I guess this means ATI really sucks

[El Greco]

After some terrible problems with ATI drivers upgrading that were "solved" only by Windows restore I got so pissed off that I promised to myself I'll never get another ATI card. Then I thought that maybe I was overreacting since my experience doesn't mean that ATI is worse than nVidia in general.

So, I googled "ATI sucks" -> 10,200 results
Then I googled "nVidia sucks" -> 774 results

Hmmm... I guess my original conclusion was right after all :D

[logical muse]

google fight! (http://www.googlefight.com/index.php?lang=en_GB&word1=%22ati+sucks%22&word2=%22nvidia+sucks%22)

[Hauteden]

Though I like ATI's hardware there upgrade process is fickle. Sometimes I would upgrade effortlessly other times, like you had to, I needed to do a complete OS re-install to get the upgrade to work. With nVidia and their Unified driver system I have never had to do a complete OS re-install.

Even with the driver issues it wouldn't stop me from buying their product. Though I must admit I am more inclined to buy nVidia based cards.

Hauteden

[Stupendous Man]

I've always liked nVidia better than ATI. I don't have any specific reason. It just seemed to me that they had a better product. Just like I'll always prefer AMD to Intel, even though ATI is now owned by AMD...

[El Greco]

BTW, I was with the same driver (the one that came with the card) for 2 years. So I think it's about time to change it. I wouldn't have messed with something that works but I wanted to see whether the new drivers would have overscan correction. So I download the new drivers and uninstall all the old ones, exactly as the instructions said. BTW, when I upgrade the drivers in my other two nVidia-based systems, I almost never bother to uninstall the previous ones and never had any problems. But this being my first ATI upgrade I decide to do it by the book. The problems start from the uninstalling, where the program hangs and I have to close it forcefully. I restart the PC and perform the uninstall again. So the system is supposedly clear. I do a restart again and indeed Windows recognize just a VGA. Now I install the new drivers. BTW, the terrible quality of the drivers is evident from the very beginning: On a P4@3.4GHz with 2GB of memory, about a whole minute of inactivity passes between the ATI splash screen and the "press 'Next' to continue" window. Anyway, the drivers install, they prompt me to restart and when I do Windows finds the ATI card. I think fine, now let's adjust our settings. When I choose 1024x768 the screen goes black and stays black. BTW, why doesn't ATI fall back to the previous settings if you don't press OK within 15 seconds like nVidia does ? I restart with the "blind procedure" (CTRL-Esc, Up, Enter, Right, Right, Enter) and when Windows restarts it still goes black. I restart in VGA mode, uninstall the drivers, install them again. Same thing. I do it all over again, this time without installing the Catalyst, just the basic drivers. Same old - same old. Finally, after a couple of hours, I do a System Restore and I'm back to my working drivers from 2005.

Any company that makes upgrading so hard, clearly doesn't want my business.

[Vitnir]

Not to defend ATI I have to say it sounds more like an incompatible combination of resolution and refresh rates that the monitor can't handle. That the monitor is shutting down to protect itself. I would have started in protected mode and picked a lower refresh rate before uninstalling.

[El Greco]

Done that, and many other things which I didn't mention for sake of brevity. Also tried monitor auto-adjust more than once (it's an LCD). Not to mention that the selected refresh rate was already too low (since Windows was in VGA mode). Before I changed the resolution Windows informed me that the resolution and refresh rate were too low and offered to fix them for me. Of course the automatic adjustment had the same results.

[Reeco]

I heartily recommend Omega drivers (http://www.omegadrivers.net/) for ATI users. They squeeze a bit more oomph out of the card, are sort of endorsed by ATI themselves and, best of all, do not require uninstallation of the old drivers.

[El Greco]

Thanks! I'll try that (although I'm afraid to).

[Reeco]

Thanks! I'll try that (although I'm afraid to).

Don't be - they're rock solid drivers and way better than the official ones, even if the performance/iq improvements aren't your main motivation for trying them.

[Macoy]

Why does ATI Catalyst demand that 'Microsoft.net' be installed? & why does 'Microsoft.net' create a new user account in xp?

[Almo]

A friend of mine swears by ATI, but refuses to install Catalyst, since it's crap.

[a_unique_person]

And now Vista brings in a whole new driver model, and driver hell can only get worse from here on in.

[Mongrel]

Thanks! I'll try that (although I'm afraid to).

If you're still having problems after installing the Catalyst drivers then grab Driver Cleaner (http://www.softpedia.com/get/Security/Secure-cleaning/Driver-Cleaner.shtml), as it's likely that you've got a corrupted file somewhere that's not being shifted during the normal uninstall process

[grmcdorman]

ATI also has an equally bad reputation (if not worse) in the Linux community. NVidia Linux drivers are well supported and generally stable; ATI Linux drivers, by and large, are not.

Conversely, there are open source Linux drivers for older ATI video cards.

My laptop (which is the only machine we own with an ATI card) can't even use the drivers from ATI in Linux or Windows, since ATI doesn't support "mobility" graphics cards directly (you have to use the manufacturer's driver). (The Linux driver actually does work, sort of: 2D is fine, but 3D locks up the machine.) Fortunately, the card (a 9100) is old enough that the open source driver works fine (even in 3D). Why the ATI-provided Linux driver can't do 3D, but the open source does, is beyond me.

The Omega drivers do work for the 9100 in Windows, by the way, but I find that some games have problems. (Conversely, Lego Star Wars only runs properly with the Omega drivers; the manufacturer's driver has rendering glitches with the character's heads. Go figure.)