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NVIDIA Abandons Vista Media Center Users
Published by Mike
18th June 2007
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NVIDIA Abandons Vista Media Center Users
By Adam Turner - www.itwire.com.au
 Thinking of building a Vista-based media center? Don't even bother with the NVIDIA graphics cards, because NVIDIA hasn't bothered to enable some of the most important features in its Vista drivers.
I'm currently building a dual boot XP MCE 2005/ Vista Home Premium media center - I opted for dual boot because people kept telling me Vista isn't ready to be trusted as a mission critical home entertainment device. Media center PCs let you do things like watch and record television (even several channels at once), play DVDs and enjoy your digital library of music, movies and photos. Basically your one-stop entertainment shop.
While I've found Vista's media center surprisingly good, although not perfect, the Vista drivers for NVIDIA graphics cards are a joke if you're building a media center. Cards like Gigabyte's GeForce 8500 GT and 8600 GTS would seem to be dream home theatre graphics cards, the spec sheets read beautifully, but thanks NVIDIA these cards don't deliver the goods.
Read more . . .
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Re: NVIDIA Abandons Vista Media Center Users
poor Adam. Definitely, for those who own lower (weird ass) rez TVs, this is the major red flag for DIYers.
Still, It would be interesting to see his specs, mainboard especially... eg. trying to plonk an 8600 on an older mainboard with superceded ATI or nvidia chipset is foolhardy, to say the least. If he has a newer, Vista certifed mainboard - then that's a different story entirely...
Many of us here build gaming and MCE rigs as a job(full time or otherwise) When planning a build for someone you must really lay out all the cards on the table for your client etc - irrespective of your personal opinions or preferences.
If you arent doing this then you are being biased. If its an MCE build, and they have one of those TVs, then you clearly outline the limitations and give a copy of the release notes to fully explain this and justify your recommendations.
A well informed client is a happy one, and one that is in an empowered position to make the most appropriate decisions for their needs....and not end up frustrated and miserable like poor Adam.
It must also be said that ATI users are far from hassle free in Vista. But Adam doesnt seem to be interested in presenting *all* relevant facts, just venting his frustrations in the only place such geeky whining are tolerated....the "internets". ATI (*cough*) AMD are simply presented as the heroic "archrival". If Adam, or ITwire have jornalistic standards, maybe they got erased when they deleted their browser cookies for the week 
All any reader can hope for in a tech article is a well informed discourse, not a geeky "Agony Aunt" letter as presented here.
Still, if he jumped into Vista without properly researching that, he has no one but himself to blame IMO. Lucky he is dual booting 
If you have a 720p TV, a Vista certified motherboard and 2gb RAM - then it is unlikely you'll have Adam's problems. There are some reported issues for those with 1080p displays, but these are definitely GPU specific and not worth making a generalisation over.
I've been using nvdia cards in a Vista build of my own since Vista RC 1 - with no hassles at all. I definitely havent noticed the hardware acceleration business Adam is mentioning, though these type of problems are always build and component specific. So it is likely to be as issue for someone, somewhere(as with anything) !
Still, I would like to add that saying nVidia has abandoned MCE users, whilst a bit melodramatic, is close enough to being accurate ''for the moment.''
Ive said elsewhere in this forum that the HDTV-centric issues do not seem to be the focus aas reported at beta testers forums. Of course, Im not fully in the loop about upcoming HDTV specific fixes as I'm doing SLI/quad. Of the listed fixes and reports that trickle through...most of it is general compatibility, games and now high end visual apps ; understandably, the core constituent of their market. It sucks, but they're the facts. I did notice some unorthodox resolutions have made it into the control panel in the latest betas, as has the help file for it(lolz!!)
moral of the story(common sense really):
For a Vista build:
*research your build, especially if you have older components and a strange rez TV
*If you arent a 100% happy that is going to turn out right, stick with XPMCE, or buy an ATI card that's reported to deal with the issues you face.
and
*Come to AMCC for the real scoop, not to mention support, advice and encouragement from some really knowledgable and helpful people. >>Kudos to Mike and Mod Crew, and the regulars  There are countless people where AMCC has become the key source of information that has made their HTPC a vital and fully functioning part of their AV setup. (Im one of them!)
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Last edited by Astrotoy7; 18th June 2007 at 11:21 AM.
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By
impact
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18th June 2007, 10:44 AM
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Re: NVIDIA Abandons Vista Media Center Users
If thats the type of ill informed biased article of bashing journalism, then I can hardly wait to read his 'ultimate htpc' article. Not.
Another gutter journalism attempt that does nothing to promote htpc in Australia.
Oh well, I'll just keep reading, laughing to myself....
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By
imelda
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18th June 2007, 10:54 AM
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Re: NVIDIA Abandons Vista Media Center Users
I don't want to add Adam to my Australian IT Journalists who prefer controversy and article hits instead of providing informed and balanced articles.
I think it's pretty rare for a journo to be so open in asking for assistance for writing an article.
Please Adam, don't make me add you to the hall of shame. You really don't want to be in the same category as some of the previous winners.
i
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Re: NVIDIA Abandons Vista Media Center Users
As best as I tried to demonstrate that I am actually *not* a biased nvidia user(points at avvie), I'm glad it wasnt just me who thought it was an unbalanced article !!
You're being very tolerant Imelda It's a totally unbalanced article. All it needs to be as crap as all others is some DRM scaremongering !!
His being open in asking for assistance is simply an admission that he doesnt know anything about the subject. You dont need to be a system builder to know that older kit won't work well with Vista(if that was the case), and reading the release notes before buying a graphics card and shifting operating systems is a good idea.
It's common sense.
Methinks his little help thread will slow a bit after this....
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By
GlenR
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18th June 2007, 11:19 AM
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Re: NVIDIA Abandons Vista Media Center Users
Gasp! nVidia doesn't work in Vista Media Center PCs! Obviously I'm only imagining what I'm seeing at home. How unbalanced was that article.
I have a 6600 nVidia in my rig and it gives a very nice 720p output most of the time. Sure, the old XP drivers allowed greater control and I would prefer to have that back, but it's not a complete disaster as this guy implies. Most of the time I'm more than happy with my picture and can't justify running out and buying a new GPU for the few niggles I have.
The biggest issue I have is with DVDs sourced from video tape. The deinterlacing is crap and I get severe combing. Never had that under XP. Fortunately, I don't have a lot of these so I can put up with it for the time being, but I do hope nVidia fix it fairly soon...
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By
AshW
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18th June 2007, 11:20 AM
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Re: NVIDIA Abandons Vista Media Center Users
I think we are all aware of the limitations with Nvidia at the moment. Empasis on Nvidia.
Adam has turned this around into an article that will turn people off Media Center. Some people may not need the features Adam has decribed as 'Problems'. I'm happy with the slight overscanning I have at the moment. I understand that it could be better but it's not a show stopper.
An option is to have someone who knows what they are doing setup the machine and integrate it with your gear (as you would with a lot of AV gear anyway) if you aren't sure what you are doing yourself.
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By
arkay
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18th June 2007, 11:30 AM
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Re: NVIDIA Abandons Vista Media Center Users
Still. You have to admit that the lack of overscan compensation. Non standard video mode support and hardware decoding IS a problem that Nvidia have not addressed for MCE users.
Personally. "Having" to put up with a little over/underscan, or a res that isn't quite right, or sub optimal performance when you've payed for the hardware to get that performance isn't good enough.
It's a Media PC. How many would be tolerant of a STB that couldn't display the picture properly?
It may not be a problem for every user, or seen as a problem by every user, but it's still a problem and a lack of functionality to anyone that had that functionality and used it in XP but can't have it in Vista (even after such a long time frame since RTM).
Cheers,
Arkay.
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Re: NVIDIA Abandons Vista Media Center Users
Yes I'll admit to being a little in both camps here too. I tried a beta version with the overscan/underscan tool in it but it was very unstable. For me that's probably the only shortcoming of the Nvidia drivers apart from the lack of custom timings. The truth is that my card was manufactured with XP in mind and the fact that Nvidia are attempting to make it Vista compatible is a bonus but none the less, one of the very reasons why I bought Nvidia in the first place. In the end I'm a bit dissappointed but still optimistic. In truth I'll have to source a new card once I buy a HD capable DVD player anyway so it's not the end of the world if they never get it right. Just a temporary inconvenience. It may however influence what I buy next!
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By
vlad
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18th June 2007, 12:56 PM
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Re: NVIDIA Abandons Vista Media Center Users
Oi
NVidia has promised to fix all Media Centre problems in March !!!
Your loyalty has no boundaries, or some reasonable expectation from a company like NVidia. Please give them another year or so.
The article is harsh, I must admit, but facts are true:
- no overscan resolution
- no custom resolutions/timings
- no hardware mpeg decoding.
To attack Adam personally is not a good way to state your opinion. It is his article and his point of view. I am very sure that if anyone of you has written article in ITWIRE there will be plenty of "unbalanced" people to attack you.
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Re: NVIDIA Abandons Vista Media Center Users
One thing I've noticed since I started writing for ITWire is that many readers don't seem to distinguish between a blog entry and a news item, which is understandable considering ITWire lists them all together.
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I don't want to add Adam to my Australian IT Journalists who prefer controversy and article hits instead of providing informed and balanced articles.
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I draw a big line between the opinion I write for a blog and a what I write in a news or feature item - they are different things serving different purposes. What I wrote on ITWire was my opinion, but it's still based on the facts and it's something people building media centers need to be aware of.
As Vlad says (and most of you seem to agree):
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The article is harsh, I must admit, but facts are true:
- no overscan resolution
- no custom resolutions/timings
- no hardware mpeg decoding.
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If I had purchased all the equipment I'm currently testing, I would be very angry to discover all these features missing from the NVIDIA drivers.
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Adam has turned this around into an article that will turn people off Media Center.
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I don't think so, I went out of my way to say that I've been pleasantly surprised at how good Vista MCE is, and that this problem doesn't apply to all graphics cards. It's certainly not anti-MCE.
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His being open in asking for assistance is simply an admission that he doesnt know anything about the subject... Methinks his little help thread will slow a bit after this....
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I would think members of this group would appreciate that I've made the effort to turn to experts such as yourselves in an effort to do a good job of this media center article rather than assuming I know everything and making a mess of it. I appreciate the help I'm getting from people and I hope it will continue - if for no other reason than to assure I do a decent job of it so media center comes out looking good in the story. |
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Re: NVIDIA Abandons Vista Media Center Users
What I'd like to see is a statement by NVIDIA where they expressly state they are dropping support for MCE. Then and only then would the article or blog actually have some merrit beyond the fact the driver docs actually do state what they will not do for MCE as of yet. Yet being the inference to getting the extra functionality going at some stage. Obviosly the OP and NVidia seem to differ on the issue, but maybe the OP has more knowledge of NVIDIA's intent than NVIDIA.
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By
seemac
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18th June 2007, 01:59 PM
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Re: NVIDIA Abandons Vista Media Center Users
I'm not sure what I'm missing here, but what is the big deal with overscan correction in NVIDIA drivers? Vista Media Center applies automatic overscan correction if you specify in setup that you are outputting to a TV. Once this is done, I don't have any overscan issues using the media center interface or watching video/tv etc.
Once you are not in Media Center interface, overscan can be a problem on the Windows desktop. How much of a problem this is will be different for each of us, but for me I just change display profiles to one which doesn't get overscanned.
Especially now the guide issue seems to be resolved, I have no hesitation recommending a Vista Media Center solution even using NVIDIA. To categorically state that the drivers are a joke and not to bother with any media center using NVIDIA is clearly against the experience of many. Yes, it's annoying that the drivers aren't perfected yet but they work well enough to give a workable and satisfactory media center system.
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Re: NVIDIA Abandons Vista Media Center Users
Quote:
Originally Posted by vlad
.... I am very sure that if anyone of you has written article in ITWIRE there will be plenty of "unbalanced" people to attack you.
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Not one person who has replied here is defending nvidia, or not acknowledging the facts which yourself, now Adam and many others have pointed out. They are facts. But discerning readers want *all the facts*, not just the facts that serve an argument/rant.....that is bias.
This is what is missing here - ATI/AMD cards are pretty much presented as flawless, countering all of nvidias shortcomings mentioned. They definitely have the edge for mce only machines for people with low rez TVs. Thats is the the key point. The other stuff is much of a muchness, and really would need further analysis of an individuals hardware choices to comment on.
It would be nice to know what proportion of users use low rez TVs. I'd daresay it would be mainly those who started MCE-ing early post 2002. Any newcomers are likely to be hip to this and choose an appropriate TV...either that or get stooged by a slick Harvey Norman type
On board ATI graphics platforms are really struggling in Vista(compared to their nvidia counterparts even with their problems in tow) There are also filtering, noise, artifact and interlacing issues reported by many, some of which have been fixed(with reg hacks), some of which have not. As mentioned before, there are also basic hardware compatibility issues in Vista, with different mainboard chipsets not playing well with Vista and the GPU. Alot of important stuff to consider !
These are all details that aren't elaborated upon - and would be really important info for someone considering a HTPC jump......
this is the type of response that article causesL
"Bugger that! Im not getting a 'media center' Those graphics cards dont even work!"
(ive heard this, or something similar, numerous times when talking about my setup to curious non tech types)
wouldnt it be better to have:
"Im glad I read that article! Lots of info about all the available choices. I have a 720p LCDTV it sounds like it will be ideal to start building my vista htpc"
As the article was MCE specific, we will omit the gaming performance of ATI cards. Not everyone has a "just TV" machine. Even my htpc gets used for some light gaming.
This doesnt mean "one is better than the other" simply it would be a more comprehensive article if it was all presented. It wasnt.
Couple that article with the DRM stuff floating around and many readers will be totally averse to the idea of an htpc.
Anwyay, If someone is researching this info - they will come across hopefully more than Adam's article, and be able to get some more detailed information, rather than a rant.
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Originally Posted by AdamTurner
I draw a big line between the opinion I write for a blog and a what I write in a news or feature item - they are different things serving different purposes. What I wrote on ITWire was my opinion...
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are you taking the mick ?? Your article headlines under "BREAKING NEWS" on Itwires front page. Go into the page itself....there is no "Adams Blog/Opinion/Rant" like many sites have. It is presented as an article. Someone flitting across that site will see that "headline" and be drawn to it. Isn't that why you wrote it like that ?? That's some "Today Tonight" journalism if I ever saw it
Did you try approach nvidia for comment. Let me guess the answer = NO. If you site was as big as engagdet for example, youd probably suffer from presenting it the way you did. It was *not* presented as a blog entry, or on an opinion page...
Presenting it it "breaking news" like that is simply dishonest. At least put a question mark on the end of it...lolz...because it is not news! Your article boils down to some "smash n grab" facts that are quite inadequate as far as being the complete picture when building a htpc.
Hiding behind Itwires practise of mixing reports and blogs together doesnt cut it. If anything it should make you question that policy.
Finally, AMCC has given you an 111 post reply in your thread here...you didnt even mention this lovely resource in your blog/article.... maybe a good thing ?? (IMHO)
astro
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By
aswigon
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18th June 2007, 02:12 PM
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Re: NVIDIA Abandons Vista Media Center Users
You have to admit there is some truth to what he has written. Nvidia have had more than enough time to get some of these issues resolved. It is not like they only got a copy of Vista yesterday! I understand the need for them to listen to the major portion of their market but it surely wouldn't hurt to push through the development of some of this funtionality instead of trying to lay stakes to the claim of having the fastest GPU on the planet.
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