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Incompetent driver developers

V

Vega

Supreme [H]ardness
Joined
Oct 12, 2004
Messages
7,371
Anyone else sick of incompetent driver software developers at both nVidia and AMD? I have never seen such buggy, trash software in my life.

Just as an example; using 267.31 setting up Surround, one monitor doesn't even turn on. Completely doesn't turn on and the driver acts like everything is working fine. Then moving up to 270.51, portrait Surround bezel correct is broken. 266.58 performance just sucks.

It seems like there are ALWAYS issues and these driver developers don't have a clue what they are doing. Three months for a WHQL driver nVidia? Really? Whenever they appear to have fixed something, they break something else. This is getting REALLY old.
 
I just wish NVIDIA would frequently release more WHQL drivers because the last one was somewhere in January is rather slow, and the BETA drivers aren't too great either.
 
jojo69 said:
Ha! we already got your money...

sucker
Click to expand...
:p That's probably at least partially true.

OP: the "bugginess" of drivers are caused by many things, not just due to general incompetence. Needing to support tons of less than perfectly in-spec devices can cause headaches for both sides. Since most monitor configurations work in surround in the drivers you mentioned, you are quite aware of this problem.
 
Vega x infinity + 1

They got your money already is exactly it. All of these companies have cut employees to the bone and outsourced what they didn't cut which is mostly responsible for the state of things in corporate life these days. Anyone without an elaborate setup would probably never have an issue with drivers. Toss in 3 monitors, surround or 3DVS and dual cards and the driver problems pop up like roaches to a dirty kitchen. I also agree that when they fix a problem (6 months later I might add) then they break something else most of the time. Nvidia is lucky to release a WHQL every 3 months. It's been almost 4 now since their last one. It's incompetence and gross negligence imo but alas what are we supposed to do since both companies' drivers suck on the more advanced configurations.
 
There are probably hundreds to a thousand people developing and testing the various parts of the driver at NVIDIA.

It's a lot more complex than it seems...

-DX9
-DX10
-DX11
-OpenGL
-Display driver (for standard 2D display)
-Surround driver
-PhysX (CPU and GPU)
-CUDA driver and software
-OpenCL
-Direct Compute
-Control panel
-Installer
-SLI driver
-SLI profiles
-3D Vision driver
-3D Vision profiles
-Optimus driver

You have to assume each of these technologies probably has dozens of people making DAILY changes for:

-Gamers
-OEMs like Dell, HP, etc.
-Software developers
-Microsoft

Pretend you were in charge. Given the complexity of each of the pieces of software in the driver, is there any way I could pay you enough money in the world to make sure that there were no bugs?

You'll quickly find it's basically an impossible feat. There are literally millions of things that could possibly go wrong here, with all the permutations of configurations that these things have to run on (basically infinite).

Did I just blow your mind?
 
John Vuong said:
I just wish NVIDIA would frequently release more WHQL drivers because the last one was somewhere in January is rather slow, and the BETA drivers aren't too great either.
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blame microsoft when it comes to WHQL before blaming nvidia or AMD. when microsoft goes to WHQL certify them which takes a month and something fails they get sent back to nvidia.. nvidia sends a new copy in with the fixes and has to wait another month for microsoft to WHQL certify them. if they fail again then they get sent back.. its an endless loop where microsoft is always the delay due to the length of time it takes them to certify shit that should take a week at most. that is why you see nvidia release beta drivers. basically the beta driver is the driver nvidia originally sends in for WHQL certification. AMD does the same thing though they usually go a step further and release a new beta driver for every fix they make while waiting for the WHQL drivers to be certified(hence why the WHQL drivers are usually 3-4 beta driver versions old by the time they get released) instead of waiting to combine it into the next driver set that goes up for WHQL certification like nvidia does.

Vega said:
Anyone else sick of incompetent driver software developers at both nVidia and AMD? I have never seen such buggy, trash software in my life.

Just as an example; using 267.31 setting up Surround, one monitor doesn't even turn on. Completely doesn't turn on and the driver acts like everything is working fine. Then moving up to 270.51, portrait Surround bezel correct is broken. 266.58 performance just sucks.
Click to expand...

what do you expect from something nvidia put together at the very last minute when they got caught off guard by ATI's eyefinity. theres a reason ATI/AMD did eyefinity using a hardware solution instead of a software/hardware solution like Nvidia. theres to many variables in the config doing it the way Nvidia did it and thus you get crap like this that will constantly happen. you make 1 fix for a certain percentage of users you will most likely break something for the other percentage of users.
 
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Vega said:
Just as an example; using 267.31 setting up Surround, one monitor doesn't even turn on. Completely doesn't turn on and the driver acts like everything is working fine.
.
Click to expand...

Vega when my surroud portrait does that sometimes on 267, just turn off/on the monitor and it solves the problem. It only does this when changing resolutions or seting up my surround mode for the first time. Thats my experience.
 
Not that the red team is immune from multi display bugs

Got the eyefinity going on here, the "rotate display" option periodically disappears, have to "turn off/on the monitor and it solves the problem."
 
in software QA(testing) you'll never test 100% of the possible scenarios, and never ship with 0 bugs. It's a fact, if NV or AMD spent the time to iron out most of the bugs, driver released would be 6months apart. To keep up with new games, market pressure, and generally management that only seems to see business value, drivers will get pushed out sooner, with less QA.

It's the nature of the software business.
 
sirmonkey1985 said:
blame microsoft when it comes to WHQL before blaming nvidia or AMD. when microsoft goes to WHQL certify them which takes a month and something fails they get sent back to nvidia..
Click to expand...

It may not always take a month. The turn around on the 270.61s from the 270.51s was less than a month and it seems to have most of the issues I was seeing in the 270.51s though the full automated installer is busted, I have to run the installers for PhysX and 3D stuff separately for some reason. Plus I've still not gotten that nVidia updater thing to install properly. The was just a big driver release, indeed its one of those driver releases where I feel a little updated testing is in order, I would imagine that I'm not the only one thinking this and that you'll see some reviews on the supposed performance improvements in a number of games, which honestly are had to believe but my preliminary take on it is that nVidia'a numbers are actually on the plausible side.

But since it was a big driver release they now need to clean it up and stabilize it a bit better. Here's hoping the next release is a bit more polished than these last couple of releases. But other than the manual install so far so good. Anything in particular anyone want me to try?
 
sirmonkey1985 said:
when microsoft goes to WHQL certify them which takes a month
Click to expand...
It doesn't take a month. Normally it takes less than 2 weeks. Even including a delay like the Thanksgiving holiday last year, for example, it only took a little over 2 weeks.

Actual driver bugs are the responsibility of the driver maker. The problem is that not all problems with games and various devices (like monitors) are due to "bugs" in the vendor's drivers. A game developer may have worked around prior bugs, which when fixed cause a new problem, or relied on bad practices that happened to work before. Some monitors may not support standards correctly and have problems working with features. The drivers do sometimes try to work around those things with various game and hardware detection. And of course, it may actually be various bug(s) in the drivers causing issue(s). And for the topic, it's hardly about competence.

Report the problems, grab a beta if/when the problem has been fixed and wait for the next WHQL release.
 
You're the one running quad-SLI and a surround gaming setup. Be amazed that it works AT ALL, let-alone without bugs.

The more complex and unique the system, the more likely it is to have problems. If you worked in the industry yourself, you would understand (and appreciate) this fact. If you want bleeding-edge, you should be ready to accept the downsides with the upsides.

Me, I run a bog-simple single GPU with a single screen, because I know anything more is asking for trouble (and yeah, it still breaks, but much less often than anything more complex). When you make it your day job to get a mess of hardware and software to play nice together, you don't tempt fate on your home computer.
 
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270.61 runs Crysis Warhead at 50Hz :#@!#)^&

And yeah Nvidia drivers are messier then before, but still way better then what I had with ATI/AMD though.
Not that I had any real horror stories with Red mind you.
 
I think a lot of it is the "new" factor of surround and Eyefinity. It is something new to factor into the driver software that they never had to think of before. I think in time it will become more stable for both vendors drivers.
 
Hah, competent drivers means (1) no one will ever have to upgrade drivers again and (2) people will not upgrade their video cards as frequently.
 
Let us know when you code your own. We can download them and enjoy your pro coding skills and unique eye for stability. Nvidia surely will see your hard work and hire you on the spot. You will be a god among men in the software development department. Your drivers will be SO good, that AMD will just say "you know what.. fuck it, we cant keep up with all these new innovations and rock solid compatibility across the board, I guess we should just stick to processors".

People will make threads about how good your drivers are...
 
lloose said:
Let us know when you code your own. We can download them and enjoy your pro coding skills and unique eye for stability. Nvidia surely will see your hard work and hire you on the spot. You will be a god among men in the software development department. Your drivers will be SO good, that AMD will just say "you know what.. fuck it, we cant keep up with all these new innovations and rock solid compatibility across the board, I guess we should just stick to processors".

People will make threads about how good your drivers are...
Click to expand...

At least post of the week, nah more like post of the month! :D
 
Digital Viper-X- said:
in software QA(testing) you'll never test 100% of the possible scenarios, and never ship with 0 bugs. It's a fact, if NV or AMD spent the time to iron out most of the bugs, driver released would be 6months apart. To keep up with new games, market pressure, and generally management that only seems to see business value, drivers will get pushed out sooner, with less QA.

It's the nature of the software business.
Click to expand...

I bet some of it also has to do with keeping developer staff numbers low to maximize profits. Corporations these days are so into maximizing profits for the shareholders that they will let their product be crippled in turn. Turn three monitors to portrait and see if bezel correction works? Is that really that complicated / rare to test?

lloose said:
Let us know when you code your own. We can download them and enjoy your pro coding skills and unique eye for stability. Nvidia surely will see your hard work and hire you on the spot. You will be a god among men in the software development department. Your drivers will be SO good, that AMD will just say "you know what.. fuck it, we cant keep up with all these new innovations and rock solid compatibility across the board, I guess we should just stick to processors".

People will make threads about how good your drivers are...
Click to expand...

You are a little slow aren't you? I buy a product that is suppose to function in a certain way and it is my duty to alter it for it to function properly? :rolleyes:

Maybe next time Toyota programs software that has your car speed away they can say to a clever guy like you: "why don't you code your own engine management software". That is about how lame your argument is. With people spending $500+ per GPU there is a certain level of functionality that should be reasonably expected.
 
Vega said:
You are a little slow aren't you? I buy a product that is suppose to function in a certain way and it is my duty to alter it for it to function properly? :rolleyes:.
Click to expand...

Maybe it´s just you. I have never had to configure any card ever for it to work. I sometimes make little adjustments to make things look better, but that is it. From both colors. Sure some drivers make games choppy or smother or change temps in the card by a few degrees, but no big deal.
 
The thing about writing drivers or anything of the sort is if you fix one thing usually another thing breaks.
 
20 million lines of code, guess things are bound to FUBAR sometimes, and testing each senario on all available hardware is what users are for :):rolleyes:
 
Vega said:
Maybe next time Toyota programs software that has your car speed away they can say to a clever guy like you: "why don't you code your own engine management software". That is about how lame your argument is. With people spending $500+ per GPU there is a certain level of functionality that should be reasonably expected.
Click to expand...

Crashing your car into a tree and buggy drivers are DEFINITELY on the same level. You didn't blow that out of perspective in the least.
 
lloose said:
Crashing your car into a tree and buggy drivers are DEFINITELY on the same level. You didn't blow that out of perspective in the least.
Click to expand...
I think his point is that if you are paying for something it should work as advertised. If it doesn't, responding with "well I bet you couldn't do better" is totally irrelevant.
 
Rizen said:
I think his point is that if you are paying for something it should work as advertised. If it doesn't, responding with "well I bet you couldn't do better" is totally irrelevant.
Click to expand...

For the most part it does. Its impossible to write drivers for every system makeup, with every model of nvidia card in the model set in the series and expect every little nit-pick function to work perfectly. Some functions will work in my system but will be buggy in Vega's. As a whole, I think their drivers are great. They release new code every month with improvements and new fuction. I seriously doubt they get to a point where they just say "thats CLOSE enough, lets just release it". They try their hardest to come up with the best drivers they can.
 
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Vega said:
Maybe next time Toyota programs software that has your car speed away they can say to a clever guy like you: "why don't you code your own engine management software". That is about how lame your argument is. With people spending $500+ per GPU there is a certain level of functionality that should be reasonably expected.
Click to expand...

Maybe next time you will do your homework:

Toyota Acceleration Probe: Initial Investigation Finds No Electronics Problems
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/08/11/toyota-acceleration-probe_n_678354.html

No electronics problems. Overhyped news story of the century. Surely you shouldn't be using this to make your points.
 
considering the vast plethora of hardware their drivers have to work on, it's amazing that they work as well as they do....the things that gets me is when a vendor releases a driver that can literally cook your card...........now that's unacceptable........
 
BlueStorm said:
Maybe next time you will do your homework:

Toyota Acceleration Probe: Initial Investigation Finds No Electronics Problems
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/08/11/toyota-acceleration-probe_n_678354.html

No electronics problems. Overhyped news story of the century. Surely you shouldn't be using this to make your points.
Click to expand...

actually there WAS a problem- Toyota ECM softwarea lacked a brake override feature that was added after this story broke via ECM update to their cars that used DBW systems........
 
Vega said:
I bet some of it also has to do with keeping developer staff numbers low to maximize profits. Corporations these days are so into maximizing profits for the shareholders that they will let their product be crippled in turn. Turn three monitors to portrait and see if bezel correction works? Is that really that complicated / rare to test?
Click to expand...

Don't get me wrong, I agree with you, specially when I shell out $$ for something. I'd be upset too, and yup, it's all about profits, some companies can balance this (Apple for example) and some companies can't. When NV and AMD continue to push competition, shorten release cycles and try to do too much in a single release this is the result, and that's usually not the developers choice / QAs choice, Management more than likely shoves features down the pipe and expects things to work, while the engineering department is sweating hoping it will work, If i was you, I'd write a letter to NV / Whichever AIB you got the cards from and voice your feelings.

On that note, I'm in the same boat right now, I have 3 U2311s, all 3 need to be replaced,1 of the replacements needs to be replaced, and It's getting tiresome, I'm about ready to just return all 3 and call it a day.

in the end his point is valid, unless we stop buying products to make a point, and do it in mass, nothing will change.
 
A lot of it has to do with the crappy code that game developers write as well. If they stuck to standards, it would be a lot better all around.

The shouldn't have to be special "fixes" included in the drivers for almost every game out there.
 
lloose said:
For the most part it does. Its impossible to write drivers for every system makeup, with every model of nvidia card in the model set in the series and expect every little nit-pick function to work perfectly. Some functions will work in my system but will be buggy in Vega's. As a whole, I think their drivers are great. They release new code every month with improvements and new fuction. I seriously doubt they get to a point where they just say "thats CLOSE enough, lets just release it". They try their hardest to come up with the best drivers they can.
Click to expand...
For you, it works. For others, it doesn't, including Vega and myself (and I have a much less complicated system than him). I don't mind waiting a bit longer for some of the advanced features to be working, but when they break stuff that has already been working for months, that's when I start to get upset (see: BFBC2 menu fuckups in the 270 branch of drivers).
 
Seems like a lot of people in here excusing incompetence to me. It's their job to write decent drivers and they should not be coddled or excused when they fail. If you don't like your job writing code then quit but when you F it up then be prepared to be called on it by me. I do not and will not tolerate incompetence. America is in the pickle it's in these days because people have learned to accept mediocrity. I paid $2k for this shit and I expect it to work as advertised. /thread.
 
Astrodave said:
Seems like a lot of people in here excusing incompetence to me. It's their job to write decent drivers and they should not be coddled or excused when they fail. If you don't like your job writing code then quit but when you F it up then be prepared to be called on it by me. I do not and will not tolerate incompetence. America is in the pickle it's in these days because people have learned to accept mediocrity. I paid $2k for this shit and I expect it to work as advertised. /thread.
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*devils advocate*

I paid 2k for my Mac.
 
Astrodave said:
Seems like a lot of people in here excusing incompetence to me. It's their job to write decent drivers and they should not be coddled or excused when they fail. If you don't like your job writing code then quit but when you F it up then be prepared to be called on it by me. I do not and will not tolerate incompetence. America is in the pickle it's in these days because people have learned to accept mediocrity. I paid $2k for this shit and I expect it to work as advertised. /thread.
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lawl, talk about unreasonable expectations
 
Yeah, expecting high end equipment we pay a premium for to actually DO the stuff they claim in their advergarble...totally unreasonable.
 
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