Not enjoying the view

The problem is that, as Phil said, it's already really hard to find a copy of XP. I was in Office Max killing time Friday and they had NO computers for sale with XP. They did have one copy of XP for sale on the shelf, priced at $300 next to a copy of Vista for $200. It seems like the entire industry has decided that the time is right to force consumers to spend more money.

And Creative needs to get off their arse and finally release the Xfi linux drivers they've promised us.

 

the ideal would be to open source all drivers that become obsolete.

 

Nvidia Vista and AVG Free

I noticed the other day when setting up a machine with Vista that once I installed the Nvidia driver 97.46 and rebooted, Windows Vista restarted with an error that said AVG free edition (anti virus) could not start. If I removed the Nvidia driver then AVG would work agian. This according to Nvidias website is a WHQL driver. Not sure who's at fault but seems like bad support by someone.

 

I've been playing with it since it was Windows Codename Longhorn and the loading bar was orange. And yes, I have used the RTM version as well. There's simply nothing there that makes me want to swap over from XP as my primary OS.

 

Yeah absolutley belkin are shite! I used to use there NIC's until one day it suddenly decided to forget where its drivers were. It wouldnt be so bad but like you say, you have to trawl through google to get what your after. Not very good!

 

Vista has one major problem though, UAC.

It's got two settings On or Off. They should make a "Trusted" program list.

 

A testiment to how well that article was recieved has to be that there are 4 pages of responses already.

Good on you for not going microsoft bashing, this really wasn't their fault, and hopefully ATi will show that with working drivers for the R600. Yup, like everyone else said, great article

 

Here here. During my upgrade I had no problems whatsoever. 6800 GS CO SE, 2 Gigs 3500 LL Pro, X2 4400, A8n32-SLI, Pinnacle TV Tuner. I didn't have to look for any drivers, even the Tuner card. Gaming is great and I get to enjoy the Vista environment.

While installing, I was ready to experience problems with my hardware or software, (in which only Symantic needed to be visited for support). After going through and making sure all hardware was installed, I was ready for a little better score than a 5.0 though for my base. (Dang 4400...)

But after reading this article I'm content with just thanking my lucky stars I guess. One quick question, which Nforce drivers do I get for this board? I've really never had a problem but never been positive either.

 

w00t go ATI !!

shame on you nvidia. this really is bad.

makes me glad i dont own an Nvidia card. i think i shall Move to Vista now i know that ATI are sorted but the creative drivers i have heard are not in the best state.


great article. excellent read\


one thing i have to ask is, is everyone on 64bit vista? or is 32 the safer route. thing is i like my xp media centre edition. i cant see the point in moving to vista yet tbh.

 

I think some people here missed the point that the article is complaining about lack of SLi support, not the lack of all older nvidia cards in general. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure all of the older cards still work, just not in SLi. If nvidia is really that strapped for time, it makes a lot of sense. SLi users are a very small minority of their cards as a whole, and even though they've always pushed SLi as the best performance, it seems like they still focus more on single card support.

This point aside, I still agree that for the amount of time they had to achieve it, SLi support should be ready now.

 

We have added an update to the top of the article

 

Hey guys, as Tim mentioned, there's an update to the top of my column now.

I figured you might like to know that our good relationship with NVIDIA has come through again - the company contacted us only 3 hours after the column went live, and I spoke with them this morning. Overall the company is very concerned that it has sent the wrong message to its consumers. They agree that the Vista driver support has been very poor, the issue now is how to make it better for those of us who bought 6 and 7 series cards.

I will be talking with their driver development team today to try and find a solution, so as soon as I know more, you'll hear about it. Props to NV for some quick moves to acknowledge the problem and get me in touch with someone who can fix it - now it just comes down to what kind of fix there is.

 

Very good to hear that they're listening and indeed, working on a solution! Well done bit-tech!

 

Well, yeah, props, but the Business and Corporate editions of Vista have been available since late last year. Is no-one that's using either version running a 79x0 in their rig? Or are they all wearing Vista-tinted spectacles?

I must admit, even running CoH, the framerate dropped - it's still playable, but nowhere near as smooth as on XP.

 

damn right nvidia should be on the ball

excellent, some good news then! lets hope it gets fixed asap

 

There's no publicity like bad publicity. It's a shame that they needed a kick but at least now they may be awake to reality.

 

I thank God for you doing this Brett!

 

Here Here! But with a note of caution.

While I don’t always agree with the opinions on this site, I was in full agreement on this subject. I am one of the few Idiots that bought into the 8800 GTX bandwagon. Nvidia gave me a good slap in the face when I booted Vista and found no valid drivers, no OC abilities, and no support from the company.

Yeah Nvidia is saying that they are spending most of thier effort on the new 8 line, but if that is so... where are the full featured, working drivers. I have been through beta after beta. I even used my experience to correct a Microsoft cheerleader that stated BSOD was a thing of the past in vista, as i have had numerous of them.

Here is where I have to take exception to the opinion that Microsoft is not to blame for this. They should get some of the blame for this. Vista is great, but some MS should have learned from the 9x to Xp conversion that driver support can be one of the biggest driving forces to early adoption of a new OS. In the XP generation, MS flopped and failed to get OEM manufacturers on board early enough to get viable drivers out the door before the OS release.

Here we see the same issue but to another level. Not only did vista fail to get their cheerleaders into the OEM corporate offices and development labs, but they down-right alienated some of them, Nvidia for one.

Why you may as is that. Well look at the development of D3D 10. Who was MS's main graphics vendor partner.... ATI. Anyone guessing why they have a better, more complete driver. Nvidia was left out in the cold.

Now I am not giving any excuses to Nvidia. They have been horrible to their customers, both old and new. I for one have been a avid ATI and AMD fan for most of my life. But we should recognize that MS had a lot of time to get into the vendor camps and make friends and excite them about the new OS so that they would have the proper motivation to create those drivers. Then for them to go further by alienating a major vendor like Nvidia... well they were asking for these issues.

This is just my longwinded two cents, but I think it needed to be said.

 

, Thanks, I needed a laugh. Welcome to the forums.

 

I'm of the mindset that any gamer should probably stick with XP at least until they pick up a DX10 card and a DX10 game. There is no reason to move to vista above DX10 support, and that is only there to FORCE people to move to Vista. XP works fine for everything, and with a VERY mature driver base it'll be fine for a long time to come. I'm usually one of the early adopter types when it comes to software and OSes, but this time, I'm gonna sit this one out for at least a good 6 months. Its gonna be mix of SP1, mature drivers, and some hacks to the stupid DRM scheme in order for vista to be worthwhile.