GTX285 vs GTX260+ vs 4850 Performance Test

Drivers

I’ve railed against nVidia’s drivers since November 2006 when the G80 series launched with a plethora of issues, but it’s time to give credit where credit is due. In the six months I used my GTX260+ and subjected it to heavy gaming sessions with a range of titles, I found the drivers to be excellent. You’ve seen over 40 games tested today (some ten years old, like Descent 3) and aside from some performance issues with 8xMSAA, all of them ran and performed perfectly.

I have a library of around 90 games under active play rotation, including a significant amount of legacy titles that I enjoy replaying regularly. At this time I can count the number of issues I have on one hand, and since the GTX285 is basically a faster GTX260+, I can look forward to more of this gaming goodness. This is the way games are meant to be played.

I’ve also noticed that nVidia seems to be releasing official drivers more frequently than 1-2 years ago where it was the norm for 3-6 months to go by between official releases. This is very important because it shows the vendor supports their product, which in turn inspires confidence from the consumer.

The last remaining major driver hurdles are the poor 8xMSAA performance in OpenGL, and the lack of TrAA in OpenGL. ATi has the advantage in these areas, but I believe they can be addressed by nVidia at the driver level.