What's the difference between AMD and Nvidia drivers?

[1-800-Taco]

I've heard that AMD drivers are horrible compared to Nvidia, but what's the exact difference? 

[Swndlr]

one driver is for nvidia cards and one is for amd cards, i dont quite see what youre not understanding.

[vlkn´]

Yes, they are horrible!

 

But thats my experience.

[Mujteba]

Nvidia Control Panel looks like something out of the 90s.

[Juganog]

One is for one brand of cards one is for the other... 

[Faceman]

I've heard that AMD drivers are horrible compared to Nvidia, but what's the exact difference? 

Here was a good post by @Faa talking about the difference.

 

http://linustechtips.com/main/topic/271700-nvidia-about-dx1112-cpu-efficiencyno-mantle-support-fermikeplermaxwell-will-have-dx12-debunking-some-mantle-with-dx12-assiocated-myths/#entry3685904

[AlwaysFSX]

Never had problems with amd divers, nvidia always crashed on me.

[flibberdipper]

Nvidia's control panel is a little out of date and feature-lacking compared to AMDs control center. AMDs seem to crash more. Both work in perfect harmony together (both with each other and the Intel integrated graphics).

[ForsakenLive]

I'm actually on the other side; AMD drivers were always great to me for each OS I've been on; while Nvidia only had a clunky experience ready for me. It gets to show you that it's not white or black when it comes to drivers, you will find possible issues on both ends.

 

Personally, the fact Nvidia pushes GeForce Experience down your throat, that is a piece of software that still needs work, is a big con for me. Experience will handle your driver updates and settings; but it's that software that will pop up in the worst moment possible, tell that your drivers aren't up to date (sometimes when they actually are) and once you say 'ok go update, I'm already dead' it will come with "couldn't connect, can't update"; then you reset your PC, try again and it starts doing a very minor update, that wasn't actually drivers, but the Experience client itself. Then you proceed to scratch your head and maybe curse a little.

It feels a little bit invasive; it's going to be there wherever you go, each time you start the system, and open itself because 'notifications'. You can choose to send it away, configure your start and forget about it; but many many Nvidia features are tied to it, instead of being part of the driver, or the control panel. If you want to use some of the big gaming features you paid for you are going to need the Experience client open.

AMD is not so innocent; it still has the AMD Gamer Raptor software, that will  also be necessary to use some of the functionality; but I feel it's more easy to manage, customize and send 'away'. When you update; each time you do it, Nvidia Experience will pop up back again; AMD won't make Raptor reappear as long as you don't select the option for it.

 

Nvidia does have a nice overall experience when it comes to the drivers, optimization and having things working smoth, but I've been using AMD and Raedon GPUs for many years now and I haven't find so many problems. Nvidia in the other hand hasn't been so good with me; specially when I go away from DirectX, It takes only to change to OpenGL or similar, and everything goes to $hit, I enjoy old games, modding, and doing the things not the way they were intended, and it's there when Nvidia lets me down, it feels like they care only for their high end products and the latest titles.

But this is MY experience; relatives and close friends have the same experience I do; but each time I talk with other people it seems that Nvidia is the one doing things better. Currently I'm on AMD but I wouldn't mind changing to nvidia on my next GPU upgrade; I know your mileage will vary when it comes to driver and compatibilities.

[vlkn´]

4 of my friends can´t even install the amd drivers HAHAHHAHA

[Unlikelyjoker]

One is bad (too most people)

the other makes most games unplayable (at least for me)

[Faa]

Here was a good post by @Faa talking about the difference.

 

http://linustechtips.com/main/topic/271700-nvidia-about-dx1112-cpu-efficiencyno-mantle-support-fermikeplermaxwell-will-have-dx12-debunking-some-mantle-with-dx12-assiocated-myths/#entry3685904

That's mainly about API CPU efficiency/driver overhead, basically AMD drivers can cause a good amount more CPU overhead than Nvidia's one. It has little to do with stability and most of the time you won't be plagued by that issue.

[Humbug]

In my experience AMD windows drivers have been a bit better than Nvidia. But truth be told both sides have good drivers now.

 

Don't believe all the fanboy bs. I have a R9 290 on Windows 10, two of my friends have 280x on WIndows 7 and 7870 on windows 7 respectively. At the moment we are all gaming without a problem. Both sides have good drivers with occasional problems.

There was a time years ago when AMD's windows driver wasn't as good as Nvidia. A lot of people are still living in that time and whenever there is the slightest issue with AMD they hark back to that and try to pretend that "AMD drivers suck" etc... Whereas Nvida also has lots of issues as we see complaints everyday all over the Internet but most people treat those as the individual problems they are rather than making silly claims like "Nvidia drivers suck" etc. Their marketing is so good that even when Nvidia takes years to get something like HDMI working properly people won't really be hard on them.

 

btw I say this as somebody who is very critical of AMD's linux performance. So I am not a blind fanboy.

[BuckGup]

By now everything is opinion based...

[Humbug]

In summary buy the best card in your budget; regardless of whether that is Nvidia or AMD.

[SurvivorNVL]

Most people will give their experience and claim that one is better than the other; drivers are drivers.  Both nVidia and AMD have had hiccups.  They both have had massive success stories with driver releases.  There's really no difference in quality as once and awhile they both screw up like all people and companies do from time to time.  xP  The -difference- between each can be found in their control center.  AMD:  Gaming Evolve / Raptr.  nVidia:  Geforce Experience.  All in all, don't worry about it.    Get whatever is the cheapest and fastest, or if money is no issue - get as much of the fastest and post quad sli / crossfire pic's so everyone can cry

[Humbug]

although nvidia never had a issue their drivers have been a+ all these years...

Overall quality has been good but they have their fare share of issues. They've even destroyed a small amount of GPUs with their drivers; which is the worst thing to happen in the history of graphics drivers.

 

Both sides seem to have occasional issues.

[switchkill]

Nvidia drivers have crashed while overclocking, while amd's never,also nvidia's beta one's are bad

[1-800-Taco]

I'm actually on the other side; AMD drivers were always great to me for each OS I've been on; while Nvidia only had a clunky experience ready for me. It gets to show you that it's not white or black when it comes to drivers, you will find possible issues on both ends.

 

Personally, the fact Nvidia pushes GeForce Experience down your throat, that is a piece of software that still needs work, is a big con for me. Experience will handle your driver updates and settings; but it's that software that will pop up in the worst moment possible, tell that your drivers aren't up to date (sometimes when they actually are) and once you say 'ok go update, I'm already dead' it will come with "couldn't connect, can't update"; then you reset your PC, try again and it starts doing a very minor update, that wasn't actually drivers, but the Experience client itself. Then you proceed to scratch your head and maybe curse a little.

It feels a little bit invasive; it's going to be there wherever you go, each time you start the system, and open itself because 'notifications'. You can choose to send it away, configure your start and forget about it; but many many Nvidia features are tied to it, instead of being part of the driver, or the control panel. If you want to use some of the big gaming features you paid for you are going to need the Experience client open.

AMD is not so innocent; it still has the AMD Gamer Raptor software, that will  also be necessary to use some of the functionality; but I feel it's more easy to manage, customize and send 'away'. When you update; each time you do it, Nvidia Experience will pop up back again; AMD won't make Raptor reappear as long as you don't select the option for it.

 

Nvidia does have a nice overall experience when it comes to the drivers, optimization and having things working smoth, but I've been using AMD and Raedon GPUs for many years now and I haven't find so many problems. Nvidia in the other hand hasn't been so good with me; specially when I go away from DirectX, It takes only to change to OpenGL or similar, and everything goes to $hit, I enjoy old games, modding, and doing the things not the way they were intended, and it's there when Nvidia lets me down, it feels like they care only for their high end products and the latest titles.

But this is MY experience; relatives and close friends have the same experience I do; but each time I talk with other people it seems that Nvidia is the one doing things better. Currently I'm on AMD but I wouldn't mind changing to nvidia on my next GPU upgrade; I know your mileage will vary when it comes to driver and compatibilities.

yeah, I haven't noticed anything bad with nvidia drivers except sometimes crashing when I overclock and stuff. I guess I can't judge this based on just someone's experience then. thanks!

[Rubenis]

Both are quite reliable these days,there was a time during the hd 5000 etc when amd drivers use to crash but now are pretty stable,although nvidia never had a issue their drivers have been a+ all these years... As far as linux goes amd cards may cause fps drops in certain games,nvidia drivers are great since they are propertier

Nope. I have had crashes on both sides. I perfer AMD a bit better because of UI and easy OC. Nvidia is anoying for me because of "Nvidia Expierence has update to install." all the time. AMD just updates it self. But both working good, so no complains.