NVIDIA's Drivers Caused 28.8% Of Vista Crashes In 2007 344
PaisteUser tips us to an Ars Technica report discussing how 28.8% of Vista's crashes over a period in 2007 were due to faulty NVIDIA drivers. The information comes out of the 158 pages of Microsoft emails that were handed over at the request of a judge in the Vista-capable lawsuit. NVIDIA has already faced a class-action lawsuit over the drivers. From Ars Technica:
"NVIDIA had significant problems when it came time to transition its shiny, new G80 architecture from Windows XP to Windows Vista. The company's first G80-compatible Vista driver ended up being delayed from December to the end of January, and even then was available only as a beta download. In this case, full compatibility and stability did not come quickly, and the Internet is scattered with reports detailing graphics driver issues when using G80 processors for the entirely of 2007. There was always a question, however, of whether or not the problems were really that bad, or if reporting bias was painting a more negative picture of the current situation than what was actually occurring."
Time to open up those drivers NVIDIA (Score:4, Interesting)
O RLY? (Score:3, Interesting)
I remember when the first nForce3 drivers came out that had those IDE problems. And the continuing problem with the SW drivers. Man, I thought something was seriously wrong with my new rig. Nope, just the drivers....
Re:Huh? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Huh? (Score:5, Interesting)
The part that seems to have been missed is the fact that Microsoft had 17.9% of the crashes related to their own drivers. IMO this is much more significant and interesting than Nvidia beta drivers crashing and should be the real news here.
Re:O RLY? (Score:5, Interesting)
Well, this wouldn't be the first time Nvidia drivers are responsible for instability.
At 28.8%, nVidia still has a long way to go to reach the epitome of device driver excellence that is ATI's collection of video drivers. Those extrusions of fecal material have accounted for more cases of alopecia on users than most other kinds of software. I'm actually surprised that the submitter didn't take a swipe at ATI while writing about driver crashes; the urge to do that must've been immense. In fact, ATI driver problems where the single biggest contributor to Jerry Pournelle's best writing ever in Byte Magazine's Chaos Manor column.
I'm relieved (Score:5, Interesting)
Well then it's a good thing their driver support is so crappy with Linux!
Oh wait...
More seriously, I rag on Nvidea for poor Linux support, and this is more of a chance to bash them, but their drivers work fine under XP. If Microsoft provided better documentation of their APIs, as the EU has been demanding, perhaps writing drivers wouldn't be such a pain in the ass?
I also wonder why closed source vendors don't open their code. They don't have to release it under the GPL, they can reatain all their copyrights, just publish the source. How could it hurt them? They retain copyrights and presumably patents so it's not like anyone could copy them.
Is closed source closed so that nobody will realise just how abysmally shitty their kludges are?
If your OS crashes, your OS is crap. Microsoft, fix your OS and publish the code. Nvidea, fix your shitty drivers and open the code. Don't give up any rights, just open it.
I'd like to see copyright law changed so that executables can't be copyrighted unless the source is also provided. How can IBM tell what parts of their code they stole from SCO? Of course the answer was "none". Time to reboot copyright law!
-mcgrew
The rest were caused by ATI. (Score:2, Interesting)
I dropped Windows completely and went with Ubuntu Linux. It has issues with video cards too, but aside from not being able to enable some eye-candy- it almost never crashes. (Usually the only time it does is when I try to tweak video settings or try new drivers.)
Video card drivers are probably the number one problem with computers right now, in ANY operating system. It wouldn't surprise me if they are responsible for a lot of game console crashes too.
Re:O RLY? (Score:2, Interesting)
Certified (Score:5, Interesting)
I'll vouch for this (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:The ow starts now (Score:3, Interesting)
> systems would never work or just were not ready for Vista.
I can assure you, having worked in a place which designs cards and writes drivers for Windows, that the release of a new Microsoft OS is not met with whoops and `alrights` etc. It marks the start of another tedious cycle of testing, fixing and dealing with customer problems. People want to be able to plug in a card and have it `just work` and there's absolutely nothing in Vista* which makes any amount of hassle
worth it.
*I kept hearing about Aero. Am I missing something, or are the new features which require powerful hardware and plenty of ram limited to just the pseudo-3d task manager, and semi-opaque frosted-glass around the borders of active windows? That's it? Why can't this be done adequately using low-powered CPUs? Are Microsoft's coders that inept?
Is It Just Me.... (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Huh? (Score:5, Interesting)
When a third party is writing the drivers, you don't want them to have access to anything proprietary and so the interfaces need to be very thoroughly documented because the external team isn't allowed to have access to the implementation details at all. A lot of the early XFree86 accelerated drivers were developed in this way and, at the time, were a lot more stable than their Windows counterparts, as were the early Radeon drivers written by the open source community.
Re:Huh? (Score:3, Interesting)
They may be more stable to the user, but in terms of actually programming for them.. yikes. You look at them funny and you lose your whole opengl context or start running a 1 frame/hour. Nvidia's drivers are much more likely to either a) work or b) tell you why they didn't.
Re:Huh? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:I'm relieved (Score:2, Interesting)
With my nVidia Geforce 8400 in my Linux laptop:
* Both GPU and CPU clocks are dynamic (Powermizer enabled) and I can see those clocks and temperature on my desktop using a applet.
* I never had problems with openGL games.
* I'm running compiz very smoothly.
* I use nvidia-settings for easily changing twin-view (screen layout) settings on the fly.
* I can use my laptop video hotkey for changing the screen layout automatically.
* I can suspend (to memory) my laptop.
* I never had a nvidia related crash.
Now, I know what I'm talking about, not just flaming!
Tell me about it... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Nothing new here (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Time to open up those drivers NVIDIA (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:I'm relieved (Score:3, Interesting)
But the law should state that binaries should not be able to be copyrighted unless the source code is open. Nobody would lose except bad coders and bad companies (which is unfortunately almost all of them).
I'm guessing that before that happens pigs will fly.
Re:I'm relieved (Score:3, Interesting)
#1 is a sort of recursive problem as the suppliers are not allowing the code to be released for the same reason. Most likely it circles right around into a loop so it is impossible for anybody to make a decision to allow code to be published. For others saying they should print the stuff they can, I think the amount of work needed to extract the code they own is very significant, also the result will not compile or work, which will probably defeat most advantages of having published code.
#2 and #3 are outwitted by reverse engineering. Having copyrighted code available would make them more likely to be able to stop a competitor because you could claim they are violating the copyright.
#4 (revealing patent infringements) is by far the main reason. And copyright violations, there is likely code stolen from competitors, or GPL or other copyrighted code (not offically stolen, but copied in by employees who are just trying to get their job done).
#5 (liabilities) are easily worked around by including the necessary NDA (unless you are talking about copyright violations which I more put under #4).
Re:The ow starts now (Score:2, Interesting)
One observation. Microsoft hires a lot of "A" students in Computer Science. These people are those who tend to be better at school than at writing code. When I went to school, I observed that many of the best programmers were "C" students, because they spent all their time in the lab screwing around with their own code, and less time studying.
Re:The problem is Microsofts. (Score:3, Interesting)
(another reason to be grateful for slysoft... just wish they would develop a full-featured DRM-free media player that worked perfectly out of any output/input and supported any HD content and integrated AnyDVD HD and Clone DVD/Clone CD as needed. I would pay for it too!)
Too bad technical specifics have not been leaked via wikileaks, et al., regarding the Vista DRM mechanisms.
I have a sneaking suspicion is it a tremendously enhanced digital Rube Goldberg Device. (This is what I tell lay persons when asked about what is wrong with Windows Vista.)
ATI and Nvidia must have bulletproof NDAs from Microsoft and full knowledge of the Microsoft Vista DRM model for audio and video. How could they not and still write a working driver?
Ever since I read about Vista's deliberate prevention of hardware driver and 3rd-party DMA access and the concept of the OS-controlled Cache of all of the main system memory AND VIDEO CARD MEMORY, I knew this would be a COMPLETE NIGHTMARE for any hardware accelerated 3D, Video, and Audio.. and gaming too. Can you shoot yourself in both feet any more thoroughly before the race?
Time will tell if any disgruntled employees wanting to leak the DRM specs do so?
Personally, I am still pretty miffed that most the neat-o ATI x1800 AIW I/O features were specifically and intentionally disabled by design in Vista. (ATI Specifically stated this on their web site for the AIW before the AMD take over...might still be there) No thank You to Vista. This ability makes XP superior in my book.
In time, the truth will come out about the Vista DRM bulldozer and its path will lead broadly to Redmond.
In the end, virtually all questions will be answered by only one answer: MONEY.
I once bumped into an NVidea driver engineer (Score:3, Interesting)
About a year ago, my college had an alumni breakfast in Silicon Valley. One of my fellow alumni proudly exclaimed that he worked for NVidea writing drivers.
When asked about Vista, he told us how Microsoft was "sooo understanding" about letting them ship drivers before they were complete. I bit my tounge and decided to stay away from Vista.