Gizmodo
It's pretty easy to blame Microsoft for the buggy experiences many users of Vista have had, but they aren't the only culprits in this mess of an OS. No, it turns out that NVIDIA's craptastic drivers have been responsible for a whopping 28.8% of all Vista crashes. Yes, nearly 1/3rd of every single Vista crash was caused by NVIDIA drivers, and that includes all the computers out there that, you know, don't have an NVIDIA graphics card.
Microsoft's software is only responsible for 17.9%, but you've also gotta give the big M credit for the 17% that's "unknown." Behind that, ATI is responsible for 9.3% of crashes, with Intel causing 8.8% of them.
That 29% of crashes worked out to a real-world figure of about 479,000 crashes. The sample in question comes from an unspecified period last year, so one has got to assume, or at least hope, that Microsoft and NVIDIA have gotten their shit under control by now to not be breaking computers so frequently.
In any case, it's interesting to see just how big a hand NVIDIA had in creating the perception that Microsoft's shiny new OS was a big, buggy crash machine right out of the gate. Nice work, NVIDIA. [Ars Technica]
Comments
It also proves great market saturation.
haha! microsoft crashes vista 17.9% of the time.. thats pretty freakin hilarious!
how about the 9.3% from ATI drivers that no one uses? that is troublesome in the same way.
Almost 1 out of 5 is "unknown"...really? That's not very good for sales.
This is great to know. :)
nvidia drivers are notoriously shitty. enabling compiz requires nvidia-glx-new (via synaptic) while flash videos won't play under anything other than nvidia-glx, and i have to use indirect rendering to negate the black window bug.
totally worth it for wobbly windows and the desktop cube though... hopefully ubuntu 8 is a bit more solid.
Maybe this is one of the reasons my Vista experience has been so good, all of the machines I've used with it have had either ATI or Intel video adapters.
We've been having crash problems with Bioshock, Gears of War, and Crysis (even with the video settings set relatively low) on a brand new gaming PC w/ dual 8600GTSs. We've been blaming Vista (cause it's easy to pick on Mr. Softy), but it appears it is probably NVIDIA.
(oh right - ^ refers to linux, not windows, which just goes to show how universally shitty their drivers are)
Microsoft ask for $$$ for driver certification. Microsoft should take the blame, when the certified driver crash. Otherwise, what is the value of certified driver?
1,663,748 is a lot of crashes for a few thousand people to have...
(i keed)
On the bright side, only one million six hundred and thirty three thousand crashes during the sample period. That is pretty fantastic!*
* If the sample period is two decades.
Oh, NVidia, for christmas can I have Open-source drivers?
Over the past few years it seems like ATI or NVIDIA have cause most of my crashes on XP or Vista.
/yeah my mac crashes just as much
...anyone remembers at the beginning of when VISTA was just months away? Getting delayed, over and over again... software developers pissed off because their apps were not ready yet... MS not sharing all the info with developers...
This is just me?
...my imagination?
My HP lappie can't upgrade to SP1 because of NVIDIA.
i've got vista on my laptop with a go7700 nvidia vid card. haven't had too many issues with crashes. maybe an handful in the year since i got it. bur recently haven't had a crash in over three months. which isn't too bad considering i rarely shut down or restart.
but these stats show the black eye an OS can get when manufactures don't write quality drivers. not sure, but i bet that is a #1 reason for apple keeping osx on 'closed' systems.
@Aleung: If my grandmother can take the wheel, anyone can be a certified dri...
Oh wait, that's not what you meant, was it?
All video manufacturers (ATI,Nvidia, Intel...are there any others?) have been slow in releasing stable DX10 drivers for Vista.
With that said I have not had Vista crash on older geForce video cards (WDHC drivers) or new Quadro 3700 GPU's.
I only had one driver re-set the video by itself after a bad DX10 command.... but Vista crashing... not yet...
Vista is awesome
+ Watch video
I've been running Vista for almost 6 months and the ONLY crash I've experienced occurred when I DLed SP1.
@Joseph: REC, as in TRAIN REC. lol. What a tool.
what about the Hercules graphics cards out there?
Comment on NVIDIA Responsible for Nearly 30% of Vista Crashes in 2007 When I have to boot Vista, the NVidia drivers for my iMac always *always* crashes.
I had so many issues with Nvidia, that I went out and bought an ATI card, haven't had an issue since.
I can attest to that. The graphic drivers cause it to crash when exiting Civ IV a lot.
Is it really nvidia's problem? Or, do the statistics show these results because the majority of people use nvidia for their GPU? I believe it is as well as nvidia users using more demanding programs/games(crysis)that are basically the major reason for new drivers in the first place. Intel and ati have less crashes because, less ppl use ati for gpus that use vista as well, Intel mainly makes CPUs(so they dont have worry about drivers as much) and intel on-board video, so those users arnt expected to playing much Crysis.
I bought Vista Ult 64 the week it was released, installed SP1 without a hiccup when it was 'accidentally' released on Windows Update a month early and have had nary a hiccup EXCEPT for my nVidia driver. UIt must crash at least 5 times a week while in-game. I've even noted before on Giz that the only crashes I've had were from nVidia drivers. Finally somebody pointed the finger. FIX THIS AND GET THAT ISH DIGITALLY SIGNED ALREADY!!! YES I'M SHOUTING AT YOU nVIDIA!!! EXCLAMATION POINTS TO THE MAX!!!!
This data comes from Microsoft... umm am I the only one who is second guessing the accuracy of this?
@dman0586:
Yes.
How often did these Nvidia and ATI crashes involve games vs. general office usage? I'd like to see that put into context.
And wow. My world has been rocked, to a very small degree. I've always stuck with nvidia because I always believed that, historically, their drivers were much more stable than ATI's Catalyst set. While I have had no issues with my 8600 as of yet, I might consider an ATI card (my very first) for my next build. Hell, I might even get an AMD processor.
@dman0586: I tend to agree, though if I was MS and i was going to fudge some numbers, Might have gone with lower values on the "Microsoft" and "Unknown" slices.
I get the feeling that it's not the buggy nature of the video card or the buggy nature of the OS (although they certainly contribute) but the third x factor that isn't shown in that graph.
But what's the market share comparison between Nvidia, ATI and the other video card manufacturers. Also what about gaming companies releasing video games to the market without proper testing and debugging?
I hold all the software companies to blame, including Microsoft. They're so hung up on making as much money as possible that they aren't finishing the job.
This article is entirely pointless.
For a start, the sarky comment about the 17% of 'unknown' crashes automatically being MS's fault was unnecessary.
Then all the anti-nVidia comments are without merit either.
We have no idea what proportion of the systems reporting the crashes are using nVidia cards and what proportion of them are using ATi cards, so we have no way of interpreting whether either manufacturers number of crashes are in any way disproportionate to their market share - for example, if it were to turn out that 10 times as many people are using nVidia cards over ATi cards, then ATi's 9.3% becomes proportionally a much worse statistic.
Wait. It seems to me that whether or not it's the drivers, it's Microsoft's fault. They make the OS and they're the ones who release whatever portion of the code that the people who write the drivers interact with. And it's not like NVIDIA is some little-known third party hardware mfr making some random piece of equipment that barely anyone uses - it's one of two main video card makers! Maybe I'm wrong, but I blame this all on Microsoft not being open enough with their OS so that folks can write good drivers.
@dman0586: Funny I was thinking the same thing.
Not that this matters to me any way because I refuse to buy Vista.
(crossing fingers)
Only two more years until Windows 7.
Well THAT explains a whole lot! I've got a 7300LE on my Vista machine at the office and I knicknamed it Sir Crashalot. I should have just stuck with the built in intel graphics adapter!
I've been using a Radeon x700(old) for 3 months on Vista with one of the first "Dual Core" P4s. Never crashed and MediaCenter recording or playing constantly.
@WB: isn't it both.
the graphics card flies into a special mode for a game and then back again for the Vista GUI. This is way more than in the past...
the games are busier, the GUI is heavier, the card is faster, etc. who is really at fault!?
Webcam gives a lot of problems too... so far about 90% of my blue screens were caused by the webcam.
(90% because its almost always the cause)
The rest of my problems have to do with the system just freezing completely, where it dies in a way that I won't have any logs of what caused it. All you have to do is scroll down and every once in a while things just stop completely. Previously it was archaic Intel Matrix Storage drivers, data loading > overload drive access while scrolling > freeze. Now it occurs slightly less frequently but still freezes. I like the blame on Nvidia... I haven't seen a single GOOD video card update for this laptop since I got it at the beginning of the year.
NVIDIA drivers are responsible for near 100% of at least weekly, but sometimes more so, crashes of my Vista desktop. My slightly newer Vista laptop hasn't crashed a single time.
@weatherman:
I'd say you can also argue the opposite. Microsoft doesn't make the hardware and they can't know ahead of time what nVidia is going to do with their hardware. That's kind of the point of having a driver model in the first place. And it's not like Microsoft is some little-know software company making some OS that barely anybody uses - they are the largest OS maker in the world! So you'd think nVidia would put more effort into making sure their drivers work with the model exposed by Windows.
But why do the numbers add up to 100.3%?
@Brad: funny, that's the same reason i went with nvidia last time around. i think both companies see the major $$ in releasing new hardware and sacrifice quality of current products as a result.
As several people have already pointed out, the numbers by themselves are rather meaningless since non-crashes aren't reported. You at least need an indication of the % of Vista machines using nVidia drivers in the first place.
Nevertheless, I would hope that nVidia are embarrassed by this.
@Spoondizzle: there maybe even problems with the memory handling - as the vid card is faster than what its plugged into big time.
Does NVidia have these issues on OSX, assuming they're not on fire?
i run vista under parallels on my macbook pro that has an ati card. vista has yet to crash. we are running it on a crappy little dell latitude x300 that has an intel card. it has never crashed yet. the only machines in my office that have had problems with vista crashing are a couple of dell optiplex gx280s with nvidia cards. from personal experiences i can believe the data.
this is reassuring. i built a desktop for my gf last month and she has been complaining about random crashes. i was afraid i was the faulty party, but if i can just blame nvidia...
Wonder if there are thousands or millions of crashes caused by network cards that don't get reported since they're unable to connect to the Internet.
Main reason I switched to an ati card was the horrible vista driver support from nvidia (they didn't even write 64-bit drivers for my board). Now if only I could pop out the chipset....
@dman0586: Keep in mind this isn't some presentation they're giving to the public, or some press release they're sending out to magazines. It's data from internal emails that they only handed over because a judge ordered them to.
Frankly, I'm guessing that's some of the most accurate data you'll ever get from a public company.
i was in awe when i BSOD'd the 1st time on vista. i took a picture of it.
i have gotten many crashes from audio driver conflicts (unplug headset to use speakers... forces reboot).
Well pointing fingers isn't going to solve anything...
NVIDIA also makes chipsets, which control other system functions besides video.
@KingSnorky: now that is a name.
King Snorky FTW!
Wonder how many of the nVidia users who crashed on Vista were overclocking their vid cards?
I know I'm guilty for some of those nVidia/Vista crashes on my overclocked 8800GTX!
I had a few crashes with Vista with early releases of ATI drivers, but since, very solid. Have not had a crash on XP in a couple of years. However, I had some issues with a VIA USB controller (you get what you pay for).
My guess these numbers are pretty accurate. A lot of people do not upgrade drivers, and if you installed Vista a year + ago and are using the drivers you installed with your initial installation you are probably going to suffer.
People usually don't buy the first year of a car model for the same reasons. By the second year, all the suppliers are on the same page, and production glitches are fixed.