What to do? Nvidia drivers nightmare

[AD-15]

hello,

I'm sure many of you saw the thread I made earlier about the 8800 and gameplay in MS's Flight sim series. In it, I stubbornly insisted that there are major problems with the 8800 card, for which I paid hundreds (Ultra), mainly for FS. Rough texture loading, awful AA, shimmering, all sorts...

Many people have these problems, many use nhancer as an alternative, and many just can't get it to work.

My question is, how can we make nvidia 'do' something about it? It's a complete nightmare, posting on the nvidia forums gets nothing from NV of course...

Plus, it's not easy to get in contact with anyone, as one would usually do that through tech support, which they of course don't have.

[WannaPiEcE]

http://forums.hexus.net/showthread.p...highlight=8800

But I love my GTS, its never done me wrong on 3 diff builds Gigabyte, P5B, NF63, not one driver conflict (Vista x64 + XP Pro) notta problem atall so far, 75+ FPS every game highest settings.

Some tend to disagree but like they say... "99% of computer errors are because of user errors."

[aidanjt]

It's 99% of computer errors are BKC (Between Keyboard and Chair) errors. Usually referencing users, sometimes developers.

But as I said before, my 8800GTS works spotlessly, silky textures, pointless AA (but still fine), & gorgeous fluid & light dynamics.

[AD-15]

hello,

Acrobat, looking at your thread, I see you solved your issue. During your problems, did you have any of the issues I have?

[AD-15]

I'll give SCAN (their system) a call tommorow and see what they say...

[EtheAv8r]

I have had a lot of Graphics driver problems with RealFlight G3.5.... kept crashing..... (the program, not the planes!) I tried all sorts of drivers I then tried nVidia Quadro drivers and they were stable but not quite right. Currently running Xtream-G 163.76 XP beta and they are the best I have ever had with my 8800GTX. No more grashes in RealFlight G3.5 and FSX is pretty good.

For me these Xtream-G 163.76 XP beta drivers are keepers.....

[kalniel]

hello,

I'm sure many of you saw the thread I made earlier about the 8800 and gameplay in MS's Flight sim series. In it, I stubbornly insisted that there are major problems with the 8800 card, for which I paid hundreds (Ultra), mainly for FS. Rough texture loading, awful AA, shimmering, all sorts...

Many people have these problems, many use nhancer as an alternative, and many just can't get it to work.

My question is, how can we make nvidia 'do' something about it? It's a complete nightmare, posting on the nvidia forums gets nothing from NV of course...

Plus, it's not easy to get in contact with anyone, as one would usually do that through tech support, which they of course don't have.

There's not a huge amount you can do - detailing the problems in a constructive, consise and complete manner on the nVidia forums might help (as opposed to ranting). Going to the manufacturer of the graphics card is probably a better route as they're more likely to be able to put pressure on nVidia for better drivers - same goes with developers, so get onto Microsoft in this case.

[sawyen]

well, what can i say? my 8800GTS dont work too with a number of games with newer drivers.. I mean, what can I say?

I suppose letting the manufacturers know (fingers crossed NOT XFX).. will probably speed up the process by SOME extent. Don't get your hopes up though. Gave my comments to XFX and all they seem to do is brush you off, probably said they jotted it down, but dunked it into a bin right after the phonecall.

Its not as if its affecting their sales really. The 8800 series have been shrouded with so much high rated press (for some reason I cannot comprehend) that seeming issues with them will just be regarded as 'isolated incident' to them..

Think, during the 7900GT days, it sort of needs like 60% of the cards to show the same defect will they so anything about it and kind of admiting they stuffed it up.

And also given that not everyone of us will game a decade span of titles on the same time period so most of us will never find out the our 8800 doesnt bloody work with certain titles.. i.e. when you get that shiny team fotress 2, who still plays with far cry? and with opposing front, who still plays the original CoH? I know I do.. but I'm probably that 0.5% of their customers.. and less even for Nvidia..

[lilcompt]

thats wat i hate bout nVidia ATI the best no probs no hassels automatic driver update

[this_is_gav]

thats wat i hate bout nVidia ATI the best no probs no hassels automatic driver update

Automatic driver update? :\

[MadduckUK]

yep ATI drivers NEVER cause random restarts or anything like that

[Lucio]

The question is though, who else are your problems occuring to?

If it's just you, then you have to assume there's a fault on your system
If it's some users, some of whom have similarities, then it's a case of finding common ground, there'll be one combination of circumstances that needs to be resolved.
If it's everyone with your card, playing a particular program only, then it's likely to be the program.
If everyone, no matter what, suffers some form of fault with the product, then it's the product & drivers.


Rather than demanding nVidia fix their drivers, stop and think about where else the issue might lie. It's frustrating buying the "best" on the market and that it doesn't work the way you thought it would, but you have to be careful about where you place the blame!

[this_is_gav]

yep ATI drivers NEVER cause random restarts or anything like that

Not here - not as far back as I can remember anyway.

ATi's Windows drivers have been frankly brilliant in the past couple of years for me. Automatic restarts should generally be stopped caught by the 'VPU recover' feature, though I've no idea if I've ever relied on it - I've never noticed anything anyway. Only time I thought I had an ATi driver issue was when I had a massive slow-down in an oldish game (~2003) but it turned out it was the Creative sound card causing it, shock horror. It's probably fair to say that ATi's driver reputation is a poor one, but in my experience that's all it is now, a reputation.

[MadduckUK]

doing it to me, or rather was doing it to me. pulling my hair out trying to figure out why it was happening. voltage issues? heat issues? dodgy psu? instability due to overclocking? duff mobo/ram/proccy? absolutely no correlation to when it was happening

gone back to the ones on the cd and its now solid as a rock.

[AD-15]

hello,

There are other people who have the same problems as me, some don't. It happens in a lot of games, but especially FSX. Scan have tried a different albeit same model card, no luck. I've tried loads of drivers, no luck.

What do you guys suggest?