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Nvidia Faces Class Action Lawsuit Over Vista Drivers
Cocoshimmy writes "Nvidia is facing a class action lawsuit for false advertising by not providing stable working drivers for Vista. Nvidia has been accused of closing threads on Nvidia's forum and banning users that request a response from Nvidia, post that their Nvidia hardware does not work under Vista, post that Nvidia software does not work under Vista, post that Nvidia is guilty of false advertising, or threaten to sue Nvidia. Several disgruntled users have set up their own site for discussing their legal options."
I'd post first, but my monitor's on the fritz. Stupid new OS.
I'm sure someone can port it to Vista. Tell me again about how Windows has better hardware support than Linux.
http://www.mhall119.com
Considering Microsoft is still in the process of patching Vista, including a major patch issued just as Vista went out the door, can we really stick all the blame on Nvidia?
Aren't the engineers at NVIDIA hampered by the impractical DRM restrictions placed by Microsoft on users of Vista, specifically with respect to video output software-hardware interaction?
Nvidia should sue Microsoft for getting into bed with the MPAA, RIAA, and other MAFIAA.
Maybe someone at Microsoft should work on porting the Linux nvidia drivers to Vista. The work well on Linux, so maybe the drivers can be "reverse engineered" to work with Vista.
It seems that for once, there's a major piece of computer hardware with better driver support for Linux than for Windows.
"They redundantly repeated themselves over and over again incessantly without end ad infinitum" -- ibid.
the FA didnt have much info, but what the hell can you sue for? So the vendor of your choice doesnt support your OS of choice. TOUGH SH*T. Buy another product. Nvidia is under no obligation to supply drivers. They'd be DUMB not to, but come on, sue? Thats whats wrong with everyone today - entitlement. Pffsh. unless I have something wrong, like I said the FA hardly had any info at all, except for some general bitching about forum policies.
While this class action seems to be about high-end graphics cards, which I have ever expectation that NVIDIA are working hard on drivers for, it's worth pointing out that they don't intend to support the NForce/2/3 motherboards with Windows Vista drivers.
Just upgraded a machine, network & sound works, but when I scroll in Firefox, I get choppy audio playback in Winamp; in the process of trying to figure out if it's Winamp at fault or the audio driver.
please move along.
C|N>K
The point is that you DO have to make some sacrifices, but it's not like you need a new Socket A board or something.
another good reason not to upgrade.
drm, rgb, hdcp, hdmi, cgms-a, css, aacs, dvi, hdcp, dtv, hdtv, dcps, cppm, bd+, rpc, cprm, dtcp, cpsa, cptwg...
/. lameness filter, I had to lowercase all of the cool acronyms, thereby lessening the impact of the reply ...now that's lame!)
I can't keep up either.
Can you really blame them now that Microsoft is in some sweet lovin' with Hollywood?
(Arggh! Stupid
At least they got this one right. That's what you get for upgrading: huge hole in your wallet, crappy OS and nvidia forum mods poking fun at you...
I hope I didn't brain my damage.
While I understand why these people are upset, why do people always feel the need to sue? It's in Nvidia's best interest to keep their customers happy, and as such will probably be releasing drivers that DO work very soon. If they don't, these customers will just go to one of their competitors the next time they're in the market for a high end video card.
Let your money do the talking and stop helping lawyers make money on stuff like this.
You have enemies? Good. That means you've stood up for something, sometime in your life. --Winston Churchill
It's that new Vista DRM feature, brought to you by the fine people at Nvidia:
Doesn't Really Matter (DRM) technology ensures that if you have a complaint, you can't visit an Nvidia or Microsoft website to lodge it.
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
I'm trying to think of any other product where you can buy it at time X, it suits your purpose and you're happy, then at time X+1 something changes, it no longer suits your purpose and that is somehow the manufacturer's fault. Honestly, if you bought your card to use with XP and it now doesn't work with Vista, don't you solely have the option of not using Vista? Or buying a new card? And if Nvidia are yet to sell any new cards that work with Vista, aint you just shit out of luck?
Now, of course, if Nvidia are claiming that their cards work with Vista and you're buying the card solely for use with Vista, and it doesn't work, take your card back for a full refund and go without.
How we know is more important than what we know.
Minis are a cooling nightmare. How are you going to play games?! Oh wait..
Look familiar? This story about Apple deleting posts about bugs in nvida drivers. Now looks more obvious that it was nvidia behind that; from today's article it's clear that they're bug-shy, and maybe for overzealous IP reasons, as this post suggested.
The site is now down. Was this ever a serious threat to start a lawsuit?
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
I don't have any cooling problems with my Mac mini. As for games, I have a Nintendo DS and a Wii, where programmers can max out the hardware because everyone has the same system specs.
Oh wait...
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
Go spank your monkey in front of your Mac, and post about it in a Mac forum.
Or the poster is one of the group trying to raise awareness and garner support for their "class action suit." The reason I say this is that their own site is not even finished and yet it makes the front page of /. and what better place to get anti MS troops than good old /.?
It said "windows 98 or better" so I installed Linux
NVIDIA Linux drivers work great. I guess its true that Linux now has more drivers available then Vista.
"I'm trying to think of any other product where you can buy it at time X, it suits your purpose and you're happy, then at time X+1 something changes, it no longer suits your purpose and that is somehow the manufacturer's fault."
Oh you must have missed the slashdot bitch threads were someone complains every time the content creators comes out with a new technology. e.g. tapes, CD, DVD, Blu-ray, etc, and they're "forced" to buy it. Bonus points if it's a thread about "I mistreated my old media, and you owe me some new ones". Double bonus if you can squeeze in a "I'm inpatient and bought the original edition, and now they came out with the deluxe".
Many people and I noticed the newer drivers after 8x.xx series are worse and buggier (can't use the older drivers with my EVGA GeForce 7950 GT KO card). First, they made that new control panel like ATI/AMD did. Everyone seems to hate it. I also hated it. Who knows when the old control panel will be gone since ATI/AMD removed its old one after a few versions.
:( Maybe Intel can be a third competitor, but they need to do well with the gaming area. Come on, NVIDIA. Get your stuff together!
Secondly with TV out, the newer drivers seem to have problems with full screen overlays. Also, NVIDIA drop TV out support in their 8800 cards! I am not the only one either since many owners (long thread) have this problem.
It looks like NVIDIA is getting sloppy in its software area now. I had respect more than ATI, but it is getting smaller and there are no other video card companies to go.
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
By your logic I can post a similar post in every single conversation.
PS3 thread? Not important, I'm waiting for ____ on the Wii
Linux thread? Not important, I use a Mac.
BMW thread? Who cares, I drive a Porche.
Space thread? Who cares, I am not an astronaut.
etc. etc. etc.
You've already been modded down, of course. Just thought I'd let you know how worthless your post was, and why it should stay that way. Just out of curiosity, what was the point of you posting it?
Vista is all about protecting DRM. Microsoft probably doesn't want cards that are capable of displaying high resolution content unless those cards are totally locked down. That means, for instance, that signal traces, which might be tapped to circumvent DRM protection, have to be buried and not on the top or bottom layer. Microsoft has no intention of supporting high end hardware that isn't DRM enabled.
What this means seems to be that gamers will have to abandon their investment in hardware and games (which don't work on Vista either) or the game companies have to port their games to Linux. In any event, this seems like a bad time ahead for gamers.
I feel your pain, brother. Can you believe on my Ubuntu install I had to click twice, once to download Automatix, and one to run it, and as an intermediate step, I was actually forced to click a check mark agreeing that the Nvidia driver would be installed?
Two clicks PLUS a checkmark, to get an Nvidia driver installed in, like, not just one second, or two seconds, but like SEVERAL seconds!
I'm telling you - this new-fangled Linux thing is going to take a lo-o-o-ong time to be functional as a desktop. Why, it will take YEARS for it to catch up to all the glitches and disturbances that Windows has to offer!
Intentional misrepresentation is certainly a viable cause of action, I would think breach of contract applies as well.
Most Windows XP 32/64 and Vista 32 drivers for 3DFx Voodoo cards are partially done by backporting libglide3x and mesa3d from linux to windows (and thus also earned the privilege of being among the few graphic boards supported in XP64)
Although not actually Windows XP/Vista per se, the Linux USB stack has been also ported to ReactOS (opensource clone of Windows NT family) and Cromwell (opensource BIOS for XBox).
Therefore, some simple driver, with no 3D acceleration could be possibly done out of source available in linux.
(And if nVidia still doesn't fix the problem*, maybe some useful infos from the Nouveau project could be used to add the 3D functionnality. Having a complete opensource driver next to the commercial one isn't something unheard of in the Win32 world : Audigy sound cards have both official drivers from Creative and the kX project).
----
* : Isn't completly unlikely. Their main audience, from which they earn most money are game players. Given the fact that almost all current games run on Windows XP + DX9, they'ld better spend more money in improving the WinXP support, to have a higher position in tests to sell more to gamers, rather than spend the same money on Vista, and thus risking to loose customer due to better Catalyst. I won't be surprised if, appart for their made-for-DX10 flagship products and business oriented cards, progress of Vista drivers are as slow as for linux, until games start to appear that target Vist DX10.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
For every 10 users who feel neglected by a free software producer, there's 1 who wants to be compensated. nVidia doesn't charge money for their drivers. It was once ludicrous to sue over something you didn't have to pay for. Now people are suing over free stuff. It's now OK because although the software didn't cost money, it didn't have source code and was in support of a piece of hardware which cost money. The envelope of what is considered a fair lawsuit has expanded one more step.
Combined with human greed and the desire for publicity, the expansion of software lawsuits is inevitable. First free software without sourcecode in support of hardware is fair game, then free software without sourcecode is fair game, then free software with sourcecode is fair game.
do the lawsuits start against every hardware maker in the world for not supporting every operating system? Unless they were guaranteeing it worked with Vista, I don't see how you can sue them for it not working.
Great Intellect...
Let's all go down to our local computer stores tomorrow, stand near the Microsoft Vista display and snigger quietly to ourselves whenever a Joe Average picks up a Vista box?
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
Windows Vista is an absolute disaster! From an engineer's point of view, the system is not built for security and stability, its just patched up with holes left for the recording industries. If a virus was to take advantage of these holes, then I doubt anything could stop it. Combined with all the out-of-the-box DRM and restrictions, the system is a lot more complicated for no apparent reason. For the NVIDIA drivers to work properly in Vista, there is a LOT of work and possible debugging due to Vista's chaos. Don't blame NVIDIA for this, its Microsoft's fault for the whole DRM fiasco. Now NVIDIA and ATI have to comply. ATI already told the masses that Microsoft's idea is crap and customers would be paying for this big bucks. Microsoft are no longer the leader/monopolist they once were. If you have an issue, don't buy Vista (like most of us), and get REAL high performance, or switch to an even better OS. The choice is there, suing and wining gets you nowhere.
Beta Sucks
Hello,
As an American, I have become somewhat desensitized to the various class action suits which seem to have become water and fodder for the legal industry, but this strikes me as being just sad.
Today is February 2, 2007 and Microsoft publicly released the consumer-oriented versions of Microsoft Windows Vista (the Home and Ultimate Editions) on January 30th, just three days ago. I participated in the testing of Windows Vista and installed the RTW version (Build 6000) on my primary desktop and laptop computers when it became available in November of last year. During testing, nVidia was good--not stellar, but not bad--about providing device drivers, and any problems I experienced during my testing with nVidia 6800GT and 7900GT-chipset based cards generally disappeared as new builds of the operating system and device drivers became available.
Right now, there is a huge installed base of nVidia GPUs out there (5200 and up are officially supported according to this) which people are using with Windows Vista and I am sure the percentage of those users with 8800-series GPUs out there hovers around a single percentage point or two.
Given that Microsoft Windows Vista is a brand new operating system in many respects, such as introducing a completely new video device driver model, and that, likewise, the 8800 series represents nVidia's own most complex product to date and so far has only a small market penetration, why is anyone alarmed (or even surprised) that WHQL-certified device drivers are not available yet which take advantage of all its features?
Also, while I would imagine that nVidia has a large staff of developers writing device drivers for their various bits and blogs of silicon, I would imagine the size of that staff is finite and that nVidia has to prioritize their work based on hard business decisions, such as the number of customers using a particular product with a particular operating system. Was it wrong of nVidia to focus their driver development efforts on satisfying the needs of the largest percentage of their installed base? Or should they have focused their efforts on their newest customers and satisfy the needs of thousands or tens of thousands instead of tens of millions?
What I do know is that, generally-speaking, nVidia has historically done a good job of providing decent support for their products and nothing I have seen or read in TFA has changed my opinion. Frankly, the number of nVidia owners who have 8800-series GPUs is a small majority. While these early adopters have paid a premium for their latest-and-greatest video cards and do deserve to be treated with respect by nVidia, I suspect that right now nVidia's engineers are working very hard on device drivers with support all the new features of their video cards and will probably have them available in a few days or a week or two.
Regards,
Aryeh Goretsky
Dexter is a good dog.
Let's see...
_ cost.html):
Why would nvidia's drivers work with Windows 95/98/ME/NT/2000/XP, Linux (32 and 64 bit), Solaris and FreeBSD - but not with Vista?
Do you think that nvidia forgot how to code video drivers? No, that doesn't seem logical.
Well what is different between Vista and all of the others?
How about all the stupid Vista DRM features? You know, the ones that ATI was bitching about when they said (http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/vista
An ATI product manager responsible for producing the actual hardware says:
"These costs are passed on to the consumer"
"This cost is passed on to all consumers"
"This cost is passed on to purchasers of multimedia PC's"
"Costs are passed on to consumers"
"Costs are passed on to consumers, especially early adopters"
I'm sure that the lion's share of these costs are software related. More software cost means more code. More code means more opportunity for unexpected features (aka "bugs").
Don't blame nvidia. Blame Microsoft.
I bought an ATI Radeon X1300, which said on the box "Vista ready". In fact, I bought it the day I installed Vista (sometime mid-December) because I knew the onboard video would be inadequate to get the "full Vista experience."
The driver download page has *just* lost the disclaimer (I can't remember the exact words, something like "don't use this on any system expected to provide any sort of productivity at all"). I am downloading the new drivers right now, but every release up to this one has had pretty major issues - not what I'd call stable.
I place the blame on Microsoft for their "shoved out the door" release rather than the hardware manufacturers.
Well they're not really facing a class action lawsuit are they? Some gamer gets upset and starts a web site because nVidia banned him from their forums. How is that facing a lawsuit? I can cetainly understand wanting to look into a lawsuit, since they have been promoting their cards as "Vista Ready" for some time now. Hell, that sticker is one of the reasons I bought my card when I did, rather than putting it off till later. I haven't moved to Vista, and prolly won't for a while, but I was thinking I would before the next time I upgrade my box. Bah...maybe I will just wait it out. btw, is XP 64bit still gonna be available? or is that now a can't buy thing?
HP is advertising their 2600n Printer as Vista Ready and their only promise to supply drivers is " by July 2007"
t _detail.do?category=laserjets&a1=Function&storeNam e=storefronts&v1=Print&aoid=32861&product_code=Q64 55A%23ABA&landing=printers&jumpid=reg_R1002_USEN
D ocument.jsp?objectID=c00808536
http://www.shopping.hp.com/webapp/shopping/produc
http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/
Text of website, as seen through .nyud.net:8090
_______
Ok...I've put the site up so that I don't get any annoying messages from the likes of Chris_S stating "We don't use NVidia's forums to collect legal information."
This site is intended to:
* Post your screen shots / box covers, etc...where Vista compatibility is stated outright or implied.
* Collect contact information about the class (done via your user account - email addresses are fine)
The issue is currently under review by one legal firm and a response is expected within three business days. I will attempt to work with two additional firms if necessary to have the case reviewed and will post findings here. In the event it is declined across the board, the site will be disabled.
Please be very careful about what you post - this isn't a place to rant - we've done that enough. This is a place to provide useful, constructive information conducive to supporting a legal action. While the content is not strictly moderated, spot reviews will be conducted at random and any posts contrary to this will be deleted - period. If the posts begin getting out of control, again, the site will be shut down.
Any repeated posts will be considered spam and the user will be a.) deleted from the site, b.) banned by IP address/block or c.) have their network operator contacted.
We've all come here for a reason - let's be constructive in our pursuit of this.
Admin's Note - Due to some of the posts being made, registration is being required in order to view the forums. I've already followed up with the ISPs corresponding to several of the abusive posts to have them blocked on the ISP side.
Actually, the learning curve isn't as bad as you think, takes about a week of constant use and you don't want to go back. I'm even using the new WindowsKey-Tab thing more. Program search is pretty cool as well.
why is anyone alarmed (or even surprised) that WHQL-certified device drivers are not available yet which take advantage of all its features?
Because the manufacturer claimed that they were, and people made purchases based on that claim.
What would Lemmy do?
driver support than vista ?
how about someone freaking sue logitech so they have to make setpoint for vista for my g5 laser mouse.....
actually I am happy to see you, however that is in fact a banana in my pocket.
Maybe the problem is that you're not looking outside the (PC) box? Oh well, your loss.
"Also, while I would imagine that nVidia has a large staff of developers writing device drivers for their various bits and blogs of silicon, I would imagine the size of that staff is finite and that nVidia has to prioritize their work based on hard business decisions, such as the number of customers using a particular product with a particular operating system. Was it wrong of nVidia to focus their driver development efforts on satisfying the needs of the largest percentage of their installed base? Or should they have focused their efforts on their newest customers and satisfy the needs of thousands or tens of thousands instead of tens of millions?"
IANAL, but I think this is entirely irrelevant to the current discussion. Nvidia advertised the Geforce 8 series as "the first to support DirectX 10". Vista is the only DirectX 10 capable operating system. If a user purchased a Geforce 8 product, expecting full support under Windows Vista, the first DirectX 10 OS, then that user conceivably has a false advertising claim. Their argument would be that Nvidia made claims about their new part, then failed to back up those claims with a fully functional product. If the level of DirectX 10 support Nvidia claimed was not reasonably attainable given their software engineering capabilities, then they really should not have made the claims in the first place.
"Given that Microsoft Windows Vista is a brand new operating system in many respects, such as introducing a completely new video device driver model, and that, likewise, the 8800 series represents nVidia's own most complex product to date and so far has only a small market penetration, why is anyone alarmed (or even surprised) that WHQL-certified device drivers are not available yet which take advantage of all its features?"
Because Nvidia claimed that they do support those features, and not that they will support those features. If you're a customer who bought an 8800 specifically for its advertised level of Vista support, then it would be both surprising and alarming indeed.
Yes, yes, we all know what happened. The mouths of Nvidia's marketers wrote a check that the collective asses of Nvidia's engineers could not hope to cash. While on a personal level you or I may sumpathize with the company, particularily with its beleaguered engineering team, on a legal level all of these excuses mean exactly nothing. At the same time, you and I may feel that the folks who were actually foolish enough to buy the first of anything, let alone two firsts (first DX10 card and first DX10 OS), deserve the full measure of the early adopter's curse they're suffering through now. But again, from a legal standpoint I don't think that has any bearing.
Vista final failed to install on my Nforce2 based test machine, taking an extremely long time to arrive at a "driver failure" error. I'll have to rebuilt the machine around another Mobo/CPU this weekend. This failure of Nvidia/Microsoft to support reasonably recent hardware will certainly negatively color the "Vista intro" presentation I'm giving to the local users group this week....
You suckers got pwned! Hopefully this teaches you a lesson on why drivers and documentation should be open.
I just did what I swore I would never do. I had to purchase a replacement laptop for my stepson, but it was impossible to find a decent one (decently fast with 1G of RAM or greater) that came without Vista, and all but impossible to find any that didn't come with a microsoft OS. I walked into best buy after trying 5 or 6 stores - only one place would sell me an Ubuntu laptop and theirs was an average of $2K, way out of my budget! I called many places and drove around to a number of stores. Future shop had a big vista banner hung outside their store.
It was a totally ludicrous situation. When I went into best buy, the staff were playing about with the shiny new desktops trying to figure out how stuff worked. Customers were asking what games or legacy would run on the new OS, and the staff sort of shrugged. They obviously had this dropped on them and didn't have a clue either. So I bought the laptop with Vista ( the kid is a windows lover and whines that his favorite game du jour doesn't work under Linux)
So I get the damned thing home, and try to connect through my wireless home LAN. (Linksys WRT54GS running the latest firmware) Guess what? Can't reach beyond my local network - something about TCP scaling problems with the primary DNS server!!! I never had this much trouble with basic networking under SuSE, Ubuntu, or XP. I was even able to get the kids PS2 and PSP networked with less trouble than this!
There has to be some sort of laws put in place to ensure betas (and that is exactly what this is) are not being rammed down everybody's throat like this. The whole situation is utterly insane. I am going to be up half the night trying to get the damned piece of crap connected to the internet.
My rights don't need management.
BEER RANT
.Net runtime in order to adjust your display card settings. Talk about software suckage.
That crappy little C# CATALYST program sucks. The ATI hardware box advertises: compatible with Windows 98/2000/XP. Make sure you download 32megs of worthless
Nvidia is not the only hardware company having problems with Vista. Creative is prepared (OpenAL), no one else is. AC97 soundcard? Buy a new one. S3 Graphics? Buy a new one. VIA graphics? Buy a new one.
My Nvidia drivers rock for Windows (98/2000/XP) and Linux. Thank you Nvidia. I'll buy your products again.
FOSS supporters need to recognize that Nvidia is not going to open up thier drivers as long as ATI is around. Am I the only Linux user left that remembers when we had no graphic card (Zero, Zilch, Nada) support or recognition?
If i recall correctly from my MSDN alerts/newletters, Microsoft changed the driver model twice during Vista development. Case closed.
End Beer Rant
Enjoy,
It's just the normal noises in here.
I'll say it again
There is some HUGE opportunity for a company to get together with Linux developers and offer an optimized hardware suite...like Apple do...
That's gotta hurt for a company catering to PC enthusiasts.
I wonder what they will say now.
I do not fear computers. I fear the lack of them. Isaac Asimov (1920 - 1992)
I would be scratching my head too if I had to port some drivers to this new-fangled Vista thingy.
Obviously, these nVidia card owners can't write any better drivers themselves, so they decided to speed things up with a class action lawsuit.
"Well what is different between Vista and all of the others?"
DirectX 10.
It would be funny if the DRM in Vista just won't work with video cards.
I exchanged emails with nvidia PR man Ken Brown asking for an official response from nvidia about the Vista/nvidia DVD playback kludge with tv-out
basically, if you have TV-out enabled, like to watch a DVD on your HDTV over VIVO component cables, vista disables the dvd playback by breaking the overlay on any application/video stack. This, I confirmed, worked just fine on the same HDTV over VGA though.
Naturally, after thanking me for bringing the "issue" to their attention, Mr. Brown ignored my last email. Maybe now, Mr. Brown will take the time out of his busy day to respond.
we're waiting.
They're using their grammar skills there.
There are 2 problems:
1.Nvidia claimed that these cards were "vista ready" "Direct3D 10 ready" etc. Since they do not have usable vista drivers for these cards, those claims are a lie. The cards are not usable with Vista.
and more to the point 2.They refuse to acknowledge any of the problems. In fact, they are actively censoring mention of anything to do with these cards and vista.
I suspect that if they came out and said "yeah, we know these cards don't work so good on vista. We are working on it and will have drivers available for Vista as soon as we can" instead of trying to censor the discussion and deny that anyone would ever want to use an 8800 series card with Vista it would make people a lot happier.
Just thought I should warn a few of you about an annoying bug in the new "Windows Mail" (vista equivalent of Outlook Express).
.eml file (as opposed to OE where it all gets downloaded to a .dbx database).
.eml file (sounds ok so far)
In Mail each email is downloaded and saved to the computer as an
If you are sent a virus and have anti-virus software running the AV software will catch & delete the
The bitch of the situation is that Win-Mail will still show that email in your inbox, but you cannot remove it (or view it) because the file is missing.
So the only fix is to restore to a previous version, disable the AV, download the message & delete it.
This could be annoying/amusing.
"The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men." ~Plato (427-347 BC)
Unlike the 8800 series cards which were advertised as "vista ready", no-one from Nvidia ever said that the nforce2 board would be officially supported under vista.
The website left a big gaping hole for nvida to use to shut down the site.
From the site;
"If the posts begin getting out of control, again, the site will be shut down."
Is this instructions for nvida to shut down this site? Post a bunch of flames on the site and they will shut down for you.
The truth shall set you free!
So, what problems are people having? I read the articles, but the class action site is slashdotted.
All I know is, I have a 7800 GT, and have been running Vista since it was put up on MSDN two months ago. I've had zero problems with my video card, using the drivers nVidia provided. That includes gaming too.
Do Remember, Mr.
Dry Remarks: MicroSoft
Deftness Rarely Manifests;
Detractors Reap Malice.
Don't Risk Mastication.
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
Now if I was one of the people that went out and bought a shiny new 8800 that's supposedly Vista ready for $35x+, then I damn well expect the drivers to be stable. Yes it's acceptable that the performance isn't fully up to specs but that doesn't mean the card should cause a BSOD or other stability issue such as locking the system or driving CPU usage to 100 for long periods of time and it's this that's caused the people to sue for False Advertising. Simply put, if the damn drivers aren't stable and some marketing idiot over-rode the engineers, then they fired and if it was upper management, then the idiot needs to be fined under SarBox for screwing up so badly that he actually cost the company money while violating his/her Fidiciuary responsibility to the company.
Hell Nvidia doesn't even have to imdemnify the fool, instead any judgement for money can come right out of their wallet instead of Nvidia's.
Actually, the truth is, much of the hardware in question was advertised as being Vista-ready, many items actually shipping with this on the outside of the box in the last few months. nVidia has not only missed the target on video drivers, but chipset drivers as well.
The audio driver they provided Microsoft (at the very last minute) blue-screens and doesn't even support more than two speakers on many systems. I had to go "up the food chain" and use a Realtek driver, that gives some minor errors, but works.
As a contrast, I have an HP Laserjet 1018. I am mildly miffed at HP missing the vista release date with drivers for this printer - since they said on their vista page that it would have drivers by the end of january. However - nowhere on the printer, in its packaging, or any promotional materials, does it actually say it will work in Vista. The Vista drivers will be (hopefully unless they change their mind) a gesture of "good will" as it were.
With nVidia, they have clearly been advertising and promoting their current products as Vista compatible, when the fact is, if you buy it off the shelf TODAY, it isn't likely to work very well despite packaging claims.
-- If it ain't broke - overclock it more.
I never had this much trouble with basic networking under SuSE, Ubuntu, or XP
Look up the history of the TCP/IP stack. You should have very little trouble using TCP/IP on any *NIX box unless you know nothing about TCP/IP.
Maybe I'm jumping to conclusions.. Are you defining basic networking as NetBios or Appletalk instead of TCP/IP?
The truth shall set you free!
Still, I wouldn't call that a very good excuse for lacking support for a mainstream board chipset, if that is actually what happened, instead of some fringe driver conflict situation. After all, Vista happily installed default drivers for my nForce 4 board. I'd say nForce 2 is young enough that it should be supported.
I don't have a problem with my 3-year-old Dell running Vista Home Basic via the "NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200" driver dated 11/3/2003 - probably because only 3D apps I ever run are Second Life and Quake 3 Arena, which work as well as on Linux / XP.
Funny thing, though, if I let Windows update my driver, it installs some Microsoft version from 2006, which Second Life refuses to work with...
I have enough trouble getting XP to work with my hardware half the time, let alone even wasting more of my time with Vista.
Do what everyone else does with some sense, wait until at least SP2 before considering using it regularly. The fact that this new O/S takes more CPU/Ram power than some of my greatest games it better wash my clothes and make me pancakes every morning too.
There are 10 types of people in the world; those who can read binary, and those who can't.
Nice prediction. Almost reminds me of 'Windows is dying'/'Year of Linux's Desktop'
Sent from my desktop computer
ok, tis is the first concrete issue that has finally decided, for me, that I go nowhere near Vista. Dont care who's fault it is. If my card dont work, then the OS wont be on my system.
I gather this is saying Nvidia cards dont work with vista?
Apple Mail has recently switched to using *.emlx files as opposed to mbox to make emails easier to index using Spotlight. So Microsoft stole that feature, too.
Have you tried watching videos in Quicktime or iTunes? That doesn't work for me, I just get garbage (VLC works great, though) and I'm not sure if it's Apple's fault or NVidia's. It's an annoying side effect of my "upgrade", though, and it would be nice to have it fixed.
Dry Remarks: MicroSoft
Deftness Rarely Manifests;
Detractors Reap Malice.
Don't Risk Mastication.
You missed the obvious one:
Donkey Rape, Motherfucker!
Crumb's Corollary: Never bring a knife to a bun fight.
I'm not sure that's what Microsoft intended. They stuffed in all the ugly DRM stuff so Vista machines could handle all that wonderful DRM'd media. Bill Gates also wants to take over the internet. I think he wants these machines to be all things to all people. Of course it will be a pita.
The result will be: I play games on my Nintendo. I watch video on my dvd or whatever. I do my computing in Linux. Microsoft doesn't end up getting any money from me; too bad.
I just got a Sony Vaio with an NVidia card. I added the optional NVidia drivers and it works really well with Xgl snazzy 3D effects. So if Vista's not working for you, give SLED 10 a go maybe? Or if you've got lots of time and anger, try the legal route instead...
Zen tips: Pay attention. Don't take it personally. Believe nothing.
The nForce2 is not that old. I have a system built around a nForce2 board right here. The board is less than 2 years old, and otherwise the computer is certainly up to running Vista. It's generally assumed that something this new would still be supported. I'm pretty sure that Intel is still supporting all of the P4 chipsets in Vista, and likely all or most of the P3 ones too.
Naturally, after thanking me for bringing the "issue" to their attention, Mr. Brown ignored my last email. Maybe now, Mr. Brown will take the time out of his busy day to respond.
If he is busy why would he bother to respond to you?
I kinda think the Green Team was set up here. "Here's the specs guys, go for it!(muffled chortling)" And now they're getting it - for being too friendly to the Linux community. UT2004 plays great in Linux on Nvidia, the old UT plays great in wine, and I can't tell you the last time I booted Windows. As for ATi, a friend bought an R9100-based laptop for Christmas, and most live distros can't even make it into a desktop, let alone support the wireless (Slackware's doing ok with wired ethernet but no 3D). This of course now qualifies them as the new darlings of the early adopters. "When THEY release a DX10 card (on paper) THEY won't make me wait three days for a driver!" I've been suspicious since seeing a benchmark comparison a couple years ago, in which Nvidia dominated, except for MS titles which ATi ran away with. How exactly does that happen?
They both just have to BOYCOTT drivers for Vista, they are not required by law or contract to make drivers.
They can just say, NO, until we can do it OUR WAY.
Vista will sell like ZERO sales.... MS will force NO DRM on FUIA.
So who else is the choice besides these two for good 3d? nothing, absolutely nothing, matrox? no not really...
They hold the cards, either make buggy drivers, and MSs DX10 vista scheme will die, or just dont support vista, due
to less than 50m install base marketing idealogy.
MS holds no power, their DX10 + DRM is useless with no supported 3d cards apart from intels chipsets which are crap.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
Well it makes about as much sense doesn't it ;)
--I thought I was wrong once, but I was mistaken.
Technician Huh?
n ot_communicate_primary_dns_server for an explanation and likely solution.
Try reading what he wrote before being a total jag off.
A quick google search reveals his to be a known problem.
Try http://www.tech-recipes.com/rx/1744/vista_tcp_can
ATI's drivers have ***NOT*** improved. Just recently we had major problems at work with a semi-recent (x800) ATI model. The computers were hanging and blue-screening out of the box. An updated driver fixed the issue. I have an Alienware laptop with a mobility 9600 and the driver would cause bluescreens from time to time in XP. I downloaded the updated driver from ATI's website and it would cause svchost.exe to crash seconds after boot, making the computer useless. I was forced to revert back to the old driver and live with the occasional bluescreens. Finally when Vista was release to businesses (the laptop is my work laptop) I was able to load Vista on the laptop and so far I've not had single problem with the video card - using the stock Vista driver of course.
I don't always use unix-like operating systems; but when I do, I prefer FreeBSD.
Technician Huh?
Try reading what he wrote before being a total jag off.
(begin rant)Thanks Anonymous Coward for the toasty flame. I am a Technician. I am not a computer technician. Please check my profile. I am an ISCET certified journeyman level technician. (electronics) Thanks for not checking.(end rant)
Back to the networking thread... The grandparent who was having trouble networking stated Vista was more trouble than the other OS'es, 2 of which were Unix based. If you reply to his post with the possible solution, he might be able to use it. I don't run Vista, so the solution is useless to me.
The truth shall set you free!
vista /vst/
-noun
1. a view or prospect, esp. one seen through a long, narrow avenue or passage, as between rows of trees or houses.
2. such an avenue or passage, esp. when formally planned.
3. a far-reaching mental view: vistas of the future.
I work help desk and I am getting a ton of calls for intel graphics issues for our games. Nvidia has them too but the most recent driver can cure the issue. The most recent from Intel does not.
http://saveie6.com/
Not as bad as trying to install desktop Ubuntu thinkpad T42 and connect to a WPA TKIP network. Didn't work. I fixed it by installing Vista. That worked. That laptop is a couple years old now and I think I should be able to run a couple year old wireless encryption standard out of the box.
If any part of the B$ DRM trail (Hardware, hardware drivers, OS services, software, media content, copy protection drivers etc.) stuff up then your system starts going down and it is very difficult to tell which part of it is causing which problems. It was an idiot's idea, implemented by idiots.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
I distinctly remember that the linux opensource nouveau driver has code to support all these features, that the code indicates that the hardware supports this since something like TNT cards, and that if nouveau does it the proprietary linux drivers probably do it since years.
Also the things "brand new" in Vista and "in no other OS" like running your game in a 3D window are sooo 2005 on linux (ever tried beryl or compiz as your window manager ?).
I think this is the crux of the matter. According to TFA, the suit would be dropped with just a timeline of the fixes and an apology. NVidia touted the 8800 as being the first DX10/Vista ready GPU. Now Vista is here and the drivers aren't (and among people who care about GPUs, the user-mode driver layer that Vista allows is a major selling point), instead of doin' some 'spalinin, nVidia is doing some banning, deleting, and general disrespect to people who read the label.
Now, in Nvidia's defense, the problems they are facing can be really hard to find and fix. So probably any timeline has high variability, and the worst case may be really bad. And faced with a mob shrieking 'Lawsuit!' the less you say, the less you have to deny later in front of a judge.
post this post that post impossible mission post!
----
http://www.hellection.com
I was on Nvidia's side (vs ATI) against all my buddies; then I reformated, and installed the new nvidia drivers. My entire system shit a brick every time I tried to play a video. I reformatted again, thinking I had messed up the install somehow, and the same thing happened. On a whim, I downgraded (a step at at time) several driver releases until I got to the 84. release and my video finally worked again.
I've been on the Nvidia side of the argument for a very long time, but damn if I wasn't pissed off when I had to futz around with a year+ old driver just to watch some movies on my pretty new monitor.
Your sig is illegal as it is incitement to commit sexual misconduct :
? id=110009568
http://www.opinionjournal.com/federation/feature/
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
The site is italian but they also have english translation of most important information.
On this site, you need 2 things :
- The latest Amiga Merlin drivers : the latest stable drivers from the community with all necessary tools. (3DFX Tools, additional control panels, etc..)
- The latest SFFT alpha drivers : the latest experimental drivers based on the open-source glide, the open-source Mesa 3d (mesafx module), and a new DirectX driver that was rewritten by Super Furry Funny Thing.
The SFFT driver doesn't have a installer so either :
- you replace the "driver2k" directory of Amiga Merlin with SFFT alpha. And use its installer
- or, ou first install Amiga Merlin (to get the tool) and then subsequently manually install SFFT, using the graphics control pannel, the choose "update drivers", skip the automatic search, and use the "Have a disk" button to indicates where you've decompressed SFFT.
The DirectX 9 support in SFFT is rather new. Maybe some recent games won't work correctly. Look at SFFT's forum thread (there's also an english board on this site). Maybe some previous version doesn't have the bugs. Or you have to change the texuting options (3Tile vs 4Tile, Managed vs. UnManaged, etc...) and reboot. Or, maybe a new version will come shortly that fixes the problems.
The development is very active : you get a new version of SFFT every few weeks.
Currently Voodoo 5 has enough punch for most slow games (Point'n'Click dventure, strategy, turn-based RPG, board games, etc...) and the display is decent on most games that don't use lot of pixel-shader tricks. Most geometry tricks (T&L, vertex shaders, etc..) are emulated using SIMD technologies on the CPU.
Note that Half-Life 2, Doom 3 and Quake 4, all three of them work, albeit with drastically reduced quality for D3 and Q4.
Almost all old games that were around during the Voodoo era (DX7, Glide or OpenGL) work perfectly with this (Decent, old Quakes, most Unreals, p'n'click adventures like Longest Journey or Syberia).
Some games like D3 and Q4 may require patching. Other games ma require 3D Analyzer to force SIMD emulation of T&L / Vertex shader. Have a look on the english forums, and don't be afraid to ask questions.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
In fact, the copyleft license SAVED the 3dfx boards.
Proof that opensource is the only good warranty that softwares or drivers will survive the death of a company.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
We all know that the first "official" release of Vista and the first service pack are still parts of Microsofts "public debuggin" process. I shouldn't really expect any hardware manufacturer to take Vista seriously until Service Pack 2..... secretly known by Microsoft as "Offially Bebugged Vista"..... if is that "Offially Bebugger'ed Vista".
Why would anyone go out and install Vista at launch? It's just such a dumb idea to be an early adopter of new Microsoft products. Shouldn't they just wait until Vista version 3.1, like everybody else?
... and then they built the supercollider.
There is also another factor involved and that factor is the Microsoft 'hardware partner' aspect..historically the partner that courts the devil (linux) is dealt the short end of the stick when it comes to windows api support.
Case in point: when Intel released a i386 arch C compiler for Linux that gave the Linux kernel as good or better smp optimizations than their windows offering Intel encountered the wrath of Redmond...basically all of a sudden Intel was the bad boy of the PC. However now Intel has turned around and started making sure that Linux support for their latest brain-dead on board wifi and ethernet hardware are almost impossible to reverse engineer and they are not letting out the specs...not even with an NDA!
Same thing happened when HP released the specs for and drivers for all their PCL6 based printers. Dell started eating their lunch. Now HP is getting back in Redmonds good books by putting their name on cheapo Multimedia consumer pc crap that has everything on board and usually is very hard to get working under Linux because of driver issues.
All Microsoft does when some hardware manufacturer starts to dance with the Devil is help the competitors to eat the offenders lunch. I would not be surprised if that is what is happening to NVidea... the fact that ATI has made openGL support for Linux impossible must only be for the benefit of Microsoft NOT ATI. Same thing applies to companies like M-Audio, their superior audio cards are more expensive than Creative junkware (which once upon a time came with Apple drivers) And guess what THE VISTA PC CHECK SOFTWARE tells you to change your unsupported audio card! Even though it is a brand new M-Audio that is fully supported under XP, Apple, and Linux!
Do not be surprised if NVidea winds up going down the tubes because they are offering OpenGL driver capable cards that support the Linux OS!
The only way that this situation will ever change is if the US government finally has the balls to bust up the Microsoft hardware cartel(s).
The Ratfynk
Why all this work? Banning users and risking a riot?
Nah, just go here: http://www.slashcode.com/
It's a system to automatically hide unfavoured anonymous users, has cool time limits to prevent one great idea posted immediately after posting another (good for disrupting the flow of ideas) and, as a bonus, threads get messed up, like when answers come up to shrunk lower-rated comments.
Guaranteed to avoid both trolls and annoying truths.
...the most obvious one:
Dangerous, Raging Monkeyboy
The view was horrible and the smell was even worse; Julie severely regretted becoming a proctologist.
What is wrong with one of Apple's laptops? Guaranteed it comes with a more secure & generally superior O/S than anything Microsoft can ever produce.
Run Windows in a Parallels window, if you must...
you had me at #!
You must not be able to read, dipshit, he said his son wants to play "his favorite game du jour."
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
nforce2 is several years old dude
What are you smoking? Intel networking chips and HP printers are quite well supported under Linux. The same can't be said for competing manufacturers of chipsets and printers.
I had similar problems using stock W2003 server DHCP/DNS and a Vista business 64 install. Intel 1000 GT card and onboard Marvell Gbit fail to get addresses. Finally flushed the whole thing an put XP 64 in. Vista will be relegated to a VM for the forseeable future.
There is no right to feel safe thru security vaudeville at the expense of everyone's freedom, privacy and tax money.
Well, the only reason why I bought an nForce2 board new somewhat recently is that my Via KT333 board from 2002 died. However, the system is otherwise a Sempron 3000, 1.25GB of ram, and a ATI 9600Pro. Why shouldn't I be able to run Vista on this system? All Intel's P4 chipsets from the same era are well supported. Not that I really want to put Vista on this system, but nVidia cutting off support for their products so early will definently affect future purchases. Since the nForce chipsets are the only decent AMD chipsets (in my opinion), that is also hurting AMD.
Also, apparently the nForce3 isn't supported either? That's not old at all, I put together a nForce3 system out of all new components last summer for my sister.
I wonder how many of you even bothered to spend even two minutes to acquire a minimal grasp on the situation before commenting.
/. so that was a rhetorical question.
..and to all the people spouting out the typical wisecracks about hardware support in Windows vs. Linux (or just Windows vs. Linux in general) I find it highly unlikely a geforce 8800 card works worth a crap under Linux. Generic VGA or XVGA or whatever doesn't count. I am not completely computer illiterate but in terms of hardware and software support XP is leagues above any Linux distro I've tried. For 8 years I've tried various Linux installs and while they are getting easier to install and setup I can't help but see the irony when all the people shouting "linux is taking over!" and waiting patiently wait for the great penguin to rule the world with an iron fist are basically waiting for linux to be just like windows. Yeah I said it. The more popular linux becomes the more like windows it becomes. I realize a linux install can be as tiny (or large) and specific as you want it to be but not many average users give a crap about that. They don't care if they can use linux to turn a toaster into a mail server. They want solitaire and porn and shiny things to click on that "just work" without having to be bothered with having to learn what sudo iwconfig eth0 essid linksys sudo iwconfig eth0 key [1] xxxxxx sudo dhclient eth0 does.
Oh wait, this is
To everyone saying "my geforce xxxx worked just fine under rc1 blah blah blah", well the majority of people experiencing problems are the ones who purchased the 8800 series... the "creme de la creme", the $400 to $800 nvidia boards with all the "latest and greatest" features...not your 6600gt pos or 7800gs junk. In addition to promising to deliver the usual "immersive gaming experience" and "unsurpassed performance" these boards are also promised to be "Vista Ready" which is hard to pull off without providing a stable, functional, certified driver. I understand that Vista is new and anyone with common sense would realize there's bound to be problems discovered with any new OS release but I can also understand being a little miffed after forking over $800 for a video card with Vista in mind only to find out later that despite the manufacturer stating my new toy was vistalicious it was in fact totally not vistalicious.
"For the NVIDIA drivers to work properly in Vista, there is a LOT of work and possible debugging due to Vista's chaos."
And yet somehow, through alien technology I suppose, ATI was able to put out drivers that are performing pretty much exactly the same as they do on XP. This whole episode smacks of the Nvidia DX9 fiasco where their first gen DX9 cards were garbage. I can't even install the lastest Nvidia Vista drivers for my 7600GS because the driver installer keeps saying that the the drivers are "only for windows vista", lord knows what OS it thinks I'm using.
I'm actually quite annoyed that Vista isn't better than it is considering how long it's been in the oven. I hate that to keep my skills up to date I have to move from XP to something that takes more hardware resources but doesn't offer much more. My pain would be greatly reduced if Nvidia would get off their asses and make some decent drivers for my Nforce4 board and 7600GS.
If you wanna get rich, you know that payback is a bitch
You know it's bad when even Slashdotters are telling you to get a life :]
...
After all, the only life most of us have is Second Life or Half-Life
Welcome to Macintosh.
Definitions of invidious at Dictionary.com: 1. calculated to create ill will or resentment or give offense; hateful.
I have a laptop with an ATi card, and support is a bit shaky for that card. You don't see me crying about it and starting a class action lawsuit again ATi though...man these people should stop crying like a bunch of little BITCHES. If they want decent driver support, move over to linux, where things are support fairly well. Otherwise, shut the fuck up and stop complaining, little bitches.
What I said was that the latest Intel on-board wifi and ethernet stuff requires a firmware load that is not supported under Linux and has little chance of ever being supported. The same thing applies to the Vista loaded (all in one) computers that sport the name HP, they have on-board ethernet cards that require a firmware and driver load from the OS and again are not yet supported for Linux by HP, and because of the design have little chance of being reverse engineered.
However the system chip sets are all well supported and by and large have not changed, you can run older versions of the 2.4 kernel and find that the system ide and pci chip-sets will work, however when you go to try sata you need to use the right 2.6 kernel modules. So essentially you will get a computer that boots but will not connect to the net, if you try to install Linux on most of the new cheap Core Duo offerings with on-board everything from HP.
The Ratfynk
A blue screen of death.
It's true I tell you, feller at work's next door neighbour read it in the paper.
What are they talking about? My NVidia Software doesn't work properly with XP. [I can only get SOME games to work with it. BLENDER won't work, and neither will a lot of other things without tweaking. It's a pain as I have to tweak some things (like turning off hardward acceleration to watch movies), then have to turn them back on to do other things..
Sure enough, the cow costume was hanging up next to the superhero outfit and sailors uniform. (S,Spud)
I can only conclude that those whining about Nvidia Vista drivers used the 'Ready, Fire, Aim' approach to downloading the update and didn't follow Nvidias install directions. If they didn't, tough luck. I installed the driver for NVidia cards below the 8800 level while using a 6600GT. Worked like a charm. A week or so later, I installed a 7800GS and it worked beautifully as well. Who's zoomin' who here?
It's more microsoft's fault then nvidia's as vista isn't even fully debugged when released and then right before releasing vista they implement this stupid as hell AACP crap in vista. The AACP hooks in to the video driver and requires any full screen HD premium "now theres an oxymoron" content is only outputted as protect by HDCP. Now another rotten part of this feature other then taking a wizz on consumer rights and fair use is it polls the hardware drivers every 60 miliseconds or so so it's no wonder drivers are breaking with this constant interrupt loop running repolling the hardware. If anything hardware vendors should be suing microsoft for making an OS with rotten under pinnings that makes it impossible to write a stable and fast drivers.
nvidia may have been slow getting the drivers out, but that's no reason to file a law suit. nVidia certainly has the right to censor their own forums too. They've done nothing wrong except released software way too late.
1. The machine I am typing this one from the time I built to until it was finally actually stable was nearly a year. During all that time I was waiting for Nvidia to finally release a driver that was stable with an AMD X2 4800+ processor, and their 7800 cards (Single or SLI)...again this took nearly a year, I my previous card had been an ATI I often thought I had made the wrong choice when I built this machine. Its been stable now sincde they released the first 9x.xx drivers but that took nearly a year as I said.
2. I recently upgraded my work laptop (which has a Mobile Quadro chip) to Vista as I am part of the team of people evaluating Vista at the company. My Dual Monitor setup which was rock solid under XP has been a disaster ever since. Its so bad that I hhave it disabled right now and I am desperating waiting for a new truly Vista compatible driver releases. which the 100 series drivers are not yet, as NONE of them even recongnize my video hardware.
Power Corrupts,Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely, leaving one person(group)in charge is absolutely corrupt.
After a lot of annoyance over the years I only like network printers with true postscript. You have to watch out since some of the very expensive HP plotters really just have a crappy MS Windows only converter from postscript to whatever variant of their printer control language they used that week. Even if you find someone to speak Spanish to get support (HP: we can't help you - they make those in Barcelona) you'll find that HP laid off the support people in Spain.