Who makes the best graphics drivers?

[RCoon]

I'm still waiting for something else. Green and red are dull.

This.
They are both terrible with drivers. From launch date to current, the amount of performance we have "magically gained" through drivers is insanely phenominal.

 

[Horrux]

I'm still waiting for something else. Green and red are dull.

The return of Matrox?

 

[Melvis]

I'm still waiting for something else. Green and red are dull.

VIA?

 

[jigar2speed]

Good lord.. I fear ati drivers.... love nvidia ones. Of course I've been using nvidia since tnt.... but no seriously, I hate ati drivers...

So you haven't used AMD drivers and you hate them for that, great, find me one link that says this for AMD - http://www.zdnet.com/blog/hardware/warning-nvidia-196-75-drivers-can-kill-your-graphics-card/7551

 

[Aquinus]

So you haven't used AMD drivers and you hate them for that, great, find me one link that says this for AMD - http://www.zdnet.com/blog/hardware/warning-nvidia-196-75-drivers-can-kill-your-graphics-card/7551

Yeah, I don't remember Catalyst killing AMD/ATi cards.

Catalyst has always worked for me. More often than not any crashes and instability I experience is usually due to me messing with my overclock, not AMD drivers. I experience one strange issue with Skyrim when I started running my 6870s in crossfire where water reflections were glitching, but the next driver update fixed it.

I think that both AMD and nVidia have done a fine job at making drivers, that doesn't determine what card I get. I might also add that my 8600 GTS fried the DDC on my display at work because the "PCI-E power connector" on the GPU expects a molex adapter to be used for input (+12v and +5v,) and not PCI-E power (only +12v). So if you plug in a PCI-E connector (which fits perfectly as it is the same exact connector,) it sometimes works, but not before I starts potentially damaging the GPU and apparently the displays connected to it.

I haven't lost an AMD/ATi video card and they've never killed other components, which is a lot less than I can say for the nVidia cards I've owned.

So from personal experience, nVidia cards have damaged hardware and failed, where AMD has always worked. I don't need the driver argument to determine what direction I lean, unfortunately. I almost convinced myself to go nVidia next time I upgrade until my 8600 GTS damaged a display which completely changed my mind.

Are nVidia cards like this now? I seriously doubt it, but I'm not going to take that chance. One bad experience, no big deal, two bad, I become skeptical, three and I give up and I'm on the giving up part.

 

[jigar2speed]

I'm still waiting for something else. Green and red are dull.

Actually the issue is not with the AMD or Nvidia, it's with your screen - Try Plasma screen for better color saturation

 

[Aquinus]

Actually the issue is not with the AMD or Nvidia, it's with your screen - Try Plasma screen for better color saturation

Until you start noticing your start menu and UI burned into your display. Plasmas have gotten better about burn in though. Between tools to wipe the screen and some features that mitigate burn-in like pixel orbiting reduce it.

Don't keep reds and greens on there too long, or that is all you will be seeing.

 

[Random Murderer]

So you haven't used AMD drivers and you hate them for that, great, find me one link that says this for AMD - http://www.zdnet.com/blog/hardware/warning-nvidia-196-75-drivers-can-kill-your-graphics-card/7551

Actually, I've only experienced the opposite with ATi/AMD drivers... the fan speed locking at 100% and having absolutely no software control over it. You're not going to overheat and burn up a card that way, though it may sound like a jet engine until you get it sorted.

I haven't lost an AMD/ATi video card...

I've lost a card... I can't find my old x1600xt.

 

[Aquinus]

I've lost a card... I can't find my old x1600xt.

At least it only ran away. My 8600 GTS vandalized a display.

 

[BlackOmega]

Well this is an interesting topic.

I'd say that neither is better.
I haven't had any major issues with either company.

I've run lots of Crossfire and SLI getups and both equally have their problems.

Although, I've never had an ATi driver cause a game to become unplayable like Nvidia has. Years ago, Nvidia released a driver that made BF2142 unplayable.
Has never been the case with ATi.

Also, for what it's worth, ATi has never released a driver that cooked cards like Nvidia.

All that aside, they're equal IMO. No real discernible difference between the two in actual gameplay.

 

[DayKnight]

Yeah. All those 'stuttering' videos of AMD GPU's are a blatant lie.

 

[BlackOmega]

Yeah. All those 'stuttering' videos of AMD GPU's are a blatant lie.

It's not only an ATi problem. Nvidia has had it's fair share of microstuttering cards. 9800GX2, GTX295's come to mind.

I've run lots of ATi crossfire getups and I can't say that I've ever had an issue with microstutter provided that the CPU is capable of handling what the GPUs' throw at it. When it can't is usually when microstutter occurs with current GPUs'.

 

[Aquinus]

It's not only an ATi problem. Nvidia has had it's fair share of microstuttering cards. 9800GX2, GTX295's come to mind.

I've run lots of ATi crossfire getups and I can't say that I've ever had an issue with microstutter provided that the CPU is capable of handling what the GPUs' throw at it. When it can't is usually when microstutter occurs with current GPUs'.

I think he is talking about variation in frame rate, not micro-stutter. What he is describing is inconsistent frame-rates (quick increases and drops in frame rate,) during a 3d scene on an AMD card. The problem is there are settings that can be adjusted to improve this. This usually happens because no frame are being pre-rendered on the AMD card when nVidia defaults to something like 3 frame. RadeonPro lets you adjust this for AMD cards.

Having two 6870s in crossfire, I do notice micro-stuttering, but it doesn't bother me most of the time.

 

[DayKnight]

It can default to 10. I dont really care until unless my gaming experience is being ruined (see: Mouse lag).

Any game can implement the pre rendered thing in it. ATM I am playing Far Cry 3 with only 1 frame in buffer.

No problems at all.

 

[BlackOmega]

I think he is talking about variation in frame rate, not micro-stutter. What he is describing is inconsistent frame-rates (quick increases and drops in frame rate,) during a 3d scene on an AMD card. The problem is there are settings that can be adjusted to improve this. This usually happens because no frame are being pre-rendered on the AMD card when nVidia defaults to something like 3 frame. RadeonPro lets you adjust this for AMD cards.

That's interesting. Although I'd dare say that this condition may have a lot to do with the game being played as opposed to the hardware that it's being played on. Some games have poorly coded/textured maps that will cause unexplainable drops/increases in FPS. I've seen a lot of games do this.

Having two 6870s in crossfire, I do notice micro-stuttering, but it doesn't bother me most of the time.

That's quite strange. I've ran several crossfire getups since the 4870 was king, including several 58xx series cards, 6870's, 6950's and 6970's, I can't say that I've noticed microstuttering with any of them.
Some of these getups, mainly the 58xx series cards and the 6950's I've run on an i7 (x58) and an AMD rig (1090T, 790FX), while the framerate was better on the i7, there still weren't any issues on the AMD either.
The 6870's I ran on the AMD rig, and they ran flawlessly with the exception of Skyrim, which is a known issue.

From what I've observed, when microstutter occurs with relatively current hardware in crossfire using 2 separate GPUs', there typically is another fairly resource heavy program running in the background.
Don't get me wrong, a lot of the x2 iterations of cards had their fair share of issues, however, that was almost 5 generations ago.
Just out of curiosity, how many programs are running int he background?

It can default to 10. I dont really care until unless my gaming experience is being ruined (see: Mouse lag).

There's other things that can cause mouse lag.
Vsync, believe it or not, on certain games can cause mouse input lag. I've especially noticed this on Valve games (CS:S, TF2, etc).
A resource heavy program running in the background; typically a lack of memory issue.

GPUs' can cause this issue, but I'd imagine that this is only at higher resolutions or extrememly damading games played on insufficient hardware.
Like trying to play Metro 2033 maxed out on a 6770. It's just not going to happen. Well it may, but it'll most likely look like a slide show.

I know a lot of people don't like ATi's GPUs' because they claim their drivers are poor. While sure the user interface isn't as user friendly as Nvidia's, it's typically not what people claim it is. More often than not it's the users fault. PEBKAC.
I've run ATi GPUs' for quite some time and I have never experienced problems that a lot of people have had with them.
I believe the problem here lies with the ambiguous form of installing/uninstalling ATi's driver. This, AMD could GREATLY improve upon. Make it semi foolproof. I believe that is what's lacking.

 

[DayKnight]

That's interesting. Although I'd dare say that this condition may have a lot to do with the game being played as opposed to the hardware that it's being played on. Some games have poorly coded/textured maps that will cause unexplainable drops/increases in FPS. I've seen a lot of games do this.

That's quite strange. I've ran several crossfire getups since the 4870 was king, including several 58xx series cards, 6870's, 6950's and 6970's, I can't say that I've noticed microstuttering with any of them.
Some of these getups, mainly the 58xx series cards and the 6950's I've run on an i7 (x58) and an AMD rig (1090T, 790FX), while the framerate was better on the i7, there still weren't any issues on the AMD either.
The 6870's I ran on the AMD rig, and they ran flawlessly with the exception of Skyrim, which is a known issue.

From what I've observed, when microstutter occurs with relatively current hardware in crossfire using 2 separate GPUs', there typically is another fairly resource heavy program running in the background.
Don't get me wrong, a lot of the x2 iterations of cards had their fair share of issues, however, that was almost 5 generations ago.
Just out of curiosity, how many programs are running int he background?



There's other things that can cause mouse lag.
Vsync, believe it or not, on certain games can cause mouse input lag. I've especially noticed this on Valve games (CS:S, TF2, etc).
A resource heavy program running in the background; typically a lack of memory issue.

GPUs' can cause this issue, but I'd imagine that this is only at higher resolutions or extrememly damading games played on insufficient hardware.
Like trying to play Metro 2033 maxed out on a 6770. It's just not going to happen. Well it may, but it'll most likely look like a slide show.

I know a lot of people don't like ATi's GPUs' because they claim their drivers are poor. While sure the user interface isn't as user friendly as Nvidia's, it's typically not what people claim it is. More often than not it's the users fault. PEBKAC.
I've run ATi GPUs' for quite some time and I have never experienced problems that a lot of people have had with them.
I believe the problem here lies with the ambiguous form of installing/uninstalling ATi's driver. This, AMD could GREATLY improve upon. Make it semi foolproof. I believe that is what's lacking.

I am not talking about Vsync.

 

[Drone]

The return of Matrox?

VIA?

Anyone Or maybe there will be some petaherz soc cpu which could do all rendering alone without gpu and drivers

 

[Binge]

nVidia control panel is my favorite monitor/performance tweaking software to date. Multi-monitor control is very easy, and my clients find it a lot easier to understand than the competition. Driver updates are also very painless.

 

[Aquinus]

Multi-monitor control is very easy, and my clients find it a lot easier to understand than the competition. Driver updates are also very painless.

Obviously you've never tried using multi-monitor in Linux with nVidia drivers. Completely different animal and I hate it. At least AMD's FLGRX drivers work for me and they can setup multi-display with the click of a button and without a restart, which is a lot less than I can say for nVidia's drivers.

If I were only using Windows I may have a slightly different view, but all in all, I think Linux usability of nVidia drivers are pretty horrific.

 

[erixx]

ok, during some years that I had multi monitor (Win Xp years) it was working as I liked after lots of tweaking and that got destroyed with each NVIDIA driver update. So now I have one big monitor (and a tablet

One question always tortures me is: are the "improvements" of each NVIDIA driver release automatically "visible" in games or do you have to use custom profiles? (I prefer "let the game decide", but I may be wrong)

Edit: added "NVIDIA" to make clear what i'm talking about

 

[PLSG08]

I've faced both AMD (my old HD 3200) and Nvidia (my sister's 310M) and I have to say that Nvidia wins for me. (Note: These are both Notebooks, the only Desktop GPU i've used was a FX 5500)

Back in my HD 3200 days, only 9.12 drivers worked and upgrading or downgrading would cause issues (Blue Screens, hang ups, slower performance, the likes) and CCC didn't save profiles that much. Also is that I had to go through a shitload of things just to install new drivers (Uninstall, reboot to safe mode, blah blah blah) then I have to redo those things again to roll back.

Now with my Sister's 310m the problem I've faced was application issues and Nvidia Optimus issues. Another is the File size of the download (Nvidia's 150+Mb drivers Vs. AMD's 50+Mb drivers) I have a rather dull internet connection.

Other than that Green teams wins for me :/

EDIT: Oh wait it seems that nowadays that the file size of both team are roughly the same.... back then it wasn't.... sorry guys

 

[Aquinus]

I've never had issues with the Mobility Radeon HD 3650 in my personal laptop (A late 2008 Dell Studio 1735 with a C2D 2.1Ghz Penryn). In fact it overclocks really well too (20%-30% improvement). That was a win in my book because most laptops won't let you overclock anything on it. Obviously it's not so good for modern games but back when I bought it, it ran a lot at medium to high graphics @ 1920x1200 (I got the upgraded display, it was on sale for 350 USD off so I threw the Penryn and HD display in it.) Granted it wasn't anything amazing but for a laptop for under $1100 USD, at the time it was pretty awesome deal for a 17" laptop with what it had in it.

 

[Horrux]

I think maybe in the end a lot of those who vote green like nV drivers because they "bring performance improvements" every month, whereas those who vote red like their side because they don't need to update drivers often...

There's something to be said for each...

 

[erixx]

^ a bit partisan?

 

[eidairaman1]

I found the COntrol panel deal opposite- AMDs seemed easier for me to use and learn the NV seems to be a lil confusing. (Question is can a 6200 be overclocked- dont see that NV CP at all)