Topic: Nvidia's driver tactics?

[Pugnate]

I am an 8800GTX owner and have been waiting for decent Vista/XP drivers for a while. Most games run OK, but Oblivion, Rainbow Six Vegas and FIFA 07 won't run at their best settings with anti aliasing purely because of the drivers.

It has been six months and I have waited for a while for decent drivers, and it looks like Nvidia has been waiting till the ATi launch was near.

I've said this before, but Nvidia has a tactic to steal ATi's thunder at every launch. I remember the Radeon 8700 came out and was a heavy hitter. It was $100 cheaper and as fast as what Nvidia offered.

Around the time of the launch date Nvidia suddenly released new drivers after a long period that were amazing.

Same story happened when ATi launched the 9700, which again I was in line for in Toronto. A few days later Nvidia launched new drivers after a gap of months! While they couldn't compete with the 9700, people were wondering if it was a coincidence that the drivers were delayed.

Now I've been using the 97.02 since November... NOVEMBER of LAST YEAR! They released 97.42 in April, but they were the same thing as 97.02 and had a minor hot fix or two.

So basically after bad drivers for six months, today they released officially 158.19

From 97.02 they went to 158.19 after six months. That's just fishy. Apparently these drivers are awesome and have unlocked the potential of the 8800 GTX cards with nice performance gains.

ATi launches its R600 aka 2900XT in 2 weeks. Is it a coincidence? I think Nvidia were sitting on these drivers waiting for the 2900XT, which kept getting delayed which forced Nvidia to hold on to them.

[Xessive]

Um, for WinXP they released driver version 158.19 yesterday. That's for the 8800.

EDIT: I think it's a BETA driver though.

[Pugnate]

I just downloaded these. I think the Beta thing is a typo since these are the only drivers the official nvidia link takes you to.

http://www.nvidia.com/object/winxp_2k_158.19.html

Anyway this is the first major change on the official driver page since November. Either Nvidia has been delaying them deliberately or they just haven't been able to make good drivers.

Anandtech discussion:

http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.aspx?catid=31&threadid=2034763&STARTPAGE=1

[Xessive]

Or they're watching these boards and they were waiting for you to take note of the delay

[Ghandi]

It wouldn't surprise me. That's just business. Although I do agree that there was quite a lengthy interval between driver releases.

[MysterD]

So, umm....when are some new Win XP Drivers for my GF 6600 GT coming???

We ain't had one since Nov 6th, 2006.

[Pugnate]

You know what? My thoughts may have seemed like wild ramblings. Heck even I didn't believe them completely when I wrote them. I mean could Nvidia deliberately undermine their own product just to sour a competitor's launch? Would they really do that?

The 8800GTX was always advertised as being Vista ready, yet Nvidia failed to produce Vista drivers that were working effectively. The drivers they came up with were barely functional and did not even have WHQL MS certification... they were just that bad.

People who bought the 8800GTX for the falsely advertised Vista compatibility were ticked... 

http://apcmag.com/5257/nvidia_owners_threaten_class_action_over_vista_drivers

Fans were wondering... does the 8800GTX have problems with DX10? Vista had been out for six months, and the advertised drivers were not in sight.

Meanwhile ATi's answer to Vista/DX10 had been delayed since December (R600 aka 2900XT) and finally was released last month.

Can you believe that on the day of the 2900XTs release, Nvidia released WHQL certified, fully functional, Geforce 8 series DX10 drivers after a period of nine months?

How the hell does that happen three generations in a row? HOW?

Even Anandtech was upset, and called it more than suspicious. The day they were supposed to release benchmarks on the 2900XT, Nvidia came up with fully functional Vista drivers.

Either these are deliberate tactics, or Nvidia are like the stereotypical hero cutting the red wire seconds before the bomb explodes. Trouble is that it gets less believable by the third movie.

[MysterD]

So, umm....when are some new Win XP Drivers for my GF 6600 GT coming???

We ain't had one since Nov 6th, 2006.

These are the most recent ones, for those who still are on Win XP and need new Nvidia drivers for their GeForce cards -- Win XP 94.24 drivers for NVidia users.

I been happy w/ the new drivers, myself -- especially for Gothic 3's performance.

[scottws]

Wow that's pretty crazy there Pug.  You were spot on.

[Pugnate]

I found it hilarious that D posted again off topic, but didn't get a reply so he quoted himself with an answer.

[MysterD]

I found it hilarious that D posted again off topic, but didn't get a reply so he quoted himself with an answer.

Well, we all were talking about NVidia and their drivers -- so, I kinda went off on a tangent. Like that's anything new.

I finally got new NVidia Drivers for Win XP, so I figured I'd quote myself.

I didn't wanna start a new thread b/c new NVidia Drivers popped up for Win XP.

[Pugnate]

I just kidding.

How is the new driver set treating you?

[MysterD]

I just kidding.

How is the new driver set treating you?

Good, so far.

Gothic III is running quite a bit better than it was, to say the least, performance-wise.
Especially when a lot is happening on-screen.

Diablo II: LOD runs like it always does -- 25 FPS, flawlessly.

Far Cry still runs great.