Driver heaven is reporting that nVidia is using legal tactics to force the end of Omega drivers for nVidia products:
http://www.driverheaven.net/showthread.php?threadid=18877&s=
In a related story from the same source, DH has contacted ATi which has no objections to what the Omega guy has been doing--in fact, he's member of their driver beta-test pool! Talk about contrasts in attitude.
I visited the Omega site http://www.omegacorner.com/ and found no mention of this, but the site hasn't been updated since June 5, apparently. It seems like DH has something to do with the site, though I don't know what--as the site lists DH from its "forums" link.
I am not an Omega driver fan--I tried a set a couple of years ago with a nVidia product and found it degraded IQ for a little added performance (set trilinear to bi, and decreased LOD from what I noticed) and so I went back to the nVidia reference drivers and haven't tried a set since.
But if what DH alleges is true I certainly can't understand it. Why *now*--after the guy has been repackaging their drivers with custom .infs for literally years. What's happening now that nVidia finds so threatening about the Omega drivers (for cryin' out loud)?
Some of the Omega guy's comments might shed some light:
"THESE DRIVERS ARE COMPATIBLE WITH ALL NVIDIA CARDS THAT USE DETONATOR DRIVERS, IT DOESN'T MATTER IF THEY ARE DDR, SDR, PCI OR AGP.
THE DRIVERS WHERE MADE WITH QUALITY IN MIND, NOT SPEED, SO DON'T COMPLAIN IF YOU GET LOWER SCORES AT BENCHMARKS, THESE ARE MADE TO ENJOY GAMING AND TO INCREASE THE MOST NEEDED THING BY NVIDIA, TEXTURE QUALITY.
UPDATE:
I HAVE CHANGED THE INSTALL UTILITY TO INCLUDE TWO TYPES OF DRIVERS, ONE WITH QUALITY SETTINGS AND ANOTHER WITH PERFORMANCE SETTINGS. WHEN YOU INSTALL THE DRIVERS YOU WILL BE ASKED WHICH ONE YOU WISH TO USE.
1- THE QUALITY SET HAVE THE INCREASED QUALITY IN OPENGL AND D3D, AND THEY ARE A LITTLE BIT SLOWER THAN NVIDIA ONES.
2- THE PERFORMANCE SET HAS THE SAME VIDEO QUALITY AS THE NORMAL NVIDIA DRIVERS, BUT THEY INCLUDE OPTIMIZATIONS TO MAKE THEM FASTER THAN THE NVIDIA ONES.
BOTH SETS INCLUDE: ADDED RESOLUTIONS, COMPATIBILITY TWEAKS AND MORE OPTIONS THAN THE NORMAL NVIDIA DRIVERS.
ENJOY!"
On the face of it it seems nVidia is unhappy with his pointing out that he feels the need to do things to increase IQ at the expense of performance--and this is something nVidia doesn't want done, apparently. I don't know--it's baffling.
IMO, picking on the Omega guy who caters to enthusiasts who knowingly use his repackaged drivers (which seems utterly harmless to me) seems to be pretty much beneath contempt. I hope DH has gotten the story wrong somehow...if not, nVidia seems not to understand much of anything about its customers.
http://www.driverheaven.net/showthread.php?threadid=18877&s=
In a related story from the same source, DH has contacted ATi which has no objections to what the Omega guy has been doing--in fact, he's member of their driver beta-test pool! Talk about contrasts in attitude.
I visited the Omega site http://www.omegacorner.com/ and found no mention of this, but the site hasn't been updated since June 5, apparently. It seems like DH has something to do with the site, though I don't know what--as the site lists DH from its "forums" link.
I am not an Omega driver fan--I tried a set a couple of years ago with a nVidia product and found it degraded IQ for a little added performance (set trilinear to bi, and decreased LOD from what I noticed) and so I went back to the nVidia reference drivers and haven't tried a set since.
But if what DH alleges is true I certainly can't understand it. Why *now*--after the guy has been repackaging their drivers with custom .infs for literally years. What's happening now that nVidia finds so threatening about the Omega drivers (for cryin' out loud)?
Some of the Omega guy's comments might shed some light:
"THESE DRIVERS ARE COMPATIBLE WITH ALL NVIDIA CARDS THAT USE DETONATOR DRIVERS, IT DOESN'T MATTER IF THEY ARE DDR, SDR, PCI OR AGP.
THE DRIVERS WHERE MADE WITH QUALITY IN MIND, NOT SPEED, SO DON'T COMPLAIN IF YOU GET LOWER SCORES AT BENCHMARKS, THESE ARE MADE TO ENJOY GAMING AND TO INCREASE THE MOST NEEDED THING BY NVIDIA, TEXTURE QUALITY.
UPDATE:
I HAVE CHANGED THE INSTALL UTILITY TO INCLUDE TWO TYPES OF DRIVERS, ONE WITH QUALITY SETTINGS AND ANOTHER WITH PERFORMANCE SETTINGS. WHEN YOU INSTALL THE DRIVERS YOU WILL BE ASKED WHICH ONE YOU WISH TO USE.
1- THE QUALITY SET HAVE THE INCREASED QUALITY IN OPENGL AND D3D, AND THEY ARE A LITTLE BIT SLOWER THAN NVIDIA ONES.
2- THE PERFORMANCE SET HAS THE SAME VIDEO QUALITY AS THE NORMAL NVIDIA DRIVERS, BUT THEY INCLUDE OPTIMIZATIONS TO MAKE THEM FASTER THAN THE NVIDIA ONES.
BOTH SETS INCLUDE: ADDED RESOLUTIONS, COMPATIBILITY TWEAKS AND MORE OPTIONS THAN THE NORMAL NVIDIA DRIVERS.
ENJOY!"
On the face of it it seems nVidia is unhappy with his pointing out that he feels the need to do things to increase IQ at the expense of performance--and this is something nVidia doesn't want done, apparently. I don't know--it's baffling.
IMO, picking on the Omega guy who caters to enthusiasts who knowingly use his repackaged drivers (which seems utterly harmless to me) seems to be pretty much beneath contempt. I hope DH has gotten the story wrong somehow...if not, nVidia seems not to understand much of anything about its customers.
