So it's been a while since I used ATi (About 8 months). At the time I owned a 4 series card, and driver support was lackluster. I always had to come to this forum first to make sure new drivers didn't break anything before updating to them. But, since it's been 8 months and a new card series, I'd expect there's been significant improvement (And it seems that way from what I've observed). Basically, the question is this: Do you feel AMD's drivers have improved greatly since early 2010? This isn't designed to start a war, it's just a question. If you feel the drivers have always been great and have always worked for you, then choose that option. I'm not saying you have to agree with me.
The poll gets posted after the thread. And if anyone is curious why I made this, I'm thinking about my next card being ATi. I like to alternate manufacturers.
I had been an Nvidia user all my life until last summer when I got my laptop and it came with an ATi 4650m. Then in November I got a desktop with an HD5850. Overall I've been seriously disappointed with ATi drivers the entire time. I've honestly had nothing but difficulties with the drivers... from known CCC glitches to the drivers simply not rendering games correctly. I'm still dealing with an issue that prevents me from playing cs 1.6 properly on my desktop... for that reason alone I will probably not buy ATi again for a very long time. Also the highest single GPU ATi card, the 6970, gets outperformed by the GTX 570, and the prices are very close.
Let me guess, CS 1.6 won't run under OpenGL mode? I had that exact problem. Another reason why I switched.
in the games i play my 6870 has lost performance in the months it been out or stayed indentical cod bo lost performance f1 2010 stayed same shift 2 no difference between 11.1a n onwards with drivers so take that as a no im not impressed so far ! but that is only 3 titles out of alot of games maybe im just unlucky and pick the wrong games to play
I voted "about the same". In my experience with several different ATI cards, not everything works in all driver versions, but given enough time you can probably find at least one driver version that does most of what you want. I'll keep going with ATI at least till they do something bad to me. Last green card I had blew up.
Ive been an nvidia user for a long time before switching to the red team a few months back... and to be honest, I hate these drivers. Every driver i've downloaded since 11.2 has been give and take, one game works fine, while another screws up... Lots of problems... I just wanna install and play... Also, why the hell do i have to download a separate file of CAP's? Shouldnt that be included in the driver? Its nice on one hand that it can be used to update something quickly instead of releasing a new driver/hotfix each time, but seriously these drivers suck... back to nvidia next time...
Pretty much the same experience I had last time. Although I'm glad I didn't have to suffer through the pains of an Xfire user...
Personally I have enjoyed my ATI cards (I was a Nvidia 9800 GT SLI user before... enjoyed those cards too). Once in a while you will have a bad driver (on both teams) but if you know how to set things up everything should work out. To be honest if you go with ATI you need RadeonPro and if you go with Nvidia you need Nhancer it is the only way you can solve those few driver problems. Computers work as good as your knowledge in them. I do not think that I have been lucky to not have big or constant problems with drivers... when I come across a problem I work around it. If you know what you are doing your card should perform close to your trusted review sites (like Guru ). Ps. ATI was always good on the single card but of late they have really improved on the crossfire performance (dual only... Nvidia is still better when it comes to 3 or more cards, but on two cards ATI seems to be doing better when compared to Nvidia).
I have always had Nvidia cards before i made the switch to Radeon 5870, and then later another to put in Crossfire, and i am not disappointed with the drivers the time i have spent testing almost every driver release inc most beta. I can honestly say i haven't had any real issues beside from that 99% Load bug that seriously pissed me off big time, but a part from that it has been a joyride, all games generally run super smooth. I can seriously not understand that people say they have nothing but problems.
tricky question, if you take into account the hardware and architecture changes. Id say yes, but they have some mayor issues still around /edit plus, the market changing so fast it's not good for devs, less time to accomplish
The only issue I've ever had, with the 4870 I had before and now my 6950, was HDMI audio acting up or going missing with some 10.x releases using the 4870. I still don't like the CCC and I most definitely prefer the user-accessible per-game profiling allowed by the NVCP but those are design issues rather than bugs.
Most of the drivers last 15 months have had serious problems. I have been using 4870x2 and now 5970 and I experienced a lot of issues thats take a very long time to fix.
My PC needs are pretty undemanding and simple. I want to run Adobe Lightroom, play GPL and Shift2 Unleashed and do some light surfing. Since buying a new Windows 7 PC last June (replacing an old XP machine and an ATI X850) I have never found a version of ATI drivers that meets those needs without bugs, old or new. 10.6 - had cursor corruption problems that didn't go away until 10.12 10.12 - by then ATI had introduced the 99% usage problem that didn't go away until 11.4 11.4 - by then ATI had introduced the DCOM bug and by 11.5 had introduced a problem with VLC player. All I want is just one release where the old problems are fixed and no new ones are introduced. Then I can stop wasting time testing new drivers and hotfixes for ATI. I used to be an Nvidia customer all the way from a Creative 4200ti through to an MSI 5600. I don't remember their drivers distressing me. For the last 2 months I have been seriously considering an unnecessary and expensive change back to the green team just to see if I can end this silliness.
there were a lot less games, card features, driver features, OS features back in the gf4/5 days to compare i dont have any real trouble with my 9800 & x800 sitting on omega 7.10/7.12 drivers think fable1 had a shadow bug on 5.12 which got fixed in 5.13 as expected 7.10 had a big opengl boost in etqw, 7.12 improved it a little more simple days back then anyway, with today's drivers, i've been using about every release since 8.9 on a 4870x2 i'd say they have improved, but a few prominent bugs have appeared as well (except i've only had the cursor lag, which doesnt affect any of my games even if it shows up in some of their menus, i dont have the 99% bug, dont use opencl, dont use gpu accelerated videos, never had flash acceleration issues, dont think i use acceleration in adobe apps YET, until i get around to installing newer versions after cs3) communication is more open with catalystcreator, a little less with terry, though he seemed a little more active in the 2nd half of the year if the 99%, cursor lag, & brink get fixed in 11.6, then that probably would be the best driver for recent cards 'ever' (since you'll need support for new games) xeroian, what's wrong with 10.5 or 10.11e? also the vlc (acceleration?) bug doesnt exist in older versions of vlc, but the driver team is aware & they'll fix it since it used to work on the specific newer version of vlc
10.5 and earlier versions gave a purple coloration to the Grand Prix Legends tarmac. As for 10.11e that's a new one on me. Since mouse corruption was officially fixed in 10.12 then 10.11e may well be a solution, if I can find a copy to download. Thanks
I dont want to jinx my good fortune with ATI cards but i never had any problems with drivers since got this card in the spring 2010. Before that i was nvidia fanboy and all my previous cards were nvidia. What i dont like is the fact that ATI cards just dont OC that well or benefit from OC like nvidia cards do. But if you keep it stock its all right!
