Driver Issue Responsibility. Microsoft or Card Makers?

[Guest Virtual_Tao]

With all the hoopla about this card and that being compatible with this or that driver for this particular software, I'm kind of curious what the current thinking is. Does a major game developer hold the responsibility of making sure every video card in the world can run coherently with a particular product or....does the video card developer have to ensure that a particular card can handle any somewhat modern game out there? What are your thoughts? Thanks Greg in KAVL

[spotlope 0]

It seems to me that a game developer should be reasonably certain that their product be compatible with at least the primary popular cards/drivers at the time of release. However, video drivers (at least those of ATI and Nvidia) are released much more frequently than revisions of a particular game -- FS, for instance. So once the game is released, I see it as the responsibility of the card manufacturers to make sure their future driver releases are compatible with current games. Of course, they also should stick to the published standards for ActiveX and OpenGL, but in the rush to be better than the other guy, I'm sure they often "bend" the rules a little, and sometimes that comes back to bite them later.

[Guest Virtual_Tao]

AHHH I agree completely. It would seem microsoft probably tested this sim with all the modern cards. But then you factor in operating systems and such and the whole issue gets a little frustrating. Thank goodness I'm running a powerhorse system with 533 Mhz Intel Celeron, 256 MB Ram and 32 MB Radeon VE PCI....LOL. Cheers Greg in Kavl

[Guest 747drvr]

BOTH

[Guest christian]

Also voting for BOTH here...