ATI and NVIDIA Abandoning Vista Laptops?

Heh. Even the manufacturers don’t want to deal with Windows Vista. From day one, I’ve been complaining about NVIDIA’s lackluster support for the big “V” – being lucky enough to capture desktop quirkiness now and again to prove that it’s not PEBKAC (see my YouTube videos). If you have a laptop with Windows Vista, you may be in even bigger trouble:

Microsoft Windows Vista has been out now for more than 6 months. At first ATI was praised for supporting Vista and Nvidia was criticized for not supporting their products. Quietly however ATI and Nvidia has not been providing drivers for mobility/Go customers. I can hear you saying “You’re Kidding Right” nope but I wish I was.

When all else fails, pass the buck and/or blame the user:

We sent off several e-mails to Microsoft seeking their response to ATI and Nvidia’s lack of support for their latest version of Windows and received only default statements or nothing at all. It seems that Microsoft’s response is a lack of response which does make sense. Vista is without a doubt aimed at providing greater visual feedback to users. The interface itself is much more fluid and the capability for things like Dreamscene in Ultimate and Aero in versions starting with Premium certainly do add to the overall user experience. It seems likely that Microsoft’s lack of comment could very well help them sell more copies of Vista to ATI Mobility and Nvidia Go owners that find themselves unable to upgrade or update their systems and are forced to purchase new laptops. Once again Microsoft is pushing upgrading and new hardware purchases like a drug dealer with their latest designer drug. While we feel that this practice is wholly irresponsible and ethically incorrect we cannot deny that it is also the nature of the computer industry.

Microsoft has recently come under fire for the severe shortage of Windows Vista “Ultimate” add-ons, so this video driver news comes to no surprise to many of us. The WDDM (Windows Display Driver Model) is completely new, and I’m guessing that it’s costing ATI and NVIDIA more than it’s gaining them. Could take a couple more years to straighten out the entire ecosystem…

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