Who has better drivers?

Honestly in my testing I found neither had better drivers. Each had their own issue though. Like I tested Twin 570's in SLI Surround and I kept hitting the frame buffer wall. With the 5870 I had adapter issues. With the 6870 I didn't have adapter issues, but i kept hitting the frame buffer wall.
 
I think a lot of enthusiasts who've been around for a while would still favor NV over AMD slightly in the driver department, just because AMD has (historically) had slightly more issues... But currently it's probably a wash and it can change at any given moment. For instance, AMD's Eyefinity implementation is much more elegant than NVidia's, with profile switching so you can go from EF to extended desktop with a single keystroke, etc.

Six months after NV Surround was introduced NV's drivers are still lacking similar functionality. OTOH NVidia's bezel correction doesn't necessarily require three identical displays like AMD's drivers do, but it won't work with any three displays either (need identical res, refresh rate, and sync polarity), and in some cases it may not work at all w/different displays whereas AMD's implementation would (albeit w/o bezel compensation). Then again, some people have had flickering issues w/certain display configurations on the AMD side (and if you don't have at 'least one DP-capable display you'd need an adapter).

AMD's 6000 series has some interesting AA modes we haven't seen before as well. I'm actually about to dive into a tri-display setup and I'm still not sure which way I'll go... I'm keeping the driver issues in the back of my mind but it probably won't play a major factor in my decision, performance per dollar > all. I'm trying to decide between 2x6870's, 2xGTX560's, or 2x6950's (2GB)...

FWIW, my current card is a GTX 260, and I actually wanted a 4870 instead (it was shorter) but the XFX GTX 260 had a better warranty and game bundle. :D Before that I had a Radeon 9800 and before that a long string of NV cards (along w/3dfx!). With the way their parts are segmented right now (GTX 580 priced way too high, GTX 560 priced in between 6870/6950) I'd say you should base your decision entirely on the performance you need, as few of the cards are really faster for the same/less $ (or priced to compete directly).
 
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I have tried both camps. The drivers have come miles from what they used to be. I have not had any problems with ati or nvidia. I am sure there are problems. But I would not say that nvidia drivers are better then ati's. I have mobility radeon 5850 in my laptop and gtx 460 in my desktop. I have not had any glitches or problems with either one.
 
Honestly, people blame so much stuff on driver issues that I don't even pay attention to it anymore unless it's super-widespread... Like the one guy in this thread who went from a 5970 or something to a GTX 580 and claimed he wasn't having as many issues anymore but still had trouble multi-tasking etc., if that doesn't scream user error (and improperly wiped drivers), then I don't know what does... No offense to him, not everyone has the time/desire to troubleshoot that kinda stuff properly.
 
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NKD said:
I have mobility radeon 5850 in my laptop and gtx 460 in my desktop. I have not had any glitches or problems with either one.
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Laptops are the one area where I'd say NV has had the edge for a while, at 'least if you intend to game on it... They just have a better update policy and whatnot. If you're not gaming heavily on it then it's probably irrelevant.
 
Impulse said:
Laptops are the one area where I'd say NV has had the edge for a while,
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An understatement. My AMD laptop video card has been stuck in high speed mode for 2 days now and won't go back to idle. The laptop is very warm. I have to reboot to temporarily "fix" it. I don't want to go back 8 or 9 months to the last set of drivers that could correctly handle something so basic.
 
I honestly have to say that they are equal, I kind of like AMD a lot now with the new interface. However, I hate that you have to install .Net.
 
Impulse said:
Honestly, people blame so much stuff on driver issues that I don't even pay attention to it anymore unless it's super-widespread... Like the one guy in this thread who went from a 5970 or something to a GTX 580 and claimed he wasn't having as many issues anymore but still had trouble multi-tasking etc., if that doesn't claim user error (and improperly wiped drivers), then I don't know what does... No offense to him, not everyone has the time/desire to troubleshoot that kinda stuff properly.
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I'll offend him for you. He's an idiot. Anyone who goes from one card to another, has some of the same issues and still blames it on the card has no deductive reasoning skills and should not be allowed to use a computer. Or a touch-tone phone.

Some call it hard line. I call it common sense.
 
pxc said:
An understatement. My AMD laptop video card has been stuck in high speed mode for 2 days now and won't go back to idle. The laptop is very warm. I have to reboot to temporarily "fix" it. I don't want to go back 8 or 9 months to the last set of drivers that could correctly handle something so basic.
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and my Nvidia card in my laptop does the same thing. So it's not exclusive to AMD.
 
My 5770 worked flawlessly for few months but now my 5850 gives me trouble sometimes. My computer cold restarted like 5x yesterday because I had the xfx 5850 overclocked. It did this prior when overclocked. Vsync doesn't work but there's a work around with 3rd party drivers.

Nvidia drivers are not perfect but it's better than ATI drivers.
 
Nvidia seems to work better in Linux, especially on laptops. Also, drivers for older video cards seem to work better for Nvidia as ati seems to drop support for older cards like the 1950pro or 9700pro where as I still get good support for all my old nvidia cards (6800 and 7900 series.)

But with newer cards in windows I would say both AMD/ATI and Nvidia drivers are good to excellent. Granted I am running 200 and 8000 series Nvidia and 4000 and 5000 series ATI so my results might be a lot different from others with newer cards
 
silent-circuit said:
I'll offend him for you. He's an idiot. Anyone who goes from one card to another, has some of the same issues and still blames it on the card has no deductive reasoning skills and should not be allowed to use a computer. Or a touch-tone phone.

Some call it hard line. I call it common sense.
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AMD has a messy driver installation process and they scatter files all over your PC in obsecure locations.
Even driver sweeper can't locate all the files. I have to use REGEDIT to locate the last rogue AMD or Nvidia Files.
Since I've been using that command, my AMD drivers has been more stable than ever.

Users have it learn how to clean drivers from their PC better.
Re-installing the OS is a ridiculous method of repair and should be avoided.
 
The one thing that confuses me about AMD drivers is the lack of game profiles like Nvidia's. Something like this surely cannot be that difficult to implement? And really it would work well with there new MLAA (which is somewhat game dependent in terms of results and use) Have they ever officially commented on why they don't implement this?
 
With owning both sets, I will stick to Nvidia. Currently on a surround Portrait mode setup.
 
I just yesterday installed the first Radeon I've ever owned. My GPU history is as follows:

GF2 Ti, Ti4200, 5700U, 5900XT, 7600GT, 8600GT, 9800GT, 9800GTX, GTX 260, GTX 275, HD 6950

AFTER ONLY ONE DAY, which I concede isn't nearly enough time to make a definitive conclusion, I can at the very least say that I have no issues to report. Driver install was painless, BC2 is running great, and I have so far had none of the issues I've read about here that others are having.

If I had one complaint, it would only be that the 6950 is a good deal louder than the GTX 275 ever was, but that has nothing to do with drivers, and I run a custom fan profile so that's partially my fault.

Now, my setup is relatively simple, single monitor, etc., so I'm sure many of the issues others are having, I may never have, so take that in to consideration. I just wanted to post that my experience so far has been nothing like I expected it to be. After reading many of the threads here I was certainly a bit anxious about turning red after all these years, and issues may yet present themselves over time of course, but for now, I am extremely pleased with the new card, though I suppose I won't be pushing it as hard as many others here would.

My unsolicited 2c.
 
There is not nor will there ever be an answer to your question so in the future please refrain from asking this question or any others like it as they only start arguements.

ATI has better drivers than Nvidia AND Nvidia has better drivers than ATI. They have both had good and bad drivers and they both have drivers that do and do not perform better in the same game.

NEVER BUY A VIDEO CARD BECAUSE OF THE DRIVERS!

Buy a video card because your PSU can support it, it's the best value performance wise for your money, the noise or heat output and because you can Sli/Xfire them on your motherboard if applicable.

Drivers are the worst reason to make a video card purchase EVEN IF YOU ARE ON LINUX as both sodes of the coin have had great successes and disastrous failures.

Fanboism is probably the real worst reason to make a purchase and will cost you at one point or another just because you want to be a technological racist. Don't let ignorance spend your money for you, let logic and facts do that job the right way.
 
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OK OK as the OP I can officially call and end to this discussion.
I was flipping a coin between the 6950 and GTX 560 and couldn't decide. I have not upgraded in ages (since 8800GT) and wondered if one company had the edge on the drivers but I can see that they both have their strengths and issues...so no different.

I will buy the MSI GTX 560 Twin frozr II OC and be done with it.
 
Firstly, In my experience driver cleaner has been nothing but a bad idea, especially on NT6+. Boot into safe mode, use the driver suites default uninstaller. Off. New card in. On. into safe mode, install new driver, reboot. I've done at least a dozen video card swaps this way and not once ran into an issue.

WorldExclusive said:
Amazingly I've had a great experience with my 6950 and the 10.12a drivers.
The first AMD drivers in a long time I didn't have to reinstall over and over.
If you notice, AMD hasn't released another hot fix for the 10.12a driver because they are pretty decent.

I used to get hard sutter/freezing with Nvidia cards in F1 2010 and that went away when I switched over to AMD.
When AMD drivers matches the quality of their hardware at cer tain times, it's a beautiful thing.

The ATI 5800 series was a nightmare for me, hopefully AMD has learned their lesson and develop good drivers the first time.
Too many hotfixes last year.
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Yeah this last Catalyst 10 round has been a buggy one. They seem to be smoothing things over well now.

Back in the X800 days it was pretty polar, regardless of ATI's arguably superior hardware, the drivers were so buggy you would be tempted to buy the Nvidia stuff if for nothing else than a system that ran AA when you asked it to.

But today it really is a wash, at least in my experience.

dcho said:
again, nvidia. was, is, will.
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Sir, understand. I don't, cant, wont....
 
mattchapman said:
So for me its a toss-up between GTX 560 and 6870/6950.
How about drivers? Is one better than the other?
I've heard some Catalyst issues but I'm sure there are nVidia issues too as the cards are coming out faster than the drivers can be updated.

I have Win 7 64.

thanks
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Nvidia. By a laughably large margin.
 
Canada has notoriously bad drivers. So I'm going with nvidia on that basis.
 
I have had a Geforce 2 Ultra, Geforce 3, 4, A Radeon 9800 Pro, Radeon X850XT PE, Geforce 8800 GT, Radeon 5750, and a Radeon 5850. In my experience I find Nvidia's drivers more stable, although I have to admit ATI has gotten a little better over the years.
 
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