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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."

5 of 361 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Make NVIDIA drivers Open Source! by iainl · · Score: 5, Informative

    Lovely idea in theory.

    In practice, nVidia have made it painfully aware on numerous occasions that they CANNOT do this. Its not just them being nasty closed-source meanies. The driver binaries contain licensed tech from numerous third parties that their license doesn't let them reveal the source to.

    --
    "I Know You Are But What Am I?"
  2. Re:High or low level strategy? by somberlain · · Score: 5, Informative

    Well... All I know is, that a lot of companies do this... This is also the case for CD-R/RW-writers. When using tools like Nero CD-Speed etc, this problem is always solved by 'cheating' on the program. Been there for a while in this sector of hardware testing...

  3. Re:Who cares about benchmark software? by Toraz+Chryx · · Score: 4, Informative

    bzzt, quake 3's physics are tied to the framerate, you ca jump slightly higher with a higher framerate. ergo, with 125fps+ you can get to locations via jumppads that are inaccessible otherwise.

    and the fps thing.. well, you're just outright wrong on that, I can easily see a difference between 30fps and 120fps :)

  4. Re:Who cares about benchmark software? by Tipsy+McStagger · · Score: 5, Informative

    the q3 physics when jumping works best with fps's where the rounding errors in calculating the path through discrete points are maximised.

    43 76 & 125 all produce similar results.

    http://ucguides.savagehelp.com/Quake3/FAQFPSJump s. html

  5. For a good explanation... by epicstruggle · · Score: 4, Informative

    as to why synthetic benchmarks are useful please see the following:Beyond3D. This website is probably the best site for info on 3d hardware.

    later,

    --
    "Im drowning here, and you're describing the water!"