Jan 03
Reconsidering Nvidia
So, I’ve had nVidia video cards in just about every computer I’ve worked on to date. Geforce has always been known as cutting-edge; the standard for any graphics-intensive user. But I think things are changing.
Now, I don’t have a very in-depth background in the real trade-offs in video cards, or the specific differences between Nvidia and other cards– my background has been almost purely installing drivers, and their basic features. But this is the core functionality in any card, the bottom line that needs to work on any standard install. And this is where Nvidia has dropped the ball.
I recently made the switch to Linux with a laptop and desktop that both have Nvidia cards. Now, video drivers from Nvidia are all proprietary and therefore discouraged in the Linux community. However if you want to do cool things– like use desktop effects)– a lot of cards require that you use the closed-source driver rather than the free one. The switch is pretty simple, but in my experience, it’s a trade-off between eye-candy and stability. There are a number of known-bugs in the proprietary driver that cripple features like sleep/suspend, multiple X sessions, and in some cases, it still crashes with compiz.
But obviously things are better on Windows, right? That’s where the user base is, so basic configurations should be well-supported. Not exactly. Upgrading to Vista with most Nvdia cards was a huge fiasco when Vista came out, and I believe it still is for some cards. Also, Nvidia has dropped support for most of its older cards. That means no new drivers, and a wild-goose chase even looking for older ones. It has come down to hacking the new drivers to “support” older cards.
Enter ATI. To me, ATI carries a connotation of being a step below comparable Geforce cards. But recently, their Radeon line has come a long way. But the big news is that ATI recently opened up the source to their video drivers. This can only mean good things. On Linux, it means that the ATI-created drivers can be shipped by default, and better supported. On all platforms, it means faster bug-fixes and better stability in general.
So the bottom-line is, I’m still stuck with my Nvidia cards. But, perhaps Nvidia can take a page out of ATI’s book for their support. If things don’t change, I think ATI is going to take the upper-hand in the next few years.
January 3rd, 2008 at 4:36 pm
Good evaluation there, but I wonder how much this will really sway the popular stance on nVidia/Geforce.
With the linux community still so small, especially in the consumer PC market, will newer/faster driver upgrades really be noticed? I see how old drivers not being supported could be an issue, but I feel like the average consumer assumes their hardware will be out of date in 2-4 years anyway, so (in their limited knowledge) instead of finding a workaround for their old nVidia card, they will assume it is just time for a new gfx card, or maybe even a whole new computer! Most people will not fault the lack of drivers to nVidia, or notice that ATI may last longer because there is open source support, I think they may just fault their “old” PC and assume it is time for an upgrade.
Just playing a little devil’s advocate, but I think there is going to have to be more than old driver support issues to shatter the reign of nVidia.
January 3rd, 2008 at 5:09 pm
I see where you’re coming from– most of the user base is on Windows, and most of those Windows users are oblivious. But there is also a strong group of IT professionals that need to support these Windows users, and they are the ones getting shafted by shoddy drivers and lack of updates.
Also, I feel like the demand for new and current video drivers comes largely from the gaming community, who also use Windows. Depreciating support for older cards means that these gamers will try hacking the new drivers (which is what’s happening). This leads to incompatibility, and bugs that Nvidia won’t touch because the cards are “unsupported.”
Coupling these two points– depreciating support, along with closed-source drivers– are two strikes against Nvidia. The third is that ATI cards are gaining more popularity in general. You won’t see a revolution here, but I think Nvidia is losing steam.
January 3rd, 2008 at 5:58 pm
I think you are right that ATI will gain market share. It just makes sense that a more stable and reliable product will end up selling.
I just wrote a whole lot more here supporting your side, specifically that gamers will switch to ATI once they get extended support for their cards once they become older…but I realized once I wrote that sentence that it was kind of contradictory. Gamers are in the market for high-end graphics cards. To me, this means that they will not even be dealing with old-driver issues, since gamers will be upgrading to bigger and better cards before that becomes an issue. Right?
I still think that your claim, that nVidia will lose steam, is completely valid. In my mind, it will come from the IT/support side as you said before, but not from the gamers/high-end users.
Just another 2 cents from me, since I’m bored at work.