I have been running an BFG 8800oc gts for a couple of years and am considering a change to one of the newer ATI offerings. The only thing that worries me is that i used to have endless grief with catalyst drivers. Have things moved on a lot as i am a bit out of touch with the graphics scene.
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ati drivers
- Thread starter zooankski
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+1
I use to have loads of problems with ATI XP drivers back when the x1900xt-x was released..
I also Hope there lastest vista & W7 drivers have improved a lot..
Soldato
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There are many people that have the opposite experience to you where the nv drivers were the problem. Nv drivers are no better than ati drivers and ati drivers are no better than nv's. Its all down to luck a lot of the time if you have bad luck with either company's drivers. I just swapped out my 3870 for a free upgrade to 8800gtx and i had no issues and also had no issues with ati driver's through my 9800pro, 1900xtx or 3870.
i just don't want to splash out and have a load of problems when i install windows 7. I also need to consider breaking in to crossfire for the first time. How does it compare against SLI on the Nvidia cards? anything to consider when buying cards and what is the best value for £££ at the moment?
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Soldato
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Performance wise i think from reviews ati's drivers are ahead of nv's. In the last review i seen ati cards showed a larger performance boost over vista than nv's which to me means ati are further along with there w7 drivers.
Soldato
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Just do fresh install of the o/s. I went from a 8800gts 640 to my current card, a 4890 an had countless trouble. Until 1 bsod to many and boom, bad mirror in my raid0 boot drive. After i a fresh install i had no problems, and anyways ati update drivers monthly which should sort out any know issues.
Associate
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That seems a bit extreme; didn't you try to use a driver cleaner to remove remnant NVidia video driver files? A clean install will off course remove everything it does seem a little extreme IMO.
I used Raid 0 for a few years, suffering a few failures along the way, then when I researched a little more it didn't offer enough of a performance improvement to justify the risk of a boot or system failure. I just felt cool because I was running my drives in a Raid array and could impress the IT guys at work. Then when I had network problems and started talking about DMZ they realised I was out of my depth and I lost my coolness!
Andy
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Caporegime
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Soldato
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Extreme yes but i wasted more time with crashes than with a fresh install. I heard some of the driver cleaner programs mess up your rig more than fix problems. Then again i do love that fresh install speed, which last until you have all games and apps installed
Caporegime
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fresh install will allways clean things up, it has allways been known that NVIDIA and ATI Drivers dont mix, try Driver Sweeper http://www.guru3d.com/category/driversweeper/
btw i havnt had any problems wiht ATi Driver since i got my first ATi Radeon 9800 PRO, and i have had X800, X1800, 3870 and now my 4870
sometimes they are unstable, its a fact that any driver can be unstable, but they allways fix the issues in the next months driver or they release a hotfix that fixes it
if anyone has googled for "NVIDIA Vista Driver FAIL" they will get a lot of results
anyway allways clean out nVIDIA drivers with Driver Sweeper/Driver Cleaner Before you install the ATI card and ATI Catalyst Driver
1900xt-x + 1900XT Master was flawless for me on XP.
Never had a problem with install or driver crash because of the drivers.
your system has a underkill CPU and a overkill GPU, might want to get a Phenom II mate
I suggest you to wait for the GTX300 Series on need to trouble your self with the ATI problems(bugs, stability issues, hotfix).Right-just need to choose a new card to go for then!
Nvidia = peace of mind
ATI = endless trouble
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I've had half a dozen ATI cards, and never had a blip of trouble. So be quiet fanboy. The gaming industry has enough experience nowadays that there is little trouble with either the Nvidia or the ATI drivers.