nVidia vs. ATI - Driver Quality?

[JM Popaleetus]

AMD has absolutely horrid Crossfire drivers.

They seem to be fine for single card users. That said, I prefer nVidia's as it has more features and control over the card/applications.

 

[Hauk]

Were your results anything like this?

Skyrim is terribly bottlenecked. None of the dual GPU cards work.

Na more like this:

That's 560ti 448 SLI in X79 rig, latest drivers, 1080p, 4xAA 16xAF, maxed detail settings. I don't play with FRAPS running but just ran around a bit, FPS fluctuates from 90-180FPS. While many call them shills, [H] trys to explain gameplay "experience."

I'm talking never perceivable hitch, never a perceivable stutter, never anything that slows gameplay down to what I can perceive as hindered. Granted I have the hardware to move the data around; but it was a different story with 7950 CF. C-h-o-p-p-y.

 

[BD231]

Nvidia drivers are better as far as functionality goes and I wouldn't touch cross fire with a ten foot poll, but they're both par for the course on game compatibility in single card situations. The games I play favor nVidia hardware.

 

[nickb64]

I've had occaisional issues with both, as have my friends. I think my AMD driver issues are more the fault of the fact they're put out through HP. My NVIDIA card was a 6600LE, so it was pretty old.

My friends who've had issues had a 9800GTX+ and a 5570.

 

[hawtdawg]

crossfire isn't as bad as people make it sound. The only real drawback is that it sometimes takes AMD a few weeks to get a working profile out for a new game.

 

[3DVagabond]

Na more like this:

That's 560ti 448 SLI in X79 rig, latest drivers, 1080p, 4xAA 16xAF, maxed detail settings. I don't play with FRAPS running but just ran around a bit, FPS fluctuates from 90-180FPS. While many call them shills, [H] trys to explain gameplay "experience."

I'm talking never perceivable hitch, never a perceivable stutter, never anything that slows gameplay down to what I can perceive as hindered. Granted I have the hardware to move the data around; but it was a different story with 7950 CF. C-h-o-p-p-y.

Well, from looking at TPU's graph, Id say the benchmark acts differently than the game. +1 for [H]'s review methods. (FWIW, while I don't always agree with [H]'s procedures (I mostly do agree though), I've never considered them shills. )

I was just thinking that if crossfire didn't scale it could be another problem, from looking at the bench. Apparently not though.

 

[thilanliyan]

You will have problems from both camps. I know the generalization that ATI drivers still suck persists so I present you with exhibit A:
http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2242677

Point is, you will have issues here and there with both. In terms of XFire, I have barely used it, but when I did enable it, I did not have any issues with Witcher 2. My experience with XFire is a very small sample though so may not be representative of what other have experienced. I rarely play the newest games so I'm probably immune from showstopper bugs.

 

[BallaTheFeared]

Well, from looking at TPU's graph, Id say the benchmark acts differently than the game.

Last time I checked, Skyrim did not have a built in benchmark.

 

[Cerb]

IMO, similar quality, overall, but I would not buy another NV for myself, today. AMD has done great at improving the drivers, and since Win7, NVidia hasn't gotten back on their high quality horse. It seems if a driver displays everything correctly in every games, I get stutter, trackable w/ DPC Latency Checker, or some video feature is all wrong (DXVA stutter, rubberbanding, corruption), etc.. I've been lucky enough to not suffer from constant TDRs, but that still seems to be a problem that isn't too rare.

 

[Silverforce11]

I know for a fact that Skyrim at release was severely CPU bottlenecked, even my old 5850 was limited by a stock 2500K, OC it lead to fps increases. Subsequent patches may have fixed their crap coding? Does it even support more than 2 threads now?

 

[Rifter]

Windows drivers they are comparable IMO.

Linux drivers Nvidia is so far ahead its not even funny, if you are thinking of using linux at all stick with Nvidia.

 

[BallaTheFeared]

I know for a fact that Skyrim at release was severely CPU bottlenecked, even my old 5850 was limited by a stock 2500K, OC it lead to fps increases. Subsequent patches may have fixed their crap coding? Does it even support more than 2 threads now?

It was only a problem inside towns.

Not sure if TPU is stupid enough to bench v1.0 inside Whiterun but I wouldn't put it past them to test SLI with a stock cpu in a massively cpu limited situation.

That said I got like 45 fps with my i5-2500k @ 5.3GHz in Whiterun before the community released fix, 62 at the same clocks with that fix. I haven't even actually tested it since then because I went triple screen and don't push the fps very high anyways so I wasn't worried about it :thumbsup:

AMD didn't have a CF profile for Skyrim for several months, and have no support for AO.

 

[SlowSpyder]

I had a Radeon 4870 and the drivers were perfect in my experience.

I then had a Radeon 5870 and then added a second for CF and the drivers were perfect in my experience.

I currently have a Radeon 7970 and the drivers are a bit quirky, but overall perfectly functional, but I do run into some odd issues here and there. Games seem fine, though.

 

[Shamrock]

I switched to AMD just YESTERDAY, and can't tell a difference. Both are good IMO.

I think I prefer AMD's UI though.

 

[Pottuvoi]

In D3D both are fine, at least from players point of view.
In OpenGL AMD is not faring as well.. (Rage players can give information about that.)

 

[Jaydip]

Well the first thing AMD should fix is the CCC.Its a horrid mess and a very poor example of software engineering.Their drivers are fine but CCC is a different story.

 

[Zebo]

Please. This is the old 10+ yr old AMD/VIA chipset argument all over again. don't believe it just FUD.

 

[Borealis7]

drivers from both companies are equally bad.

AMD's drivers used to suffer from image corruption, nVidia's drivers used to kill cards...

it's not like you have a choice.

 

[3DVagabond]

drivers from both companies are equally bad.

AMD's drivers used to suffer from image corruption, nVidia's drivers used to kill cards...

it's not like you have a choice.

Both companies suffer with poorly coded games that are ported over from a different platform. Although that doesn't acct. for the deadly nVidia drivers. Those were likely caused by pressure to get them out ASAP.

 

[Jacky60]

Been with AMD since 4870 replaced my 8800 GTX and can say that generally drivers have been fine. Sometimes it takes longer than it should for profiles for high end cards to be released for xfire which is annoying but the drivers generally work OK.

 

[nemesismk2]

I've never had any problems with the drivers from amd or nvidia so I guess that makes them both great lol

 

[slackingoff7]

I had both AMD and Nvidia cards. For AMD, I used a HD 6870 for a couple weeks and borrowed my roommates HD 6970 for extended periods. For Nvidia, I had a GTX 460 786 MB, GT 240 512 MB GDDR5, GT 240 DDR3, and 7600GT.

I MUCH prefer the control panel from Nvidia. I dislike that AMD's control panel tries to control my desktop as I use UltraMon for my 2 monitor setup. Nvidia's drivers seem much easier to download on their website compared to AMD's drivers. I dislike the fact that every time I have installed drivers for an AMD card, my monitor starts off underscanned (I don't know anyone in their right mind that enjoys an underscanned monitor)! These little things just bother me when I compare the two brands.

In the end, I use Nvidia because of Folding Home. In recent years, both company's cards have been extremely cost competitive with each other. Just buy the company you prefer at the price point you desire. You can't go wrong with a card now a days as they will just price match considering performance. Just know what you are going into, be an informed consumer!

 

[nikola1970]

Been using AMD card in while (5770) and never had any single issue with the drivers.

So i guess they are good.

 

[Dark Shroud]

I've been using ATI/AMD cards for the last 8 years straight and never had a problem with the drivers.

 

[aaksheytalwar]

My past/present cards:

ATI
9800pro
1900xtx
4850
5850
6970
now 7970
No problem except with 7970 drivers which are still not very mature, and no huge problem with 7970 drivers either.

nvidia
tnt2
6600gt
9600gt
no problems either
except with new drivers I prefer AMD's UI a lot better. But for multi gpu, nvidia is a lot better.

Either ways, the driver issues are not big enough to be a deal breaker except for multi gpu.