New Win2000 drivers today?

[turbodog2]

I heard a few people imply that Matrox would release not-beta-anymore drivers today to coincide with the official release of Win 2000. This isn't true is it?

[PaulS]

It's pretty hard to get a straight answer out of Matrox anytime. They have had plenty of time to get these drivers working, they still have bugs that I reported a couple of months ago.

All the excuses from now on are just that, excuses.

Paul

[paulcs]

Did Matrox say this or did "we" say this?

I think Matrox said what it usually says. Not much.

Today, however, nVidia released (drum roll pleased) a press release about how good their drivers will be when they are released.

And 3dfx posted (drum roll again, please) *an excuse* on one of their newsgroups. Apparently, 3dfx has a certification deal with Microsoft which forbids them from releasing betas.

ATI released beta drivers today for the Rage 128 chip, which is pretty scary.

I haven't heard anything from Creative about Live drivers.

I checked Aureal's site. Nothing new.

It seems everyone has been working hard to meet the February 17th deadline.

Paul
paulcs@flashcom.net

[CrazyBee]

on Creative site www.sblive.com they said they will release full-on 2000 drives that have everything that the Win98 ones do.. AudioHQ, etc.

i think theyhave some drivers to make the card work, or, Win2k has support for it..

CB

[Ant]

Hmm well lets look at the current situation:

Windows 98 - current driver = beta
Windows NT 4 - current driver = beta

and you think and OS less than a day old is going to get a not-beta-anymore driver today from Matrox?

[paulcs]

Given that Matrox released betas a week ago, it's hard to imagine final drivers being released today.

Paul
paulcs@flashcom.net

[mj12]

If it makes you feel any better 3dfx.com has no w2k info. The positive is we have beta drivers, although they should be finalized by now! Ok, for the sad one. nvidia.com has a full press release and all right when you enter the site. *sigh* And ati has a page up with dates for all cards and w2k drivers. So looking around the pack it appears that matrox is in the middle. I guess things could be worse, altough they SHOULD BE better.

[LAMFDTK]

Here is your Driver





[This message has been edited by LAMFDTK (edited 18 February 2000).]

[Kruzin]

That's Jeff's paint job from LAST year!
He had a new beta paint job for Daytona qualifying last weekend

[mj12]

Correct me if I'm wrong. But doesn't Matrox have the whql blessing from Microsoft to certify their own drivers? Which might explain the 3dfx thing.

[PaulS]

paulcs, nVidia has released RC drivers, not final sure, but they are available for download, and from the moment you hit their site, you are left with no doubt that they actually think supporting Windows 2000 is pretty important.

Creative is coping a lot criticism in the newsgroups, and they deserve it.

From Matrox press release at http://www.matrox.com/mga/press_room...n2k_driver.htm

"The Matrox beta 5.00.007 driver is expected to be certified by Microsoft in late December 1999. A final Matrox driver will be available for download from the Matrox Web site when Microsoft publicly releases Windows 2000."

Where?

Paul

[paulcs]

That would be the press release I was refering to. The W2K push your seeing if for the Quadro, the GeForce-based CAD board. The 3.78 drivers were pre-released (aka, leaked) a while ago. The leaked release schedule is up to 3.79.

If it make you feel any better, there are stability issues and Quake 3 looks like crap.

Why nVidia can release betas and 3dfx can't without crossing Microsoft is a mystery to me.

Paul
paulcs@flashcom.net



[This message has been edited by paulcs (edited 18 February 2000).]

[PaulS]

I would guess that 3dfx is stretching the truth a little. Mostly likely they are simply stating the obvious. They cannot release drivers as "WHQL certified" until they actually pass testing.

Paul

[PaulS]

Ant, I don't mind Matrox releasing beta drivers for Win9x and NT 4; actually I think it is quite good that they have public betas before a new driver release.

Windows 2000 does not have a stable driver to fall back on though (at least not on my multiprocessor system). Currently I have a very stable system, the only thing that can crash it (and does so with monotonous regularity) is the G400 drivers.

Windows 2000 has been in a completed state for more than 2 months, and a feature locked state for almost 6 months, these aren't new problems.

Paul

[Mark F]

Update on NVidia's W2K drivers-

Official nVidia Windows 2000 drivers now available

at:
http://www.nvidia.com/products.nsf/h...e_drivers.html

Mark F.


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OH NO, my retractable cup holder swallowed a DVD...
and burped out a movie