Why do nVidia's drivers suck :help:

158.18's released the other day - i've got a 8600GTS in my HTPC and it's (so far) the card from hell. I'm running Vista Home Premium and it's causing sheer havoc with suspend/resume (hangs on suspend, black screen on resume).

From what I see on nVidia's own forums there's a lot of angry 8xxx series users out there - i'd really hoped that the driver situation had settled down after so many months of development..

TBH i'm seriously considering junking the card and trying the ATI option - all I want is for the machine to able to gracefully shutdown and resume (like all the other PC's I have!).

I have the same suspend problems. Other than that iv been fine although i am an 8800 and not 8600. If it really is just driver issues im sure they will be resolved in the near future so its maybe worth sticking it out. If u really are not satisfied and can still take the card back then do it but i imagine the ATI cards will have similar problems in their early days.

I have another odd problem to add to the suspend one.

See if yours does it, might be my screen.

Plain black desktop, open a moderately sized window that is white/grey and drag it slowly around the desktop. The edges of the window tear and its slightly jerky, and also, the inside edge of the window has a slightly pink smear/trail, most noticable when dragging sideways.

Dangel, you are quite within your rights to get a refund as its not fit for purpose and never has been. If the next drivers dont sort out the desktop problems, that is exactly what I will be doing.

simple don't use Vista, When you get full advantage then move over to Vista that would of been the best option.

Sorry I know this don't help you now but best things do come to those who wait:)

What does my head in (to coin a phrase) is that Vista has been out since November and the 8xxx series ain't no spring chicken either (to coin another). Really they ought to be getting on top of this stuff by now - I remember profiling nVidia cards a few months back at work and found their drivers sucked - so we went ATI (which were much better). Fair enough, we don't (yet) have ATI DX10 parts to compare with but this is really putting me off my planned 8800GTX upgrade for my main rig!

The annoying thing is that Vista (and Media Center) is great otherwise - I did give MCE2005 a good go before switching. Nice app, decent OS, cruddy driver support from one of the World's largest graphics companies.

The 'black screen on resume' issue is listed as a known issue in the release notes apparently.. Vista ships with suspend/resume as a default power profile for God's sake!
When I suspend i (sometimes) get a thread stuck in driver BSOD (which is nice) and also very common.

Isn't it a bugger when you can't solve a problem yourself?

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Originally Posted by Clunk

Plain black desktop, open a moderately sized window that is white/grey and drag it slowly around the desktop. The edges of the window tear and its slightly jerky, and also, the inside edge of the window has a slightly pink smear/trail, most noticable when dragging sideways.

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Is that with aero on? Mines off for the time being and I can't say i've seen it (not that i've been looking). I will try it :)

Most of the problems people are experience with Nvidia I don't seem to get. Hmm wierd eh?

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Originally Posted by dangel

Is that with aero on? Mines off for the time being and I can't say i've seen it (not that i've been looking). I will try it :)

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Its not as noticable with aero on, but if you change to the classic windows style to try it, its more noticable (for me anyway), and it does it in xp as well.

No guarantees but try out the 165.01 drivers http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=221563 scroll down for a download link.

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Originally Posted by chuckskull

No guarantees but try out the 165.01 drivers http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=221563 scroll down for a download link.

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Thanks - worth a punt anyway... although people's experiences on that thread appear varied to say the least!
:juggle:

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Originally Posted by dangel

Thanks - worth a punt anyway... although people's experiences on that thread appear varied to say the least!
:juggle:

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Seems to be par for the course with vista drivers. Running a driver cleaning program before installing seems much more important on Vista too.

I've got fed up with it - and so i've bought a Asus EAX1650 SILENT instead (512mb one). It's half the price and of course, from ATI. With luck i should actually be able to use sleep mode. Not sure what i'll do with the 8600GTS..

I'll report back if it's a better choice - the MCE forums elsewhere seem to favour this card.