ATI's drivers start to suck again

[DaveW]

They seem to have been getting gradually worse over the past 6 months, check out this (long) list of driver issues at rage3d:

http://www.rage3d.com/board/showthread.php?threadid=33697611

[-=DVS=-]

Thats is not to bad actually , some of these reports are silly and you can't blame them all on ATI drivers there are many factors involved like the rest of PC and they drivers, like slow performance in morrowind with shadows gee , all cards run slow with shadows in morrowind , or one guy had crash in unreal 2 , that game have problems with audigy cards need to get updates , :rolleyes: but yes Cats 3.5 do suck better get 3.4 and or Omegas 3.5 they are the best ones :p

By not to bad i meant only crappy games haveing problems :lol:

Playing Enclave what a gorgeouse graphics all maxed out :drooling: and Pirates of Caribbean ;)

[infowar]

yes, sadly in my experience the ATI drivers have just been getting worse and worse in the catalyst 3.x line.
i am mainly concerned with the NTFS corruption issue i lost 40gb to before i figured out what the problem was. i have reported the problem to ati catalyst crew feedback form and so have several others who have lost data, since this page has popped up at ati http://www.ati.com:80/support/infobase/4217.html since it only occours with non-default windows settings it doesn't seem to be a high priority to fix, atleast i waited 2 driver versions before installing the GF4.
yes ati drivers are still extremely buggy. almost no new games work right on release, the stuttering problem is still very real, if you are unlucky they will corrupt your entire hard drive, along with the rest of the problems sighted in the rage3d thread. it seems crazy to me that all of these problems are worth a higher 3dmark score to some people.
so far i am fairly happy with my new GF4 and the nvidia drivers. ofcourse the performance is better than the 8500, but the 2d quality is a little worse. hopfully nvidia is more commited to releasing stable drivers that will not compromise my system/data integrity.

[Sazar]

I continue having 0 problems... therefore I cant comment on the drivers getting worse...

besides... 3.5's fixed the cs problem that existed... :)

also.. the latest wdm drivers make the tv tuner ROCK :D

so I dunno if you can really say the drivers suck again :)

however... since that is your professional opinion :) I'll leave it @ that...

[AthlonXP1800]

I told you so :D

Of course ATI drivers is getting worse and I am not very surprised it left long list of problems for quite a long time and other games very long time with no fixes. I think ATI are really very lazy not to put all the problems on high priority to do list so I think ATI will never fixed many of these problems, ATI should sorted out VESA 2.0 problems with upgraded to VESA 3.0 3 years ago, it looked like ATI are still strucked with VESA 1.2 standard and Nvidia cards already had VESA 3.0 compatible for years.

I played almost all of these games on the to do list on my Geforce 4 Ti 4600, none of it had issues or shutter and also played many old DOS games as well playing arcade games on MAME emulator.

This is what to do list ATI should done few years ago to avoid drivers problems is to never ever borrowed Radeon 8500 drivers codes into Radeon 9700 base codes, it should been written from scratch but of course it will take very long time to make new drivers from scratch.

[creedamd]

I think it's because now that Ati has the best hardware on the market, a lot of noobs are jumping on the bandwagon, not knowing what the hell they are doing. I have built 50 systems with 9500/9700 cards in them using, 3.4's and 3.5, all of them loaded with games of all types, with 0 problems. If you want to talk about drivers that suck look at nvidias encrypted, cheating, bilinear forcing drivers. Yeah that's what I want.

Ati has quite a large following right now. People will iron their systems out. 95% are user error. I am sure of it. Ati is kicking ass in the driver department.

[AthlonXP1800]

Originally posted by creedamd
95% are user error. I am sure of it. Ati is kicking ass in the driver department.

I am afraid you are wrong on that one, you should take another look on to do list, you will see that many games problem are affected everyone, not all are user errors, may I suggest you to try out all these games like I did on my 4600. :D

[Headbust]

Yes they are getting worse..especially with this latest 3.5's release..

[deejaya]

Can't comment if they are getting worse, the 3.5's are the only ones I've used so far. Apart from the small handful of problems I posted in the other thread, I got Moto GP 2 the other day and it has an annoying stutter in it. It's not huge, but it is noticable to me. The game plays fine on my old GF3.

The only problem I ever had with my GF3 was when LOTR came out, it had some bad texture corruption, which was fixed in the Dets leaked about 3 days after.

[-=DVS=-]

Originally posted by creedamd
I think it's because now that Ati has the best hardware on the market, a lot of noobs are jumping on the bandwagon, not knowing what the hell they are doing. I have built 50 systems with 9500/9700 cards in them using, 3.4's and 3.5, all of them loaded with games of all types, with 0 problems. If you want to talk about drivers that suck look at nvidias encrypted, cheating, bilinear forcing drivers. Yeah that's what I want.

Ati has quite a large following right now. People will iron their systems out. 95% are user error. I am sure of it. Ati is kicking ass in the driver department.

Totaly agree with you on this one :cool:

[creedamd]

22 out of 69 affect everyone.

out of the 22, Most are minor.

It's awesome to even have a system like that where the Cat team can even come and see an easy break down.

Yet you guys say the drivers suck?

Some people complain just to hear themselves complain. Tell me this, what do they suck compared to? Where are the golden drivers that put ati's to shame? Exactly. Play the games. Stop worrying about the trivial crap. No need to look for minor things like it's a big victory. Ati is so far ahead of Nvidia right now it's going to take Nvidia to wake up. Ati is heading in the right direction.

[5150 Joker]

I have yet to encounter any issues with the Cat 3.5's. In fact the last problem I can even recall was bad performance in RallySport Challenge and that got fixed long ago in Cat 3.0 or something.

[creedamd]

Originally posted by 5150 Joker
I have yet to encounter any issues with the Cat 3.5's. In fact the last problem I can even recall was bad performance in RallySport Challenge and that got fixed long ago in Cat 3.0 or something.

Bull crap, your lying! your drivers suck. You can't be having fun on that raddy. Sell it and get an nvidia card. Their drivers are the best! They encrypt them so Ati won't figure out their secret.:rolleyes:

[Rogozhin]

I've built 400 systems with 9700s and 9800s using the 3.5s and I've yet to run into a problem (about 1230 pc games installed).

Most of those fellas at rage3d.com are newbie idiots.

rogo

[Kruno]

Originally posted by AthlonXP1800
I am afraid you are wrong on that one, you should take another look on to do list, you will see that many games problem are affected everyone, not all are user errors, may I suggest you to try out all these games like I did on my 4600. :D

*cough* try Blood 2 on your 4600 *cough*

[Deathlike2]

Just because there is a "to-do" list of bugs in the current CATALYSTs doesn't mean much...

I don't see a "revision" or "game fix" list from NVidia...

Have you ever wondered about the whole Det leaked beta thing?... NVidia does not mind its users to use leaked beta drivers on the net.. but when they break something.. who can you really direct anything to?.. To my knowledge there's noone... If you think about it.. NVidia in their silent treatment of the Dets (maybe they have said something about it).. have endorsed using whatever Dets that make the game work..

So if later revisions suck, you'll be stuck with older drivers that DO work and you are NOT guarenteed that they will be fixed in the next or later release.. unlike ATI's solution..

With all things considered... there are bugs in NVidia's drivers too.. but there's nothing that will tell that us that kind of info from NVidia...

[Deathlike2]

Infowar...

You have to understand that a bug like that isn't exactly a priority.. with good reason. If a tweak that is issued on your comp is "supposed" to increase your performance.. but not GUARENTEED.. then what's the point?

It's like overclocking.. you know you'll increase your performance.. but you aren't exactly guarenteed that your card might be able to take the stress (the card's life may decrease)..

[StealthHawk]

Originally posted by Deathlike2
Just because there is a "to-do" list of bugs in the current CATALYSTs doesn't mean much...

I don't see a "revision" or "game fix" list from NVidia...

Have you ever wondered about the whole Det leaked beta thing?... NVidia does not mind its users to use leaked beta drivers on the net.. but when they break something.. who can you really direct anything to?.. To my knowledge there's noone... If you think about it.. NVidia in their silent treatment of the Dets (maybe they have said something about it).. have endorsed using whatever Dets that make the game work..

So if later revisions suck, you'll be stuck with older drivers that DO work and you are NOT guarenteed that they will be fixed in the next or later release.. unlike ATI's solution..

With all things considered... there are bugs in NVidia's drivers too.. but there's nothing that will tell that us that kind of info from NVidia...

This is actually a very good point. AFAIK NVIDIA does not provide any technical support for their products. The reference drivers are provided as-is, and then there are the leaked drivers. Neither of which are supported by NVIDIA. So it's kinda hard to get them to fix issues ;) Although I do understand that NVIDIA doesn't sell any cards, so it's one valid reason why they offer no support.

[AthlonXP1800]

Originally posted by K.I.L.E.R
*cough* try Blood 2 on your 4600 *cough*

Sorry I dont have Blood 2 but I have Blood, it ran fine so I been ran Blood 2 demo on my old 3dfx Banshee years ago, it had problem with the menu, 3D software rendering problems and the credits problem plus it has the worst 3D engine that everybody moaned about it. So it was not good value of money to buy a game with full of bugs. The 3D engine then improved and rid all the bugs in No One Live Forever and No One Live Forever 2 has the best 3D engine I ever seen. :D

[Kruno]

Blood 2 runs perfect on my R300 but runs like crap on my NV20. It is a driver problem on nV's side and not Monolith's problem.


Originally posted by AthlonXP1800
Sorry I dont have Blood 2 but I have Blood, it ran fine so I been ran Blood 2 demo on my old 3dfx Banshee years ago, it had problem with the menu, 3D software rendering problems and the credits problem plus it has the worst 3D engine that everybody moaned about it. So it was not good value of money to buy a game with full of bugs. The 3D engine then improved and rid all the bugs in No One Live Forever and No One Live Forever 2 has the best 3D engine I ever seen. :D

[AthlonXP1800]

Originally posted by K.I.L.E.R
Blood 2 runs perfect on my R300 but runs like crap on my NV20. It is a driver problem on nV's side and not Monolith's problem.

Well I gave it a try by downloaded Blood 2 demo and it seem ran perfect on 4600. It seem not a driver problem so lots of people told it the 3D engine problem that Monolith created, Nvidia did not created the 3D engine. So 4600 seem like the game now and Banshee did not liked the game years ago. You may not know that NV20 has some hardware bugs that were fixed in NV25 just like NV30 bugs fixed in NV35. :)

[Hanners]

Originally posted by AthlonXP1800
This is what to do list ATI should done few years ago to avoid drivers problems is to never ever borrowed Radeon 8500 drivers codes into Radeon 9700 base codes, it should been written from scratch but of course it will take very long time to make new drivers from scratch.

R300 cards do use a different codepath from R200 boards. Similarly, R350 uses a different one to R300.

As for the 'to do list', at least ATi has one which they make publicly available. Can anyone here give me a comprehensive list of nVidia's driver bugs, and their current status with the nVidia driver team?

[DivotMaker]

Originally posted by StealthHawk
This is actually a very good point. AFAIK NVIDIA does not provide any technical support for their products. The reference drivers are provided as-is, and then there are the leaked drivers. Neither of which are supported by NVIDIA. So it's kinda hard to get them to fix issues ;) Although I do understand that NVIDIA doesn't sell any cards, so it's one valid reason why they offer no support.

Since nVidia does not sell cards directly to consumers like ATI does, then of course they offer no Tech support for their drivers. They DO offer support for their AIB partners as well as the publisher/developer community.

However, please don't tell me that they don't offer support for game issues that they are aware of. Links 2003 (a game which I own but do not play) began having terrible rendering issues with nVidia cards on every driver version that came after the 40.41 drivers (any version before that ran the game just fine). There would be rendering delays of 30 seconds to 2 minutes between shots that normally took 1-5 seconds. This went on for six months and users complained very vocally to MS (the developer of Links Golf) on this issue. Six months after the game released, MS released their only patch for Links 2003 and the patch did not address the nVidia issue at all, among other things the community complained about. The response from the Links development team was they they "could not reproduce the rendering issue". IOW, we aren't fixing it.

Since I have some contacts at nVidia, I took it upon myself to see if I could help the Links Golf community. I took the issue up with the Product Manager for GF4 products at nVidia. he responded immediately that they had never heard of the issue at all and his driver team was completely unaware of anyone from MS trying to contact them about it. nVidia managed to get a few copies of the game and their driver team began to work the issue. Within a couple of weeks the driver issue was resolved. Links users became aware of the fix and they thanked nVidia, not MS for getting the fix to them. They also thanked me for stepping to help out on a game I don't even play anymore. My motivation was simply to help fellow PC gamers get a fix to their game that they were not going to get from their publisher/developer. It gave me a great sense of satisfaction to know that I helped some people enjoy a product that they had quit playing.

I realize this is probably an isolated case, but I am just trying to point out that in some cases a company will support fixing an issue if they know about it.

[Kruno]

I never tried the demo so I can't comment. In the full version, nVIDIA still haven't fixed up the screen flashing problem. I temporarily fixed it up on my NV20, not sure how. I think disabling AA was the culprit for fixing the problem.

If you can get your hands on the latest patch and the full version, please try it out. Can anyone else try it out?

Originally posted by AthlonXP1800
Well I gave it a try by downloaded Blood 2 demo and it seem ran perfect on 4600. It seem not a driver problem so lots of people told it the 3D engine problem that Monolith created, Nvidia did not created the 3D engine. So 4600 seem like the game now and Banshee did not liked the game years ago. You may not know that NV20 has some hardware bugs that were fixed in NV25 just like NV30 bugs fixed in NV35. :)

[Deathlike2]

What I understand from BigBertha is a pretty simple case of miscommunication... which probably is the case...

If NVidia directly communicated with the community (like what VIA does).. it would improve the support that is given... although I don't know what other NVidia hardcore sites are on the web (NVNews is the best to my knowledge :) ) .. but ATI and Rage3D are a pretty good link to contact the ATI driver team (specifically Terry)

I would wish NVidia do the same really... wouldn't you all?