News nForce3 users out in the cold with Vista

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/2007/02/08/nforce3_users_out_in_the_cold_with_vista/

 

NForce3 works fine on my Vista install with an ATi card. Must be that one-on-one processor action I'm giving the software.

Really annoyed me though when I was trying to sort my sound drivers out to work out.

 

And what about nForce2? Yeah it's getting a bit long in the tooth now, but it's more than powerful enough to run Vista Ultimate perfectly well.

Before I can actually use Vista I'll have to fork out a few hundred quid for a new PC, when my hardware is already capable. Very disappointing.

 

will nforce2 also be ignored?

 

yes

 

Good ole Nvidia, leave s'more users out in the cold. Why not leave the 6series of cards unsupported too?

 

This means two of my three machines will eventually migrate to Linux - which is not a bad thing but it is disappointing to not have another option.

 

Do nVidia not enjoy customers or something. They seem to be really dropping the ball with vista.

 

No, I just think they're getting people to go out and buy more boards. They dont make cash from vista sales afterall.

 

Mord has a point. At the end of the day however, NF3 isn't that old, and it's just decency to support it in vista. nVidia on the other hand, do not seem to have this idea...

 

I noticed two things here, that Nvidia wanted to support the Nforce3 chipset with Geforce video cards, And that when a problem with ATi cards showed up They withdrew support for Vista. Am I imagining something or was Nvidia only willing to support their cards and the Nforce3 chipset and Not ATi cards and the Nforce3 chipset in Vista?

Cause that is what It looks like to Me.

 

meh open source your driver then if it's no longer supported..,

 

That's the point, you could build a very fast system based on an nForce3 motherboard today. FX-60 plus X1950 Pro AGP and 2GB of memory - something that most gamers wouldn't sniff at, in all honesty.

 

this sucks.
/me makes conspiracy theory that involves nvidia, ATI, garden gnomes, bananas, G. W. Bush and Wil going away.

 

Although there is no official support for the Nforce2 board, my own experiences were surprising.

Vista ships with a driver for the 'NVIDIA Network Adaptor' and once you're connected to the net, Automatic Update fround drivers for SoundStorm, etc. And even the Sil3112A RAID chip XP driver installed perfectly fine.

The device drivers that Automatic Update downloaded were even signed as Nvidia drivers (as opposed to Microsoft). So it's worth a try, even if Nvidia don't officially support the chipset under Vista.

This was my idea from the start, but I'm currently having problems getting Ubuntu to see my RAID array, instead of two seperate drives (supposedly there's not a huge amount of support in the Linux kernal for S-ATA RAID) and I'm still using XP as a result.

 

Funny thing was until a few months ago I was still using nForce2, and it would have run ultimate perfectly, it had enough ram, a good graphics card, but it just wouldn't be officially supported. nVidia seems to be messing up Vista badly, they have known for a long time it was coming, but are still unprepared. I hope other companies get Vista drivers rolling soon, my wireless card has no driver, despite being a newer Wireless-G model.

 

@Tom Hill: Good work on the partial functioning of NF2, too bad it's so spotty though.

This isn't the same Nvidia I used to be a fan of Both of My NF2 systems have 2GB of DDR

 

This could also be viewed...

... as Nvidia not supporting Microsoft. I wonder if down in Redmond they are getting a bit hot about Nvidia screwing up the sales of Vista by failing to produce drivers? Not to mention the support issues they are facing for stuff that is Nvidia's fault. It's not just the consumer who is getting the shaft on this.

 

Would you buy a board from them after they failed to support the previous one properly?

I know I wouldn't.

 

Do you think they care? Keep in mind that the gamer / enthusiest market is insignificant in terms of market share for someplace like MS. Our greatest value to these companies is that we generate hype about their mainstream products. nVidia is getting hurt bad by thins and when it all shakes out I think it will be something about their hardware archoitecture not liking the software's unified shader architecture.