Nvidia to blame for many early Vista crashes
There is a ton of interesting information in the documents that have been released as part of the Windows Vista Capable lawsuit.
There's the juicy e-mails that show Microsoft caving to pressure from Intel and lowering the graphics requirements to get the Vista Capable sticker. There's also Dell outlining all of the problems it had with Microsoft in getting Vista to market as well as with its many readiness programs.
For those that want to give the full documents a read, the Seattle Post-Intellingencer has posted the complete PDF files of the documents, linked to from this blog by Todd Bishop.
Another area that got some notice this week was the inordinate number of early Vista crashes that were attributed to Nvidia, according to a list from early 2007. Nvidia was cited as causing nearly 30 percent of early Vista crashes (the exact time of the report is not listed), while Microsoft itself was to blame for nearly 18 percent. Intel and ATI each accounted for about 9 percent of crashes, according to the documents.
"These issues are a year and a half old," Nvidia PR director Derek Perez said on Friday. Perez noted the company took a number of steps in response to the issues, including establishing a Web site where people could report such issues and said the company made significant progress in reducing those errors. "We continue to improve drivers," he said.
In a statement, Microsoft also pointed to the complexities inherent in creating new graphics drivers.
"Microsoft takes exhaustive steps in testing hardware compatibility internally, as well as by working directly with our partners, to address compatibility long before customers experience an issue," the software maker said. "However, testing can only be conducted under so many different circumstances, particularly with such an exceptionally complex code that graphic drivers have. Understanding this, Microsoft has set up a system to help quickly identify the problems, work to fix them and, if warranted, potentially push them through to customers via Windows Update. NVIDIA has taken similar steps, and since launching Windows Vista, Microsoft has seen great progress in addressing potential issues by NVIDIA."
One of the questions I have is which is worse--having buggy drivers, as Nvidia clearly did--or pushing Microsoft to lower its graphics requirements to include less-than-optimal graphics, as Intel appears to have done. Nvidia can and has improved its drivers, but there were a whole lot of systems pushed out in 2006 with the Intel graphics chip that did not initially qualify for the Vista capable logo.
During her years at CNET News, Ina Fried has changed beats several times, changed genders once, and covered both of the Pirates of Silicon Valley. These days, most of her attention is focused on Microsoft. E-mail Ina. 
As for the crashes, this reminds me of Win95 and its driver woes. When the OS came out, there were NO DirectX compatible drivers (to my knowledge) available for any of the video cards yet the chispet/card makers had been working with Win95 for at least a year. Same goes for Vista. Most chipset/card makers didn't have released/optimized drivers for their products when it hit the shelves. Who's to blame for that one?
And thats what those 30% of crashes are.
If anyone is interested, check out http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&rls=com.microsoft:*&sa=X&oi=spell&resnum=0&ct=result&cd=1&q=nvlddmkm&spell=1
Espically nVidia forums with the hundred page topic on the issue.
sorry... my spelling is ridiculous sometimes.
Microsoft lives in a new world that they were not ready for. They just can't expect Moore's law to automatically bail them out of bad design/performance issues. Is it really that unreasonable to ask MS to support a then 2 year old chipset that was still in popular use? How long did the ATI Radeon 7000 hang around in the laptop market? Regarding Nvidia, thats the way drivers go, especially in a closed source system (MS is the only completely closed desktop vendor). I'm not saying they need to open source, but since you can't exactly LXR the ms source, they might need to provide more support to Nvidia and other OEMS. Also, what caused the crashes? Was it Nvidia code, or MS API's nvidia was using. Was nvidia using them wrong, or did MS change them? Saying it was nvidia drivers says very very little.
[i]"Microsoft lives in a new world that they were not ready for. They just can't expect Moore's law to automatically bail them out of bad design/performance issues."[/i]
Agreed, perfectly.
/P
I heard somewhere Microsoft changed the driver model at the last minute meaning hardware makers had to release with crap drivers. Have sense lost the source, but here is another.
http://www.nytimes.com/idg/IDG_002570DE00740E18002573FE006B7266.html?ref=technology
Apparently NVidia drivers are bad across operating systems though so that doesn't matter. However, this is really good news for Nvidia fans. After a news article like this people will be getting the best darn Nvidia drivers anyone could imagine.
Maybe that'll learn them to optimize the drivers for Crysis benchmarks (which some say does no good in actual gameplay) instead of debugging the code.
Unless Nvidia is a bunch of complete retards.
As we know WHQL nVidia drivers are now available from Windows Update, so I find the only point of this article is to recreate year old FUD (and generate some revenue for this site).
I hope nVidia isn't upset about those jumping to conclusions here. I would be.
Vista is going to have to be a lot more stable and a lot less resource hungry before I'll consider using it.
Let's all hope that Microsoft learns from this and that they make their next OS a light OS (Some chance,huh).
http://www.eggheadcafe.com/software/aspnet/29415832/display-driver-nvlddmkm-s.aspx
"Display Driver nvlddmkm stopped responding -- FIX-- - Dwai
03-Mar-07 06:31:00
I have found and fixed the problem today. This is what appears to happen.
during the installation of the most current drivers 100.65 Vista, an OLD file
nvlddmkm.sys is copied into windows/system32/drivers and not the current one
in the install. As a result the new drivers are attempting to access a file
dated 11/2006 instead of 2/2007 ver 7.15.11.0065 which is in the newest WHQL
driver ver 100.65 vista 32.
Fix: Go to windows/system32/drivers and rename nvlddmkm.sys to
nvlddmkm.sys.old. Go to the nvidia directory and find the file nvlddmkm.sy_
and copy it to windows/system32. Using the cmd window (DOS box) type
EXPAND.EXE nvlddmkm.sy_ nvlddmkm.sys. When the expansion is complete, copy
the new nvlddmkm.sys to windows/system32/drivers and restart the computer.
Your computer should now work properly.
You will notice that any uninstall and reinstall of nvidia drivers will not
remove the old nvlddmkm.sys file and will not overwrite it with the newer
version. You have to do it manually. I do not know why this happens but who
cares as long it is fixed.
Good luck..."
What the commenter really should have said is the that the installer was not removing the old drivers.
That was March of last year and clearly points to the installer issue I previously noted here. Once corrected all was well.
So, we cannot go out and say that because the feedback reported an nVidia driver issue, that it was a driver issue, it was not.
If those people had followed the instructions and removed the old drivers first, this would not have happened.
So what we have learned is 29% of people don't read instructions.
...so what makes Vista so hard to code for? Therein lies your answer - and a smart OS maker wouldn't go around petulantly blaming them (esp. when nearly everyone else is having a tough go of coding for Vista as well at that level).
Instead, we got a pack of stupid finger-pointing at the same 3rd-party vendors that can make or break your product.
Personally, if MSFT blamed me, I'd forget about making the drivers run DX10 all that well, and just shoot for stability. That way, everyone will slowly realize that Vista is not a decent gaming/graphics platform, and take their business elsewhere.
/P
And nvidia replies "These issues are a year and a half old," Nvidia PR director Derek Perez said on Friday. Perez noted the company took a number of steps in response to the issues"
So they accepted responsibility for their issues and resolved most of them and are working on the others.
Looks like the anti-vista bandwagon made an unwarranted stop here. You better run or they'll leave you behind, troll.
Good job. Way to go there.
nVidia has had a long history of problems with their drivers. Look at the gaming community. In the race against ATI for supremacy, they overclocked their chipsets to the point of meltdown. Blaming the OS for the hardware maker's design failure is simply baffling.
Seriously, it's like you don't have any clue whatsoever about what you're posting- only the same old tired rhetoric- Microsoft is evil, Apple is godly, Linux is supreme to all.
If Microsoft had to make the driver for nVidia, it wouldn't be a "3rd Party" issue.
The nvdlddmkm crash happens across OS's, which leaves only the card or driver to blame.
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