Nvidia on the hot seat

Besides complaining to Microsoft, users are compiling lists of games that do and do not work on Vista, such as the collections at zetafleet.com(download PDF), compatdb.org and NTcompatible.com.

Graphics chipmakers such as Nvidia Corp., Intel Corp., and Advanced Micro Devices Inc. subsidiary ATI Technologies Inc. are rolling out drivers for existing graphics cards running their chips.

But chipmakers are being criticized because of the slow appearance of those drivers, as well as their unreliability -- even those that have been certified by Microsoft's Windows Hardware Quality Labs (WHQL).

Moreover, graphics chips optimized for DirectX 10 have yet to emerge from Intel or ATI, though the latter is expected to ship its first DirectX 10 processor, the R600, by midspring, according to unconfirmed reports.