Omega Says "Goodbye" To NVidia Driver Creation
SimGuy
Ottawa, Canada
Omega Says "Goodbye" To NVidia Driver Creation
Omega, the head architect behind the "Omega" line of drivers for both ATI & NVidia based graphics adapters, has said goodbye to NVidia and will immediately cease any and all development on updated quality drivers for NVidia-based graphics boards.
The following is a press release from Omega's website, www.omegacorner.com
Well, as most of you have heard by now, I will not be releasing any more Omega drivers for nvidia cards. I know this must come as a surprise for many since there are a lot of people who trust my work and know that I'm doing all of this to help people. This is what REALLY happened:
I received an E-Mail from nvidia on June 17, it was from one of their attorneys, and he wanted to speak with me personally on the phone. The mail seemed friendly, but since it was coming from the nvidia law offices, I was worried of some kind of lawsuit because of my work. I called him after reading the mail, and he greeted me in a friendly tone, so my nerves started to calm down as soon as he told me that he only wanted to ask me a few questions. He started by telling me that many people filled complaints at nvidia because my drivers where "damaging" PCs and that people thought my drivers where approved by them since I had the nvidia logo on my page, so I corrected him and told him that I have a very clear statement on my page and in the driver installation that warned users about the drivers, that they where not supported by nvidia in any way and in case of problems contact me directly or through the forums. Then he told me that what I was doing was illegal, that I can't reverse engineer their drivers, because it was in the license agreement, so I explained to him that I never did that, that I use registry tweaks and dll swaps to make the drivers work like I wanted, then I used settings and patch scripts that are freely available in tweakers like RivaTuner, plus I add some others that are of my own creation, like the custom resolutions and DirectX optimizations, and at the end I just packed all that work in one simple installer and distributed it freely on the internet. After my explanation the only thing he had against me was the nvidia logo on my page, so he told me that I must remove it immediately because people would get confused an think that my drivers are official nvidia drivers, so I told him that there is no problem, the logo will go. He thanks me and asks my phone number because they will be contacting me again, so I gave him my number and thank him for his time.
After that I removed the logo and didn't heard from them again, I was gonna continue to make the drivers, but had my doubts...
Then, just a few days ago, I got an E-Mail from Zardon telling me that nvidia E-Mailed him about my drivers, and told him to REMOVE THE DRIVERS FROM DRIVERHEAVEN...
Now that does it! One thing is contacting me about my drivers and asking me to stop working on them, another is to force websites to take down the drivers which they host as a favor to the community.
Right now I'm really pissed of at nvidia for that thing alone, first the cheats, then buying Futuremark's statement and now, Take down 3rd party sets that help them by making their customers happy? What's wrong with them!? They think money can buy anything?
They are in the wrong track, they just want to cover all that bad press that they have been receiving lately by buying trust, but TRUST is not something they can buy, is something they must EARN! Gamers know that, they are no fools, maybe they can convince some old guy sitting in a president chair about it, showing him big numbers in synthetic benchmarks and showing their financial year gains, but they can't fool US:
WE are the ones that buy their cards.
WE are the ones that play the games.
WE are the ones that support each other in forums when something goes wrong.
WE are the ones that make their hardware reviews.
WE are the ones that they should listen.
WE are the ONLY ones, that can make a difference...
See ya! nvidia....
Source: Rage3D Forums
Omega, the head architect behind the "Omega" line of drivers for both ATI & NVidia based graphics adapters, has said goodbye to NVidia and will immediately cease any and all development on updated quality drivers for NVidia-based graphics boards.
The following is a press release from Omega's website, www.omegacorner.com
Well, as most of you have heard by now, I will not be releasing any more Omega drivers for nvidia cards. I know this must come as a surprise for many since there are a lot of people who trust my work and know that I'm doing all of this to help people. This is what REALLY happened:
I received an E-Mail from nvidia on June 17, it was from one of their attorneys, and he wanted to speak with me personally on the phone. The mail seemed friendly, but since it was coming from the nvidia law offices, I was worried of some kind of lawsuit because of my work. I called him after reading the mail, and he greeted me in a friendly tone, so my nerves started to calm down as soon as he told me that he only wanted to ask me a few questions. He started by telling me that many people filled complaints at nvidia because my drivers where "damaging" PCs and that people thought my drivers where approved by them since I had the nvidia logo on my page, so I corrected him and told him that I have a very clear statement on my page and in the driver installation that warned users about the drivers, that they where not supported by nvidia in any way and in case of problems contact me directly or through the forums. Then he told me that what I was doing was illegal, that I can't reverse engineer their drivers, because it was in the license agreement, so I explained to him that I never did that, that I use registry tweaks and dll swaps to make the drivers work like I wanted, then I used settings and patch scripts that are freely available in tweakers like RivaTuner, plus I add some others that are of my own creation, like the custom resolutions and DirectX optimizations, and at the end I just packed all that work in one simple installer and distributed it freely on the internet. After my explanation the only thing he had against me was the nvidia logo on my page, so he told me that I must remove it immediately because people would get confused an think that my drivers are official nvidia drivers, so I told him that there is no problem, the logo will go. He thanks me and asks my phone number because they will be contacting me again, so I gave him my number and thank him for his time.
After that I removed the logo and didn't heard from them again, I was gonna continue to make the drivers, but had my doubts...
Then, just a few days ago, I got an E-Mail from Zardon telling me that nvidia E-Mailed him about my drivers, and told him to REMOVE THE DRIVERS FROM DRIVERHEAVEN...
Now that does it! One thing is contacting me about my drivers and asking me to stop working on them, another is to force websites to take down the drivers which they host as a favor to the community.
Right now I'm really pissed of at nvidia for that thing alone, first the cheats, then buying Futuremark's statement and now, Take down 3rd party sets that help them by making their customers happy? What's wrong with them!? They think money can buy anything?
They are in the wrong track, they just want to cover all that bad press that they have been receiving lately by buying trust, but TRUST is not something they can buy, is something they must EARN! Gamers know that, they are no fools, maybe they can convince some old guy sitting in a president chair about it, showing him big numbers in synthetic benchmarks and showing their financial year gains, but they can't fool US:
WE are the ones that buy their cards.
WE are the ones that play the games.
WE are the ones that support each other in forums when something goes wrong.
WE are the ones that make their hardware reviews.
WE are the ones that they should listen.
WE are the ONLY ones, that can make a difference...
See ya! nvidia....
Source: Rage3D Forums
0
Comments
//edit//
Its www.omegacorner.com (no s next to the a.)
I hope you're kidding...
Of course I am!
fanboy! just kidding!
This is my next card
What area of Houston are you in?
The driver issue was fixed with the recent catalysts, and the boost it received in two games (Doom and HL2 demos) don't save it from the power of the 5900 Ultra.
Everytime I see the Bitchin'Fast 3D, I can't help but laugh! A great classic!
Thankfully, D3D fixed this. Because of this, 3DFX went under. Cause once Glide and the need for irritating brand specific APIs were obsolete (which was all 3DFX really had, the fastest easiest to program API), and they're D3D compadibility was crummy compaired to the then tiny nVidia, they went under faster then the Titanic.
Anyways, I for one never even heard of these Omega drivers until now. Did they really speed anything up?
So, Omega says he never actually reverse engineered the DLL's? That to nVidia doesn't mean he didn't. They are suspicious and obviously want to protect their IP. Is it good for the community? No. Is it good for nVidia's business model? Yes.
The Omega drivers fixed graphical glitches and did improve visual quality. They were more about visual rather than performance fixing
No lawyer in the world is gonna win a suit of IP on freely distributed things. Y you ask, cuz you dont have to actually own a nvidia card to download the drivers. They are free, also if he modifies the drivers by 20% then they dont own IP anymore. 20% changes to things generally null copyrights and patents allowing for the editor to copywrite or patent. Im however am not up to date anymore on patent law and could be way off but thats my .02
Tek
I'm not very familiar w/ the different 3D-APIs.
I've never done any game programming.
All I know is that BF3D is funny stuff
there seems to be some debate on that issue..
GamePC: GFFX 5900 Ultra 256MB vs ATI R9800 Pro 256MB, R9800 Pro 128MB, R9700 Pro 128MB, R9600 Pro 128MB
Which card is faster depends on the resolution and quality settings.....
HardOCP: GF 5900 Ultra 256MB vs Radeon 9800 Pro 256MB
Both cards Kick Ass. I'd pick which ever was the cheaper of the two.
THG: Video Card Guide
5900 Ultra vs R9800 16x12 No FSAA & No Ansio
5900 Ultra vs R9800 16x12 4x FSAA & 8x Ansio
Anyway, the only time I used Omega drivers was for XP and ME on my old Voodoo 3 card as they fixed some problems, just upgraded it to a GF4MX anyway, so the problems are now gone.
NS
Thrax's is mostly right, that except for Hi-Resolution and High Q settings the 5900 Ultra usually benchmarks higher than the R9800 Pro