Nvidia drivers are better? NOPE.

TekRok

2[H]4U
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Dec 9, 2005
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I am tired of constant fanboyism touting Nvidia drivers as the second coming of Christ. They are just like AMD's offering - good, shitty, unstable, needs work basically.

The last 2 driver releases have been nothing but trouble for me (353.06, 352.86). Specifically "Video driver stopped responding errors at random", and anytime I watch a youtube video on my second monitor the driver crashes. The only driver that is stable without a single issue is 350.12.

I had the same issues with certain AMD drivers back when I had a 290 Crossfire system, same issues as with current Nvidia drivers. Switched to Nvidia thinking I would get past the driver problems, well apparently not and its pretty much on par with AMD.

This hype about drivers from Nvidia being better is nothing but bullshit. Just as bad as AMD. It seems companies rush to support certain games and optimize the latest cards for the said games, while screwing over the rest of the people that dont actually play them.

FYI I have a 980SLI system.
 
NVIDIA has had a history of occasionally putting out turds, but this recent run of releases has been pretty bad. The last good driver from them, in my opinion, was 347.88 which came out 3 months ago at this point. They need to bust some heads over in their driver department and/or stop having the interns commit changes to the release library.
 
Anecdotal. It's sad the forum is being over run with fan boy posts like this.
 
To me the big difference is speed of releases. A new big game coming out? You can pretty much bet on Nvidia will have drivers and SLI profiles for it close to release date. By comparison it took several months for AMD to release Crossfire profiles for Far Cry 4 for example. They did better with GTA V but their release rate still isn't great.

Personally I haven't had any real problems with the last few releases on 970 SLI and now 980 Ti.
 
Everything Nvidia does is superior to AMDs garbage.

Better drivers with better features: I.e. Shadowplay, streaming, GeForce experience, G-Sync monitors, faster driver releases, SLI actually works great as opposed to CFs shitty problems

Nvidias cards are clearly better than anything AMD produces. It's not being a fanboy when all of this is common knowledge and fact.

Say what you will but it's true. People like to root for the underdog but AMD has lost the battle long ago. Look at the current cards! Rebrands.... They draw massive power and produce tons of heat. Performance is mediocre.
 
I am hearing that the new xfire performs better than sli. But if it doesn't work for months that is pointless
 
I'm rocking a similar rig here (Z87, 4770k and 980 SLI). Was having the same issue and it's now resolved by disabling Hardware Acceleration in Chrome and FireFox. Not a single crash since then.

Why it's so hard for people to figure out that if display driver only crash in certain circumstances when flash/hw acceleration are being utilized then the problem must be associated with that function?
 
no issues for me on sli titan x and sli 980 ti.
can confirm, nvidia better than amd.

amidoinitrite?
 
This hype about drivers from Nvidia being better is nothing but bullshit. Just as bad as AMD. It seems companies rush to support certain games and optimize the latest cards for the said games, while screwing over the rest of the people that dont actually play them.

FYI I have a 980SLI system.

Social marketing aside (it's a big deal actually), people are discovering for themselves the grass ain't any "greener" on the green side.
 
I've had both crossfire and SLI. Crossfire was a bitch and SLI I only had to make a 2 minute tweak to BF4 (which was surprising actually).

In the end I'd do SLI again in a heart beat. Crossfire... maybe if DX12 helps it but not in the current state.
 
Great post OP - way to contribute.

nV's drivers are still better than AMD's.
 
As a current owner of AMD, and until recently AMD CFX, I'll add more anecdotal support.

In my experience over the last 5 years, Nvidia drivers have given me one critical issue (wake bug) that was immediately resolved in the next update.

AMD drivers in the last 3 have given me a wake bug, flickering clocks, crashing on 2d apps, non-saving settings, slow detection of display causing desktop layout being cluttered, and a well intentioned but ultimately unhelpful support staff.

Much of the above are things I got to work in the end (albeit after a lot of tweaking, stopgap and workaround solutions) and I like my AMD cards, but there's no question which gave me a better experience when speaking purely of drivers.
 
I just switched from AMD. While I never had any major problems with AMD's drivers, my experience was far from stellar. There were always things that were "off". Windows 7 would default to non-aero UI after waking, screen flickering, stuttering in some games, etc. They worked fine in 99% of cases, but the sum total of small issues resulted in some annoyances.

Switching over to Nvidia, I don't deal with any of those issues. Everything feels rock solid and stable, and I don't have any of the weird issues anymore.

I've always been a supporter of AMD, but when it comes to drivers, Nvidia just seems to be more stable for me. In addition to that, I know I can count on timely driver releases from Nvidia. AMD? Not so much, unfortunately.
 
I have the random driver stopped working on the newest drivers too. I rollback the driver and its fine, but it keeps bugging me to update it in geforce experience. So update to get more crashes??? No thanks.
 
If you are getting CTD w/the latest driver, check if you are overclocked. I noticed that these latest ones are more sensitive to overclocks than previous drivers.
 
I have been using nv since tnt, and the drivers for Maxwell are not all that hot. Kepler was more stable from the get go.
 
Everything Nvidia does is superior to AMDs garbage.

Better drivers with better features: I.e. Shadowplay, streaming, GeForce experience, G-Sync monitors, faster driver releases, SLI actually works great as opposed to CFs shitty problems

Nvidias cards are clearly better than anything AMD produces. It's not being a fanboy when all of this is common knowledge and fact.

Say what you will but it's true. People like to root for the underdog but AMD has lost the battle long ago. Look at the current cards! Rebrands.... They draw massive power and produce tons of heat. Performance is mediocre.


Uhu.. the non-fanboyism in this post is striking
 
No. nVidia is always better than AMD. Before I owned my 2 980s, I switched from dual 290Xs to a GTX 580, because nV cards are so much better.
 
Personally I dont have Nvidia related driver crashes... but what I do notice is that even the user interface of Nvidia drivers feels more polished compared to my family's computer that I have the catalyst control center in.
 
Haven't had a single problem driver-related with my GTX 780 Classy up to and including 352.86. Can't say the same for my 7850 that it replaced.
 
NV drivers have been working great for me as well, no issues but I'm not running SLI. Maybe try a clean uninstall/reinstall with DDU, usually helps whenever there are driver issues.
 
Well im going xfire or sli for sure so i just want to know which has better support and performance
 
Well im going xfire or sli for sure so i just want to know which has better support and performance

Having run both 290x CF and 970/980 SLI I'd give the edge to NV as far as driver support goes. They both have their problems though. Whenever possible I stick with a single card and right now a 980 Ti combined with a G-Sync monitor is the way to go IMO.
 
I'm rocking a similar rig here (Z87, 4770k and 980 SLI). Was having the same issue and it's now resolved by disabling Hardware Acceleration in Chrome and FireFox. Not a single crash since then.

I was having a similar issue, but I didn't disable hardware acceleration. Instead, I changed the "SLI rendering mode" for Chrome in the Nvidia Control Panel to "Single-GPU". I haven't had the issue since.

In regards to the conversation: I have only owned ATI/AMD cards exclusively up until a couple of years ago when I switched from a 7970 to dual 770s. I can attest, after years of ownership of various products, that Catalyst drivers are fucking terrible.

Do Geforce drivers have their issues? You bet your ass they do. They're just nowhere near as much of a pain to deal with as Catalyst drivers. And lets not forget about the almost non-existent game release support from AMD.
 
Having run both 290x CF and 970/980 SLI I'd give the edge to NV as far as driver support goes. They both have their problems though. Whenever possible I stick with a single card and right now a 980 Ti combined with a G-Sync monitor is the way to go IMO.

Well i returned titan x to go sli 980 ti or xfire fury x so i can still disable sli or xfire but use it when it works well. But it would be better to use it most of the time otherwise its wasting $650
 
The TDR issues going on with .06 and .12 are rediculous. Nvidia has barely even commented on the issue yet. These drivers are an unstable mess for a majority of people.
 
I dont have a SLI system, I have just 1 970, but I was having that issue for a while too.

I think completely deleting the previous driver and then updating is what solved it for me.
 
Yea the witcher driver and after were crap and it was first time i had issues related to nvidia and not the game
 
Another vote for nvidia drivers here. Went from 8800->9800->GTX 260 SLI->480->580->780->980 Ti. Can't even remember ever having a problem with nvidia drivers, except the last couple I think the driver crashes when the display goes to sleep and then reloads but everything else is fine. I'll give nvidia the benefit of the doubt after my long history with them, the TDRs are probably some obscure issue they just haven't figured out how to duplicate yet. They've put out a call for people in the San Francisco area having the issue to bring in their PC if they can, so I think it's quite obvious they aren't just blowing it off.
 
The fact that the OP upgrading to drivers known to be unstable and documented is puzzling....

I am still on 350.12 and happy. No need ot upgrade. None of the fixes or performance enhancements benefit me.
 
The fact that the OP upgrading to drivers known to be unstable and documented is puzzling....

I am still on 350.12 and happy. No need ot upgrade. None of the fixes or performance enhancements benefit me.

Quite honestly, I think that the REAL issue is identical to the issue regarding Windows 8 and later - nobody wants to upgrade their hardware if at all avoidable; therefore, they are looking for reasons - even if they fall into the "excuse" category.

1. First, it was that the Start menu wasn't there. Despite lots of data from those lacking touch-capable hardware that shows that the loss of the Start menu can be dealt with - without hardware changes - that issue has persisted.
2. Then it was that the UX no longer favored keyboard+pointing device. (What it turns out they REALLY meant is that it no longer favored expert mouse users in particular, as opposed to pointing devices in general. I say that because - from hard testing - is that I found that ONE class of pointing devices benefit in a huge way from the new UX - trackpads and the succeeding touchpads. However, except for Wacom hardware, they aren't commonplace at all on desktops - they ARE commonplace, however, on laptops and notebooks. Another beneficiary in terms of pointing devices - again, common more to portable-formfactor hardware, as opposed to desktop-formfactor hardware - are wireless mice. Both benefit for the same reason - you no longer need precision, due to larger landing points.)
3. Lastly, apparently, folks are still thinking that upgrades are expensive. A trip to even Newegg.com or MicroCenter (either a retail store or their Web storefront) is decidedly in order for these folks - as apparently they haven't looked in a while (like since the beginning of the Great Recession). At the low and middle end of the PC upgrade space, hardware pricing has either stayed stable or dropped - even, if not especially DURING said Great Recession - despite the sheer turnover in what hardware occupies this space - in terms merely of SSDs alone, 120GB SSDs have given way to 512GB SSDs, while pricing has either gone nowhere or dropped, even in terms of absolute prices in local currency (let alone price per capacity in the case of SSDs). The same is true for all other components in the space - from GPUs and CPUs to motherboards - despite Sandy Bridge being replaced by Haswell at the low end of the space. The only reasons I'm in stall mode right now are due to personal issues (like other expenses outside of computing) getting in the way - and I've made no secret of that.
 
The fact that the OP upgrading to drivers known to be unstable and documented is puzzling....

I am still on 350.12 and happy. No need ot upgrade. None of the fixes or performance enhancements benefit me.
I am sorry, I dont spend everyday searching whether an official Nvidia release is stable or not. That is the whole point of the thread now isnt it, to show that Nvidia is not a fairy land so many of you make it out to be. I expect a company to release something they know wont have issues. Sorry I ask for so much...
 
I am sorry, I dont spend everyday searching whether an official Nvidia release is stable or not. That is the whole point of the thread now isnt it, to show that Nvidia is not a fairy land so many of you make it out to be. I expect a company to release something they know wont have issues. Sorry I ask for so much...
The majority of people here acknowledged that they also had problems with Nvidia. It's probably because of these lines...:
...They are just like AMD's offering...

...pretty much on par with AMD...

...This hype about drivers from Nvidia being better is nothing but bullshit. Just as bad as AMD...
... that people try to reflect how much worse they had it with AMD.

I mean, I get it. When it's immediately happening to you, it sucks, and you want heads to roll. The truth is that we've all been there.

When I had my Nvidia wake bug, I sent a scathing e-mail to their support and raged on their forums. 2 days later, the new update fixed it. I was still pissed, but whatever.
 
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I have owned less NV cards than AMD cards. I love AMD and greatly support them. Overall, I have had next to no driver issues with NV. Yeah you get the occasional driver that does not play nice, but I have had far less headaches than with AMD cards.

Everyone has experiences. Are NV drivers perfect? Far from it, but generally people DO have less problems. Do I believe that drivers are a reason to stay away from AMD? Not a chance. But the fact that AMD prices are getting up there with NV prices is 1 more reason why AMD needs to get a better driver team. AMD used to be the voice of sanity with GFX prices. To me, AMD is not the "bargain" they used to be which is why I am utilizing NV currently. Maybe I will go back to AMD one day, but not this go around unless I decide to spend another $600 on a LCD.
 
The problem with AMD's drivers isn't necessarily stability, it is the frequency at which they are updated (Nvidia often has SLI profiles out the day a game is released whereas you have to wait for Crossfire profiles; additionally games seem to support SLI better than Crossfire) and their simultaneous lack of features yet bloated interface. Nvidia seems to come out with the cool new stuff first like DSR, Nvidia still has a monopoly on awesome AA methods for DX9 games (SGSSAA, etc). AMD's driver control panel has so many different sections just to accomplish the same things you can accomplish in Nvidia's control panel in just a few sections.

Additionally I constantly ran into annoying little bugs with AMD's drivers, like overscanning protection being turned on by DEFAULT. This would regularly mess with my games because somehow overscanning protection would get turned back on again when I'd start up a new game depending on the game. So I'd alt-tab to the desktop to go into the AMD control panel, but oh, guess what? Overscanning is off on the desktop! So I can't go into the drivers to turn off AMD's overscanning! So then I'd alt-tab back into the game and... THOSE DAMN BLACK BARS OF AMD'S STUPID DEFAULT OVERSCANNING ARE BACK. It seems like I encountered more weird bugs when I started up a game for the first time when I had AMD GPUs than I encounter now with Nvidia GPUs. Another example: Crossfire doesn't work properly in Crysis, a game that needs it, but SLI works fine.

They also did other things that annoyed me, like automatically turning on all these features that molested the quality of video (DNR, edge enhancement, etc.) These would often get reset so I'd have to go back into the AMD control panel to turn all that crap off again.

NVIDIA doesn't like to turn on a bunch of annoying things by default like DNR on videos and overscan border protection like AMD does, so NVIDIA doesn't have constant issues with these settings getting reset somehow.

Another example of the weird bugs you sometimes get with AMD that really sticks in my head... mouse cursor corruption. Just Google this issue, people have this all the time. I've never had it on Nvidia.
 
Last driver I used knocked the over clock on my Eva out until I switched drivers back.Rotten bastards.
 
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