Please stop that bashing...

[tilseboy]

Hello,

my english isn't the best so I hope you'll understand what I write.
Could we please stop that non stop nvidia-bashing?
We're all having problems with nvidia drivers, especially on kde 4.
But this leads to nothing. Nvidia is aware of the problems, they might have solve them already and I hope there will be a solution in the near future.
If AaronP writes something you are talking to people, not to a company.
I think nobody is having fun in the current situation so nobody have to tell the same *** over and over again.
For me the obvious problem is that nvidia did change something inside of xorg. This is no clean solution and it was clear that this will lead to problems. (I am a programmer)
But xorg didn't have the solutions to do what nvidia wanted to do. Xorg and the whole Memory Manager issues are really existing.
The reason intel is working on GEM and other things is that the current situation is really bad.
So I understand why nvidia did that.
And EXA or something like that is not an argument, as far as I know at this point there is no driver faster with EXA then with XAA.
It's a very old architecture and at the moment things are changing.
The GPU rendered desktop stuff is difficult on every driver/platform.
I don't know exactly but if they are working on a different architecture for a new driver the they have the branches of the current drivers and the trunk (177).
And this trunk needs to be tested and, if they really have to tweak xorg in the next versions too (what I think is basically bad) they have to test it with current,older and future releases of xorg.

So just try to figure out what the problem is instead of this "crappy driver" posts.
This "crappy drivers" are having the best wine & OpenGL support you can find on linux.
If you don't need it, buy another one (and bash ATI at phoronix :-P ).

But I think the truth is that the most of you know that ATI Drivers aren't better at the moment. So you stay here and continue to blame nvidia that the situation isn't good on our lovely OS.

I agree that it is really difficult to understand nvidia because they say nothing. I got a 8800GTS too and things could work better...
They are knowing the issues. Perhaps it was good to really show them how annoying it is to reload this forum 1000 times a day. But come to an end.
You have to deal fairly, I don't want to be AaronP and read this posts.
You are talking with people.

Greetings
Michael

(I have installed linux on many computers and you can go nuts with fgrlx.There are problems in video playback, tty switching and so on. You can have so many problems with video drivers...)

[_john_i_]

I understand what you are saying and you are right. I have great respect for the Nvidia driver developers, and do understand it is not as simple as "just fix it".

You also have to understand the frustration people here have as well. Many of us payed a lot of money for high end card based on nvidia's level of linux support in the past. I've had mine for 8 months now, and still have no real resolution to the performance problems.

I (at least) am not going to resort to outright bashing, but I will let my opinion be known.

[pawels133]

@tilseboy

People should know to avoid this firm. That what you wrote about fglrx perfectly fits to nvidia drivers...

[tilseboy]

@pawels133:
But if anybody reads the posts in this forum he or she will think ATI cards are working better. And in my experience this isn't true. Phoronix Tests Results are showing the same.
The problems won't be found in gtkperf, I don't know how many posts there are just comparing there values. Without composite my 8800GTS makes 7sec (100times).

@_john_i_:
I think the same as you. I just wanted to calm everybody a little down. The statement of the kernel devs and nvidia (the opensource discussion) and then no driver without that performance problems. These Things have brought up a nonending bashing cycle which consists to a big portion non nvidia related issues or things like gtkperf and the most people here are just throwing it all into that "crappy driver" can.
It feels more like on a football game where nvidia is the opponent than in a forum.
It's not what the people write it's how.

[pawels133]

Originally Posted by tilseboy

@pawels133:
But if anybody reads the posts in this forum he or she will think ATI cards are working better. And in my experience this isn't true. Phoronix Tests Results are showing the same.
The problems won't be found in gtkperf, I don't know how many posts there are just comparing there values. Without composite my 8800GTS makes 7sec (100times).

I think that Ati drivers are much better. AMD/Ati cards were performing better in Phoronix test which I saw and they're faster in KDE4. The most important thing for me is that AMD/Ati released their specification so people we'll not be left alone with their problems.

[ZicoTheTux]

I think that Ati drivers are much better.

And *I* still remember times when it was the opposite. And you nor I we both will never know if it'll change again. But one thing will always happen: whining anf flaming. And this whole thing what's going on now is just ridiculus flaming: "Oh Nvidia sucks, ATi is superb, no one should ever buy an NVidia card again" ... such sentences I heard in the complete opposite and even if ATi NOW released some specs which may lead to some good drivers, it does NOT say NVidia WON'T fix their problems.

I do not give a ******* **** which card has the longer p e n i s, but all this stupid flaming will NEVER lead to any solution. If you are lucky with ATi it's cool, use it. If you are happy it's always good to flame around, right? I am probably happy as well since my KDE runs AWESOME.

I CAN understand frustration, but flaming (and that IS what most is running on digg) takes the last serious sense out of this: SOLVING the problem (which might not be your interest since you have an ATi card).... children... I'm getting too old for these trolls...

[txf]

Whilst I might complain a lot, I don't think nvidia's drivers are crappy. However they are not currently fulfilling my needs, and seemingly ati look to be getting there. As I never say never I am willing to use whatever solution fits me best, but atm I am stuck with a suboptimal solution as I don't have a choice to change cards or drivers. Nvidia will eventually fix the issues but complaining helps pass time

One advantage that ati has is that there are 2 or 3 of drivers that focus on different things. With nvidia there is the good (nvidia) , the bad (nv) and the ugly (nouveau)...

Hopefully one day the ugly won't be so ugly but be the preferred solution over the good not because it is free (bonus) but because it will work nicely integrated with linux (kernel mode switching anyone?) and be good for desktop usage (which is me mostly...only game in windows).

[pe1chl]

Originally Posted by pawels133

I think that Ati drivers are much better. AMD/Ati cards were performing better in Phoronix test which I saw and they're faster in KDE4. The most important thing for me is that AMD/Ati released their specification so people we'll not be left alone with their problems.

I always wonder why you don't sell your nvidia card, buy an AMD/ATI card and have that very great driver and those open specifications that satisfy you so much...
Then you don't need to complain here all the time. So much better for you!

I agree with the thread subject. We all know the current situation, we all have heard how much greener the grass is in the other camp, but there is no need to bash nvidia and its employees about this all the time.

[energyman76b]

Nvidia was a lot better in the past and maybe they will be better again in the future.

But right now, their drivers suck the life out of KDE 4.1. The difference between ATI&Nvidia does not show up in renderbench or gtkperf (it does show up in xrenderbenchmark)- but if you have a chance try it (and turn off KWIN_NVIDIA_HACK if you enabled it). Nvidia crawls, Ati flies.

With my 8600GT 4.1beta/rc/final were/are unbearable. With my 3870 4.1 is snappy. Even ut2004 got better.

Just now ATI has the better drivers - for me. It is all about 'what I am doing, what do I need'. I don't use wine, I don't switch to vts. So ATIs drivers have no downside for me. At the moment.

And there is another thing: with Ati you can choose between two drivers and select the one that works best for you. With Nividia you can't do that.

But at the end, it depends on your workload and habits which card is the best for you.

Just now ATI is the better choice for me. That might not be true for you.

Edit: and please be nice to AaronP and Zander. They are hard working people. It is not their fault. Annoying them won't help. If you have a problem, write to Nvidia. Be polite. Ask for more man power or to do as ATI does. But be polite!

[tzp]

I agree with the spirit of the thread's title.
I'd have some thoughts to add:

• Perhaps it would be fruitful for Nvidia people to look at the open source nv driver especially in cases where nv works better. Maybe they already do this but they just don't tell us. Keep us informed to see what is going on in the Nvidia Linux kitchen. So people won't think that Nvidia just ignores the Linux user problems. (I admit, it's really frustrating to start threads that have 0 relevant replies for months...)

• I agree with those who say that opening up the driver source would be beneficial for the driver quality. Even if not GPL-ed, but at least a read-only access to the code (or some/most parts of it) could be useful as a starting point. This way Nvidia could get a huge amount of code proofreading power for free. Not to mention the full opening.
  (I'm not saying that this will solve all problems at once, e.g. X.org has it's problems too. But at least the fixes are done sooner.)
  This is would be a selling point too, people just would like to buy a card that has better quality drivers. It's about money.

• In many cases the problems of the latest driver version or application SW don't exist with the earlier versions. So we, users might switch back to an older but working version if we don't need the functionality in the latest one. (e.g. I still use KDE 3.5 and I don't have those complaints that KDE 4 users do. I'll wait for KDE 4 to become more mature before and give time to Nvidia to sort out performance problems before upgrading my SW. Honestly, I can do everyting I need with my current SW.)
  I'm not saying that we should not need the new drivers sooner or later but at least it's possible to live with the old stuff as a workaround.

[NvFuchs]

Originally Posted by tzp

I agree with the spirit of the thread's title.
I'd have some thoughts to add:

• Perhaps it would be fruitful for Nvidia people to look at the open source nv driver especially in cases where nv works better. Maybe they already do this but they just don't tell us. Keep us informed to see what is going on in the Nvidia Linux kitchen. So people won't think that Nvidia just ignores the Linux user problems. (I admit, it's really frustrating to start threads that have 0 relevant replies for months...)

nv is developed by nvidia, and, at least it seems so on the Xorg mailing list, by the same people who develop the nvidia driver.
But I do agree with you on the "keep us up to date" part. However, after some days / hours I always got a response from nvidia up to now, so I am rather happy. But yes, there are people which seem to be ignored. I do not believe that nvidia ignores them, and I guess it is hard to keep up in the forum when you have loads of work to do. And they do have loads of work, and, as you can see from the stickies, not enough manpower.

• I agree with those who say that opening up the driver source would be beneficial for the driver quality. Even if not GPL-ed, but at least a read-only access to the code (or some/most parts of it) could be useful as a starting point. This way Nvidia could get a huge amount of code proofreading power for free. Not to mention the full opening.
  (I'm not saying that this will solve all problems at once, e.g. X.org has it's problems too. But at least the fixes are done sooner.)
  This is would be a selling point too, people just would like to buy a card that has better quality drivers. It's about money.

Again, this is _not_ possible because of intellectual property, by nvidia and, what is more important, probably by third parties, which would have to agree to a full opening as well. Guess why ati didn't open their driver either, but started a new, open one from scratch.


As for this thread in general: Full ack. As stated by many people in digg comments: some people are just whiny, unfair and full of hate. Of course you might be disappointed when a product you bought doesn't work well on the operating system you use, but

a) many of those performance problems, aside the KDE4 problem, are already minimized, and not worth that much of bitching in my opinion.

b) the other problems are know and being addressed by nvidia. You can't expect wonders by a obviously too small developer team, which has to take care of other problems as well at the same time.

c) nvidia never tagged their products as designed for Linux. And in fact, supporting linux seems to be hard: people start bitching when it fails to compile against kernel-2.6.somewhat-git-released-two-minutes-ago (no, I am not talking about the current kernel thread, this one is fine) or Xorg-Not-Even-Released-Or-Marked-Stable. Some xorg and kernel devs try to make it even harder for nvidia because they don't like closed source drivers; nvidia depends on linux support for other hard- and software (acpi as an example), which is somewhere between acceptable, lacking and not existant ...

So: a nvidia driver dev is facing a constant developing of kernel and xorg which he has to keep up to, hardware manufacturers which cause problems (read: bad ACPI implementation, doing own stuff with the driver as an example in brightness controll), people constantly bashing them at the moment for all kind of problems, people bitching because the driver is not open (which is definitely not a developers decision) ...

and for that situation, I am happy with what I got:
a working driver, with working suspend (because my laptop manufacturer at least tries to follow some standards) on two laptops, with good 3D and 2D performance, as long as not using Qt4 / KDE4. And they are working hard on that.

I'd really love to see some of the people bitching around here when everybody criticizes their work on a 24/7 base, keep spamming their communication platform with the same bitching in multiple threads, while they are in a company with not enough manpower and so under constant stress.

Sometimes I think people really forget that they are talking to people on the internet, not machines.

Fuchs

[tzp]

Again, this is _not_ possible because of intellectual property, by nvidia and, what is more important, probably by third parties, which would have to agree to a full opening as well. Guess why ati didn't open their driver either, but started a new, open one from scratch.

That's why I mentioned the option to open up some parts of the code only.
(Actually Nvidia could dispose about it's own IPR stuff and open it.)
Of course, if the problems lie in the licensed part then this is no solution.
But the community could look at the opened parts at least. This could be a solution to the lack of manpower in finding problems.