# NVIDIA Responsible for the Most Vista Crashes



## Jimmy 2004 (Mar 27, 2008)

Data released by Microsoft has revealed that NVIDIA was responsible for 28.8% Windows Vista crashes during an unspecified period in 2007 - more than any other company. Microsoft itself was the next-worst offender, accounting for 17.9% of crashes, whilst AMD and Intel were much lower on 9.3% and 8.8% respectively. The cause of 17% of crashes is listed as being unknown, whilst other companies accounted for a total 18.5% of the crashes. The data was collected by Microsoft, and was ordered to be made public by a Judge regarding the ongoing "Vista Capable" lawsuit.

*View at TechPowerUp Main Site*


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## Exceededgoku (Mar 27, 2008)

That's pretty cool? Does this take into effect volume of products? i.e. Nvidia has more GPUs out there and so higher crash figure? (as much as I hate to admit that Nvidia has a higher user base...)


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## a111087 (Mar 27, 2008)

don't see how this regardes the ongoing “Vista Capable” lawsuit, but alright...
but nvidia...:shadedshu


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## Jimmy 2004 (Mar 27, 2008)

Exceededgoku said:


> That's pretty cool? Does this take into effect volume of products? i.e. Nvidia has more GPUs out there and so higher crash figure? (as much as I hate to admit that Nvidia has a higher user base...)



No, it doesn't, which is a very good point.


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## panchoman (Mar 27, 2008)

so much for ati's drives being crap..


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## Morgoth (Mar 27, 2008)

lol at nvidia


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## AddSub (Mar 27, 2008)

I'm not surprised. nVidia drivers were always twitchy. Although, right now almost all of my machines are running ATI/AMD cards, except one, over the last decade I have owned at least a dozen nVidia cards. One thing that remained constant was poor driver quality. It seemed like every new version fixed something for a newer game but broke something in an older game. To this day nVidia still hasn't fixed issues with AvP which appeared with 7x.xx drives, like all the way back in 2005. If you run the latest titles nVidia might be decent, if you give them time to do few driver revisions, but if you have a large library of older titles, Dx7/Dx8 stuff, well....


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## newtekie1 (Mar 27, 2008)

And nVidia has twice the number of graphics card in Vista machines compared to ATi, and I would guess the highest market share of graphics cards in Vista machines.

A more accurate measure would be the number of crashes per user.  These numbers don't tell use that nVidia's drivers are bad in any way, or even that ATi's drivers are better than nVidia and Intel's.  Though I'm sure it will be used by the fanboys to try and make it seem that way.

Let me just set up an example for you all:

Say we have 100,000 Vista users that participated in the survey.

Lets say 60,000 use nVidia cards, 20,000 use ATi cards, and 20,000 use Intel cards.

Using their percentages.  

17,900 people experienced crashes because of nVidia.  That means 35.8% of nVidia users had crashes caused by nVidia.

9,300 people experienced crashes because of AMD(ATi). That means 46.5% of ATi users had crashes caused by AMD.

8,800 people experienced crashes because of Intel.  That means 44% of Intel users had crashes caused by Intel.

That paints a very different picture doesn't it?  Now we don't actually know the numbers of actual users of each card that were included in the survery, I just made those numbers up to show that the real picture depends on those numbers.  And because they are not presented to us, we can't accurately say that nVidia's drivers are any worse than the others, even if the article tries to claim that.  Without that needed information that conclusion can't be made or justified.


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## Darknova (Mar 27, 2008)

newtekie1 said:


> A more accurate measure would be the number of crashes per user.  These numbers don't tell use that nVidia's drivers are bad in any way, or even that ATi's drivers are better than nVidia and Intel's.  Though I'm sure it will be used by the fanboys to try and make it seem that way.



Why is someone a fanboy when they knock your beloved nvidia, but you are not even though you consistently knock ATi?


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## BumbRush (Mar 27, 2008)

Darknova said:


> Why is someone a fanboy when they knock your beloved nvidia, but you are not even though you consistently knock ATi?



+1


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## driver66 (Mar 27, 2008)

I've used NV cards since the longhorn beta's and through and I have not had a single VC related crash yet  And yes I use ATI also no problems there either


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## Nitro-Max (Mar 27, 2008)

Well this is what i think if microsoft cant get vista right how can nvidia and amd vista has so many issues.


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## a111087 (Mar 27, 2008)

Nitro-Max said:


> Well this is what i think if microsoft cant get vista right how can nvidia and amd vista has so many issues.



lol, true


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## newtekie1 (Mar 27, 2008)

Darknova said:


> Why is someone a fanboy when they knock your beloved nvidia, but you are not even though you consistently knock ATi?



They are a fanboy if they try to use this data to make ATi seem better than nVidia.  Show me where I have untruthfully knocked ATi?  Pointing out that there is no reason to actually buy an ATi card at present other than preference or because you already have a Crossfire board is not fanboyism, it is the truth.

Sorry, talking the truth about your beloved ATi doesn't make me a fanboy, even if it is negative truths.

And nVidia isn't beloved to me, I have owned more ATi cards in my lifetime than nVidia cards.   There is litterally no good reason to buy an ATi card currently, and that is all I have said, and it is the truth.  You can not show me one ATi video card worth buying.  Go on, try.  I challenge you.  Show me an ATi card that is worth buying.


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## BumbRush (Mar 27, 2008)

newtekie1 said:


> They are a fanboy if they try to use this data to make ATi seem better than nVidia.  Show me where I have untruthfully knocked ATi?  Pointing out that there is no reason to actually buy an ATi card at present other than preference or because you already have a Crossfire board is not fanboyism, it is the truth.
> 
> Sorry, talking the truth about your beloved ATi doesn't make me a fanboy, even if it is negative truths.
> 
> And nVidia isn't beloved to me, I have owned more ATi cards in my lifetime than nVidia cards.



sorry but you are full of it, you run around every chance you get badmouthing ati, ur a fanboi/nvidiot, just be a man like btarunr and admit it.

and there are reasions, you just wont accept them because they arent strong points for nvidia, i wont bother listing them again, but most of us know what they are.


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## newtekie1 (Mar 27, 2008)

BumbRush said:


> sorry but you are full of it, you run around every chance you get badmouthing ati, ur a fanboi/nvidiot, just be a man like btarunr and admit it.
> 
> and there are reasions, you just wont accept them because they arent strong points for nvidia, i wont bother listing them again, but most of us know what they are.



You have not given me any reason.

A build in sound card, big deal, I have one of those on my motherboard that is better already thanks though.  That is essentially your only valid point though.

And again, speaking the truth does not make me a fanboy.  Funny how you have been unable to challenge my truth.  I have not bashed ATi, I have not stooped to saying crap like their "drivers are shitty" like you have about nVidia.  I have provided several pieces of evidence showing that nVidia cards consistantly outperform the current ATi offerings at the same prices, or perform the same at lower prices.  Saying crap like "well nVidia used to use lower IQ to get better performance so they suck" is a fanboy argument, one that you have tried to make already.  It doesn't fly here.

Again, you are more than welcome to show me where I have "bashed ATi".  Just remember speaking the truth isn't bashing.


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## yogurt_21 (Mar 27, 2008)

newtekie1 said:


> And nVidia has twice the number of graphics card in Vista machines compared to ATi, and I would guess the highest market share of graphics cards in Vista machines.
> 
> A more accurate measure would be the number of crashes per user.  These numbers don't tell use that nVidia's drivers are bad in any way, or even that ATi's drivers are better than nVidia and Intel's.  Though I'm sure it will be used by the fanboys to try and make it seem that way.
> 
> ...



the trouble is that nvidia doesn't have near the amount of users that intel does. thus intel would be 70% of the graphucs market, nvidia 20%, ATI 7% with the other 3% going to via, matrox etc.

though I think it's total bs that microshaft is blaming other manufacturers for crashes that occur in their software.


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## AddSub (Mar 27, 2008)

This is funny, more than half of this thread is hidden to me. All I see instead of posts is: *"This user is on your Ignore List."* Usual suspects, eh? 

My ignore list just grows and grows and TPU becomes a quieter and more civil place with each new addition.


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## das müffin mann (Mar 27, 2008)

god please i beg of you all for my sanity no more ati vs. nvidia threads they both do the job that they are intended to do, they both have their strong and weak points


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## Braveheart (Mar 27, 2008)

*glares at 8800 GTS on the table* to bad, hope they make up pretty soon,


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## newtekie1 (Mar 27, 2008)

yogurt_21 said:


> the trouble is that nvidia doesn't have near the amount of users that intel does. thus intel would be 70%, nvidia 20%, ATI 7% with the other 3% going to via, matrox etc.



Overall, yes.  Though I'm not too sure about Vista, though I am sure it is still true.  Though I see more and more Vista pre-built computers being sold with descrete graphics solutions.  Intel definitely is on the ball with their drivers though, as I am sure they have the most graphics cards in use with Vista.  However, without knowing the actual figures, saying that these percentages are a sign that nVidia's drivers are worse than other is a false conclusion.


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## [I.R.A]_FBi (Mar 27, 2008)

newtekie1 said:


> And nVidia has twice the number of graphics card in Vista machines compared to ATi, and I would guess the highest market share of graphics cards in Vista machines..



But ati still doesnt make the top tier of the list .... food for thought


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## BumbRush (Mar 27, 2008)

show me an nvidia card with hdmi audio and vivo support, good luck, no nvidia card till the new 9800 has them


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## BumbRush (Mar 27, 2008)

AddSub said:


> This is funny, more than half of this thread is hidden to me. All I see instead of posts is: *"This user is on your Ignore List."* Usual suspects, eh?
> 
> My ignore list just grows and grows and TPU becomes a quieter and more civil place with each new addition.



good idea *adds newtekie1 to iggy list*


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## yogurt_21 (Mar 27, 2008)

newtekie1 said:


> Overall, yes.  Though I'm not too sure about Vista, though I am sure it is still true.  Though I see more and more Vista pre-built computers being sold with descrete graphics solutions.  Intel definitely is on the ball with their drivers though, as I am sure they have the most graphics cards in use with Vista.  However, without knowing the actual figures, saying that these percentages are a sign that nVidia's drivers are worse than other is a false conclusion.




Yeah I think chipsets are more than likely the culpret for the crashes, in which case ati's numbers there start too look much much worse. as with chipsets they're in the 5% mark or so. with 9.3% of the crashes. all in all nvidia and ati are quite similar ratio wise in these charts, it's Intel that comes off looking like a champ, 70%+ of the products on the market and yet causing only 8.8% of the crashes. wow, I think ati/amd and nvidia have along way to go in comparison.


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## newtekie1 (Mar 27, 2008)

BumbRush said:


> show me an nvidia card with hdmi audio and vivo support, good luck, no nvidia card till the new 9800 has them



Show me an ATi card that meets those requirements.  There is one on newegg, a 2900XT.  Vivo is dead.  People aren't buying graphics cards for VIVO anymore.  Not even the 9800 series has it.  I don't know what you are going on about now.


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## ShinyG (Mar 27, 2008)

Hmm, I won't keep any sides here, but try to point out a global observation:
Most of these crashes are driver related! So all the GPU manufacturers Intel, ATi, nVidia should get their friggin' game together and start releasing decent drivers that actually work! I'm sick of bad drivers!
I use nVidia at work and ATi at home: what can I say, the drivers are both crap! Most of the times you have to wait months before a new product gets decent drivers!
Good thing CPUs don't have "ever improving" drivers...


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## BumbRush (Mar 27, 2008)

better idea ShinyG, ms should get their act togather and stop puting out os's in beta stage quility insted of waiting till its really ready.........


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## Nyte (Mar 27, 2008)

newtekie1 said:


> Show me an ATi card that meets those requirements.  There is one on newegg, a 2900XT.  Vivo is dead.  People aren't buying graphics cards for VIVO anymore.  Not even the 9800 series has it.  I don't know what you are going on about now.



He's probably referring to AVIVO codec support.


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## strick94u (Mar 27, 2008)

shame vista can't keepup with the speed of an Nvidia pc


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## PVTCaboose1337 (Mar 27, 2008)

Too bad for Nvidia...  but I am not surprised.


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## newtekie1 (Mar 27, 2008)

Nyte said:


> He's probably referring to AVIVO codec support.



Probably, but then again that doesn't make much since considering the nVidia eqivalent(PureVideo) has worked with cards all the way back to the 6000 series.*shrug*

Oh well, one he doesn't know what he it talking about.  Just one more person added to my ignored user list right next to Addsub.


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## das müffin mann (Mar 27, 2008)

can we get back on topic


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## intel igent (Mar 27, 2008)

newtekkie : you called me a fanboi before because i was defending an ATi product in a separate thread, meanwhile the SAME day i was advising a fellow forum member to purchase an Nvidia product over ATi, and have done so on other occasions.

i am in no way a fanboi. 

i kinda have to agree with some of the others thoughts about you. 

didnt purevideo or W/E have serious problems on the 6series cards in the begining? it took them quite a while to get it running properly did it not? and Nvidia has ALWAYS had problems with thier drivers, more so than ATi.

im out


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## BumbRush (Mar 27, 2008)

want to get back on topic there are a few things u gotta do.

1. give me a blueberry muffin 

2. add newtekie1 to your iggy list

3. give me another blueberry muffin


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## das müffin mann (Mar 27, 2008)

i will do # 1&3


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## newtekie1 (Mar 27, 2008)

Purevideo wasn't free at first and has improved over time.  It rivals AVIVO which wasn't out until the X1K series.

I'm sure I didn't call you a fanboy directly.  If so I appologize.


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## BumbRush (Mar 27, 2008)

intel igent said:


> newtekkie : you called me a fanboi before because i was defending an ATi product in a separate thread, meanwhile the SAME day i was advising a fellow forum member to purchase an Nvidia product over ATi, and have done so on other occasions.
> 
> i am in no way a fanboi.
> 
> ...



pure video till th 8 seirse didnt work correctly, i have had 6 and 7 seirse cards, and if u could get it to work it onlyworked partialy, and poorly even then, nvidia acctualy for a while droped driver support for it because it was effectivly unuseable.

i dont agree about nvidia alwase having more problens, now if you go by alwase meaning fx line and newer i agree, but the gf4 and lower had better drivers then the rage/rage128/radeon cards, till amd went to catlyist drivers their driver support was shit, its why i use to be a huge nvidiot, we live and learn.

and check pricewatch or froogle u can get ViVo 2400 and 2600 ati cards for a decent price, as to avivo, its alwase worked better then purevideo, and hell all the way back to the early DVD days ati has had hardware mpeg2 acceleration/decoding, nvidia didnt add that till the 5 cards and it was hopelessly broken on them, 6 and 7 pure video was a dog, and on the 8400-8600 its SLOWER with lower IQ then avivo on a x1300se(64bit 1300) let alone a hd2400-2600 where the acceleration can pull most of the decoding onto the videocard for h264,divx/xvid,mpeg2,and WMV(and even some other codecs if the player supports it)


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## DarkMatter (Mar 27, 2008)

newtekie1 said:


> And nVidia has twice the number of graphics card in Vista machines compared to ATi, and I would guess the highest market share of graphics cards in Vista machines.
> 
> A more accurate measure would be the number of crashes per user.  These numbers don't tell use that nVidia's drivers are bad in any way, or even that ATi's drivers are better than nVidia and Intel's.  Though I'm sure it will be used by the fanboys to try and make it seem that way.
> 
> ...



You have a good point there, but it's 28,8% of crashes due to Nvidia and applied to your logic  48% of Nvidia users have experienced crashes.

Probably Nvidia users are having more crashes and problems in general, but we don't have to blame Nvidia drivers for this, but users. There are many factors, but it's mostly user's fault. The factors are these:

- Nvidia releases beta drivers almost every week.
- Beta drivers are usually model specific, yet people will use them with a tweak/hack allowing them to run a card that is not supported.
- There are lots of different Nvidia cards that generate a large base of model specific beta drivers. The bigger driver number, yields a bigger error number. More cards > more different card specific drivers > people using more drivers (that they shouldn't use) > more crashes. 2 + 2 = 4

Those three factors are what are makig Nvidia users to have more crashes. I have never had a driver related crash, not with Nvidia and only 1 with Ati long long time ago, in the days of 9600pro. And it's easy, to get that stability this is what I do:

-I never use drivers that are not suposed to be for my card. If they are not for your card, they didn't include any change/fix for your card, so that driver and the one you previously had are the same for you, or maybe they screwed up something for your card in order to fix something in the card that the driver is aimed at.
- I only use beta drivers if they perform better than the old ones. I try the new ones on the games that I play more often as well as in newer ones. If there isn't any significant difference, let's say less than 2%, I go back to the old ones. This is the key, since most people, at least the ones that I know, will keep the newer drivers until they find something wrong. That's an error.

I'm still using 169.25 and I have zero problems with any game. There isn't any reason to move to newer drivers on this card, but people will use the latest ones, just for the sake of having the latest ones. It's always the same with everything...


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## Azazel (Mar 27, 2008)

that not good...for n


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## DarkMatter (Mar 27, 2008)

BumbRush said:


> pure video till th 8 seirse didnt work correctly, i have had 6 and 7 seirse cards, and if u could get it to work it onlyworked partialy, and poorly even then, nvidia acctualy for a while droped driver support for it because it was effectivly unuseable.
> 
> i dont agree about nvidia alwase having more problens, now if you go by alwase meaning fx line and newer i agree, but the gf4 and lower had better drivers then the rage/rage128/radeon cards, till amd went to catlyist drivers their driver support was shit, its why i use to be a huge nvidiot, we live and learn.
> 
> and check pricewatch or froogle u can get ViVo 2400 and 2600 ati cards for a decent price, as to avivo, its alwase worked better then purevideo, and hell all the way back to the early DVD days ati has had hardware mpeg2 acceleration/decoding, nvidia didnt add that till the 5 cards and it was hopelessly broken on them, 6 and 7 pure video was a dog, and on the 8400-8600 its SLOWER with lower IQ then avivo on a x1300se(64bit 1300) let alone a hd2400-2600 where the acceleration can pull most of the decoding onto the videocard for h264,divx/xvid,mpeg2,and WMV(and even some other codecs if the player supports it)



I have had 6800 GT and 7900 GTX and PureVideo worked well. At least I could see a difference. 
Anyway I have to say that video playback is not an strong argument for me. I use the standalone DVD player for that and it does a lot better than any video card, but I have recomended Ati cards to my family and friends in the past though, because according to reviews video playback was better. I couldn't see any difference, but still.


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## Jimmy 2004 (Mar 27, 2008)

Ok guys, please stop the arguments and get the thread back on topic.


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## jydie (Mar 27, 2008)

The only PC that I have Vista installed on would be my laptop... and that was because I had no other choice for OS.  I did manage to install XP and now can choose XP or Vista when I boot up.  It has the X1200 ATI integrated graphics.

Under XP, everything has been great... no problems at all.  Vista has been crash free as well, but I hardly EVER boot into it.  Even with the extra 1 GB or memory that I added, Vista is just to slow, and games seem to take a hit on performance.

As for the fanboys... I do not mind hearing what they have to say.  As long as they keep it technical and not personal, then I am happy.


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## Necrofire (Mar 27, 2008)

Hidden inside this article is a subliminal message which says, "Unleash your inner troll."


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## philbrown23 (Mar 27, 2008)

this does not surprise me at all, every nvidia card I have ever owned had artifacting/crashing issues.


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## WarEagleAU (Mar 27, 2008)

No surprise. If all of these guys are having issues, youd have to think they have a common denominator. Vista. So I think the problem starts there. Its hard to make something work and work properly on a piece of garbage...


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## allen337 (Mar 27, 2008)

All you guys arguing over video cards I musta missed where it said the video was the problem?


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## DarkMatter (Mar 27, 2008)

Back on topic. 

Don't know why we are focusing so much on graphics cards when the article doesn't say anything.

As yogurt_21 said, most probably the problem is in the chipsets. And Nvidia has definately a lot more chipsets out there than AMD/Ati, and by a great margin. In chipsets both Nvidia and Ati have a lot less than Intel, but there are some factors that help Intel:

- They make the CPUs too, so it's normal that they have less problems. According to this same argument, it's true that AMD is not doing very well, but...

- among enthusiasts, Nvidia and Ati are more popular than on the mainstream market. And I would bet that it's on enthusiasts or semi-enthusiasts* were most of the crashes happened. 

*those that will try to do what enthusiasts do without a clue of what they are doing.


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## BumbRush (Mar 27, 2008)

DarkMatter said:


> You have a good point there, but it's 28,8% of crashes due to Nvidia and applied to your logic  48% of Nvidia users have experienced crashes.
> 
> Probably Nvidia users are having more crashes and problems in general, but we don't have to blame Nvidia drivers for this, but users. There are many factors, but it's mostly user's fault. The factors are these:
> 
> ...



mostly true, but you also gotta remmber that the g92 used on the 9800 and g94 on the 9600 are just versions of the same chip the new 8800gs/gt/gts use, and as such you CAN see a bennifit, from using them, i have been using the 174.16 drivers for a week now, and i got a perf boost with AA from them, nvidia is purly targeting their newist cards only because they want to keep the margin between them and the 8800's as high as possable till most ofthe reviews are out so that people will rush out and spent 600bucks on a new 9800 card......blah......


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## imperialreign (Mar 27, 2008)

and what about cross-breed systems?

how many people are running an Intel based motherboard, with an ATI southbridge and running an nVidia GPU?

how many users have had multiple crashes related to each individual hardware component, and do we factor out any known conflicting issues that tend to cause crashes in XP?


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## DarkMatter (Mar 27, 2008)

BumbRush said:


> mostly true, but you also gotta remmber that the g92 used on the 9800 and g94 on the 9600 are just versions of the same chip the new 8800gs/gt/gts use, and as such you CAN see a bennifit, from using them, i have been using the 174.16 drivers for a week now, and i got a perf boost with AA from them, nvidia is purly targeting their newist cards only because they want to keep the margin between them and the 8800's as high as possable till most ofthe reviews are out so that people will rush out and spent 600bucks on a new 9800 card......blah......



Agreed, sometimes they can help, but at the same time they can hurt more than what they help and you can't see it on the surface.
GForce 9000 series are based on G92, just as 8800 GS/GT/GTS. "Based" is the key word. I have read somewhere that 9 series could have some minor tweaks in the internal units, that would lead to 9600 GT performing so well compared to 8800 GT and 9800 GX2 being as fast (sometimes faster) than 8800 GTS SLI despite it's 10% slower core. Those internal changes are indeed more hazardous than what you could first think. Anyway a simple tweak to balance the computing power to different SP numbers could lead to a crash. Most crashes are related to resource management not done well.



imperialreign said:


> and what about cross-breed systems?
> 
> how many people are running an Intel based motherboard, with an ATI southbridge and running an nVidia GPU?
> 
> how many users have had multiple crashes related to each individual hardware component, and do we factor out any known conflicting issues that tend to cause crashes in XP?



That's also part of what I wanted to point out.

Intel only does Intel-Intel (chipset-cpu), Ati does Ati-Intel (very few really, but still) and Ati-Amd, and Nvidia does also Amd and Intel with the added factor that even nowadays there are more Nvidia-Amd than Ati-Amd.


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## BumbRush (Mar 27, 2008)

honestly, in this case im pretty much certen the only reasion they dont at least support the g92 8800's is because they want to keep the performance boosts in the 9 seirse for now so they can keep gaining sales.

the 9600 is good for a mid range card but at least for me isnt that great a buy when u can get a 1gb 8800gt for 180 at tiger (go check its the palit version)


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## DarkMatter (Mar 28, 2008)

BumbRush said:


> honestly, in this case im pretty much certen the only reasion they dont at least support the g92 8800's is because they want to keep the performance boosts in the 9 seirse for now so they can keep gaining sales.
> 
> the 9600 is good for a mid range card but at least for me isnt that great a buy when u can get a 1gb 8800gt for 180 at tiger (go check its the palit version)



IMO that's broken logic. Why would they want to sell 9600 GT over 8800 GT, which is more expensive and almost the same chip? And if they use that strategy to sell 9800 GX2, why do they release 174.74 (with support for all cards) just some days later? And why would they want 9 series to sell in expense of losing 8800 G92 sales after all the efforts that they did to sell G80 cards once G92 was launched? Why do they change their strategy in such a short time period?

IMO there's no logic in your assumption. And BTW I didn't see huge (if any) improvements on new drivers over 169.21 on my card. I will try 174.74 when I have time and decide, but I don't think this time will be different.

EDIT: Oh! And there was at least one driver specific to 8800 GS. Had that driver improvements too, but they didn't include other cards because they wanted to sell the GS over GT too? I don't see the logic there.


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## Wile E (Mar 28, 2008)

I still use 169.21 on my 88GT. Not a single issue here. I see no reason to move to a beta driver for 1 or 2 fps tops.


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## Mussels (Mar 28, 2008)

Darknova said:


> Why is someone a fanboy when they knock your beloved nvidia, but you are not even though you consistently knock ATi?



he was quite seriously pointing out a flaw with the provided numbers. you cant say Nv have crap drivers just because they have more errors, with Nvidias 6150 onboard video running a LOT of storebought vista machines i can guarantee (well, kinda) that Nvidia will have a LOT more vistas users than ATI.

And are these BSOD crashes or driver crashes? I have had that annoying NVKDLL (spelling?) driver has stopped responding crap all the time... when too far OC'd. i could have easily had a few hundred errors over that while OCing my video card/system ram.


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## BumbRush (Mar 28, 2008)

DarkMatter said:


> IMO that's broken logic. Why would they want to sell 9600 GT over 8800 GT, which is more expensive and almost the same chip? And if they use that strategy to sell 9800 GX2, why do they release 174.74 (with support for all cards) just some days later? And why would they want 9 series to sell in expense of losing 8800 G92 sales after all the efforts that they did to sell G80 cards once G92 was launched? Why do they change their strategy in such a short time period?
> 
> IMO there's no logic in your assumption. And BTW I didn't see huge (if any) improvements on new drivers over 169.21 on my card. I will try 174.74 when I have time and decide, but I don't think this time will be different.
> 
> EDIT: Oh! And there was at least one driver specific to 8800 GS. Had that driver improvements too, but they didn't include other cards because they wanted to sell the GS over GT too? I don't see the logic there.



um why would they want to sell a 9600 over a 8800,,,,,,,thats easy, THEY MAKE MORE OFF THE 9600 Then the 8800, the 9600 is cheaper to build, hence higher profit per sale, with your logic all of their cards should just be 256bit because theres no point in going lower.......

and i checked last night and those 174.74 drivers wherent on the list on nvidias own site, i will check again now, if they are then i will install them, if not, meh, screw it, i will stick with what i have


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## Mussels (Mar 28, 2008)

174.74 is on TPU's frontpage, its a beta driver so it doesnt show if you search the normal way on Nvidias site (you have to click beta drivers first)


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## BumbRush (Mar 28, 2008)

*nope no 174.74 drivers there.......*







hummmmm nope no 174.74 drivers to be found just drivers form what is that, 4 months ago?


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## BumbRush (Mar 28, 2008)

Mussels said:


> 174.74 is on TPU's frontpage, its a beta driver so it doesnt show if you search the normal way on Nvidias site (you have to click beta drivers first)



checked nvidias own beta archive and guess what, its not there, so its a leek......

ok found it, its listed as a beta 9 seirse driver NOT under the 8 seirse.......


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## Solaris17 (Mar 28, 2008)

BumbRush said:


> checked nvidias own beta archive and guess what, its not there, so its a leek......
> 
> ok found it, its listed as a beta 9 seirse driver NOT under the 8 seirse.......



that doesnt mean anything.....the drivers arent series dependent you know.....


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## Mussels (Mar 28, 2008)

i just followed the link on the front of TPU and it took me straight to it.

Oh and lately some betas ARE series dependant (only 9 series), which is why its probably hiding there.


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## BumbRush (Mar 28, 2008)

Solaris17 said:


> that doesnt mean anything.....the drivers arent series dependent you know.....





Mussels said:


> i just followed the link on the front of TPU and it took me straight to it.
> 
> Oh and lately some betas ARE series dependant (only 9 series), which is why its probably hiding there.



solar, in this case ur wrong..... most of the betas lately have been 9600/9800 only, u had to mod the inf file to make them work on other cards.


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## TheGuruStud (Mar 28, 2008)

WarEagleAU said:


> No surprise. If all of these guys are having issues, youd have to think they have a common denominator. Vista. So I think the problem starts there. Its hard to make something work and work properly on a piece of garbage...



Werd, M$ is trying to cover their asses on this one. You can't hide a steaming pile of shit when you can smell it from across the house


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## BumbRush (Mar 28, 2008)

but nubs and retards are eating that shit up, and u can tell because their breath stinks


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## btarunr (Mar 28, 2008)

BumbRush said:


> sorry but you are full of it, you run around every chance you get badmouthing ati, ur a fanboi/nvidiot, just be a man like btarunr and admit it.
> 
> and there are reasions, you just wont accept them because they arent strong points for nvidia, i wont bother listing them again, but most of us know what they are.



So does your making bold statements without logical backing and valid argument make you ATIncompetent ? Calling someone NVidiot is an insult too, of which is against forum guidelines. I indeed called myself an NVidiot but you _obviously_ fail to understand the tone and context in which I said it, it was on a lighter note. Your only tool to reply to people with valid counter-arguments is calling them NVidiots, or that some ATI cards come with 'siren-screaming' onboard audio....and oh, buggy drivers made by NVidia (that still don't come in the way of NVidia's products performing better than the competition).


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## candle_86 (Mar 28, 2008)

intel igent said:


> newtekkie : you called me a fanboi before because i was defending an ATi product in a separate thread, meanwhile the SAME day i was advising a fellow forum member to purchase an Nvidia product over ATi, and have done so on other occasions.
> 
> i am in no way a fanboi.
> 
> ...



yes the NV40 didnt support it, big deal, if you bought a 6800 to watch movies your insane, i can understand that thinking today but back then just makes you a nutjob


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## Mussels (Mar 28, 2008)

ati and nvidia ALWAYS had problems. they merely take it in turns in the spotlight, as one is always 'worse' than the other.

Hell, a DVD runs on a 400Mhz celeron (an old powerDVD disk i have lists that as the requirement, 600MHz with surround sound) so who cares about video card acceleration if it doesnt work? Yes its a good feature, but its not like it not working (Temporarily! it IS software) ruins the card.

Driver issues like the NV driver crashing for some users in vista, or not working on the 7900GT without modding the clocks, THOSE are serious issues. ATI has a few as well (broken scaling for widescreen, driver issues for AGP users) so its not like one is worse than the other.


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## candle_86 (Mar 28, 2008)

agreed, i dont use the Nvidia dvd decoder software, i use my trust X2 and powerDVD, and it plays DVD's just fine.

Also with the move to MPEG4 both need to play catchup as there MPEG4 support sucks on both brands


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## qwerty_lesh (Mar 28, 2008)

off topic, sorry, but im not vid brand bashing, so least thats good lol.

BumbRush, whered you get that opera skin from?

on topic, haha i bet that microsoft came second because idiots (i swear ive seen people try to do this) install office XP onto vista, then say just like the dumb idiots they are 'why isnt my program working properly, der der der' 
poor microsoft, im sure all their current software could probably run ok'ish on their bloaty shiney os, too bad that end users still want to use programs that are over 5 years old on it.


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## Mussels (Mar 28, 2008)

i use office XP in vista. no problems, i also happen to use microsoft update and keep it up to date which is probably why (office has service packs for a reaaaason)


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## Widjaja (Mar 28, 2008)

nVidia and ATi both suck in one way or another.

nVidia will be good at a game ATi is not and vice versa.
But the worse thing is the performance difference is huge in some games.

It should be, both nVidia and ATi play games flawlessly but one just has the edge a little over the other.

There needs to be another GPU company with the potential up the anty.

Enough for both nVidia and ATi to team up. . . .but I guess we can all dream.


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## newtekie1 (Mar 28, 2008)

Mussels said:


> i just followed the link on the front of TPU and it took me straight to it.
> 
> Oh and lately some betas ARE series dependant (only 9 series), which is why its probably hiding there.



Usually the drivers that are series dependant are the same drivers, but the only change is to support a new card.  The release notes on them usually only list "Added support for ******".  There are no improvements in the drivers, they just now support a new card that has been released.  So there is no point in everyone redownloading and reinstalling to get the same driver you already had but with support for a card you don't have.


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## DarkMatter (Mar 28, 2008)

BumbRush said:


> um why would they want to sell a 9600 over a 8800,,,,,,,thats easy, THEY MAKE MORE OFF THE 9600 Then the 8800, the 9600 is cheaper to build, hence higher profit per sale, with your logic all of their cards should just be 256bit because theres no point in going lower.......
> 
> and i checked last night and those 174.74 drivers wherent on the list on nvidias own site, i will check again now, if they are then i will install them, if not, meh, screw it, i will stick with what i have



It's not that cheaper to build, that's my logic. They have same memory, same cooling, same powering and almost same pcb, and of course the chip itself is the same just with 48 less SPs. All in all, I'm willing to bet that the price difference in production is a lot smaller than what you see on street prices. 9600GT was launched to counter Ati HD3850, even if the profit went down.

I don't know from where you took out that I think they should only do 256+ bit cards, or high-end cards or whatever you want to say. There must be different segments, but they will make different designs for each one or they will have low profits. The card is almost the same. It sells for $50 less. Profit is smaller, but it doesn't matter because they regain market share. Yet they don't have any reason to deliverately hurt 8800GT sales just because of that. If XXXXX driver improves 8800 GT in addition to 9600 GT, and they know because they have tested it, they will support it.

Also AFAIK 8800 will be EOL soon, as they release 9800 (which is almost 8800) they will stop producing 8800s, so they want to sell them before they launch the new ones. A company will always prefer selling the parts that have been already manufactured than the ones that not. It happened the same with G80. Think about it, there's no logic in what you say. They want to sell more 9600s? Probably. They want to canibalize 8800 sales? NO. They want to improve 8800 performance in order to make HD3870 obsolete? YES. Then they will support the cards in any new driver that really helps improve performance.

EDIT: And I forgot to say, the higher the price, the higher the profit per sale. If it was in any company's hand they would always sell the high-end parts, but they know that the masses won't buy them, so they need mainstream and low-end. Mainstream is where the money is because for each $300 card sold they can sell four $150 cards.


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## Solaris17 (Mar 28, 2008)

BumbRush said:


> solar, in this case ur wrong..... most of the betas lately have been 9600/9800 only, u had to mod the inf file to make them work on other cards.



huh thats intresting because to my knowledge the drivers added specific changes to the 9 series but worked on 8 and 7 series cards...at least thats what iv been seeing in some of the competition threads ppl with other cards not 9 series using the betas perectly fine...would you happen to know by experience?


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## Solaris17 (Mar 28, 2008)

BumbRush said:


> but nubs and retards are eating that shit up, and u can tell because their breath stinks



that comment wasnt necissary we need to learn to keep it cival were having a discussion about cards and i would hope that everyone here can learn to be a big boy and not go around calling people fan bopys and since your the first one to bring it up id call you flame bait but i wont instead of going around talking trash how about we answer a valid point without calling someone an nvidiot b4 someone calls you a tool.


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## [I.R.A]_FBi (Mar 28, 2008)

fanboi-ism gets no one anywhere please stop it.


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## phanbuey (Mar 28, 2008)

The aricle shouldnt be titled "Nvidia Responsible for most Vista crashes."...

better name is "Crappy vista crashes most on machines with Nvidia hardware!"...

Nvidia is not responsible for microsoft's ineptitude.  If its WHQL certified, and Vista crashes... thats MS's fault, if the drivers were bad, why the F&^* did you certify them?


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## Scrizz (Mar 28, 2008)

.. this thread's a mess..


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## candle_86 (Mar 28, 2008)

agreed.


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## Urlyin (Mar 28, 2008)

Scrizz said:


> .. this thread's a mess..



Yes ..spiraling down ... down .. down ... soon to be closed ... stay on topic and leave the fanboi comments at the door ..


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## Mussels (Mar 28, 2008)

about the beta drivers: most of them were 9 series only. people modded them (its not hard) to work with 8 series again.

9600GT is cheaper than 8800GT becauise of changes to the PCB - they reduced the amount of layers in it. the card IS cheaper to make, and they probably did reduce their profits a bit too. who cares, its cheap and fast.


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## Widjaja (Mar 29, 2008)

Anyone remember when performance started to go down hill?
To my recollection it was about 05'?

Thats when I started to see stuttering anyway.

And then Vista came out and it was even worse!


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## Mussels (Mar 29, 2008)

what stuttering are you talking about?


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## DarkMatter (Mar 29, 2008)

Mussels said:


> about the beta drivers: most of them were 9 series only. people modded them (its not hard) to work with 8 series again.
> 
> 9600GT is cheaper than 8800GT becauise of changes to the PCB - they reduced the amount of layers in it. the card IS cheaper to make, and they probably did reduce their profits a bit too. who cares, its cheap and fast.



Hmm I've been searching because I thought they had reduced the layers for 8800 GT, it seems they didn't or I can't find anything to confirm one way or the other. I know Nvidia wanted to do so and I supposed they finally did. I thought that all the 8800 GTs released lately, with the new cooler for example, had reduced layers and that they had a PCB similar to the simpler 9600 GT. 

Anyway I still think it doesn't make for $50 price difference. And even so, it's not cheaper enough, nor better enough in price/performance to throw away all 8800 GT stock.


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## newtekie1 (Mar 29, 2008)

NVidia never required that the number of layers be lowered, they just suggested it to their partners to help reduce costs and hence retail prices.  I don't know if they ever actually did it though.


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## Mussels (Mar 29, 2008)

from what i've learned, the 8800GT was optional, but the 9600GT had the reduced layers from the start, thus the lower price.


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## BumbRush (Mar 29, 2008)

qwerty_lesh said:


> off topic, sorry, but im not vid brand bashing, so least thats good lol.
> 
> BumbRush, whered you get that opera skin from?
> 
> ...



the opera skin gallery, look for TTTskins, had to spell his name tobias or something, his skins rock, also check out the retro dos skin


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## candle_86 (Mar 29, 2008)

not sure on layers but the core is alot cheaper to make, its not a G92 with half turned off, its a G94 with everything turned on


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## btarunr (Mar 29, 2008)

candle_86 said:


> not sure on layers but the core is alot cheaper to make, its not a G92 with half turned off, its a G94 with everything turned on



A G92 (as in 8800 GT) isn't a 'G94 with everything turned on'.


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## DarkMatter (Mar 29, 2008)

newtekie1 said:


> NVidia never required that the number of layers be lowered, they just suggested it to their partners to help reduce costs and hence retail prices.  I don't know if they ever actually did it though.





Mussels said:


> from what i've learned, the 8800GT was optional, but the 9600GT had the reduced layers from the start, thus the lower price.



That was my fault, I thought they had reduced them, and thus even if slightly different, they couldn't be much more expensive to make.



candle_86 said:


> not sure on layers but the core is alot cheaper to make, its not a G92 with half turned off, its a G94 with everything turned on



I think that I didn't explain my point well. The GPU core is cheaper to make, that's true, but what matters in the end is the price of the final product. Example:

8800 GT sells for ~$200
9600 GT ~$160

From this price we have to take away the profit for (r)etailers, transport and partners. Each link in the chain wants his part and they always think in porcentual gains. Let's say $50 for the 9600 GT and $70 for 8800 GT.

8800 GT - $130*
9600 GT - $110*

If we take away the cost of the packages, cooling solution, stickers, cables, etc.

8800 GT - $110*
9600 GT - $90*

Take away the cost of 512MB of memory

http://forums.techpowerup.com/showthread.php?t=55539&page=2

8 x $4,5 = $36

8800 GT - $74
9600 GT - $54

That's the price for the core, PCB and capacitors, resistors, etc. Usually those things (except the core) are on partners hands. Let's say it's half of the price:

8800 GT - $37*
9600 GT - $27*

Those are the numbers Nvidia will get. As you can see the difference is huge (remember you have to think percentual on business) compared to the final retail price, or the price once we take away retailer's profit. Now what price is important when it comes to selling cards? Retail price. 
What is better for Nvidia? It depends on the deal with the partners, but the closer that those two cards get in retail prices the better it is for Nvidia to sell 8800 GT more, because since both cards share so much they are closer in final price, but difference in the GPU core is maintained. 

*Maybe those numbers are wrong, but are orientative and I have based them on logic and based on my experience working for a retailer.


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