Warning about new NVIDIA cards

[Amoenotep]

when i first started playing NWN i was using a 900Mhz Itel and on-board video from the mother board....i had lag

[DM_Sultan]

I have just verified that there is a problem with the 400 Series nVidia card and SOME games. The problem will mostly reveal itself as a screen with missing detail, like you are walking down a road and the land/grass beside the road turns to gray or blank, i.e., no detail. It is a driver compatability problem and nVidia is working on a driver updae solution for it. This problem is not limited to NWN. The nVidia 200 Series cards are not having any of these problems. If you are having lag problems with the 200 Series cards, I would look elsewhere for the cause, assuming your drivers are up to date.

ATI vs nVidia will always be a subject of much debate and is not the subject of this thread. They both have good products.

I've been told the fixed driver for the 400 Series cards will be out in the next 2 weeks. There is a Beta version out now on a couple of rogue sites that is "supposed" to fix the problem, but it doesn't - so don't waste your time with it. Wait for the new one from the nVidia site.

Sultan

[dethonlegs]

I've been told the fixed driver for the 400 Series cards will be out in the next 2 weeks. Sultan

I hope your right. The problem was logged with NVIDIA over 6 months ago. The thread I linked to was just the latest effort in getting them to do something.

Right now the missus has my uber GXF card accelerating her Outlook and thats just not right

[mining]

I've been told the fixed driver for the 400 Series cards will be out in the next 2 weeks. Sultan

I hope your right. The problem was logged with NVIDIA over 6 months ago. The thread I linked to was just the latest effort in getting them to do something.

Right now the missus has my uber GXF card accelerating her Outlook and thats just not right

The 40000 FPS helps in telling when you get an email

[dethonlegs]

NVIDIA REP: Unfortunately a fix won't be in the upcoming driver this week nor this month. By the time the issue is fixed and checked in, it likely will be in a February driver release.

At least we know it will get fixed - eventually.

[DM_Sultan]

A February release? I guess they decided to fix more than just the couple of game problems I know about. This series card is also having problems with Warhammer 40K Dawn of War II. Just an FYI. That was the first one my household ran into with the problem. nVidia is usually pretty good about getting the fixes out. This one has taken longer than any I've seen in the past, for some reason. I still have confidence a fix will be forthcoming.

Sultan

[DM_Sultan]

The Beta driver issued as 265 seems to have fixed the Warhammer 40K problems we were having. Hopefully, this will also fix the NWN problems. I'd give that one a try. You'll find it in the Beta and Archives section. Just scroll down when you get into driver downloads and it is below where you enter your card information. Like I said, this one fixed the computers we had that were lagging out and having really weird pixel washout problems.

Sultan

[dethonlegs]

Latest word is that a fix may be out in April.

Many believe the problem boils down to Nvidia neutering opengl on fermi geforce cards so they can't be used for professional 3d apps in order to try and force people to buy more expensive Quadro cards. After reading that my gforce card is basically exactly the same as a Quadro card, however with disabled hardware and crippled drivers, i'm beginning to get more than annoyed.

Nvidia better get this crap sorted or it will be my last purchase from them.

[mining]

Latest word is that a fix may be out in April.

Many believe the problem boils down to Nvidia neutering opengl on fermi geforce cards so they can't be used for professional 3d apps in order to try and force people to buy more expensive Quadro cards. After reading that my gforce card is basically exactly the same as a Quadro card, however with disabled hardware and crippled drivers, i'm beginning to get more than annoyed.

Isn't that what everyone does? IIRC some companies are going to sell 'codes' that unlock features for some video cards / cpus.

[DM Sun Tzu]

LOL, absolutely nothing new about that.

The first computer I worked on was an IBM 1130 in 1967-69. THe IBM tech rep told us it was an IBM 1800 with the clock rate lowered. People had been complaining about the high cost of an 1800, so IBM produced the 1130 and leased it at a lower rate.

[cRaZy8or5e]

I got a now old GTX260 that hates nwn and always has.

[BlkMamba]

Since there's already a thread out i'll ask this here

Nvidia 460M or ATI 5870
i've alway's had Nvidia but the ATI seems to perform better
but there's other things that nvidia offers in there software that ATI doesnt
any suggestions?

[Chaos]

i've always liked ATI better. . except for my linux comp. . for some reason it only likes NVidia

[DM_Sultan]

I've always had better compatability with nVidia cards and I've built a LOT of computers in my career. They have, until recently, been very quick and responsive to problems by issuing new and updated drivers. That said, this latest problem with the 400 Series, 500 Series, etc. has really shaken my confidence in them fixing this one. Some people are reporting that this is actually a true hardware problem where the card can't be "fixed" with a driver update, unless they have some way to flash the card and I've not seen that with nVidia cards before. I don't know if this apparent lack of response is a signal that nVidia is not intersted in supporting gaming on PCs any more or if they know it is a physical problem and know they don't really have a driver fix for it, there are lots of unknowns and speculation here.

I still don't think you could go wrong with eithr card. If I had known about this problem at the time I bought my two 450 Series cards, I might have chosen differently. Like I posted before, the Beta driver seems to have fixed the majority of the issues we were having with them. I don't know if that applies to all games, but it worked for us. I'd say get the most bang for your buck and don't look back.

Crazyhorse, I have a 250 Series card and after I updated the drivers for it recently, it seems to be behaving very well with NWN. If you haven't updated your driver lately, I highly suggest that.

Sultan

[mining]

IMO ATI 5870 is better - somewhat better value, iirc, and it runs everything wonderfully. Except Linux .