Anandtech going to see R300 ?!!

[OpenGL guy]

From all reports, the state of the 8500's drivers is pretty damned good. I'd buy one right now if I had 130 to spend.

The latest driver update (leaked I think) fixed some problems I was having with 2D (yes, 2D) and D3D (Dark Age of Camelot), so I am pleased.

And no, I'm not just saying that because I work at ATI.

And for those who care, my 3D Mark numbers went from 8175 to 8500 (I forget the exact number, but it was 8500+).

 

[Randell]

OGLguy - what driver revision is that? What issues were you having with Dark Age?

 

[Sabastian]

The original geforce256 drivers weren't spectacular either. In fact, from my experiences of my 8500 and gf256 nvidia drivers are no better than atis.

Yeah my "state of the art" PC crashed regularly and had tones of compatibility problems with games for nearly a year before the video drivers finally were updated. I wasn't too impressed with nvidia driver developement untill everyone started saying that it was soo good. I am waiting for nvda to develope new core to see how well they manage with driver developement then. Of course now Nvidia will want a polished release so we won't see a new core for a while. Just my 2 cents.

 

[Ty]

All I can say is that after speaking with an ATI rep at last year's E3, he openly acknowledged the problem ATI had with drivers. He even had a NVidia card in his own machine. True, they've come a long way with the 8500 but they know they were behind to begin with.

 

[pascal]

Maybe ATI is behind with drivers but nvidia is not perfect and people talk like there are no issue with nvidia products. I agree with Hellbinder about some biasing in some Anand reviews.

 

[Johnny Rotten]

Hellbinder, could you do me a favor and save the sensationalistic, knee jerk, vitriolic posts for rage3d?

Thanks.

 

[RussSchultz]

"sensationalistic, knee jerk, vitriolic posts"

With a nom de plume of "Johnny Rotten", I find that terribly funny in an ironic sort of way.

That guy is one of the more brash "artists" I've seen. Watching interviews with him is just painful with as big of an ass as he is.


Of course, this has nothing to do with the discussion at hand, but an amusing aside (perhaps only to me?)

Russ

 

[Althornin]

Hellbinder, could you do me a favor and save the sensationalistic, knee jerk, vitriolic posts for rage3d?

Thanks.

Hey:
This kind of post isnt welcome anywhere (i am refering to your post, not hellbinders). Not here, and not Rage3d. Please dont imply that some other forum is a dumping ground for crap, ok? I dont shit in your house. So leave mine alone.

 

[Johnny Rotten]

Sorry to say, but relative to b3d, rage3d - as well as some other large sites who shall remain nameless - ARE dumping grounds for his kind of crap. Since beyond3d is one of the last refuges for levelheaded 3d discussion you'll just have to excuse me being a little protective.

But of course the best solution is to just not post this kind of bullshit at all so hopefully he's game.

 

[Tagrineth]

The original geforce256 drivers weren't spectacular either. In fact, from my experiences of my 8500 and gf256 nvidia drivers are no better than atis.

Yeah my "state of the art" PC crashed regularly and had tones of compatibility problems with games for nearly a year before the video drivers finally were updated. I wasn't too impressed with nvidia driver developement untill everyone started saying that it was soo good. I am waiting for nvda to develope new core to see how well they manage with driver developement then. Of course now Nvidia will want a polished release so we won't see a new core for a while. Just my 2 cents.

New core? NV30 anyone?

 

[incurable]

No mention of the poor implementation of Nview on the Windows 2000 drivers

Enlighten me on this...I haven't used Windows2000 since XP went final, but I would be really shocked if there were any differences...and I can't honestly say that I've ever read any issues in our forums pertaining to this claim.

Please, for all that's worth, be shocked. There're some major differences using a GF4Ti in multi-monitor mode in WinXP and Win2000. In XP all's nice and dandy, put the card in, install driver, done - two monitors in your display settings and most other things fine.

Yet on W2k, no such thing. Install the card, load the drivers - still a single monitor only on your display setting, though nView works. (spanning, cloning) You have to hack your registry to make an driver option available that -when enabled- treats both displays separately. Enable the option, reboot 1, drivers need to be installed for the second GF4Ti graphics adapter that appears (nVidia dualview), reboot again (2) and don't think your ready yet, nope, cause DirectX ain't working on your primary display. So reinstall that one as well, followed by another reboot (3). Of course, this is not documented anywhere, so you have to be lucky to find someone who ran into the same problems before or you're left out there using the trusty old trial-and-error way of doing things.

Seems like nVidia's in agreement with you on XP, W2k is yesteryear's stuff and whoever cares to still use it is nuts anyway, no need to provide the same features or even something as simple as documentation on how to enable them manually.

Oh, and also nView has some flaws, too, but those are present under both XP and 2000. If you enable nView spanning, your choice of resolutions for both DirectX and OpenGL stuff gets seriously limited. Using spanning over my two 1280x1024 displays, the highest res I can choose is 1024x768. I certainly didn't buy a GF4Ti4600 for gaming at less than my displays' native 1280x1024 res, so nView is essentially useless to me.

I realize my comments sound like a rant, but then again, I paid top Dollar (Euro, actually ;-)) for a card that's fast, has lots of features and what people call the best graphics drivers only to find out that it took me hours to make it work like advertised. Out of the box experience? Clear F.

Ciao

incurable

 

[Mintmaster]

Sorry to say, but relative to b3d, rage3d - as well as some other large sites who shall remain nameless - ARE dumping grounds for his kind of crap. Since beyond3d is one of the last refuges for levelheaded 3d discussion you'll just have to excuse me being a little protective.

But of course the best solution is to just not post this kind of bullshit at all so hopefully he's game.

I agree. I was surprised and rather disappointed to see this sort of thread here at B3D. I'm all for freedom of speech, but we've got to keep this forum special and unique, and ditch the pointless threads that come up.