Question about the 8800 series...

[JudgeDredd]

I've got a 7900GTO, and with my current monitor and system it still does awesome. However, I've been looking into getting a 24" widescreen monitor pretty soon, and I think for the resolution I might need to get a better card. First I thought about finding another 7900GTO to SLI, but then I'd have to get a new motherboard to support SLI. I might as well just move upwards instead of sideways. The only problem I have is the negative things I've been hearing about the 8800 drivers. My question is, are these problems really as bad as they sound, and what are they specifically? I can't seem to find any one place in particular that lists all the known issues with these drivers.

 

[JenBell]

there only bad when using vista. Having bad drivers for xp that would cause they company to start losing market share very very quickly - as it in the consumers just wont forgive them.

As for what gpu...think right now a 8800 gts can do a decent job and gtx would probably murder almost everything.

As u posted int he nv area I presume ur only interested in nv gpu's but think that r600 will be coming soon.

Ah - remember all these gpu's are dual-slot ones....personally would never put a dslot gpu into my pc as I think that means the company are not making an effort.

 

[freeagent]

Ah - remember all these gpu's are dual-slot ones....personally would never put a dslot gpu into my pc as I think that means the company are not making an effort.

that makes no sense. a 7900 can be a dual slot card if you put a zalman on it


dont be afraid of 8800s, i have a 320, but i would suggest going for a 640..

 

[smokie mcpott]

the 640's are very nice... just set up 2 c2d6600 rigs with 8800gts 640mb...mmm tasty

 

[Evilsizer]

OMG flash the bios on that card... you have a 7900GTX in your hands!!!!

 

[redrumy3]

use a 8800GTS 640 with vista not one problem, love the card and love vista lol

 

[JudgeDredd]

@JenBell - I'm not really worried about it being dual slot as my 7900GTO is dual slot. Personally I think dual slot is great, it offers a more quiet cooling solution as well as being able to exhaust the hot air outside of the case.

@Evilsizer - Well, my GTO is overclocked at least, so it should be relatively close to GTX speeds. Even so, I believe the best option would be moving to an 8800 series card for the best framerate with a widescreen resolution.

This brings me to be more specific about my original question. I thought I read somewhere that the 8800 series are having problems with the widescreen ratios. Anyone know anything about this?

 

[Evilsizer]

This brings me to be more specific about my original question. I thought I read somewhere that the 8800 series are having problems with the widescreen ratios. Anyone know anything about this?

irc its a driver issue that is not worked out yet. i think it has to do with multi monitors though. as long as you set the correct res., the ratio wont matter.

 

[ChinStrap]

the 8 series does have an issue with the DVi cable and the "syncmaster" models from samsung. as far as i know the issue is only with 1440x900 the drivers will only push 1280x1024 there inst and option for 1440x900.

using the vga cable fixes the problem - however i hope the issue gets fixed cause i would enjoy using my DVi cable again someday

 

[nd4spdbh2]

there only bad when using vista. Having bad drivers for xp that would cause they company to start losing market share very very quickly - as it in the consumers just wont forgive them.

As for what gpu...think right now a 8800 gts can do a decent job and gtx would probably murder almost everything.

As u posted int he nv area I presume ur only interested in nv gpu's but think that r600 will be coming soon.

Ah - remember all these gpu's are dual-slot ones....personally would never put a dslot gpu into my pc as I think that means the company are not making an effort.

hmm no dual slot gpus... yet you have 2 7800gtx's in one case IMO dual slot is better cus as stated cooling effiency can be greatly improved... pluss WTF am ima use the PCIE 1x slot that my 8800gts is blocking

N e ways for a 24inch wide screen a 8800gts 640mb will drive that thing like no ones business... and as for bad drivers... i havnt run into n e problems and i have had my card since pretty much it launched... theres only a coupla ishues with a very select few games, and some resolutions wont run as stated but everything has to line up for it not to work.

 

[CrazyIrish]

I have an 8800gtx on xp and I would say the current drivers are ok. My widescreen support is fine for me, but 1280x720 and 1280x768 are conspicuosly missing from my resolution options. 1440x900 and 1680x1050 have been available with every driver I have tried. As far as image quality, it could just be my imagination, but I swear that the anisotropic filtering on my current card doesn't look quite as good as it did on my old 9800 pro. I could be seeing things though.

 

[treatmentx]

vista vs xp

i was running Vista Ultimate on my 8800gtx, omfg... if you're a gamer, you will run into hell of alot of problems. I can't list them all, but just randomly off the top of my head
Serious Sam 2, shadowing/lighting probs
Call of Juarez, shadow
KOTOR has some slowdowns (and considering it's a pretty old game, it should have zero slow downs)
MS Flight Simulator X i think has some drawing issues, distant objects flicker in and out, but this could perhaps be by design to conserve memory (I have 2gigs, so i dunno)


But to credit, major games like Call of Duty 2, Company of Heroes, Supreme Commander, even Counter-Strike 1.6 and Source has been perfect after you patch up.

 

[ViperJohn]

Ah - remember all these gpu's are dual-slot ones....personally would never put a dslot gpu into my pc as I think that means the company are not making an effort.

Then you will never be buying another video card that is even close to high end.

Viper

 

[Burdman27911]

Can anyone elaborate on the problems with the 8800 series vista drivers? I'm looking to buy a new system in about a month, and trying to work out exactly what people are talking about when they say that nVidia's drivers suck for 8800s and vista.

Much appreciated.

 

[ChinStrap]

Ah - remember all these gpu's are dual-slot ones....personally would never put a dslot gpu into my pc as I think that means the company are not making an effort.

Then you will never be buying another video card that is even close to high end.

Viper

sauce – with the amount of heat these cards and produce I don’t think it’s showing laziness at all from a manufactures stand point at all.

manufactures have to consider all most everything when they are designing a cooling solution for a GPU – all the way down to the end-users who buy these nice new shinny high dollar machines then put them in a desk and close the door. No circulation at all. A dslot solution is going to give you much better cooling and overclocking (ability) then any single slot could ever think of.

IMO i think a dual slot solution looks "cooler" too