Topic: Microsoft says NVidia drivers caused 29% of Vista's logged crashes

[MysterD]

Here's the scoop...

MS: Nvidia Drivers Caused 29% of Vista Crashes
by Aaron Linde Mar 28, 2008 2:35pm CST tags: Nvidia, Microsoft, Windows Vista
Recently released documents from Microsoft reveal that drivers for Nvidia PC graphics cards were the cause of roughly 29% of logged crashes in Microsoft's Windows Vista operating system, Ars Technica reports.

The documentation details that Nvidia drivers caused 479,000 crashes out of a total of 1,663,748 logged by Microsoft across an unspecified period in 2007. Microsoft's own drivers followed at roughly 18%. Rival video card manufacturer ATI clocked in at fourth with 9.3%, and Intel at fifth with 8.8%.

The information was found within 158 pages of internal emails made public as part of an ongoing lawsuit against Microsoft for their hand in alleged artificial inflation of computer prices during the 2006 holiday season.

Numerous reports of users experiencing difficulties with Nvidia drivers on Vista had surfaced at the time of its debut, leading many to label the operating system as a buggy or unstable system. The revealed statistics represent the first publicly available hard data on the root cause of Windows Vista instability.

Microsoft recently released Vista Service Pack 1, which reportedly boosts gaming performance on the platform.

[Pugnate]

hahaha...

I can't side against MS on this one.

[Antares]

Ha! Interesting.  Anyone have any idea what NVidia's market share is on vista machines?

[scottws]

Well, the driver can crash when the card overheats too.  So it's not necessarily poor programming.

[Antares]

True, although it would probably be safe to assume that most of your "hardcore" users are sticking with XP, so this is mostly your run of the mill users.  So if the cards are overheating it probably isn't because of overclocking if thats what you were getting at

[scottws]

No, but I've had the driver crash when I play games for awhile and I don't have anything overclocked.

[WindAndConfusion]

I can't side against MS on this one.

I can. The reason nVidia's drivers were buggy is that Microsoft completely redesigned their graphics subsystem, and added several layers of DRM at the same time.

Then they changed their subsystem again just a few weeks before Vista was released, which meant nVidia had to write new drivers all over again.

That's why ALL of the GPU manufacturers had problems - but especially nVidia, since they own most of that market.

[Xessive]

So, what? Is that their excuse for Vista's shortcomings?