Thinking of getting this and ditching Nvidia

[Stuart Thomson]

Also I have couple of friends who get the freezing on Ati cards also in ISI Engine based games.

So don't think it's going to be a magic fix switching companies.

I went from 8800 GTS to ATI 4870 - never had a freeze since, on Evo, GTL or rFactor.

It was definitely a magic fix for me.

 

[Damian Henderson]

Your lucky one as i had freezing on my old Ati cards! Happy it got rid of your freezing though, good stuff!

I think it's a matter of luck / right driver combination personally as the freezing happens on both companies cards in my own experience and friends.

 

[Dietmar]

I must say, I can confirm what Damian, said!

I have a 3870, when ever I reinstalled everything (did this quite often in the last couple of month, for various reasons, Vista and Win7), everything was good, especially with Win7 it was good for quite long and also Viast swtiching off Aero and now I also switched off teh side bar.

But so far, all the problems came back after some time. On the other hand I got the impression that my problems are minor to those Warren has (I was not following this very closely). So I think we are talking about different severity.

I havent seen these driver failures for ages, but I have seen short screen freezes, like 5 seconds, but also not often (but again, I have reinstalled my system lately quite often and also was not racing a lot lately).

 

[Stuart Thomson]

I get a 2-ish second freeze in Evo, but only right at the very start, the first time I go out into the pitlane, and then it's fine from then on in. But that's game specific, I don't get anything similar in GTL.

 

[Trebor901]

I find it interesting that a lot of people who have Nvidia cards (ive got 8800GTS 512 Alpha Dog) that get freezes because ive not yet had any problems with freezing. And i keep the drivers up to date.

 

[Steven Palmer]

Rob, I had no problems at all until about 5 weeks ago. I kept upto date with the drivers also, but somewhere along the line something has been severly screwed on the Nvidia side. Don't get me wrong I'm a huge Nvidia fan, and I'll be putting my old card to good use in my second system. If switching to ATI means I can carry on freeze free racing then ATI is the way to go for me, for now. There is no doubt that freezing affects both GPU manufactures, its just that Nvidia's seems to be more severely affected.

 

[Lee Downham]

... just spotted this thread and I gotta say, until about 5 weeks ago (like Steven) I was running fine to ... my issues hit me with SP2 of Vista ... before then my system was running silky smooth and glitch free.
For me its just rF and Simbin titles that are effected ... which sucks cos lately that is all the gaming I have had time for.

I find it interesting that a lot of people who have Nvidia cards (ive got 8800GTS 512 Alpha Dog) that get freezes because ive not yet had any problems with freezing. And i keep the drivers up to date.

I got the exact same card with better cooling ... plus another 8800GT in SLi (also with aftermarket cooling) ... I switched Sli on and off and tried each one individually, tried shed loads of old and new and beta drivers, plus switching all graphics config options on and off and every combination in between I can think of but still cannot get this sorted ... against my better judgement I updated to the latest BIOS which screwed my overclock and made no difference - reversing this is not a simple procedure and I have not had time to do it to get back to my previously faster and equally as stable PC
... so its nowt to do with latest drivers I am afraid.

Rob, I had no problems at all until about 5 weeks ago. I kept upto date with the drivers also, but somewhere along the line something has been severly screwed on the Nvidia side. Don't get me wrong I'm a huge Nvidia fan, and I'll be putting my old card to good use in my second system. If switching to ATI means I can carry on freeze free racing then ATI is the way to go for me, for now. There is no doubt that freezing affects both GPU manufactures, its just that Nvidia's seems to be more severely affected.

... I am moving house soon ... with a 3 week break in the middle, so basically at the end of August I will see what has happened. If the results are still the same and no new drivers or patches have been released to fix it, then my wife's new PC might be getting one or even two 8800GT's in it and I might be moving over to ATI-land ... cos this is about the worst issue I have ever had and its ruining all the pleasure I get from my limited time driving at the mo ... sort it out Nvidia, Simbin, MS or all three of you PLEEEEEAASSSEEEEE!!! :sad:

 

[Steven Palmer]

Right the ATI 4890 card has been in my machine for just under 2 weeks and I kept a little note of what I was playing for how long and made some observations (word doc zipped below)

I can at least now play GTRe and GTL without graphics freezes every other lap, but there are still some aspects of the ATI cards that fall short of the Nvidia I previously had.

 

[Dave Gardner]

I find it interesting that a lot of people who have Nvidia cards (ive got 8800GTS 512 Alpha Dog) that get freezes because ive not yet had any problems with freezing. And i keep the drivers up to date.

i have the 9800gt and i've never experienced any freezes, and likewise, i get new drivers as soon as they are released.

 

[Gary Lennon]

BFG 8800GTX here and the drivers are very old,i changed to new ones ages ago and they were terrible so went back to these drivers and i get the same as what Thommo describes,a short freeze up (4-7secs) within the first minute or so of going on track in practice session,from then on no more of it happens and all perfect running,infact i dont even get that freeze-up all the time,maybe 1 in 8 races approx..