Beta Graphics Driver Complaints

[jahn_g]

I just installed the beta drivers for Vista, only to be completely disappointed. I cannot play Call of Duty 2 because of a graphical error that is almost beyond description. While the gamestarts up, when I try to play it, everything is perfect except for the actual gun I am holding. Let me try to describe this to the best I possibly can. The gun is normal size, but it is as if the gun is longer than a ten story building. When I look at a friendly, the gun passes straight through him. When I look at the open sea, the lower half of the gun is actually in the sea. The gun looks completely fine texturally and the vertex shading and lighting is great, but what the hell is going on here? So I got so frustrated with COD2, that I decided to cool off with World of Warcraft, and guess what, another error almost beyond description. Ok, so the game is in a world, and when you look into the distance, then environment slowly fades into the horizon, where the mountains at the furthest point of the horizon are purple. But when I installed these new beta drivers, the horizon is on top of my screen, so that half of my view is blocked, and I am literally blinded by it. What's the deal? I would post some pictures of these bizarre occurances but I don't know how to. Somebody talk to me, what am I doing wrong?

[vnx]

You should better contact directly the game publisher support. Only they can give you an official statement, for game related suggestions .Maybe try to find some help on the official forums ,websites ,newsgroups.

Ok, so the game is in a world, and when you look into the distance, then environment slowly fades into the horizon, where the mountains at the furthest point of the horizon are purple.

Just unbelievable, they didnt fixed these well known bugs since nearly 3 years after the release ,should have been taken out after the last final beta-testing-phase for wow.

[jahn_g]

I think you misinterpreted my error with World of Warcraft. I guess I was a little jumbled while in my rant.

The game is supposed to fade into the background, where the background is purple, becaus the environment is purple.

What is wrong is:

"But when I installed these new beta drivers, the horizon is on top of my screen, so that half of my view is blocked, and I am literally blinded by it."

Instead of the horizon being in the background (aka: the freakin' horizon!!!), it's in the foreground, in front of my character and everything else. It's in front, so I have the purple background skyline in my face blinding me. Wolfgang Tango Foxtrot, WTF is going on. This beta was supposed to be an advancement, not what appears to be a rushed broken driver.

IMHO the older drivers are still the best. I uninstalled the beta drivers, and am using the older 15.2.3. I would use the 15.4.3, but for some strange reason, it works really badly with the source engine (Half-life 2 and CS: Source.) The errors with those games are almost as bad. Every object I come in contact with disappears. Lets say I walk next to a wall, it disappears when I touch it.

Intel's hardware is good, but the software portion is next to embarassing so far. For a four dollar part, I'm not as surprised as I hoped to be.

[jh-nz]

Admitidely the beta drivers are somewhat lame but the fact of ebing able to play games it should have in the first place is nice for me so even though my pc is unstable now (never had been till the beta drivers LOL!) it is a somewhat nice tradeoff.

[agent_j]

Totally agree with you jahn, not only are there visual corruptions, the new 15.6 Beta Drivers for Vista also decrease performance significantly. Here are some benchmarks I ran:
15.4.3.0.1283
3dmark 2001 - 5562 3D marks

3dmark03
3DMark Score 1652 3DMarks
GT1 - Wings of Fury 53.0 FPS
GT2 - Battle of Proxycon 11.4 FPS
GT3 - Troll's Lair 10.2 FPS
GT4 - Mother Nature 9.4 FPS

3Dmark05
3DMark Score 867 3DMarks
GT1 - Return To Proxycon 4.4 FPS
GT2 - Firefly Forest 2.5 FPS
GT3 - Canyon Flight 3.8 FPS

3Dmark06
3DMark Score 529 3DMarks
SM2.0 Score 158
HDR/SM3.0 Score 210
CPU Score 1475
Game Score N/A
GT1 - Return To Proxycon 1.278 FPS
GT2 - Firefly Forest 1.351 FPS
CPU1 - Red Valley 0.475 FPS
CPU2 - Red Valley 0.733 FPS
HDR1 - Canyon Flight 1.702 FPS
HDR2 - Deep Freeze 2.491 FPS


15.6 Beta Drivers
3dmark 2001 - 4208 3D marks 24.3% decrease in performance

3dmark03
3DMark Score 1269 3DMarks - 23.2% decrease in performance
GT1 - Wings of Fury 44.8 FPS
GT2 - Battle of Proxycon 8.0 FPS
GT3 - Troll's Lair 6.8 FPS
GT4 - Mother Nature 8.5 FPS

3Dmark05
3DMark Score 671 3DMarks - 22.6% decrease in performance
GT1 - Return To Proxycon 3.7 FPS
GT2 - Firefly Forest 1.8 FPS
GT3 - Canyon Flight 2.9 FPS

3Dmark06
3DMark Score 425 3DMarks - 19.7% decrease in performance
SM2.0 Score 128
HDR/SM3.0 Score 165
CPU Score 1552
Game Score N/A
GT1 - Return To Proxycon 1.125 FPS
GT2 - Firefly Forest 1.014 FPS
CPU1 - Red Valley 0.491 FPS
CPU2 - Red Valley 0.785 FPS
HDR1 - Canyon Flight 1.371 FPS
HDR2 - Deep Freeze 1.938 FPS