Would this solve ATI's problematic drivers?

[Defunkt]

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]

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]

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!".

Well it depends what you mean by an awful lot. I have used Nvidia cvards for about 10 years and only ATI for the last 1 year. So i don't know a great deal about ATI I guess other than what I read but the thing is with drivers is you shouldn't NEED to know a lot about them. You should just be able to download them install them and that's that. Iv'e never had GFX driver issues ever until i bought an ATI. But as i said they are only minor problems which i have worked around.
You have also quoted the words "advice" and "broken" Both of those words i never even used
If you had even bothered to read my 2 posts in this thread before commenting and quoting me then you would see I was looking for opinions on what I thought would possibly be a good idea. Where did I say that ATI drivers are "broke"? I also never said that ATI have a distinct problem compared to Nvidia. I once again have no idea where you got that idea. I have an ATI card so it was ATI this thread was about. Not a comparison thread.

I might not know a great deal about drivers Kylew, but seemingly you don't know how to read a thread and understand what it is about. I'd say that makes you slightly more clueless "no offence"

Feel free to carry on making remarks up that make no sense though. Quite amusing.

I was just kinda hoping for replies to this thread giving pro's/con's (good idea, bad idea) as to the merits of whether ATI should release separate drivers for different cards in their range and just general discussion regarding this. Is that so hard to understand?