driver release post is from a catalyst release post

[Broken Hope]

Yeah, a lot less complaining :P The only bug I've found with these drivers is that hardware cursor in a few games, including WoW seems to be bugged, but they already posted on the forum that it's being fixed for the next release.

Though the main thing I noticed about Nvidia driver releases is that they actually have Nvidia staff taking bug reports and posting if they have been fixed or not and asking for more info.

AMD you just fill out a form and hope they fix it.

[fellix]

Originally Posted by Broken Hope

Though the main thing I noticed about Nvidia driver releases is that they actually have Nvidia staff taking bug reports and posting if they have been fixed or not and asking for more info.

AMD you just fill out a form and hope they fix it.

Yeah, there are at least two NV support chaps out there, directly in touch with the community. Recently one of them confirmed that the DX10/11 LOD adjustment issue is being looked at, after the vocal "petition" campaign.
I too find NV's driver releases of late very quiet on the trouble's front, even the beta drivers. The only serious issues I had was actually linked to rare instability with the Flash content in some sites w/ HW acceleration turned on.

[I.S.T.]

Originally Posted by Davros

Have you noticed how different a geforce driver release post is from a catalyst release post

At this point in time, I think it's partly because AMD's got a rep. When serious bugs happen there, people get more pissed off because AMD tends to keep doing it(RAGE, anyone). Nvidia's ultra serious bugs tend to be less noticed or complained about, even when they are far worse(They've put out drivers that fry cards not once but twice. WHQLs no less. Admittedly the second only effected one card, but still).

Of course, Nvidia tends to fix hyper severe issues faster(keyword being tends. I'm sure there are examples of serious issues lingering in their drivers, but the publicly reviled ones are usually fixed faster).

Really, I don't think it's a question of resources on their respective driver teams so much as how they are directed. I have no doubt that plenty of very, very smart people are working at AMD's driver division. It's just that they were misdirected years ago, and really only in the last two years are we feeling the full effects of it. When the original announcement about the monthly WHQLs came out, nearly everyone on both sides of the aisle thought it was a good idea. I thought it was brilliant at least.

It took experience to prove all of us wrong. The main problem after we were proven wrong, IMO, is how long it took AMD to respond to their(IMO) very, very smart idea not working as intended. After the third month of RAGE hotfixes, they should have announced the bimonthly schedule.

There seems to be a certain... lagging when it comes to AMD driver decisions. I'm not sure what to make of it. Perhaps a too conservative corporate structure there? I don't know, and frankly unless any of us has insider info on AMD, we can't be certain what the issue there is. Speculating would just makes us all look like jackasses.

On a final note: if anything I've said here offends any of the assuredly many AMD employees reading this forum, I apologize. It's all uninformed speculation and opinion.

[Davros]

I think part of the problem was having 2 teams working on different drivers at the same time a fix would be issued and in the next driver it would disappear.

also humus thinks the big opengl rewrite was a bad idea and cost them a year maybe 2
http://www.humus.name/index.php?page=News&ID=351

[I.S.T.]

Originally Posted by Davros

I think part of the problem was having 2 teams working on different drivers at the same time a fix would be issued and in the next driver it would disappear.

also humus thinks the big opengl rewrite was a bad idea and cost them a year maybe 2
http://www.humus.name/index.php?page=News&ID=351

All that does really is back up my point about enough resources but not properly directing them.

[homerdog]

It is sad though about the AMD driver situation. I would love to put a 7850 in my upcoming build, but AMD graphics hardware is completely off the table at this point. Not only because of their lagging support for newly released titles, but NVIDIA drivers have gotten especially awesome lately. I just got a huge feature drop for my oldschool GTX260. Most of the new stuff even works on my bro's 8800GT!

When I bought this GTX260, it was pretty much a tossup between it and a 4870. No doubt now that I made the right choice. What's the opposite of buyer's remorse?

[Svensk Viking]

homerdog, I know what you're talking about. I made the "wrong" choice, getting the HD4870(512mb tho) over the GTX260 The HD4870 also had DX10.1

Nvidia supporting older cards for longer, even with new features, definitely gives them a huge plus in my book

[gamervivek]

People should stop being such bigoted driverists. Both companies make good and bad drivers, just because the proportions are different doesn't mean that they should be stereotyped. All it leads to is internet fanboyism(and fangirlism) wars and pointless discrimination.
Underneath the logoed shiny sticker they are all plastic and silicon, same basic electronics, RGBA output, etc.

[trinibwoy]

Bigoted driverists? Lol

[UniversalTruth]

NV's incompetence has almost always led them to providing worse image quality. Maybe cheating to sustain higher frames per second, maybe something else but from historical point of view NV has always lagged in that compartment compared to ATi and Matrox.
Is it only drivers or the components on the PCB too?

[Alexko]

Originally Posted by trinibwoy

Bigoted driverists? Lol

I have to confess, I rather like it.

[I.S.T.]

Originally Posted by UniversalTruth

NV's incompetence has almost always led them to providing worse image quality. Maybe cheating to sustain higher frames per second, maybe something else but from historical point of view NV has always lagged in that compartment compared to ATi and Matrox.
Is it only drivers or the components on the PCB too?

I see you're about six years out of date. That went out the window with the Geforce 8800 GTX and later GPUs.

[UniversalTruth]

Originally Posted by I.S.T.

I see you're about six years out of date. That went out the window with the Geforce 8800 GTX and later GPUs.

You are saying this to me who has been using one 8000 series card and another which luckily I got rid of?

[homerdog]

NVIDIA has had better image quality than ATI since the 8800 days. I think maybe AMD has recently caught up.

This is common knowledge, it is scientifically measurable, and there has been much discussion here on B3D about it. Yes right here:
http://forum.beyond3d.com/showthread.php?t=57870

Originally Posted by Novum

That's a clear case of "brilinear" filtering. It's a performance cheat.

ATI is doing a heuristic detection in the driver to decide whether or not to use brilinear instead of real trilinear filtering. There is no option to turn this of, but to disable A.I. which will disable all app optimizations and cripples CrossFire to the point of uselessness.

There is also no way to disable "sample optimizations" on Radeons which cause texture flickering, because of undersampling of the line of anisotropy. R600 to RV770 were especially bad, RV870 takes more samples, but still not enough. Since R600 you can't get perfect sampling even if you disable A.I.

So yes, ATIs AF is broken and there is no way to get perfect quality on a 500$ board.

[ninelven]

Yes, the AF "optimization" was annoying for a very long time, but the issue has finally been resolved with the 7xxx series.

As for UT, he is the AMD version of Rollo. It is pointless to attempt to engage him in any reasonable conversation.

[UniversalTruth]

Originally Posted by ninelven

As for UT, he is the AMD version of Rollo. It is pointless to attempt to engage him in any reasonable conversation.

As for this opinion, I think it deserves a ban. You overstep the border so often and you are so mean. And when you have nothing in arguments to prove, then you make it personal.

Regarding quality- it's not only AF, I agree there might be some issues since R600 because of the underwhelming performance in general.
But there are also things like 2D, movie playback, etc.

In HQV Radeons have always scored better results.

[homerdog]

UniversalTruth, can you link me to some of the issues you are referring to? I am very familiar with the Radeon AF issues, but have never heard of any widespread complaints regarding NVIDIA 2D quality. This definitely interests me.

[Davros]

The only thing I can think of is some of the nv cards dont have full hardware decode, but thats not an iq problem

[swaaye]

AMD was called out for slow GUI performance during the 5000 series days. I think AMD addressed this though.
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/...-gdi,2547.html

Also, 780G had terrible XP GUI performance for awhile. As if it was in VESA mode.

Originally Posted by Davros

The only thing I can think of is some of the nv cards dont have full hardware decode, but thats not an iq problem

AMD is worse in that respect though, because Flash acceleration isn't supported on 2000-3000 cards whereas G84/G86 onward can do it.