quote:
ROFL best post ever! I can''t believe someone actually said that ATI drivers are more stable than nVidia drivers... lol that''s a riot!

Would you like me to list a little over 20 games that were released this year that were unplayable or had major driver issues with ATI? I mean sure.. they get them working perfectly eventually, but I enjoy playing games on the release date.

Well I have an nVidia card and it still has problems with the only remotely recently released game I own: C&C Generals. Some frames a whole bunch of triangles simply aren''t rendered. My friends with ATI cards have no problems, and ATI releases driver updates much more often than nVidia. Last I checked it''s AA quality was far better as well. I''d definately say that ATI has better drivers and makes better cards in general.

quote:Original post by Ranger50000 Making a statement that ATI is as good as Nvidia because one game has problems on the Nvidia and not the ATI, is about like saying that Richard Nixon is as bad as Joseph Stalin because Stalin never toppeled a South American goverment.

Oh give the man a break... he provided a good example to contradict any theory stating that NVIDIA drivers are always better. To be fair he''s already named one more than you have. This isn''t an invitation to start spewing, but rather a nod to your own respect for the readers by *not* posting a full list.

ATI''s driver program, with its 10-12 updates per year, is now at least on par with NVIDIA''s. Whose is better is now not an issue... both are great. Those who remember what ATI''s drivers *used* to be like would never even bother to bring this point up any more.

Anyways I don''t mean to be criticizing anyone personally. My point is that many of already short list of games that have problems with ATI cards are more due to "strategic alliances" than any problem with ATI''s drivers (*cough* BF: Vietnam... and here it''s only with forced AA/AF - works perfectly otherwise), and this works in the other direction as well, as noted by the C&C example.

Personally I can say that I''ve had as many fun "issues" to work around with NVIDIA cards as ATI. I wouldn''t say one is clearly better than the other at all.

To summarize: regarding SM3.0 and 4.0, it looks like you are going to have to decide yourself. My suggestion is to look into the things that you can do in 3.0 that are not possible in 2.0, and look at the benchmarks applicable to those specific features (when they come out). That way you can make an informed decision on which shader model you really want to use/target given the expected features and performance.

quote:Original post by Ranger50000
But don''t you see? Those 10-12 updates are there because this an inferrior card. I can almost guarantee that when Longhorn comes there will be a whole new wave of problems. The reason Nvidia dosen''t release very many driver updates is because they don''t need to. Their card is pretty sound as it is.

Nah, they made their reasons very clear for going to the 10-12/year system back when that started. I personally have enjoyed at least 3 minor issues that I ran into while coding get fixed through their driver feedback program (and in less than a month: very convenient!), while I cannot say the same for NVIDIA (I *still* have a few outstanding issues that they have not addressed).

Again, I''m not bashing NVIDIA''s drivers (quite the contrary), but I really fail to see how anyone who uses both could say that one is better. Each have their own quirks.

Anyways this issue has already been beaten to death, and I think we''ve given the poster enough to chew on for now anyways