nVidia...cheating?

[Think]

http://theregister.co.uk/content/54/30860.html

"nVidia has been caught cheating by Futuremark with its popular 3DMark 03 graphics benchmarking suite.

3DMark, famous not only for benchmarks that push even the fastest graphics cards to their limits, but also for jaw dropping real-time visuals, tests extensively the performance of various key aspects of a graphics card and then allows different cards to be compared to each other.

Futuremark found that nVidia had tweaked their drivers to render at a lower quality specifically to increase the frame-rate, by over 24%."

Ouch
:eek: :eek: :eek:

[mdzcpa]

To be fair, ATI has also admitted to optimising their drivers for 3DMark2003. ATI claims that there was absolutely no visual degradation in implementing the optimisations and that all frames are rendered as intended by FutureMark. Due to the new 3DMark2003 patch, ATI lost 1 to 2% in score averages.

That said, that is a far cry from what Nvidia did. Nvidia's optimisations actually clipped frames and changed image quality. That's why the anti cheat patch cost them 24% in score.

It's to the point it's hard to care anymore. Trouble is, although the average PC enthusiast can blow all this off and do thier own research, it kills folks like me who build boxes for those who know much less about things PC, but know enough to care about 3DMarkscores (like the gamers I build many rigs for). Try explaining all this to someone whose PC knowledge comes only from magazines like PC Gamer. It's tough.

[Drake]

Originally posted by mdzcpa
It's to the point it's hard to care anymore. Trouble is, although the average PC enthusiast can blow all this off and do thier own research, it kills folks like me who build boxes for those who know much less about things PC, but know enough to care about 3DMarkscores (like the gamers I build many rigs for). Try explaining all this to someone whose PC knowledge comes only from magazines like PC Gamer. It's tough. I agree completely. It's the PC enthusiasts that get upset, and it's the PC inept that get the brown end of the stick having to shift through information to find the truth, or come away with the wrong idea about something...

[darksaint]

Originally posted by mdzcpa


It's to the point it's hard to care anymore. Trouble is, although the average PC enthusiast can blow all this off and do thier own research, it kills folks like me who build boxes for those who know much less about things PC, but know enough to care about 3DMarkscores (like the gamers I build many rigs for). Try explaining all this to someone whose PC knowledge comes only from magazines like PC Gamer. It's tough.

Yeah only the past year did i get really into benchmarking.
Having had to make my own computer with about as much know how as an old lady i always considered a computer a gaming device and a place to chat.

I think it's funny how both companies cheated. Show they just are out ot make a buck anyway they can.

24% is huge though.

[Think]

Well, I was very surprised that nVidia would risk there reputation to the very fans that have aided in there recognition as a dominate player in graphics processors, media and communications devices.

It's true that the PC enthusiasts are the ones that would find this unnerving to say the least, but I also believe that they are the same group that would spend the most time and money are there flagship products lines.

Oh well, there goes another test program out the window.