Nvidia Corp., currently the biggest supplier of standalone graphics processors for notebooks and desktops is facing a class-action lawsuit filed by end-users for erratic behavior in the company’s ForceWare drivers for Microsoft Windows Vista operating system. The plaintiff, who has treatened to launch the lawsuit, does not ask for a lot, though, it is unclear whether the demands are going to be fulfilled.

Hundreds of end-users reported complaints about instabilities, erratic behaviour, driver bugs and other kind of issues that they faced because of Nvidia’s ForceWare drivers designed for Microsoft Windows Vista. End-users with various graphics cards, including the latest top-of-the-range GeForce 8800-series, criticized Nvidia ForceWare for poor performance and stability, something, that the logotype “Vista Ready” is not meant to say.

After not receiving a solution or an apology and after seeing that the thread with complaints had been closed and end-users expressing their opinion banned, an end-user from Yarmouth, California has decided to create NvidiaClassAction.org (at press time the site was down) web-site to let all the end-users speak about their issues and collect proofs for filing a class-action suit.

Currently the plaintiff asks for a public apology, anticipated release date of proper drivers, a small bonus/rebate (like a game or a T-shirt) for end-users who suffered from the problems that the ForceWare drivers for Windows Vista as well as removal of “Vista Ready” logotypes from Nvidia products currently sold. While the demands do not seem to be something that cannot be done, they would cause Nvidia tens of millions of dollars and, without the actual legal action, the company is unlikely to fulfill them.

Nvidia, according to InformationWeek web-site, has acknowledged that its Vista drivers have not performed as well as they should, and said in an e-mail that driver development for Vista is “the highest priority in our company”.

“We are working diligently to make sure we achieve and maintain the level of driver quality and reliability that Nvidia is known for. Over the coming weeks, Nvidia and our partners, along with the industry will continue to update Windows Vista drivers to ensure maximum performance on 3D applications and add feature support,” Brian Burke, public relations director of Nvidia said.

This is hardly the first time when Nvidia faces scandals with its high-end hardware and gamers in the last twelve months. Back in May it transpired that certain GeForce 7900-series graphics cards may become malfunction; in early November the company had to recall the yet-unreleased GeForce 8800 GTX graphics boards due to manufacturing flaw, nevertheless, some of such boards were then acquired by end-users; in mid-December it transpired that mainboards powered by the company’s latest nForce 680i core-logic can corrupt data on hard disk drives, work unstably and even not let users to install Windows operating system. Each time Nvidia said it “worked” on the situation and at the end the issues were more or less resolved. However, it is unclear why the world’s largest graphics chip designer consistently fails to tackle the problems during internal testing.