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More 'Application-Specific' Optimizations in NVidia Drivers
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."
a) Is this indicative of a high level strategy by NVidia's management, who's marketing department is pressuring them to have higher 3DMark2003 scores than ATI?
OR
b) Has some low level device driver programmer (intern?) looked to get some easy brownie points by "optimising" the drivers for 3dMark2003 in a slightly clunky way?
Either is quite interesting :) I've been a victim/perpetrator of both in the past.
If we could have the Open Source developer community review and improve these drivers we would not encounter any problems with them. The experience and integrity of the Open Source developer community would be vital for the consumer to take Nvidia cards seriously in the market.
Benchmarks would reflect the actual performance of the card instead of skewing the results in order to garner favorable reviews.
Only when we allow Nvidia to see the benefits of Open Source can we free the graphic benchmark software from the clutches of Matrox.
Wearing pants should always be optional.
If nVidia continues to have these bulky video cards which take two PCI slots and make noise like a whale they just might go by the way side just like 3DFX.
nVidia is walking a tight rope and for the first time in six years I'm actually going to consider buying an ATI. Come September 30th there is 90% chance that I'll have an ATI card on my machine.
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One is born into aristocracy, but mediocrity can only be achieved through hard work.
it matters because companies use 3DMark in determining what vid-cards to put in their systems. It matter because there are no other benchmarks besides 3DMark that let you benchmark features that are not yet found on games. That's the point of 3DMark: To test features that are not yet aailable in games. Games are lagging behind when it comes to implementing features. Hell, Doom 3 is targeted at GeForce's feature-set (you know, the ORIGINAL GeForce. After that we have had GeForce 2, GeForce 3, GeForce 4 and GeForce FX)!
Lesbian Nazi Hookers Abducted by UFOs and Forced Into Weight Loss Programs - -all next week on Town Talk.
Forget about Intel vs. AMD, RDRAM vs. DDR. This is the real political intrigue now. Two cheating hardware companies and the benchmark tool company who hasn't got the guts to stand behind the truth of the matter.
Once again, and this can't be stated strongly enough - synthetic benchmarks really don't tell you what you think you're hearing. Indicative? Yes. Conclusive? Absolutely not. Don't listen too deeply to them.
When this much money is at stake, don't expect to hear the truth from any angle associated with these companies. Remember, we're dealing with marketers and lawyers here...
Actually, that is very interesting. Any bets you've stunbled onto an entirely different cheat?
Let's say Microsoft wanted Outlook to have some special capabilities in the operating system. So the OS recognizes it and gives it special treatment. Another app comes along with the same name and triggers the "special treatment" but can't handle it. Ka-Boom.
This also brings up the possibility of really screwing with these drivers. Go get another game program (QUAKE.EXE or whatever) and rename it to the name of the benchmark. What does the driver do to it?
There is nothing so silly as other peoples traditions, and nothing so sacred as our own.
Part of this is distribution media keeping pace with fixed storage media. Back in 1985, fixed disks were 5-10MB, and distribution media (5.25" floppies) were 360K. You could fill up your 10 MB disk with 28 floppies.
Today, your 120GB disk would require over 170 CDs (at 700MB each) to fill up (leaving compression aside, this is just a back-of-the-envelope estimate). By contrast, a 4GB DVD brings the ratio to 30 disks. Roughly comparable to the numbers 18 years ago. Of course, we are moving on to larger disks; 250GB is now the top end.
Due to the antics of copyright holders and media/drive maker "consortiums", the rate of expansion of distribution media has fallen behind that of fixed storage media. The DVD has still not become the accepted distribution format, despite the fact that DVD drives are nearly as cheap as CD drives, and DVD writers are becoming affordable.
It's time for the computer and software manufacturers to get their act together and move to the next logical step for distribution.
Floating face-down in a river of regret...and thoughts of you...