Why are nVidia drivers considered better?

I never had any serious problems with Nvidia drivers (except with Nvidia SATA driver for my old motherboard but that's for another time) and I only had a problem with ATI driver once when I tried to update it. All in all I have to say that Nvidia and ATI both make pretty stable drivers these days.

I never had any serious problems with Nvidia drivers (except with Nvidia SATA driver for my old motherboard but that's for another time) and I only had a problem with ATI driver once when I tried to update it. All in all I have to say that Nvidia and ATI both make pretty stable drivers these days.

jernas

Neither one are perfect. I've built several computers with AMD (No more ATI) or nvidia for customers. A problem I use to face was many games having problems on certain drivers so having to downgrade and upgrade drivers all the time. Also, installing new drivers on AMD(no more ATI)caused alot of bsod or other random things would happen causing me to troubleshoot for long bits of times. A general principle right now is that AMD makes a better hardware in the high mid rang to high video card market (performance vs cost vs wattage vs heat) but there software (drivers) lags behind slowing down the product. Nvidia seems to have it dialed up correctly. Even when they make parts right now that are not as good as AMD in the principle i stated earlier, there drivers really keep them going.

Look at that gtx 460. Dang good card but as drivers have matured, frames have increased nicely. You don't get alot of that on AMD. You do sometimes but its very inconsistent. If AMD would take a page from nvidia on driver maturity, they would destroy nvidia right now but it seems from my experience, they are taking very small babysteps. The biggest problem I've ever had with nvidia drivers was that version that came out that accidentally kept video cards fans from speeding up resulting in peoples computers frying. I though, always have my customers run custom fan profiles on Rivatuner so it never affected me but it is a great concern nowadays.

They are more stable, as well as cross platform enabled. (Linux and Windows)

ATi has a lot of problems with games when they first come out or new patches come out for games that change video stuff. Latest Catalyst drivers crashed my friends crossfire 5770's all the time, he had to roll back the drivers. nVidia doesn't usually have that sort of issue. ATi is more powerful, but their drivers can sometimes be a pain in the ass.

I've had both brand and Nvidia just seems to better optimize their drivers for games. Which means they tend to get better FPS in more games. Also their cards usually produce much less heat. ATI isn't bad but if I had to choose only one it'd be Nvidia.

They are released more regularly

They introduce new features on a more consistent basis

They often improve performance even a long time after the game has released

they generally cause less problems such as crashing

My NVIDIA GPUs (mostly 14-15 inch laptops)

1. ASUS G1S's Geforce 8600M GT(G84M) GDDR3 256MB. Died due to "bump gate". Refer to Apple/Dell/HP+NVIDIA class action law suit.

2. ASUS G1SN's Geforce 9500M GS(G84M) DDR2 512MB. Cracked on case around the heat sink. Very hot 80C for the GPU, waiting for this laptop to die. Spare Blu-Ray player. Instead of G1SN, some users has ASUS G50 replacement.

3. ASUS N80VN's Geforce 9650M GT(NB9P-GT) DDR2 1024MB. Unstable with Windows 7 X64. After motherboard replacement, the problem is unsolvable. I'm a user of laptopto2go.com's forums. PS; Geforce 9600M GT was renamed to Geforce GT220M.

Switched to ATI Mobility GPUs.

1. Sony Vaio VGN FW-45 with Mobility Radeon HD 4650 GDDR3 512MB. Mostly used for audio work, Cyberlink PowerDVD 9 (Blu-Ray), MS PowerPoint 2010 and LAN party spare laptop. No major issues.

2. Dell Studio XPS 1645 with Mobility Radeon HD 5730 GDDR3 1024MB. Mostly used for FF14, SC2, video editing, Cyberlink PowerDVD 10 (Blu-Ray), VMWARE 7 and LAN party primary laptop. No major issues.

nVidia's latest beta driver now has an added subroutine to clean out the old driver before installing the new one.

Who better to know exactly what to clean than the driver's developer?

nVidia's latest beta driver now has an added subroutine to clean out the old driver before installing the new one.

Who better to know exactly what to clean than the driver's developer?

Guys, there's more to it than stability. You must consider features as well. NVIDIA's drivers let you set specific graphical enhancements for games, so that you want to play an old game like Deus Ex - it'll add AA and AF. You can do this with ATI as well, but you have to manually set your graphical enhancements each time you play a game. As for NVIDIA, the settings are attached and applied every time you launch the game's .exe file.Mcspanky37

after buying a 4890, the performance was so inconsistent and driver updates rarely improved anything and even made some games unplayable. So, i thought it was just my card or sumthin since everyone else was having such a jolly good time with the ati cards so i went ahead and bought the 4870X2. To put a picture of how bad the driver support is for dual gpu cards, i made a folder which contained 7 different drivers and 3 hotfixes in order to be able to play all my installed games at the time. it was horrendous and since i recently got my gtx470, its like heaven. im NEVER going back to amd even if the 6000 series are 10x better than current gen cards. The nvidia control panel is also much better than ccc because you get to changes settings to each game you want while ccc only has global settings.

[QUOTE="Mcspanky37"]Guys, there's more to it than stability. You must consider features as well. NVIDIA's drivers let you set specific graphical enhancements for games, so that you want to play an old game like Deus Ex - it'll add AA and AF. You can do this with ATI as well, but you have to manually set your graphical enhancements each time you play a game. As for NVIDIA, the settings are attached and applied every time you launch the game's .exe file.Zillaschool

False you can save profiles and name them after the game you set them for, and all you have to do then is load the profile, not all the settings. I don't know why so many people don't know this, yet still try to claim driver superiority.

I've alternated between ATI and nVidia ever since I gave up my Voodoo2 SLI setup almost a decade ago. My experiences with nVidia drivers based on the GF2-MX, GF4-Ti4200, and 8600GT are that they have more features and offer better performance. The tradeoff is nVidia drivers tended to crash more especially the 8600GT with regards to FSX. To match those nVidia cards, I had the original Radeon, X800XL, and the current HD5770. The drivers for them aren't as feature-packed or even as convenient as the nVidia ones. But, they haven't been as problematic either.

Edit: Seeing my next cycle is nVidia, I'm hoping the unlucky streak will be broken.

Never had any problems with ATI drivers

http://www.engadget.com/2010/03/05/nvidia-pulls-196-75-driver-amid-reports-its-frying-graphics-car/

Just sayin'.

Both Companies have their positives and negatives.

http://www.engadget.com/2010/03/05/nvidia-pulls-196-75-driver-amid-reports-its-frying-graphics-car/

Just sayin'.

Both Companies have their positives and negatives.

tequilasunriser

Yes they do but I get the impression nVidia tries harder. Also the artical you bring up was a one time thing. Trying to claim they are equal because of this is disingenuous and misleading. I hadn't posted in this thread before because I am a nVidia fanboy and the OP asked that those who are not post but I couldn't let the attempted egalitarianism pass without notice.

[QUOTE="tequilasunriser"]

http://www.engadget.com/2010/03/05/nvidia-pulls-196-75-driver-amid-reports-its-frying-graphics-car/

Just sayin'.

Both Companies have their positives and negatives.

Rickylee

Yes they do but I get the impression nVidia tries harder. Also the artical you bring up was a one time thing. Trying to claim they are equal because of this is disingenuous and misleading. I hadn't posted in this thread before because I am a nVidia fanboy and the OP asked that those who are not post but I couldn't let the attempted egalitarianism pass without notice.

Umm he said both have positives and negatives (which is without a doubt a fact!), not saying they are exactly equal, it is you who drew up that assumption.

[QUOTE="Rickylee"]

[QUOTE="tequilasunriser"]

http://www.engadget.com/2010/03/05/nvidia-pulls-196-75-driver-amid-reports-its-frying-graphics-car/

Just sayin'.

Both Companies have their positives and negatives.

Lach0121

Yes they do but I get the impression nVidia tries harder. Also the artical you bring up was a one time thing. Trying to claim they are equal because of this is disingenuous and misleading. I hadn't posted in this thread before because I am a nVidia fanboy and the OP asked that those who are not post but I couldn't let the attempted egalitarianism pass without notice.

Umm he said both have positives and negatives (which is without a doubt a fact!), not saying they are exactly equal, it is you who drew up that assumption.

True, it is hard to read intent into posts such as this. I just go with my gut and if I'm wrong then so be it. Just sayin'.

[QUOTE="Lach0121"]

[QUOTE="Rickylee"]

Yes they do but I get the impression nVidia tries harder. Also the artical you bring up was a one time thing. Trying to claim they are equal because of this is disingenuous and misleading. I hadn't posted in this thread before because I am a nVidia fanboy and the OP asked that those who are not post but I couldn't let the attempted egalitarianism pass without notice.

Rickylee

Umm he said both have positives and negatives (which is without a doubt a fact!), not saying they are exactly equal, it is you who drew up that assumption.

True, it is hard to read intent into posts such as this. I just go with my gut and if I'm wrong then so be it. Just sayin'.

[QUOTE="Rickylee"]

[QUOTE="Lach0121"]

Umm he said both have positives and negatives (which is without a doubt a fact!), not saying they are exactly equal, it is you who drew up that assumption.

Lach0121

True, it is hard to read intent into posts such as this. I just go with my gut and if I'm wrong then so be it. Just sayin'.

Again you gain the point. If it where only what have you done for me lately there is no debate. But I tend to look at the entire body of work when I look at things. Everything cycles and this is a good thing in that it keeps the competition fresh. What you say is very valid and good for the industry and hopefully the battles will rage on, we can only gain from this.

yup ATI is complete garbage, Nvidia is solid

bought ATI card a long while ago, it was so terrible, i decided never to buy an ATI card again. Best decision ever. You will see tons of issues with ati cards not supporting various features, while nvidia is 100% flawless.

[QUOTE="Lach0121"]

[QUOTE="Rickylee"]

True, it is hard to read intent into posts such as this. I just go with my gut and if I'm wrong then so be it. Just sayin'.

Rickylee

Again you gain the point. If it where only what have you done for me lately there is no debate. But I tend to look at the entire body of work when I look at things. Everything cycles and this is a good thing in that it keeps the competition fresh. What you say is very valid and good for the industry and hopefully the battles will rage on, we can only gain from this.

As a whole both companies have definitely have had their ups and downs, (which is to be expected) I completely agree on the cycles.

yup ATI is complete garbage, Nvidia is solid

bought ATI card a long while ago, it was so terrible, i decided never to buy an ATI card again. Best decision ever. You will see tons of issues with ati cards not supporting various features, while nvidia is 100% flawless.

Kratier

I used the same ATi 9700 Pro for 6 years until I replaced it by building a new computer. I wouldn't exactly call that garbage performance.

My best friend has an nVidia 7800 GT OC that he has been using (and is still using) for 5 or more years. Again solid performance.

Both manufacturers make excellent products and drivers, and only once have I experienced issues with graphics drivers (ironically on my friend's 7800GT shortly after putting his rig together.)

Hardware failures are bound to happen in both camps, thats just the way hardware is, especially when you are dealing with technology that is shrinking whilst generating more heat, sucking up more wattage, and becoming increasingly more complex.

Sorry for double post but this image sums up the graphics card 'war'.