Does AMD allow one to use their drivers (on their website) on laptops with their GPUs in them without modification? If so, nVidia should provide the same level of support (or better) to their customers as their main competitor for high end graphics.
I use modified INF drivers on my Toshiba P105 (Geforce 7900GS), I modify them myself by splicing out certain lines from the ini file in Toshiba's drivers into the latest nonbeta nvidia drivers. This works fine, other than a warning about it not being certified. But, I should
not have to do this to get access to drivers that have better performance than the ones on Toshiba's website (be it nVidia's or Toshiba's "fault").
Nvidia's GPU driver support is actually far better than their nForce 3 driver support. The driver support has been so bad, that I will NEVER buy or recommend nVidia motherboard chipsets again. This coming from someone who (up until recently) has been nVidia exclusive on the desktop
in both GPUs and chipsets since the demise of 3dfx. All computers (up until recently) that I have built or recommended for friends, family and myself featured both an nVidia chipset and an nVidia GPU. My nVidia exclusivity changed after a few years with my nForce3...
nForce3 XP drivers were last updated in 2004. I omitted the 5.11 drivers released in 2005 (the driver that nvidia's site defaults to) because
installing them causes many computers to enter in a blue screen of death loop (including mine).
Nvidia could
never quite get the firewall working correctly that is advertised on the box of the nforce3 and 4 motherboards.
There are also issues with newer SATA HDDs like the SamSung SpinPoint F1 series and nForce3 (4 as well I think) motherboards, basically one cannot use nVidia's IDE / SATA drivers, it is a common enough problem, Google it for more info. As far as I can tell, chipsets from nVidia's main competitors (at the time) work fine.
Let us also not forget about
the abandoning of Windows Vista support for the nForce3. nVidia responded to their customers problems by removing the advertisement that the nForce3 is Vista capable from their website.
SiS and VIA had also problems with their chipset drivers (mainly agp.inf), but quickly released patches to correct these issues.
I asked one of the "nvidia focus group" members here to
look into a possible Vista driver update that was discussed by an nVidia employee. He (the focus group member) was kind enough to email the nVidia employee who made the statement. nVidia responded by ignoring their "focus group" member.
I am currently using an AMD x1950 Pro and could not be happier with AMD's excellent driver support
But, I am just one geek, none of my boycotting or posting on an internet forum will ever do anything to nVidia