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More 'Application-Specific' Optimizations in NVidia Drivers

Posted by michael on from the but-it's-not-cheating-so-there dept.

EconolineCrush writes "Futuremark and NVIDIA have been embroiled in a spat over various cheat/optimizations in 3DMark03 for several weeks now. Last week, the soap opera appeared to be over; Futuremark and NVIDIA released a joint statement in which Futuremark clarified that NVIDIA was optimizing its drivers for 3DMark03 rather than cheating. This story, however, appears to be far from over. Tech Report has uncovered a new series of optimizations in NVIDIA's Detonator FX drivers that affect image quality in even Futuremark's latest 3DMark03 build. What's more, if you rename the 3DMark03 executable, the optimizations disappear."

17 of 361 comments (clear)

  1. and they all told me I was crazy.... by sweeney37 · · Score: 5, Funny

    well luckily for me I've renamed all my executables files 3DMark03.exe for some time now.

    Mike

    1. Re:and they all told me I was crazy.... by orkysoft · · Score: 3, Funny

      So, do the other people in your network FPS games already accuse you of "wallhacking" ?

      --

      I suffer from attention surplus disorder.
    2. Re:and they all told me I was crazy.... by Mysticalfruit · · Score: 4, Funny

      So NVIDIA is guilty of using corked drivers?

      Geez! On a side note, I had heard of something like that where some site recommended that renaming your executable to some "name" would give better results.

      I think someone should run "strings" on the nvidia driver to see what other names work...

      --
      Yes Francis, the world has gone crazy.
  2. Cheaters never win! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    Just ask Microsoft.

    Oh...wait...

    Never mind...

  3. Renaming by jabbadabbadoo · · Score: 5, Funny

    I tried various tricks too. Oddly, renaming it to Outlook.exe made it crash.

    1. Re:Renaming by crawling_chaos · · Score: 5, Funny
      Oddly, renaming it to Outlook.exe made it crash

      It also sent an e-mail with "I Love You" in the subject to all of your contacts. I wonder if the reason for delays on the FX card was that they'd renamed the burn-in application DukeNukemForeever.exe?

      Thank you, thank you. I'll be here all week.

      --
      You can only drink 30 or 40 glasses of beer a day, no matter how rich you are.
      -- Colonel Adolphus Busch
    2. Re:Renaming by Carbonite · · Score: 4, Funny

      I wonder if the reason for delays on the FX card was that they'd renamed the burn-in application DukeNukemForeever.exe?

      Damn, NVidia's going to be pissed. They delayed the launch of the FX cards and misspelled the file name.

      --
      ich muß mehr Kuhglocke haben
  4. I hope... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Funny

    they didn't rename it to quake3.

  5. By the time... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    It doesn't make sense to buy a card to run Doom 3 when the game isn't out. Here is a clue, when Doom 3 does come out I will be able to buy something as powerful as the FX 5900 for $150. ...Duke Nukem Forever comes out you can get one for $25.

  6. Sweet Irony by zeus_tfc · · Score: 4, Funny

    Does anyone else see the irony in the fact that the "Graphics" topic doesn't have a picture?

    --
    "...At the end of the day"..."when everyone goes home, you're stuck with yourself." RIP Layne Staley
  7. Re:the lengths people will go to... by avalys · · Score: 3, Funny

    Hopes and dreams? We're talking about video card benchmarks!

    --
    This space intentionally left blank.
  8. Card change by S.I.O. · · Score: 2, Funny

    Dang! I just replaced my GeForge MX with an ATI 9700 - now I have to rename all of my EXEs from 3dmark03.exe to quake.exe

  9. How about this by confusion · · Score: 3, Funny

    How about optimizing the driver for all applications???

    Or is that just being silly?

  10. Renaming my q3.exe by Japie · · Score: 2, Funny

    If I rename my quake3's q3.exe to 3DMark03.exe will I get some extra fps? :-)

    Ok ok, I shut up....

  11. Re:Make NVIDIA drivers Open Source! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    Yeah sure!! They "CANNOT" do this because of these nasty patented third-party cheatshhhh optimizations! ...oh, wait... now i know : maybe there's some SCO code in nVidia drivers??!;o)

  12. Re:and they all told me I was crazy..Suspend Them! by Nom+du+Keyboard · · Score: 2, Funny
    So NVIDIA is guilty of using corked drivers

    So suspend them for 8 games, unless they are a big superstar and appeal.

    And go back in the archives to see if they ever said, "You can test me for steriods any time -- except right now, of course."

    --
    "It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
  13. Re:and they all told me I was crazy..Suspend Them! by Mysticalfruit · · Score: 2, Funny

    so if an executable prefetches libraries, is that called "executable doping"?

    I can see in now...
    --headline--
    Microsoft admits to executable doping, anonymous sources heard talking about how they "knew" their executables loaded too quickly. Microsoft spokesperson read a public apology to all executables that had ben resource starved because of the malaction of their executables.

    --
    Yes Francis, the world has gone crazy.