Ask NVIDIA Interview

A reader writes: "There's a pretty lengthy interview with NVIDIA, which covers many interesting current topics, including the Xbox, BeOS support, Mac support and the NV20." And they covered more quality control - that's been my major problem with the cards.

Comments

Re:Why Should I?

[Andrej Marjan]

Obviously you don't have an SMP machine. Nvidia's drivers have serious stability problems in that case, but they'll fix them in the next release, for some value of "next".

And for anyone who runs anything other than (or in addition to) windows and linux, then just about any other card is better, since it will probably work.

Besides, even assuming the drivers wouldn't crash my machine willy-nilly, I have better things to do than fight my package system to manually graft in these ridiculous drivers into what is otherwise a well- and tightly integrated system.

As always, it depends on what you have and what you do, but for me, their drivers are not an option.
--
Change is inevitable.

Why Should I?

[BRock97]

We should really be more concerned with the developments of ATI and Matrox. Their 3D drivers are open source and are part of XFree4. NVidia has chosen to ignore DRI and stay closed source.

Why should I? As a user of Linux who does not play the "Open Source Or Die" game with my hardware and drivers, please give me a good reason as to why I should do this! From my vantage point, I see it as follows:

• Currently, the nVidia driver is one of the fastest around. Could it be faster if it was open? Sure, I believe that fully, but it is pretty damn fast.
• As a every day user of Linux who doesn't download the latest Enlightenment or KDE beta or XFree86 release, I can stand to be behind in my releases to keep compatible with my windowing server.
• Carmack has said himself that when the next Doom game comes out in a test release, it will be nVidia only for Linux.
• He then goes on to add that he himself will start working on the drivers for the ATI cards to bring them up to speed so it can play his game decently.
• Sorry, but since this demo is probably a year away, and since JohnC typically knows his s#!t, he believes that nVidia is the best solution right now. From posts here to Slashdot, he seems to know his stuff.
• I am not saying that he endorses nVidia for their driver practices or anything, this is stuff I have walked away with from things he has said.

So, as a gamer who would like to see the best performance out of my gear, and basing my current opinion off of things I have read, please convince me otherwise. I believe, though, most users of Linux feel this way and just want their stuff to work.

Bryan R.