I have had it with Nividia.

[dudalb]

I have been a G Force guy even since 2000,when 3dFX hit bit the big one, but my next card will be ATI Radeon.
Why: One reason? Nividia drivers have, sadly, become crap. There is an endless series of problems with specific games and Nividia drivers..and some of the games are pretty recent. Go to any gaming site and you will see what I mean.
ATI is not free from compatibility problems, but they don't have the same number as Nividia. and they continue to try to support older games with their drivers, whereas Nvidia has just about given up on that.
To be the ability to play some of my favorite games is more important then having a blazing fast card. And apparently ATI will catch up with Nvidia in that regard in thier next series of cards.

[matty.the.damned]

I've always been an Nvidia fan, mainly because I use Linux and for drivers Nvidia have been the only choice.

The only choice if you want to play FPS games like Doom 3 and Quake 4.

Though I'm always open to new things. :)

MtD

[gumboot]

I bought one recently and it's really odd - at random times the screen will just go completely black. Sometimes, however, the cursor will still be on screen, and will change when I move it over different parts of the screen, so it's not necessarily a total loss of image.

Most odd of all, it doesn't seem to be affected by what I'm doing - I can be playing Crysis on full graphics detail and it won't bat an eyelid, but I'm browsing the internet or doing some writing in word and suddenly the screen goes black.

So strange.

[negativ]

I've always been an Nvidia fan, mainly because I use Linux and for drivers Nvidia have been the only choice.

I've had an ATI X1900GT in my desktop for a couple of years, and until very recently, the proprietary linux driver SUCKED, by which I mean that if it didn't lock up your computer, it was actually slower than the unaccelerated open source driver.. It works pretty darn well now, though. I'm very happy with it.

[e-sabbath]

omegadrivers.net

Omega Drivers. Love them.

[Yalius]

Funny, I feel the exact opposite. At work, all of our computers (except my own machines, wink wink) use ATI cards, and their ability to drive 3 or more monitors is flat-out useless. As in, blue-screen-on-reboot useless if 2 ATI cards are installed with up-to-date drivers. So we have to use the default Microsoft drivers to enable 3 or 4-way screens.

Since I'm in a position to, um, "evaluate" other combinations, I've changed to a pair of Nvidia cards on each of my workstations. Haven't been able to swing our organization over to Nvidia altogether, but it sure works better for me. The Nview multimonitor handling is close to flawless compared to ATI's Hydravision, even with just 2 monitors. Gaming, I'm not so up on. But for pure productivity, Nvidia's drivers are vastly more stable.

[Mongrel]

I'd check what games you're playing as well.

If they're pure DirectX then ATi will thrash the pants off Nvidia.
If you're playing a lot of games that use OpenGL then stick with Nvidia, ATi doesn't like OpenGL

[AZCat]

Odd - I've had a fairly long run of Nvidia cards (currently using an 8800 GTS) and have had no real problems, even with older games. Not long ago I loaded Diablo II and Fallout 2 on my machine and they ran flawlessly (until I started meddling with the files, but that's another story). I'm figuring on upgrading to the new series sometime this fall in anticipation of a bumper crop of games between September and November.

[PingOfPong]

I'd check what games you're playing as well.

If they're pure DirectX then ATi will thrash the pants off Nvidia.
If you're playing a lot of games that use OpenGL then stick with Nvidia, ATi doesn't like OpenGL


Maybe that's not true anymore. I was toying with JOGL, a java wrapper for OGL, and I noticed that my simple example programs were running at 10-20 fps. I went to the ATI site and downloaded an updated driver that became available in July of this year. Now OGL runs beautifully at 70 fps and above. I haven't done any serious research on the matter but I think that ATI is starting to tackle OGL support.

[Mongrel]

Maybe that's not true anymore. I was toying with JOGL, a java wrapper for OGL, and I noticed that my simple example programs were running at 10-20 fps. I went to the ATI site and downloaded an updated driver that became available in July of this year. Now OGL runs beautifully at 70 fps and above. I haven't done any serious research on the matter but I think that ATI is starting to tackle OGL support.

About time if they are.

Or it could just be that they've finally gotten round to fixing something that's been wrong for years. Without comparative tests between equivalent Nvidia and ATI cards it's hard to say.

[shadron]

There are several applications which run OGL in a non-gaming environment, and nVidia cards (the drivers, actually) have always failed where accuracy, rather than speed, are important. The usual response is to turn off the card's accelerations and rely on full programmed driving rather than cutting corners. ATI cards, particularly those which support their Catalyst drivers, seem to run just fine at full accelerations.

[jwwalker]

I recently found a reproducible bug in Nvidia drivers, using OpenGL and Windows XP. But I couldn't find any way to send them a bug report. They have a special bug report channel for Vista, or you can apply to be a registered developer. To be a registered developer, it looks like you have to work for a major company. Anyway, my point is that it's not surprising that a company that makes it hard to send them bug reports would have buggy products.

[Mongrel]

I recently found a reproducible bug in Nvidia drivers, using OpenGL and Windows XP. But I couldn't find any way to send them a bug report. They have a special bug report channel for Vista, or you can apply to be a registered developer. To be a registered developer, it looks like you have to work for a major company. Anyway, my point is that it's not surprising that a company that makes it hard to send them bug reports would have buggy products.

Your best bet is to visit their forums and mention it there or mention it to the developers of the software that you were working in.

I can see why they wouldn't have 'public' bug reports, every lazy ass game support agent ("Sounds like a problem with Nvidia drivers, not our rushed to production game, report it to Nvidia"), every unaware user who hasn't updated his driver in 4 years, every one of the '1 solution fixes everything' idiot on gaming forums, every non-technical user that tries to run an 8800GTX off of his proprietary 350W Dell PSU....

[jwwalker]

Your best bet is to visit their forums and mention it there or mention it to the developers of the software that you were working in.

I looked at their developer forums and couldn't find one that looked appropriate. Nothing about drivers or OpenGL.

As for mentioning to the developers of the software I was using, I am a developer in a small company.

I can see why they wouldn't have 'public' bug reports, every lazy ass game support agent ("Sounds like a problem with Nvidia drivers, not our rushed to production game, report it to Nvidia"), every unaware user who hasn't updated his driver in 4 years, every one of the '1 solution fixes everything' idiot on gaming forums, every non-technical user that tries to run an 8800GTX off of his proprietary 350W Dell PSU....

Maybe, but Apple manages to take bug reports from anyone.

[Arthur Denton]

Both video cards have issues, it's a matter of adapting your self and twitching your graphics to play the games you want - and you can. I hate to update my video drivers, I try to do so every now and then, but I hate it because it is a frustrating process, since I can install either only the single driver or the advantage pack plus which brings me every midget, widget, toolbar and monitors (that suck my performance) possible. I try to keep with the driver only, it makes instalation easier.

[four elevener]

Been an Nvidia card user since the TNT2. Right now on the 8800GT. They have all been awesome cards...never had any problems with them. Some cards/drivers are just funny with certain machines/setup. It's one of those great mysteries of the PC universe, I spose.

[GreyICE]

I'll take my card over anything ATI is shipping, thank you very much.

[TobiasTheViking]

Nvidia is just not an option for me anymore.. AMD has really stepped up the driver development, and with both Intel and AMD releasing specs... Nope, Nvidia just doesn't do it for me anymore..

[The Kilted Yaksman]

I used to work for STB Systems, and we sold some of the original nVidia chips on the market, which were the Riva 128 chips. We thought it was hot stuff. Later nVidia screwed us over with a large batch of bad Riva TNT chips, and that was the start of the downhill road. After 3dfx and STB "merged" we found out that nVidia was using 3dfx patented tech in the GeForce products, and 3dfx took 'em to court. I am still firmly convinced that helped accelerate the end of 3dfx, and >1000 people losing their jobs. ATi for me.

[GreyICE]

Maybe, but Apple manages to take bug reports from anyone. Just to comment on this: You are aware that Apple deletes negative comments in their support forums as a matter of course, right?

NVidia could make their tech support public and delete all the bad stuff anyone says so they look great to their fanboys too. :rolleyes:

[jwwalker]

Just to comment on this: You are aware that Apple deletes negative comments in their support forums as a matter of course, right?

NVidia could make their tech support public and delete all the bad stuff anyone says so they look great to their fanboys too. :rolleyes:

I wasn't talking about the support forums, which are basically users supporting users. I was talking about developer bug reports, which will at least be glanced at by an Apple engineer.

[Arthur Denton]

I used to work for STB Systems, and we sold some of the original nVidia chips on the market, which were the Riva 128 chips. We thought it was hot stuff. Later nVidia screwed us over with a large batch of bad Riva TNT chips, and that was the start of the downhill road. After 3dfx and STB "merged" we found out that nVidia was using 3dfx patented tech in the GeForce products, and 3dfx took 'em to court. I am still firmly convinced that helped accelerate the end of 3dfx, and >1000 people losing their jobs. ATi for me.

I had a RIVA 128 :D I remember being able to run all my games at top spec for the first time in my life! Damn, never been able to repeat that.

[El Greco]

I thought I had problems with nVidia and so I went to ATI. But then I realized my nVidia problems were actually very minor... so back to nVidia I am.

One thing I was surprised to find out (and still I'm not completely sure about it) is that different graphics cards brands may present implementations of the same nVidia chip that vary significantly in quality. Some are more stable than others and even have more features (eg, if two screens are connected to the same card, some cards will send the startup boot messages to whichever screen is currently turned on, and not necessarily to the screen connected to a specific output).

[Hellbound]

One thing I was surprised to find out (and still I'm not completely sure about it) is that different graphics cards brands may present implementations of the same nVidia chip that vary significantly in quality. Some are more stable than others and even have more features (eg, if two screens are connected to the same card, some cards will send the startup boot messages to whichever screen is currently turned on, and not necessarily to the screen connected to a specific output).

Just to second this, a lot of the variability in compoenets is because of the supporting hardware, not necessarily the graphics chipset itself. nVidia makes the GPU; the card manufacturer gets the rest together. Poor quality memory, a badly designed memory bus, inadequate cooling, poor voltage and/or current regulation, changes to firmware, and other possible complications can affect the way a particular card behaves.

I've had generally good luck with nVidia cards. Several years back, ATI cards (specifically, the drivers and associated software) were huge pieces of [Rule8]. They've ben better recently (currently I use ATI cards in both my laptops). I use nVidia cards in all three of my desktop systems, and they've been very good. The only issue I've run into is (for some reason) with MechCommander 2 on my desktop system, and I'm not even sure that's an nVidia problem (it just plain won't run). Well, some heat problems, too, but that's because of my poor use of space around my primary system: I have the computer shoved into a corner with poor airflow, but I don't really have another place to put it. Some small desk fans to circulate air from that area has helped tremendously.