Are drivers actually a wash?

[James J]

Spot on.

My opinion is neither side is perfect and both suffer from issues. I fail to see one side substantially better than the other in this regard. Both sides will have issues and both generally deal with them sooner or later. Anyone that is not biased will think the same way.

Spot on tbh. Neither company can produce the perfect driver as it'll always have a few games that seem to have issues with the hardware either due to sloppy driver coding or sloppy game coding, or some strange mixture of the two.

I don't have a preference to Nvidia or AMD and I just buy what I like the sound of when reading reviews and seeing users performance information etc in games I enjoy. Picking a side is one of the dumbest things a consumer can do imo as you limit your buying power tremendously.

Look at cpus for example. If people didn't still buy AMD cpus, they'd have stopped making them and intel would have a monopoly, charging whatever they want for their chips :S Not good for the consumer due to no competition!

 

[spoffle]

AMD and Nvidia received the same final game code on Tomb Raider. Don't believe the PR on that one folks.

I don't actually believe their PR Does anyone even believe stuff nVidia says?

This thread is worthless as people will just attempt to nay-say any polarising opinion and dismiss any opinion/data/research that reflects badly on the side which they chose/prefer/fanboy for/own.

There is no discussion to be had here and this will turn into pointless flame bait.

It's called discussion. Your post is probably the most pointless in the thread yet.

 

[PorkPieCat]

AMD and Nvidia received the same final game code on Tomb Raider. Don't believe the PR on that one folks.

yeah i thought that sounded very fishy as well.

 

[Sin_Chase]

I don't actually believe their PR Does anyone even believe stuff nVidia says?

It's called discussion. Your post is probably the most pointless in the thread yet.

I love the irony you manage to conjure in your own post. You call it discussion yet post inflammatory flame bait in the same breath.

It's not discussion at all, nobody can post their own experience based opinion because the second they do they will be jumped on.

Not a SINGLE person in this thread can say AMD or nVidia drivers are bad because they will INSTANTLY be labelled as a fanboy, irrespective of their ACTUAL experiences.

The op wants measurable, 'scientific' points of comparison and even that will attract ridiculous mud slinging.

 

[Orangey]

I agree with Rroff in regards to issues being given proper weight, I would like to add a statute of limitations also, there's no point bringing up bumpgate in 2013. The discussion should be about the last year or 6 months. It's vindictive to hold a bad release against a company for years.

 

[spoffle]

I love the irony you manage to conjure in your own post. You call it discussion yet post inflammatory flame bait in the same breath.

It's not discussion at all, nobody can post their own experience based opinion because the second they do they will be jumped on.

Not a SINGLE person in this thread can say AMD or nVidia drivers are bad because they will INSTANTLY be labelled as a fanboy, irrespective of their ACTUAL experiences.

The op wants measurable, 'scientific' points of comparison and even that will attract ridiculous mud slinging.

It's not ironic, and it's not flamebait. I was point out that you come in, and say this thread is pointless, and complain, despite being the only one complaining about the thread.

So your post summed up your own post really. A bit of a self fulfilling prophecy if you will.

You were the first to even mention fanboys, prior to that, no one said it.

 

[spoffle]

I agree with Rroff in regards to issues being given proper weight, I would like to add a statute of limitations also, there's no point bringing up bumpgate in 2013. The discussion should be about the last year or 6 months. It's vindictive to hold a bad release against a company for years.

I wasn't actually talking about "bump-gate".

 

[Sin_Chase]

It's not ironic, and it's not flamebait. I

It is, and it was.

This thread will end up exactly like every single other thread that pitches one brand against another, even the OP knows that as he has alluded to it in his bloody opening post! I actually think GC would be a nicer place if there were separate nVidia and AMD subsections.

 

[spoffle]

But the thread was going fine until your post. As I said, self fulfilling prophecy.

 

[Rroff]

AMD and Nvidia received the same final game code on Tomb Raider. Don't believe the PR on that one folks.

TBH becareful of taking that AMD statement at face value don't buy into the same PR your telling other people to be wary of.

If various parties are to be believed then both companies were sent the same "final" version awhile before the retail release and then things get a little more complicated with the actual release build being different to what was sent out as the "final" build for IHV testing and the actual build as went out for retail being rushed out at the last minute to both nVidia and AMD.

Heres the twist... if this isn't true... its a sad relection on AMD's quality of developer support if their QA entirely missed the fact that the "final" release code was entirely missing post processing and a load of other rendering features. (I find it inconceivable that both nVidia and AMD support missed so much was missing from the game so someones not playing it straight somewhere).

So choose what you believe carefully.

 

[Gregster]

It's not ironic, and it's not flamebait. I was point out that you come in, and say this thread is pointless, and complain, despite being the only one complaining about the thread.

So your post summed up your own post really. A bit of a self fulfilling prophecy if you will.

You were the first to even mention fanboys, prior to that, no one said it.

Sin Chase is right though. This will end badly with flaming and trolling. The OP's intentions are good but sadly the thread won't end that way.

Read through and it has already begun with the slating of AMD and Nvidia drivers.

 

[spoffle]

Sin Chase is right though. This will end badly with flaming and trolling. The OP's intentions are good but sadly the thread won't end that way.

Read through and it has already begun with the slating of AMD and Nvidia drivers.

But his post was the first off topic post, to state that the thread is going to be polluted with off topic stuff, basically.

"Slating" isn't the issue either, slating is fine as long as what's being said is truthful. It's when people start saying silly things that the problems start, and so far the thread's been fine.

 

[Sin_Chase]

But his post was the first off topic post, to state that the thread is going to be polluted with off topic stuff, basically.

"Slating" isn't the issue either, slating is fine as long as what's being said is truthful. It's when people start saying silly things that the problems start, and so far the thread's been fine.

OP wants thread looking at measurable data points. Nothing but opinion gets posted.

Even before I made comment on how this will end. You were the first in stating that apparently you need to be qualified and "Know what you are talking about" in order to contribute. The sad fact is that "what you know" is merely tailoring the posts to be that of already strongly formed opinion and not measurable, unbiased data. What you know is totally irrelevant as it should not even be brought into the discussion.

Experience plays no part in opinion free comparison. I have plenty of first hand experience of both Red and green, but my comment on the subject is WORTHLESS because it is not a measurable in any meaningful way, certainly not scientific.

 

[Rroff]

OP wants thread looking at measurable data points. Nothing but opinion gets posted.

Even before I made comment on how this will end. You were the first in stating that apparently you need to be qualified and "Know what you are talking about" in order to contribute. The sad fact is that "what you know" is merely tailoring the posts to be that of already strongly formed opinion and not measurable, unbiased data. What you know is totally irrelevant.

Hence my original post that its hard to really have measureable data for something like this as what one person feels is a major issue may not be a problem at all for someone else and its very hard to get quantitative data for many aspects of driver/software support.

 

[spoffle]

OP wants thread looking at measurable data points. Nothing but opinion gets posted.

Even before I made comment on how this will end. You were the first in stating that apparently you need to be qualified and "Know what you are talking about" in order to contribute. The sad fact is that "what you know" is merely tailoring the posts to be that of already strongly formed opinion and not measurable, unbiased data. What you know is totally irrelevant.

You've taken my post out of context. I'm talking about the type of people who say AMD drivers are so bad that they never work, who have never used an AMD GPU.

It's like me saying "I don't like Pepsi, it's awful, so I've never had it". See what I mean? I was talking about the type of people who perpetuate the notion that AMD has awful broken drivers that don't even install properly.

 

[layte]

I've used what I would consider high end setups from both AMD and Nvidia over the past 5 years or so. (4870x2, SLI 480's, xfire 7950's and now a Titan)

In terms of the actual drivers themselves, I would say that there is not too much in it. Nvidia seem to get game specific beta's out a bit quicker, but I never encountered any real show stoppers from either.

Now if you look at what surrounds the drivers (how well do they install, control panel features) then it is a whitewash for team green. So I want a custom resolution or refresh rate, lets take a look in CCC.. oh so I need to use a third party tool or edit the registry... Said registry settings that get reset when you install new drivers. How about CCC game specific automatic profiles? These never, ever worked for me, no matter what I tried. Other annoying niggly things like; PowerTune making it a PITA to set clocks and voltages on a second card in xfire. Or CCC constantly trying to switch my default audio output whenever I attach my TV do not help.

So while it would be fair to say the actual job of putting stuff on the screen is pretty darn close these days, the overall package is still better in the green camp.

 

[Sin_Chase]

(how well do they install, control panel features)

This is probably the only point of comparison that cannot be contested or put down to opinion. Out of the box feature sets basically, it's either there or it's not, or the feature is more developed on one of the sides.

But even then, someone will come along and say "I do not care for feature X....so it does not count"

 

[arc@css]

I've used what I would consider high end setups from both AMD and Nvidia over the past 5 years or so. (4870x2, SLI 480's, xfire 7950's and now a Titan)

In terms of the actual drivers themselves, I would say that there is not too much in it. Nvidia seem to get game specific beta's out a bit quicker, but I never encountered any real show stoppers from either.

Now if you look at what surrounds the drivers (how well do they install, control panel features) then it is a whitewash for team green. So I want a custom resolution or refresh rate, lets take a look in CCC.. oh so I need to use a third party tool or edit the registry... Said registry settings that get reset when you install new drivers. How about CCC game specific automatic profiles? These never, ever worked for me, no matter what I tried. Other annoying niggly things like; PowerTune making it a PITA to set clocks and voltages on a second card in xfire. Or CCC constantly trying to switch my default audio output whenever I attach my TV do not help.

So while it would be fair to say the actual job of putting stuff on the screen is pretty darn close these days, the overall package is still better in the green camp.

+1

 

[spoffle]

Now if you look at what surrounds the drivers (how well do they install, control panel features) then it is a whitewash for team green. So I want a custom resolution or refresh rate, lets take a look in CCC.. oh so I need to use a third party tool or edit the registry... Said registry settings that get reset when you install new drivers. How about CCC game specific automatic profiles? These never, ever worked for me, no matter what I tried. Other annoying niggly things like; PowerTune making it a PITA to set clocks and voltages on a second card in xfire. Or CCC constantly trying to switch my default audio output whenever I attach my TV do not help.

This is exactly what I was getting at. People often don't know the difference between driver and control panels. I think you'd struggle to find anyone who would say that the AMD control panel offers more than the nVidia one in terms of features, they are certainly making progress, but they're still not there in that regard.

But that will often turn in to "AMD's drivers don't work" when what was really said was about the control panel.

 

[Rroff]

When most people refer to drivers in this context they are talking the whole software support aspect rather than the driver kernel specifically.