NVIDIA Fall Driver Update (rel 180) and Other Treats
by Derek Wilson on November 20, 2008 8:00 AM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
A long time ago, NVIDIA used to get us excited about new driver launches. Back in the GF2 days, we would see features and performance improvements to cheer about coming out all the time. Even in the GeForce 6 series time frame when NVIDIA was playing with dynamic compilers and shader replacement we could at least expect the occasional surprise. But lately we just haven't seen anything to jump up and down about in the average driver drop.
So this time around we were enthusiastic about the possibility of new features and performance boosts that could really make this an important and even exciting driver release. Honestly, NVIDIA needs to step up to the plate and really start getting people interested in their drivers again. While it isn't perfect, we are much happier with the approach NVIDIA takes to driver development than AMD. While monthly driver drops may be popular with end users, there are just too many sacrifices being made. Fixes in one driver don't always make it into the next and very few games are tested with each drop meaning things that were fixed often get broken again.
The transition to Vista was more of a struggle for NVIDIA than AMD, and NVIDIA definitely didn't handle that situation real well leaving GeForce 6 and 7 owners in a bit of a lurch while Vista and GeForce 8 were the focus. NVIDIA's approach to drivers does provide fewer WHQL certified drivers, but now that they are back to unified drivers and done with the Vista transition, we can generally get good results on any card with any beta driver. NVIDIA has one driver trunk and a huge list of games they test with each update (even their beta releases get QA'd quite a bit before release).
The AMD approach spreads the driver team too thin and concentrates efforts on getting the next driver out rather than on making the next driver good. Consider what AMD went through from 8.10 to 8.11, with the transition to X58 and the release of Far Cry 2. From 8.10, after multiple different hotfix revisions we still didn't have a driver that was really complete. When 8.11 came out, we still had no joy. This week finally saw the release of a hotfix that addresses our issues, but the majority of gamers won't see the changes integrated until 8.12. Essentially, the 8.11 driver release is just a placebo and a waste of time and money. It serves only a marketing purpose to make end users feel all warm and squishy inside.
For us, great quality, feature filled, exciting quarterly drivers with frequent beta drops for compatibility and stability is something we'd love to see from both companies. Even if AMD dropped back to an every other month cycle we feel it would be hugely beneficial to the quality and usefulness of their drivers. While we feel NVIDIA has the right approach, they haven't been doing enough in their new driver releases to get us really enthusiastic about them. Hopefully this will change.
Beyond drivers, we've got a bit of talk about an interesting title that will support PhysX in the near future and some GPU computing developments. But mostly this is about drivers. So lets get down to it.
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Finally - Friday, November 21, 2008 - link
Thank you Derek for your insightful posting, clarity and all.The only lesson I can extract from your writing is the common man's knowledge that you shouldn't mess around with SLI/Crossfire, ever.
@Tejas:
[quote]As a 3870X2 quadfire and 4870 Crossfire owner I can say without doubt that AMD driver support is lousy and bordering on scandalous... I still do not have a Crossfire profile for Fallout 3 and it has been almost a month."[/quote]
Stop bitching. You called for your personal grief and you got it delivered alright. If you got too much time on your hands and want to spend them on ridiculous hobbies, so be it - but don't bitch for the common man.
Finally - Friday, November 21, 2008 - link
To clarify the meaning of "calling for personal grief":Putting too many graphics cards in your rig is like hiring a motorcycle gang to beat you up with sticks and chains and all and then running around the town, showing your bruises and bloodpouring to everyone complaining how bad you are feeling after that paid-for encounter...
tejas84 - Thursday, November 20, 2008 - link
Derek Wilson is 100% right. As a 3870X2 quadfire and 4870 Crossfire owner I can say without doubt that AMD driver support is lousy and bordering on scandalous... I still do not have a Crossfire profile for Fallout 3 and it has been almost a month.I had to wait for TWO catalyst revisions until Crysis Warhead and Stalker CS had profiles as well as GRID, Assassins Creed, World in Conflict etc etc....
Nvidia put the effort to work with developers to ensure the games work with their hardware and integrate SLI profiles. AMD are arrogant and I remember an AMD moderator say that the TWIMTBP program was simply paying for a logo. For a company betting everything on multi GPU isnt it strange that AMD doesnt work with devs to get Crossfire profiles into game.
Well actually they pay so that their games work well with the latest games. AMD are lazy and cut corners just like with their CPUs and frankly I am going to sell up my AMD cards and go exclusively Nvidia from now on...
Bottom line... anyone who thinks that Derek is being harsh has NEVER OWNED AN ATI CROSSFIRE SETUP BEFORE....
Regards
Griswold - Friday, November 21, 2008 - link
Point and case why multi-GPU solution suck donkey nuts, no matter what team you depend on - you depend on them twice as much as everyone else (one for the raw driver and its bugs or lack thereof and one for the profiles). No thanks to that.Tough luck, I say. And with nvidia on, what seems to be a financial downward slope, it remains to be seen if they're willing and capable to deliver in the future. Good luck, I say.
Goty - Thursday, November 20, 2008 - link
So wait, I think you're forgetting the whole "Call of Juarez" deal. ATI had a deal with the developer there in the same manner that NVIDIA has a deal with all the developers that participate in the TWIMTBP program. NVIDIA's hardware performed like crap in the game when it was first released and everyone cried foul, saying that it was "unfair" and "anti-competitive" for AMD to do something like that.Now, if we want to talk about anti-competitive, what about NVIDIA's dubious dealings with Ubisoft and Assassin's Creed and DirectX 10.1 support? Hmmm...
tejas84 - Thursday, November 20, 2008 - link
addendum,Well actually they pay so that their games work well with the latest games- this refers to Nvidia
chizow - Thursday, November 20, 2008 - link
Its not the first, Anand recently ripped into ATI drivers in his Core i7 launch review:Its a problem that has been gaining momentum lately and has drawn a LOT of attention with the recent Farcry 2 driver debacle. First there was the issue of render errors, hitching in DX10 and overall poor performance without FPS caps. Then there were hot fixes, fixes for hot fixes and further hot fixes. Then there were CF problems with newer drivers that necessitated using drivers that had the render errors or DX10 stuttering or both. But it comes down to this, if the recommended fix for a problem is to revert to prior drivers, its pretty clear the monthly WHQL program isn't working.
ATI gets more heat because their drivers tend to be more reactive than Nvidia, who tends to be more proactive with their TWIMTBP program and driver updates that come in advance or arrive in tandem with hot launch titles. This latest round of reviews and performance in top 5 titles would confirm this.
ATI has also made multi-GPU their solution for high-end performance, which means their products rely heavily CF scaling and compatibility. A big problem here is that ATI does not have user-defined profiles for games like Nvidia, which means there is no recourse if you have poor CF scaling or performance short of workarounds like renaming game .exes.
giantpandaman2 - Thursday, November 20, 2008 - link
Where's the blame on Ubisoft Montreal? Can't a game company release a game that works with a large portion of video cards?That said, I think AMD should go to once every other month. Less overhead, more things fixed with the same amount of man hours. nVidia drivers simply take too damn long. They go to the opposite extreme if you ask me. I owned an 8800GT and it took them 9 months to get their video card fully compatible with my monitor in Vista64. That's ridiculous.
But, seriously, why do people only blame driver makers and not the fricken game makers who have easy access to the hardware?
DerekWilson - Thursday, November 20, 2008 - link
game developers are hitting a moving target as well. they don't have the drivers that will be out when their game launches until their game launches ... and it would have been final for month(s) before that.in contrast, AMD and NVIDIA can get their hands on those games months before hand and make sure that drivers work they way they should with the software.
there is developer responsibility to be sure, but a driver issue is a driver issue ... game devs can't shoulder that burden.
JonnyDough - Friday, November 21, 2008 - link
Hence, MORE STANDARDS!