Nvidia Faces Class Action Lawsuit Over Vista Drivers 445
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."
Linux support (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:No NForce2 drivers (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
Does your AGP bus run under the PCI to PCI bridge like my Nforce 1 does? If so that could easily be the problem. Nvidia decided to not write drivers for the AGP bus. To check look under Device manager, system devices and look for PCI Standard PCI to PCI Bridge.
I'm not terribly happy with Nvidia, but of course I don't have any basis to sue them either.
Re:ch-ch-ch-chaaaanges... (Score:3, Interesting)
This was my second nvidia card and first in my primary desktop. I will not buy another one. AMD gets my money next time. Their drivers suck and they don't support any BSD, but at least they aren't rude.
Not funny, but actually hapenned with 3DFx (Score:5, Interesting)
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).
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* : 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.
nvidia needs to fix these issues though (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
Re:I am not sure whether to be amused or disappoin (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
Nvidia and ATI both have power to kill DRM (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
Re:Just use the 'nv' driver (Score:1, Interesting)
Works flawlessly. I wonder if that's what Microsoft intended to do.
Re:nvidia needs to fix these issues though (Score:2, Interesting)
Actually quite likely it is a bug that you can actually playback upscaled SD-DVD on your VGA cable, as the only legal way to watch upscaled SD-DVD is over a digital cable like DVI and HDMI with proper HDCP handshake.
You are allowed to upscale SD-DVDs without Macrovision, so copying a SD-DVD may actually work; like it does for Toshiba's HD-DVD player, which allows non-Macrovision SD-DVDs to be upscaled on the component output. You are also allowed to use progressive output on component cables, as long as you are not upscaling.
Of course we will have to wait for nvidia to give the real explanation, I just wanted to rant a little bit.
Re:Just use the 'nv' driver (Score:3, Interesting)
They have a new set of drivers out as of the 31st jan, but they're still beta.