Nvidia to switch to monthly driver update schedule

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Nvidia to switch to monthly driver update schedule

By Cyril Kowaliski - 12:23 PM, February 8, 2007

The fact that Nvidia is a little behind with its Windows Vista support is no secret: the company's latest Vista ForceWare drivers, which came out one day after Vista's retail release, are still in beta. Those drivers lack support for SLI GeForce 6 and GeForce 7 setups in addition to a number of other features, and some users have been upset enough to consider filing a class action lawsuit over the issue.

The folks at PC Perspective have had a little chat with Nvidia's Software Engineering VP Dwight Diercks about the subject, and some interesting information has come to light regarding Nvidia's plans. First, Diercks partly explains Nvidia's lateness by saying the company must essentially write six separate driver components for Vista (SLI and non-SLI flavors for DirectX 9, DirectX 10, and OpenGL), while it needs to write only two for Windows XP (DirectX and OpenGL). Each Vista driver supposedly contains 20 million lines of code, as well?roughly the same number as the entire Windows NT 4.0 operating system.

More importantly, Diercks outlines Nvidia's plans to bring its Vista drivers up to speed. He says new ForceWare drivers will now come out every month?a similar release schedule to that of AMD's Catalyst drivers?and that a WHQL-certified ForceWare release will be out this month. Nvidia plans to release another update in March with GeForce 7 SLI capabilities and better TV output support. Another update will come out in April with support for DirectX 10 SLI and H.264 video acceleration. Diercks adds that driver updates could come at an even greater frequency if major bugs are found between releases.

Source: http://www.techreport.com/

[Slimy]

Oh that's reasurring. We have to wait no more than 3 weeks for a stable release! Then, we get to wait 4 weeks for the next release! Yay.

[:: Lyon ::]

2 million lines for a driver...wow :|

[+Tantawi Subscriber²]

@ Slimy: Not exactly...

Diercks adds that driver updates could come at an even greater frequency if major bugs are found between releases.

But I agree, it sounds a very long time specially with NVIDIA current unoptimized drivers, but I guess once everything is stable, it'll be fine in the same way AMD(ATI) managed before. At least better than having the "latest" stable driver for XP 7th series form November with a lot of unsolved bugs! :pinch:

[slyph]

20 million ^ ^_^

[Snakehn]

that is not funny, to be updating drivers every month... well that's just me.

[ViperAFK]

that is not funny, to be updating drivers every month... well that's just me.

:yes:

[strekship]

I would rather get updates every month than live with an annoying bug until the get around to releasing new ones.

[KzR]

Nvidia used to have superiority in the drivers department over ATI during the XP days. It looks like they've lost it in the new Vista era. If they still don't have a stable Vista driver by March, I'll be switching over to ATI.

[rajputwarrior]

so drivers are coming when... i can't believe it's three weeks t'ill we have sli support for 7s eries cards, he mentions nothing of performance... at least i got 78.01 drivers that work great (but break aero)

Edited February 9, 2007 by rajputwarrior

[Viper_Maniac]

Monthly Updates? Awesome. Wish they would have done this alot sooner. ;)

[NienorGT]

Better to do something good and fast, Drivers have a big impact on my buying decision and it was one of the cause for me to move to nVIDIA last year. Now if I would have to make a choice right now, I would go for ATi...

[betasp]

Nvidia used to have superiority in the drivers department over ATI during the XP days. It looks like they've lost it in the new Vista era. If they still don't have a stable Vista driver by March, I'll be switching over to ATI.

We are 9 days into the Vista era... by March we will be 29 days. How long was XP out? Please, you might want to consider some ADD medication...

Edited February 9, 2007 by betasp

[Chode]

Nvidia used to have superiority in the drivers department over ATI during the XP days. It looks like they've lost it in the new Vista era. If they still don't have a stable Vista driver by March, I'll be switching over to ATI.

IMO ATI have had far superior drivers for the past 2 years or so. Managing a WHQL approved driver every month with a fantastic naming convention that can be used to determine age of the driver (7.1 = 1st month/January in 2007) for longer than I've had an ATI card for.

I was never happy with NVIDIA with not managing to have official non-beta drivers for their 6x00 series of cards until well after the card's release.

[HoochieMamma]

They should have weekly updates! hahaha

I just want a coule of drivers now for Vista and 8800 series cards saying things like:

"20-30% increase in performance"

"15% increase in performance"

etc etc :D