Nvidia speaks to Driverheaven - Omega drivers will continue

Zardon · Jul 19, 2003, 10:59 AM

Recently I was contacted by Nvidia via telephone and they wish to work with Driverheaven regarding drivers and other issues, I will be detailing more about this shortly, but they wanted to make this initial statement to our members.

NVIDIA STATEMENT:

There has been alot of discussion recently regarding 'Omega drivers', much of which is based on conjecture or on personal opinion. Although we cannot discuss the situation in detail, we do want to provide some clarification to NVIDIA's position on 3rd party developed drivers. We do, as active members of the 3D community, understand the need and popularity of 3rd party drivers but we have been reluctantly forced into taking this action. However this action is limited to a single occurrence and does not represent a company policy as to future thrid party drivers.

After reports of instability stemming from the third party drivers, we requested the drivers be removed from the website distributing them. The fact that this was being reported to us at NVIDIA implied that the drivers were not clearly marked as non NVIDIA and non official drivers and users were understandably upset that we were not taking action with respect to these drivers.

Only the drivers which users had complained about were asked to be removed from the website and we also asked for our logo to be removed to ensure that end users were not confused as to the origin of the drivers and subsequently the risk involved with using them.

NVIDIA does not, in any way, condemn the development of third party drivers; quite the opposite. We recognize the importance of third party drivers and for this reason we have not asked for work on the specific driver to cease. Our action is intended solely to ensure that the origin of the driver is clearly stated and the end user is made fully aware of the risks they take installing them.

Kgentatszu] · Jul 19, 2003, 11:01 AM

Hurray!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ~LOL

GOG · Jul 19, 2003, 11:05 AM

I don't understand their fuzz about this in the beginning. If there is a guy willing to spend his spare time providing us with tweaked drivers, then they should be happy. I'm assured that 99% of the people downloading Omega's drivers are aware of that they're not downloading the original ones. I do not wish to turn this into another ATI-nVidia flame zone, but one wonders why they are so afraid of people altering their pre-defined parameters.

BWX · Jul 19, 2003, 11:43 AM

It's cool they "changed" thier mind. I wonder why they made a big deal about Omega drivers in the first place. I am still leery. Last year at this time I was a huge fan of Nvidia with my shiny new very affordable and OC'able ti-4200.

A lot has changed since then and Nvidia has put their foot in their mouth so many times. I guess we will see what happens next.

The_Neon_Cowboy · Jul 19, 2003, 12:03 PM

more like oops ... no one is buying our cards ...

QSnexus · Jul 19, 2003, 12:46 PM

More like, oops we didn't expect that kind of response from the enthusiast community. That article was posted on every news site. For one I never bought their lawyer's claim that Zardon's driver was "damaging PC's", that just sounded like a quick excuse to end things. I still say shame on Nvidia..

snake · Jul 19, 2003, 01:06 PM

Yeah ! Sure, dude

I'm really convinced by your "complete support" to third party drivers...
It's a bit like : "We've never cheated in any benchmark... It's quite the opposite!", isn't it ???

njparton · Jul 19, 2003, 01:36 PM

Can anybody give me a link to the latest omega drivers or have they been taken down?

shuki · Jul 19, 2003, 02:12 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Zardon
NVIDIA STATEMENT:
After reports of instability stemming from the third party drivers, we requested the drivers be removed from the website distributing them. The fact that this was being reported to us at NVIDIA implied that the drivers were not clearly marked as non NVIDIA and non official drivers and users were understandably upset that we were not taking action with respect to these drivers.

Only the drivers which users had complained about were asked to be removed from the website and we also asked for our logo to be removed to ensure that end users were not confused as to the origin of the drivers and subsequently the risk involved with using them.

I'm a bit curious as to what omegas interpretation of their communcations was..... in his letter on his site nowhere was it implied that it was one particular driver set .. hmmm

Mac Daddy · Jul 19, 2003, 02:20 PM

It's about time Nvidia got involved.

Maybe we will finally have some incite into what the heck is going on with Nvidia.
They long ago have lost my faith.

Lets see if they can redeem themselves.
I think Omega shows much more interest in trying to provide quality drivers than Nvidia has as of late.

I admire ATI's support of Driverheaven. Lets see if Nvidia can match their participation level.

digitalwanderer · Jul 19, 2003, 02:35 PM

They folded!

Who the hell woke up nVidia and made 'em smell the coffee?!?! Next thing you know they'll be sending me a card to check out!

Mac Daddy · Jul 19, 2003, 02:51 PM

Then you can send me your 9700pro Dig

(I know but no harm in trying)

~~tenndevil~~ · Jul 19, 2003, 03:00 PM

Omega did everything except put a bright neon pink and green sign on his stuff, NVIDIA is just trying to make us think they blew it off. It would be nice if they would be honest for once and just say "hey yours are better than ours, we pay our developers good money to make our drivers, we can't afford to have someone do a better job and for FREE to boot." Lets face it NVIDIA was tired of being shown how to do it, by someone who does it for the fun of it.

Matth · Jul 19, 2003, 03:36 PM

The issues with Omega drivers are really no different to leaked betas - they don't want any hassle from them.

A good thing would be if a suitable disclaimer could be agreed - one way of ensuring that it would be READ, would be to require that the drivers be distributed in a passworded zip file, contained within another zip with a text file containing the disclaimer with the password

digitalwanderer · Jul 19, 2003, 03:51 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Mac Daddy
Then you can send me your 9700pro Dig

I ain't never letting go of that 9700pro. Aside from all the whiz-bang wonders of it, I've just attached way too much sentimental value to this baby to ever let her go.

It's agape baby, and it ain't never gonna end.

Besides, I just got done putting all of Bubbles old innards in Blue...if I put a real video card in her she will be one king-hell of a kicking gaming rig!

(Hey, the barton2500+ is a lot faster sure...but that little tuly gave me enough CPU power for any game out there right now!

)

Zardon · Jul 19, 2003, 03:55 PM

Well I can understand alot of peoples opinions and I have to say I was disillusioned myself ......

ive had a few phone calls and conversations about how they want to improve things and I think its a little rash JUST to dismiss it like that until we see how it all develops?

agreed?

so lets see how it goes, over the coming months ..............

digitalwanderer · Jul 19, 2003, 04:10 PM

I'm light-headed, I'm actually freaking LIGHT-HEADED from this news! I really think this will mark the turn-around for nVidia and I think this is just the site to do it at. They need a place that is credible, and you folks have that in bucket-loads!

Mac Daddy · Jul 19, 2003, 04:16 PM

Agreed Z .........
I for one am glad to see Nvidia getting involved and I am approaching this with an open mind.
I still think were all a little shocked over this development

Quote:

Originally posted by digitalwanderer
(Hey, the barton2500+ is a lot faster sure...but that little tuly gave me enough CPU power for any game out there right now! )

She should keep serving you well in Bubbles as well

karlotta · Jul 19, 2003, 04:53 PM

can anybody point me too other 3rd party drivers for nvidia? they got rid of omegadrive{will he come bac?} and now they say this... is it because there are no other 3rd party drivers out there, untill they give Omegadrive the repsect that ATI does.. they are just FUDing.
i wouldnt put much into this....... Zardon dont fall for the sweet talk to fast.

~~BMG_Cya=-~~ · Jul 19, 2003, 05:26 PM

IMO....nVidia is looking more and more lame-ass everyday. This makes me not want to buy any of their stuff...ever. Coming out and saying someone is making their drivers look bad, and that it should stop, then turning around and saying, well...maybe we will allow it in the future, is about as spineless and mindless as you can get.
Make up your f***ing minds, you friggin a$$ ball-less twats. Jeez...

Besides, Omega would have more time to work on the ATI driver's. Now, he will undoubtedly be busy going through a crap load of red tape with nVidia.
Not trying to disrespect anybody or whatever, just looking at the writing on the wall...possibly. I could be wrong...time will tell.

ToshiroOC · Jul 19, 2003, 06:50 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by digitalwanderer
They folded! Who the hell woke up nVidia and made 'em smell the coffee?!?! Next thing you know they'll be sending me a card to check out!

Digi already hinting to nVidia that they have a chance to redeem themselves in the digitalwanderer.sig? Good luck

I'm pretty enthusiastic about this whole thing... while I think this has more than a big chance of being a cold-blooded "I am a machine, I will sell cards" sort of push, I think at the very least we'll get what we want - more community involvement and feedback with nVidia.

~don · Jul 19, 2003, 06:58 PM

What they should do is make their macromedia rules more leniant like they used to be in the 40.xx so their older customers with stuff like Geforce 3 ti 200's and other cards can enjoy DVDs with their software dvd players! Instead of yeilding them the "you've got a problem with your tv out" bs whenever you try and watch a dvd with 41.xx+ installed.

digitalwanderer · Jul 19, 2003, 07:15 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by ~don
What they should do is make their macromedia rules more leniant like they used to be in the 40.xx so their older customers with stuff like Geforce 3 ti 200's and other cards can enjoy DVDs with their software dvd players! Instead of yeilding them the "you've got a problem with your tv out" bs whenever you try and watch a dvd with 41.xx+ installed.

I agree, but I'll say it in a more general way of saying they would have to get some of their people ACTUALLY INVOLVED IN THE COMMUNITY! Not just a happy-interview is going to do it, they'll have to commit to it and then actually walk-the-walk and stick with it.

Hell, they wouldn't be in the spot they are now if they had maintained any semblance of communication with the "community they support"!

<sigh>

Hmmm....mebbe I'm not quite all over me ranties yet.

~~JAV~~ · Jul 19, 2003, 08:17 PM

Z,

I understand you've had conversations w/NV, but how can you state "Omega drivers will continue" ? Have you spoken to Omega too & he said he will continue or is that just your 'guess' ?

Thnx,

Zardon · Jul 19, 2003, 08:20 PM

I dont "guess" Omega is a good friend and as you know I own the servers all these sites run on, Omega always wants to develop drivers for the community and both of us, meaning myself and him had our hands tied to help support the nvidia users out there. Of course people have to be aware we have real lives so we cant always release sets every week .... so development is done in free time.

Driverheaven support all drivers, ranging from the skilled kX community, to ATI, motherboards etc etc and if Nvidia "let" us........ their hardware.

Omegadrive · Jul 19, 2003, 09:02 PM

Yes, that's true, the nvidia Omega drivers will be continue their development. I can't comment too much right now, but I'll be posting the full info in my site soon, stay tuned...

Zardon · Jul 19, 2003, 09:10 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by karlotta
Zardon dont fall for the sweet talk to fast.

The ball is in their court.

digitalwanderer · Jul 19, 2003, 09:23 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Zardon
The ball is in their court.

"Spike it, SPIKE IT!!!!"

I'm just exciting because I feel like I've been trying to call out nVidia for months now and they're finally coming to play ball in my court...at least that's what it feels like to me.

Half of me is hoping it's sincere, half of me is hoping that they're pulling a PR stunt hoping to use DH like they've been using other websites for years...in which case I think they are in for a very rude surprise.

Just remember Z, the question I most want answered is what their souls taste like....

Midnight Blue · Jul 19, 2003, 09:40 PM

I hope nvidia come good on their word, and its not false promises, I dont think we should be too hard on them yet, maybe they have had some management restructuring and want to connect with their users again. or am I being niave?

This is posted on almost every site ive seen today so its REALLY big news, what would happen if they didnt stick to their word, I think they would lose totally all credibility. I hope to see them supporting such a high quality site, the standard of moderation, editorial content and people here is the highest ive seen on ANY tech site.

hjs · Jul 19, 2003, 10:27 PM

If i was omega i would let them put that drivers in ther ..., and just stick with the nice ATI drivers

Or to dig deep to find even more Sh*t in them.

Jul 19, 2003, 10:59 AM	#1
Zardon DriverHeaven Founder Join Date: May 2002 Posts: 32,481 Rep Power: 162	Nvidia speaks to Driverheaven - Omega drivers will continue Recently I was contacted by Nvidia via telephone and they wish to work with Driverheaven regarding drivers and other issues, I will be detailing more about this shortly, but they wanted to make this initial statement to our members. NVIDIA STATEMENT: There has been alot of discussion recently regarding 'Omega drivers', much of which is based on conjecture or on personal opinion. Although we cannot discuss the situation in detail, we do want to provide some clarification to NVIDIA's position on 3rd party developed drivers. We do, as active members of the 3D community, understand the need and popularity of 3rd party drivers but we have been reluctantly forced into taking this action. However this action is limited to a single occurrence and does not represent a company policy as to future thrid party drivers. After reports of instability stemming from the third party drivers, we requested the drivers be removed from the website distributing them. The fact that this was being reported to us at NVIDIA implied that the drivers were not clearly marked as non NVIDIA and non official drivers and users were understandably upset that we were not taking action with respect to these drivers. Only the drivers which users had complained about were asked to be removed from the website and we also asked for our logo to be removed to ensure that end users were not confused as to the origin of the drivers and subsequently the risk involved with using them. NVIDIA does not, in any way, condemn the development of third party drivers; quite the opposite. We recognize the importance of third party drivers and for this reason we have not asked for work on the specific driver to cease. Our action is intended solely to ensure that the origin of the driver is clearly stated and the end user is made fully aware of the risks they take installing them.

Jul 19, 2003, 11:43 AM	#4
BWX Spinal Tapped Join Date: Nov 2002 Location: USNY Posts: 19,579 Rep Power: 95 System Specs	It's cool they "changed" thier mind. I wonder why they made a big deal about Omega drivers in the first place. I am still leery. Last year at this time I was a huge fan of Nvidia with my shiny new very affordable and OC'able ti-4200. A lot has changed since then and Nvidia has put their foot in their mouth so many times. I guess we will see what happens next. __________________ One Big Ass Mistake America

Jul 19, 2003, 12:03 PM	#5
The_Neon_Cowboy DriverHeaven Extreme Member Join Date: Dec 2002 Location: U.S.A. Posts: 16,004 Rep Power: 78 System Specs	more like oops ... no one is buying our cards ... __________________

Jul 19, 2003, 01:06 PM	#7
snake DriverHeaven Senior Member Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: France Posts: 415 Rep Power: 46 System Specs	Re: Nvidia speaks to Driverheaven - Omega drivers will continue Yeah ! Sure, dude I'm really convinced by your "complete support" to third party drivers... It's a bit like : "We've never cheated in any benchmark... It's quite the opposite!", isn't it ??? __________________ Q6700@3.6Ghz-StrikerExtreme-4ghz OCZPC8500-SLIGeforce8800GT Barton 2600+@2.16 (188x11.5) # GeForce 6800 GT@Ultra 1.5Go PC3200 #Asus A7N8X Deluxe Bios 1008 19209 3DMark06/ 57736 3DMark01/163152 Aquamark3

Jul 19, 2003, 01:36 PM	#8
njparton DriverHeaven Newbie Join Date: Jul 2003 Location: Cheshire, UK Posts: 1 Rep Power: 0	Can anybody give me a link to the latest omega drivers or have they been taken down? __________________ Abit NF7-S 2.0 BIOS 1.7 Enermax 460W 2600+ (210x11) SLK-800A w. Papst 80mm Corsair 2x256Mb PC3200 Twin LL PT (6-2-2-2) Asus V9280S Ti4200 (300/700) Win XP SP1 DX9a Det 44.90 nVidia 2.03 Seagate 40Gb Barr IV Zoom USB ADSL modem

Jul 19, 2003, 11:01 AM	#2
Kgentatszu] DriverHeaven Senior Member Join Date: Apr 2003 Location: Australia Posts: 1,802 Rep Power: 0	Hurray!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ~LOL

Jul 19, 2003, 11:05 AM	#3
GOG Please answer the voices in my head Join Date: Jun 2002 Location: Sweden Posts: 308 Rep Power: 0	I don't understand their fuzz about this in the beginning. If there is a guy willing to spend his spare time providing us with tweaked drivers, then they should be happy. I'm assured that 99% of the people downloading Omega's drivers are aware of that they're not downloading the original ones. I do not wish to turn this into another ATI-nVidia flame zone, but one wonders why they are so afraid of people altering their pre-defined parameters.

Jul 19, 2003, 12:46 PM	#6
QSnexus DriverHeaven Newbie Join Date: Oct 2002 Posts: 18 Rep Power: 0	More like, oops we didn't expect that kind of response from the enthusiast community. That article was posted on every news site. For one I never bought their lawyer's claim that Zardon's driver was "damaging PC's", that just sounded like a quick excuse to end things. I still say shame on Nvidia..

Jul 19, 2003, 02:20 PM	#10
Mac Daddy DriverHeaven Extreme Member Join Date: Jul 2002 Location: Ontario, Canada Posts: 7,950 Rep Power: 65 System Specs	It's about time Nvidia got involved. Maybe we will finally have some incite into what the heck is going on with Nvidia. They long ago have lost my faith. Lets see if they can redeem themselves. I think Omega shows much more interest in trying to provide quality drivers than Nvidia has as of late. I admire ATI's support of Driverheaven. Lets see if Nvidia can match their participation level. __________________ "My mom said the only reason men are alive is for lawn care and vehicle maintenance." - Tim Allen

Jul 19, 2003, 02:35 PM	#11
digitalwanderer Colour Commentator Join Date: May 2002 Location: Highland, IN USA Posts: 5,620 Rep Power: 0	OMMFG! They folded! Who the hell woke up nVidia and made 'em smell the coffee?!?! Next thing you know they'll be sending me a card to check out! __________________ WTF is up with the sigs?

Jul 19, 2003, 02:51 PM	#12
Mac Daddy DriverHeaven Extreme Member Join Date: Jul 2002 Location: Ontario, Canada Posts: 7,950 Rep Power: 65 System Specs	Then you can send me your 9700pro Dig (I know but no harm in trying) __________________ "My mom said the only reason men are alive is for lawn care and vehicle maintenance." - Tim Allen

Jul 19, 2003, 03:00 PM	#13
~~tenndevil~~ Banned Join Date: Jun 2002 Posts: 128 Rep Power: 0	Omega did everything except put a bright neon pink and green sign on his stuff, NVIDIA is just trying to make us think they blew it off. It would be nice if they would be honest for once and just say "hey yours are better than ours, we pay our developers good money to make our drivers, we can't afford to have someone do a better job and for FREE to boot." Lets face it NVIDIA was tired of being shown how to do it, by someone who does it for the fun of it.

Jul 19, 2003, 03:36 PM	#14
Matth Flash Banner Hater Join Date: Jun 2002 Location: UK Posts: 3,210 Rep Power: 62 System Specs	The issues with Omega drivers are really no different to leaked betas - they don't want any hassle from them. A good thing would be if a suitable disclaimer could be agreed - one way of ensuring that it would be READ, would be to require that the drivers be distributed in a passworded zip file, contained within another zip with a text file containing the disclaimer with the password

Jul 19, 2003, 03:55 PM	#16
Zardon DriverHeaven Founder Join Date: May 2002 Posts: 32,481 Rep Power: 162	Well I can understand alot of peoples opinions and I have to say I was disillusioned myself ...... ive had a few phone calls and conversations about how they want to improve things and I think its a little rash JUST to dismiss it like that until we see how it all develops? agreed? so lets see how it goes, over the coming months ..............

Jul 19, 2003, 04:10 PM	#17
digitalwanderer Colour Commentator Join Date: May 2002 Location: Highland, IN USA Posts: 5,620 Rep Power: 0	Strange. I'm light-headed, I'm actually freaking LIGHT-HEADED from this news! I really think this will mark the turn-around for nVidia and I think this is just the site to do it at. They need a place that is credible, and you folks have that in bucket-loads! __________________ WTF is up with the sigs?

Jul 19, 2003, 04:53 PM	#19
karlotta DriverHeaven Junior Member Join Date: Jun 2002 Location: oregon Posts: 83 Rep Power: 0	can anybody point me too other 3rd party drivers for nvidia? they got rid of omegadrive{will he come bac?} and now they say this... is it because there are no other 3rd party drivers out there, untill they give Omegadrive the repsect that ATI does.. they are just FUDing. i wouldnt put much into this....... Zardon dont fall for the sweet talk to fast.

Jul 19, 2003, 05:26 PM	#20
~~BMG_Cya=-~~ Banned Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: U.S.A. Posts: 718 Rep Power: 0	IMO....nVidia is looking more and more lame-ass everyday. This makes me not want to buy any of their stuff...ever. Coming out and saying someone is making their drivers look bad, and that it should stop, then turning around and saying, well...maybe we will allow it in the future, is about as spineless and mindless as you can get. Make up your f***ing minds, you friggin a$$ ball-less twats. Jeez... Besides, Omega would have more time to work on the ATI driver's. Now, he will undoubtedly be busy going through a crap load of red tape with nVidia. Not trying to disrespect anybody or whatever, just looking at the writing on the wall...possibly. I could be wrong...time will tell.

Jul 19, 2003, 06:58 PM	#22
~don DriverHeaven Newbie Join Date: Jun 2002 Posts: 11 Rep Power: 0	What those mofos should do What they should do is make their macromedia rules more leniant like they used to be in the 40.xx so their older customers with stuff like Geforce 3 ti 200's and other cards can enjoy DVDs with their software dvd players! Instead of yeilding them the "you've got a problem with your tv out" bs whenever you try and watch a dvd with 41.xx+ installed.

Jul 19, 2003, 08:17 PM	#24
~~JAV~~ Banned Join Date: Jul 2002 Location: California, USA Posts: 283 Rep Power: 0	Z, I understand you've had conversations w/NV, but how can you state "Omega drivers will continue" ? Have you spoken to Omega too & he said he will continue or is that just your 'guess' ? Thnx,

Jul 19, 2003, 08:20 PM	#25
Zardon DriverHeaven Founder Join Date: May 2002 Posts: 32,481 Rep Power: 162	I dont "guess" Omega is a good friend and as you know I own the servers all these sites run on, Omega always wants to develop drivers for the community and both of us, meaning myself and him had our hands tied to help support the nvidia users out there. Of course people have to be aware we have real lives so we cant always release sets every week .... so development is done in free time. Driverheaven support all drivers, ranging from the skilled kX community, to ATI, motherboards etc etc and if Nvidia "let" us........ their hardware.

Jul 19, 2003, 09:02 PM	#26
Omegadrive Drivers? What Drivers??? Join Date: May 2002 Location: Puerto Rico Posts: 1,526 Rep Power: 61	Yes, that's true, the nvidia Omega drivers will be continue their development. I can't comment too much right now, but I'll be posting the full info in my site soon, stay tuned...

Jul 19, 2003, 09:40 PM	#29
Midnight Blue Spirit Join Date: Jul 2003 Posts: 65 Rep Power: 0	I hope nvidia come good on their word, and its not false promises, I dont think we should be too hard on them yet, maybe they have had some management restructuring and want to connect with their users again. or am I being niave? This is posted on almost every site ive seen today so its REALLY big news, what would happen if they didnt stick to their word, I think they would lose totally all credibility. I hope to see them supporting such a high quality site, the standard of moderation, editorial content and people here is the highest ive seen on ANY tech site. __________________

Jul 19, 2003, 10:27 PM	#30
hjs DriverHeaven Junior Member Join Date: Jun 2002 Location: The Netherlands Posts: 60 Rep Power: 0	If i was omega i would let them put that drivers in ther ..., and just stick with the nice ATI drivers Or to dig deep to find even more Sh*t in them. __________________ My PC