Sunday, August 21, 2005
nVidia Needs To Get Their Act Together
So I installed the nVidia Vista Alpha drivers I talked about earlier... and I am extremely disappointed.
First of all, the drivers don't support my GeForce Go 6600 TE graphics card in my Toshiba Tecra M4. I don't know what the deal is, but apparently the card is a custom design specifically for the Tecra M4, and isn't covered in the standard driver package. From the site:
NVIDIA has made available the following alpha drivers for Windows Vista Beta 1. The current ForceWare alpha driver is a preview release that will enable you to test the basic features and capabilities of the new operating system. This alpha driver has no performance optimizations included and has received limited stability testing.
The drivers are absolute ***. As I said, the drivers from my version of the 6600 aren't even there. So I manually picked another flavor of the 6600 instead. Well, it won't recognize the resolution of my screen at all. It doesn't scale the resolution to fit the screen. Instead, as previously reported, the resolution scales down the screen, past the bottom edge so I can't even see the start menu or the taskbar. I get Aero Glass, whoopety doo, but I can't do anything anyways. My only option is to dock my taskbar to the top of the screen, which I can bet is going to be a poor user experience.
What pisses me off more than anything was nVidia's overwhelming presence at WinHEC, where they touted their "commitment" to the platform. They plastered their own stylized Longhorn logo everywhere, and told people like me that their stuff was "ready for Longhorn". So Vista Beta 1 is here, and there is no visible download link for updated drivers on the site. I had to find out about it from whatever source Neowin came up with.
Meanwhile, ATI's drivers are rock solid, and came out the DAY AFTER Windows Vista Beta 1 hit the streets. They showed up as a new item on their website, and the direct link was readily accessible. I understand now why nVidia doesn't have a direct link on their site. If I were them, I'd be embarassed as hell at these drivers.
But forget it if I want to tell someone at nVidia that myself. Cause my graphics card came with my computer, so technically I'm not an nVidia customer, and I can't get support. I can't even get a phone number of someone to talk to. I'm not "worthy" enough for that.
You guys have had a very long time to come up with drivers for your customers. Instead, you put out drivers that feel like they were whipped together in a few days at the very last minute, without testing. What the hell have you guys been doing for the past 2 years? You aren't making enough money that you can't put a team together to have a solid driver model? ATI's gonna kick your ass on Vista if you don't get your act together. And if I don't get some solid drivers that work for my graphics card soon, you better believe my next graphics card will be an ATI. more...
http://www.sebura.com
Originally Posted on 8/21/2005 12:13:31 PMContent source: http://www.longhornblogs.com/robert/archive/2005/07/29/14310.aspx
First of all, the drivers don't support my GeForce Go 6600 TE graphics card in my Toshiba Tecra M4. I don't know what the deal is, but apparently the card is a custom design specifically for the Tecra M4, and isn't covered in the standard driver package. From the site:
NVIDIA has made available the following alpha drivers for Windows Vista Beta 1. The current ForceWare alpha driver is a preview release that will enable you to test the basic features and capabilities of the new operating system. This alpha driver has no performance optimizations included and has received limited stability testing.
The drivers are absolute ***. As I said, the drivers from my version of the 6600 aren't even there. So I manually picked another flavor of the 6600 instead. Well, it won't recognize the resolution of my screen at all. It doesn't scale the resolution to fit the screen. Instead, as previously reported, the resolution scales down the screen, past the bottom edge so I can't even see the start menu or the taskbar. I get Aero Glass, whoopety doo, but I can't do anything anyways. My only option is to dock my taskbar to the top of the screen, which I can bet is going to be a poor user experience.
What pisses me off more than anything was nVidia's overwhelming presence at WinHEC, where they touted their "commitment" to the platform. They plastered their own stylized Longhorn logo everywhere, and told people like me that their stuff was "ready for Longhorn". So Vista Beta 1 is here, and there is no visible download link for updated drivers on the site. I had to find out about it from whatever source Neowin came up with.
Meanwhile, ATI's drivers are rock solid, and came out the DAY AFTER Windows Vista Beta 1 hit the streets. They showed up as a new item on their website, and the direct link was readily accessible. I understand now why nVidia doesn't have a direct link on their site. If I were them, I'd be embarassed as hell at these drivers.
But forget it if I want to tell someone at nVidia that myself. Cause my graphics card came with my computer, so technically I'm not an nVidia customer, and I can't get support. I can't even get a phone number of someone to talk to. I'm not "worthy" enough for that.
You guys have had a very long time to come up with drivers for your customers. Instead, you put out drivers that feel like they were whipped together in a few days at the very last minute, without testing. What the hell have you guys been doing for the past 2 years? You aren't making enough money that you can't put a team together to have a solid driver model? ATI's gonna kick your ass on Vista if you don't get your act together. And if I don't get some solid drivers that work for my graphics card soon, you better believe my next graphics card will be an ATI. more...
http://www.sebura.com
Originally Posted on 8/21/2005 12:13:31 PMContent source: http://www.longhornblogs.com/robert/archive/2005/07/29/14310.aspx
