What makes nVIDIA's cards so special?

[digitalwanderer]

Why have nV's drivers gone down hill now? (not refering to PS/VS performance) Or is it just that Ati drivers have severely improved?

Both. I think nVidia's drivers have slid in all around quality because their driver team is being forced to focus on application specific optimizations.

 

[BRiT]

OK- I take back some of what I said. The flickering is solved now with new drivers. I am impressed Nvidia.

Why are you impressed with an issue they directly caused that should have been fixed since day one before release, but hasn't been fixed until a significantly long time afterwards?

 

[bdmosky]

Why are you impressed with an issue they directly caused that should have been fixed since day one before release, but hasn't been fixed until a significantly long time afterwards?

You can't expect perfect drivers from day 1 with all combinations of monitors and other hardware. The fact that they fixed the problems with a driver update fairly quickly after it was reported to them I believe does deserve some praise. We have no idea what it was exactly in the drivers that was causing the issue so it really isn't fair to point fingers with the evidence presented.

 

[BRiT]

It was reported to them since the first few units were released. I had heard about this issue at many months ago. I hardly call that fairly quickly.

As to the cause, my suspicions are placed on their questionable and extreme "optimizations".

 

[bdmosky]

It was reported to them since the first few units were released.

Where? I missed this...

I had heard about this issue at many months ago. I hardly call that fairly quickly.

Many? I first heard about it a month ago. Flickering was officially confirmed by Nvidia the 8th of August. Help in demonstrating the issue was requested the 6th of August. Massive similar forum posts probably accrued within the immediate month before that as well as emails to Nvidia technical support. Although issues may and probably were existant before the cards were released, they apparently weren't known to Nvidia.
Also, early issues sent to Nvidia may have gone unnoticed because of other possible causes such as interference.

As to the cause, my suspicions are placed on their questionable and extreme "optimizations".

I can't believe you would even make such an assertion. It's unfair to even speculate. You don't even know if they could be related to those optimizations. Especially in light of the fact that the "fixed" drivers do not appear to affect image quality or speed at all according to preliminary results.

 

[Pete]

Both ATi's hardware and software have made great strides in the past year or two. Also, nV probably hit diminishing returns with their driver optimizations at some point, so it was just a matter of ATi catching up (read: pairing more monkeys with more keyboards ).

 

[Dio]

Hey! I resemble that remark!