Love My 8800GTX

[LOUISSSSS]

I feel your pain brother. Same problems running Vista Ultimate 32 bit. My favorite is when the "video driver stops responding." I think Vista posts that message when it doesn't know what the problem actually is. Never had a video driver "stop responding" in XP.

I blame both MSFT and NVIDIA, but there's no denying that NVIDIA's Vista drivers have gotten progressively better with each release. Maybe one day soon, I'll even be able to play a full session of a game without a hard restart.

damn i didn't think it was THAT bad.. apparently it is..

 

[bfdd]

Originally posted by: LOUISSSSS

I feel your pain brother. Same problems running Vista Ultimate 32 bit. My favorite is when the "video driver stops responding." I think Vista posts that message when it doesn't know what the problem actually is. Never had a video driver "stop responding" in XP.

I blame both MSFT and NVIDIA, but there's no denying that NVIDIA's Vista drivers have gotten progressively better with each release. Maybe one day soon, I'll even be able to play a full session of a game without a hard restart.

damn i didn't think it was THAT bad.. apparently it is..

Yea it's THAT bad, I just stopped having the problem a month ago and I've had this card since mid december.

 

[chunkylafanga]

Can you make love to your GTX? NO!

Actually if your answer is yes, then i'm a little worried about you

 

[Extelleron]

Originally posted by: Pwntcomputer
I just can't wait for the 9800. Supposedly three times faster? That is insanity and definitely worth the wait.

I think what we've heard is something like 3x faster in THEORETICAL performance, we haven't heard anything about the actual gaming performance.

I don't know if nVidia is taking this direction with the GeForce 9 series, or what ATI is doing with their next card, but if it really has 3x the performance of the G80, I wouldn't be surprised if its a multi-chip design. I just can't imagine a chip with 3x the power of the G80 on one die, even if it is on a 65nm process (nVidia is clearly skipping 80nm and going right down to 65nm).

To be 3x faster (on the shaders, at least) on one die, nVidia would need to either make some serious architectural improvements that allow for more efficiency, or seriously increase the number of shaders AND clockspeed. Right now G80 Ultra is 1.512GHz~ with 128 shading processors, that's 193,536 shad ops/s. 3x that is 580,608 ops/s. Even with 192 shaders, nVidia would need to clock them at 3GHz to reach that level of performance. With some architectural improvements and the smaller process, this could be possible... but I doubt it, G80 on 90nm can only reach 1.7GHz~ on the shaders.

This is why I think nVidia (and probably ATI) will go for multi-chip designs in the future. To reach 3x performance with two GPUs, for example, nVidia only needs a G80-sized chip (128 shading processors) with a clockspeed of 2.27GHz, which should be reachable on 65nm. With two chips with say +-700M transistors (perhaps a few more for architectural improvements) nVidia can have much smaller die sizes and reduce costs considerably. It's been rumored that ATI is moving toward a multi-chip design on a 55nm process, and I think that makes sense. I just can't see either ATI or nVidia making chips that offer considerably more performance on one big die. G80 is already 480mm^2 and 690M transistors... is nVidia really going to design a chip with well over a billion transistors on one die?

 

[Blacklash]

My main complaint with my GTX was its idle temp.

I fixed that with a Thermalright HR-03 Plus and a 92mm Panaflo fan. I am running 652|2054 45-47C idle and 55-58C load depending on ambient room temps.

My other complaint would be the card runs rough in "Oblivion" in heavy foliage using the Vista x64 driver. Under XP in the same situation and same quality settings it is smooth. The FPS is near identical yet it is rough and choppy when moving through heavy foliage scenes with Vista x64. I play 1680x 8xAA|16xAF with Transparency Multisample AA active. If you're wondering, I have 4GB RAM so my system is not starved.

That's it for my complaints at this time. I've been playing "Oblivion" under XP lately so I solved my own problem.

I love that nVidia returned to their tradition of HQ AF with the G80. So in addition to the best overall performance on the market you also get the best IQ.

I've had the card since November of last year and do not regret the purchase. I'll be owning my overclocked card until something is released that beats it solidly.

 

[chizow]

Originally posted by: Woofmeister

Originally posted by: n7

Originally posted by: pcslookout
What kind of problems is the Geforce 8800 GTX giving you ?

Random semi-lockups in UT2k4, & random driver has stopped errors, which happens during games.

UT2k4 issue basically freezes gameplay for about a second or two, & then will unfreeze back to normal.
When you play online as i do, sometimes in competitive matches, it's insanely frustrating to be giving away free frags to other players, since it always happens right as i'm in a firefight, meaning i am dead by the time it "unlocks" :frown:

The driver stopped issue has happened in a number of games, & again, randomly.
Essentially, screen goes black & then the driver keeps trying to restart or something...all i know is i get flashing effing disco screen that won't stop.

I have to restart via hard shutdown (power button) to resume functionality on my system, as alt tabbing, bringing up task manager, etc. doesn't work.
Incredibly frustrating.

Undoubtedly, these issues are possibly due to nV's drivers for Vista 64 being immature.

That is not a legitimate excuse though, as nV has had this damn card out for half a year now, & Vista 64 RTM was available to them right around release of this card.


It's sad to say, but my old X1900 XT was a better gameplay experience, & more reliable. No such problems in Vista 64.
I'm learning the hard way that benchmarks don't tell the whole story...drivers = huge part of the story, & nV + drivers = utter sh!t.

/angry n7 rant over...

I feel your pain brother. Same problems running Vista Ultimate 32 bit. My favorite is when the "video driver stops responding." I think Vista posts that message when it doesn't know what the problem actually is. Never had a video driver "stop responding" in XP. :roll:

I blame both MSFT and NVIDIA, but there's no denying that NVIDIA's Vista drivers have gotten progressively better with each release. Maybe one day soon, I'll even be able to play a full session of a game without a hard restart.

Actually, the Vista "Video Driver Has Stopped Responding/Recovered" error messages seem to be a replacement for the XP BSOD and hard lock. Both annoying, but at least the Vista error gives you a chance to try and diagnose the problem without constantly rebooting. I use to get Stop responding/recovery messages in XP but that was with my 9700pro and was a feature of the ATI drivers rather than the OS I believe.

That being said, my current 8800GTS and C2D rig is easily the highest performing (relatively speaking ofc) and most stable system I've ever put together. I only switched to Vista about a month ago and there were some early problems in XP, but I've found in the last 6 months I've spent less time tweaking my rig and more time enjoying my games.

That's not to say there weren't some bumps in the road with my current build, but both times it turned out it was my RAM at fault and not NV drivers or my OS. Personally I think the culprit was the Asus 650i board I was running for about 5 months. Swapped out to an MSI 650i and haven't had any problems since.

 

[TheUnk]

How well does the 8800GTX handle STALKER?