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I'll be the first to admit that the extent of my knowledge of graphics cards and drivers doesn't extend much past how to install them. Maybe I'm wrong, but it

I'll be the first to admit that the extent of my knowledge of graphics cards and drivers doesn't extend much past how to install them. Maybe I'm wrong, but it seems to me that on the dual-boot systems I've used (mostly machines designed for cross-platform testing) Linux and previous versions of Windows (notably XP in its SP 1 iteration), seem WAY more forgiving than Vista and don't crash or recover gracefully in situations where Vista bombs. Admittedly, this is based on personal anecdotes and, as the saying goes, the plural of "anecdote" is not "data".

pmjordan 19y ago
Well, my theory is that the problems are caused by the fact that Vista uses 3D acceleration for its Aero Glass UI. Graphics drivers almost never crash in 2D mode in my experience, on both WinXP and Linux. 3D mode tends to be much less robust. Having programmed 3D graphics hardware on the "down to the metal" level in game consoles, I'm not that surprised. GPUs hare hugely complex and tend to have a significant amount of hardware bugs or quirks that can make the developer's life really hard. By the way, I don't use Vista on any of my systems (yet) so I'm just assuming that the reports of instability are accurate.