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Would this solve ATI's problematic drivers?

Defunkt

Defunkt

Defunkt

Associate
Joined
5 Aug 2010
Posts
306
This might sound a silly idea but to me it seems a logical one. (feel free to shoot me down)

Many people seem to find a CC driver update will fix some issues and then break others. This mainly seems to be because a driver is designed to fix say.. Xfire issues or a problem with maybe a 5970 and then someone on a 5850 or other card will experience a knock on after affect from fixes that were never even needed for their own card.

So.. Would it not make more sense to have driver updates for specific cards or at least *groups* of cards instead of this "1 size fits all" style thing?

I'm sure I remember years ago you had to download specific drivers for specific cards. Would this not make things much more reliable over a whole series of cards? I know this would prolly mean that driver updates would have to be less frequent as a consequence. (could still release the hot fixes when urgently needed though) I sure as hell wouldn't mind waiting 2 or 3 months between updates if it meant I was going to get an improved driver that was specificly written for MY card.

I don't think ATI do themselves any favours with their current approach to driver updates and although I personally haven't had any major issues with them there does seem to be a lot of people out there that do. I'd go as far as to say some people will buy Nvidia cards regardless of whether an ATI card might be better/cheaper purely because they don't want to be having to buy into using ATI drivers. To think they lose sales because of their shoddy drivers should worry them to consider a change. Don't you think?
Any thoughts on this?

(and yeah I know I should be calling them AMD now and not ATI but I can't get used to doing that just yet :) )
 
Defunkt said:
This might sound a silly idea but to me it seems a logical one. (feel free to shoot me down)

Many people seem to find a CC driver update will fix some issues and then break others. This mainly seems to be because a driver is designed to fix say.. Xfire issues or a problem with maybe a 5970 and then someone on a 5850 or other card will experience a knock on after affect from fixes that were never even needed for their own card.

So.. Would it not make more sense to have driver updates for specific cards or at least *groups* of cards instead of this "1 size fits all" style thing?

I'm sure I remember years ago you had to download specific drivers for specific cards. Would this not make things much more reliable over a whole series of cards? I know this would prolly mean that driver updates would have to be less frequent as a consequence. (could still release the hot fixes when urgently needed though) I sure as hell wouldn't mind waiting 2 or 3 months between updates if it meant I was going to get an improved driver that was specificly written for MY card.

I don't think ATI do themselves any favours with their current approach to driver updates and although I personally haven't had any major issues with them there does seem to be a lot of people out there that do. I'd go as far as to say some people will buy Nvidia cards regardless of whether an ATI card might be better/cheaper purely because they don't want to be having to buy into using ATI drivers. To think they lose sales because of their shoddy drivers should worry them to consider a change. Don't you think?
Any thoughts on this?

(and yeah I know I should be calling them AMD now and not ATI but I can't get used to doing that just yet :) )
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NV also have been through a patch of problem drivers for some people in the past which lasted for 6 months so no need to panic.
 
That would just cause more problems I would have thought. I really don't know why there is so much complaining, I remember one driver release last year that made GRID crash after 3 races and recently the overscan function for HDMI not remembering it settings, hardly problematic.

If you're having problems you either most likely have/do the following:
1. Dual/Tri/Quad cards
2. Play games too much :p
 
Like I said I haven't had any major issues myself I am just going on what I read around various sites/forums.
You will however find that most people with an 5850 or 5870 are on 10.4 drivers still. This is because those drivers where the last 1's made with those cards in mind. Since then the drivers have only really focused on higher end cards and their issues. Most people don't like going past 10.4 because they experience increased temps on the 2 cards I mentioned. (probably others as well)
I'm not so much saying that the CC updates don't work I'm just pointing out that they try to please all. Instead of looking at optimising a singular card.

I don't have duel/try/quad
I hardly play games for more than a couple of hrs per week

I did however have BSOD when I have tried the more recent drivers on my card. (and no my card is not overclocked in the machine this happened on)

Just to make sure nobody takes this thread the wrong way.. I am NOT slating ATI and I am NOT complaining/moaning.
I just wondered what other peoples thoughts were on this and this maybe being more of a benificial road for the developers to go down with the end user in mind.
 
Defunkt said:
Like I said I haven't had any major issues myself I am just going on what I read around various sites/forums.
You will however find that most people with an 5850 or 5870 are on 10.4 drivers still. This is because those drivers where the last 1's made with those cards in mind. Since then the drivers have only really focused on higher end cards and their issues. Most people don't like going past 10.4 because they experience increased temps on the 2 cards I mentioned. (probably others as well)
I'm not so much saying that the CC updates don't work I'm just pointing out that they try to please all. Instead of looking at optimising a singular card.

I don't have duel/try/quad
I hardly play games for more than a couple of hrs per week

I did however have BSOD when I have tried the more recent drivers on my card. (and no my card is not overclocked in the machine this happened on)

Just to make sure nobody takes this thread the wrong way.. I am NOT slating ATI and I am NOT complaining/moaning.
I just wondered what other peoples thoughts were on this and this maybe being more of a benificial road for the developers to go down with the end user in mind.
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The thing is with such technology these issues will always be there from time to time.

There is a constant balancing act with hardware, drivers & software which is forever changing & is no different from human nature that humans will make the same errors time & time again, recession, recession, recession.


If the more heat issue is not related to a slower fan profile or voltage increase then its down to the utilisation, more utilisation = more heat.
 
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From what iv read ati seem to have diferent teams working on driver updates so I'm wondering with the bfbc2 issues for example 10.5 was done with one team, then another dis the 10.6's and that's why it seems some things get fixed while others have issues brought back again??

Off topic but has to be said lol, the recession is done on purpose, Its called rowing the economy, makes the bankers richer. Invest when businesses are low and sell them when their high. If you run the monetary system, it's easy to make even more of your own money
 
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IIRC ATI dropped support for a large number of older cards a year or so ago and it's not really helped, if anything they've gone downhill since.
 
buttkinz said:
From what iv read ati seem to have diferent teams working on driver updates so I'm wondering with the bfbc2 issues for example 10.5 was done with one team, then another dis the 10.6's and that's why it seems some things get fixed while others have issues brought back again??

Off topic but has to be said lol, the recession is done on purpose, Its called rowing the economy, makes the bankers richer. Invest when businesses are low and sell them when their high. If you run the monetary system, it's easy to make even more of your own money
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Its most likely lack of good communication structure because no other driver loads BFBC2 maps as fast as the 10.5s.


Arrogance & complacency are a big contributor to mistakes being made again.
 
Nvidia spend $10M a year on drivers development & have 25 engineers dedicated to PC games via the TWIMTBP program. They work closely with developers to ensure Nvidia cards run the latest games.

ATI do not & never have put the same resource into this & that is the big difference so Nvidia cards tend to run most new games with less driver issues.
 
AWPC said:
Nvidia spend $10M a year on drivers development & have 25 engineers dedicated to PC games via the TWIMTBP program. They work closely with developers to ensure Nvidia cards run the latest games.

ATI do not & never have put the same resource into this & that is the big difference so Nvidia cards tend to run most new games with less driver issues.
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Got a link to that info because you bring that up enough times.
 
It's pretty much on the money. I used to go drinking with a guy who was management in their EU developer relations team.
 
*groan* This is getting incredibly tiresome. People act like they can't see when nVidia are having problems. I've noticed quite an increase in people complaining about nVidia cards and driver problems lately yet the same people continue to act like there's nothing going on.

All these problems of ATi drivers are nonsense. Notice it's mostly the same people each month who whinge and moan about the drivers. It's mostly a case of PEBKAC. I have a 5870, and I'm on the latest drivers, I update every month and I don't have any issues.

Defunkt, no offence, but seemingly you don't know an awful lot about drivers, or ATi and nVidia, yet you're passing comment and offering "advice" to ATi on how to fix their "broken" drivers. The simple fact that you're claiming ATi have a distinct problem compared to nVidia when it comes to drivers shows you're not quite sure what you're talking about. The problems each side have are fairly similar, they can be just as good and bad as each other. Just go and look in the nVidia driver threads and you'll see all the people who regularly complain about the "state" of ATi drivers gushing over the latest nVidia driver release, saying things like "finally! I've been waiting for this fix for months, I've had *insert problem* for months and it's finally gone!".
 
Final8y said:
Got a link to that info because you bring that up enough times.
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CBA to find it (maybe on the official Nvidia Gamezone forums) but Nvidia PR have mentioned this several times as have TWIMTBP developers. The reason Nvidia mentioned it was because their CEO often thinks about the value it adds :rolleyes: so would like to cancel it totally but he is then convinced otherwise by his own staff which I guess is why threads like this exist when people get fed up with the superior ATI hardware consistently having driver issues in games due to the lack of ATI budget spent on them so then buy Nvidia or like in my case go ATI then find so many issues I go back to Nvidia & will never change unless they go bust ;) as the consistent FPS & lack of technical issues I get on recent games is priceless to me for a hassle free gaming experience ;)
 
AWPC said:
CBA to find it (maybe on the official Nvidia Gamezone forums) but Nvidia PR have mentioned this several times as have TWIMTBP developers. The reason Nvidia mentioned it was because their CEO often thinks about the value it adds :rolleyes: so would like to cancel it totally but he is then convinced otherwise by his own staff which I guess is why threads like this exist when people get fed up with the superior ATI hardware consistently having driver issues in games due to the lack of ATI budget spent on them so then buy Nvidia or like in my case go ATI then find so many issues I go back to Nvidia & will never change unless they go bust ;) as the consistent FPS & lack of technical issues I get on recent games is priceless to me for a hassle free gaming experience ;)
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So why was there so much issue when vista came out for the first 6 months with NV the dev team must have spent all the money on booze & been still drunk from the festive season for 6 months.

Strange that most NV users thought that was ok to live with & not all jump over to ATI back then.
 
Final8y said:
So why was there so much issue when vista came out for the first 6 months with NV the dev team must have spent all the money on booze & been still drunk from the festive season for 6 months.

Strange that most NV users thought that was ok to live with & not all jump over to ATI back then.
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Actually I stand corrected its 50 engineers & they spend between $50-100M a year on it :eek: but I cannot link as it contains links which are not allowed on here.
 
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