zox Posted May 24, 2003 Share Posted May 24, 2003 Extremetech was first to break the story where they accused Nvidia of driver cheating.Now there is Futuremark, makers of 3Dmark benchmarksuite involved and they agree with extremetech that Nvidia changed some drivers so whenever you run 3D benchmarks, it trigers detection mechanism and artifically pump up the frame rate lowering the visual quality.When they disable cheat in driver, it lowers framerate by 24% approx.Article on The inquirer:http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=9648Read on more on Extremetech http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,3973...,1103987,00.asp and download Futuremark PDF here http://www.futuremark.com/companyinfo/3dma...udit_report.pdf Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest ThunderRiver Posted May 24, 2003 Share Posted May 24, 2003 Hehe you know nVidia ..they are desparately trying to beat ATI... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest LilBambi Posted May 24, 2003 Share Posted May 24, 2003 You are right Thunder ... they are in a battle ... but really! Doesn't do anything good for their reputation to pull things like that! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gus K Posted May 25, 2003 Share Posted May 25, 2003 That's the problem with all popular benchmarks, everyone's been gearing their tweaking (for years) to do better on them than actual real world applications. The whole fascination with 3DMark , and people always posting their scores seems so silly.But it will be a while before ATI catches up to Nvidia's market share. Although Futuremark's top scorer is ATI. Nvidia holds 7 positions in the top 10. And in the round up of GPU choices, Nvidia accounts for almost 80%. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Prelude76 Posted May 26, 2003 Share Posted May 26, 2003 i never listened to any of those so-called benchmark tests. i go by good ol' 'real world use' tests. i had every sort of ATI card give me nothing but headaches, BSODs, and windows freezes. their drivers used to be appalling. so i switched to nvidia cards. no problems, perfect drivers, great performance. thats my story and im sticking to it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Prelude76 Posted May 26, 2003 Share Posted May 26, 2003 about the nvidia cheating accusation, futuremark's test may have been tweaked, but in almost every other benchmark test in tom's hardware guide, the nvidia beat ATI's best. just in side-by-side overview, the nvidia seems like more advanced chip overall.nvidia GeForceFX 5900 UltraGPU clock 450mhzmem clock 425mhzbandwith 27.2 GB/schip process .13 micronATI Radeon 9800 ProGPU clock 380mhzmem clock 350mhzbandwith 21.8 GB/schip process .15 micronTom's Hardware Guide conclusion:The FX 5900 is able to outpace the Radeon 9800 PRO in all relevant benchmarks and can reclaim the performance throne for NVIDIA. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest ThunderRiver Posted May 26, 2003 Share Posted May 26, 2003 I have the opposite effects. nVidia often gives me nothing but headache, and BSOD..endless BSOD.. every 6 hours periodic BSOD...and after patches BSOD..But I blame it on Dell too for selling such system without testing.Ever since I switched to ATI, I haven't had any problems with it yet..no BSOD never. But recently I bought another nVidia card for my desktop because it is cheap, and the Linux driver works well with it, so it is fine now just for that specific machine. On the other hand, when I was loading the Windows driver..agrr.. BSOD..truly piece of crap Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Prelude76 Posted May 26, 2003 Share Posted May 26, 2003 could it be related to the board? (as in no-name board with graphics chipset on it). i know all of them do this. my board is an MSI nvidia card, and love it. i never experienced a single BSOD due to the card, but got a them lots with both ATI and Matrox cards, but the ATI one was some generic no-name board. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest ThunderRiver Posted May 27, 2003 Share Posted May 27, 2003 I could check, but they are the mobo designed for either Dell Inspiron or Compaq Evo laptops. and my desktop has mobo is made by Super Micro 370 SED. It is a small company, but I would not say it is no name.A lot of times I got BSOD with driver's favult. I can't remember what system file name it was, but it is made by nVIdia. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zox Posted May 27, 2003 Author Share Posted May 27, 2003 ATI had some really bad drivers and Nvidia some good ones, but recently I've seen only problems with Nvidia drivers.At work I have 4 PC's, 2 Dell's and 2 "Specials", all of them with 4 different nvidia cards.Mind you these are all "value" cards, from TNT 32 to MX 440 with 64 Mb.I have never seen so many problems with graphic card drivers then with these PC's.I am the one in charge of maintenance of these PC's and we are running three flavours of Windows, from 98SE , W2000Pro to XP Pro.I tried every update, and every driver out there.It just stinks.Picture quality is poor compared to any ATI card I have ever seen or/and owned.As I said earlier, these are value cards but still, I need 2D graphics, not 3D.It is almost imposible to play any games in 3D without lowering all eye candy down and still it sucks.At home it is different, I have 3 PC's and all three with ATI cards, never problems with any one of them.Picture quality is way higher then any Nvidia one.That is from my own experience, so I guess everybody has different favourite :)Regarding cheating, ATI is not saint either, does anyone remember Quake 3 benchmark when ATI did similar thing with their driver?it plainly sucks when there is no healthy competition and companies have to "cheat" in drivers to achieve their goals ; Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peachy Posted May 27, 2003 Share Posted May 27, 2003 I've noticed that there was two references to Dell. Maybe the IT hardware guy at work is right; Dell is c***! Our current corporate desktop for offices and labs are white box built systems using genuine Intel motherboards, Sapphire Radeon 7000 video for the labs and whatever memory/hard drive is cheap. Our first batch of drives have been Western Digital, now I am seeing Maxtor. Memory modules have been Crucial, Infineon, and some other generic brand. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Prelude76 Posted May 27, 2003 Share Posted May 27, 2003 Our first batch of drives have been Western Digital.if i had a dollar for every WD drive i've seen that's died, i'd be very rich. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
doctormidnight Posted May 29, 2003 Share Posted May 29, 2003 hehe, thats OK, because ATI cheated too Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Prelude76 Posted May 29, 2003 Share Posted May 29, 2003 hehe, thats OK, because ATI cheated too good link, thanksso they BOTH cheated, and Nvidia still came out ahead. heh... go Nvidia! still i think the whole think was way overblown across the wired community. i mean, to tweak the drivers to get faster FPS rate doesnt sound like cheating, it sounds more like IMPROVING. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
doctormidnight Posted May 29, 2003 Share Posted May 29, 2003 If you look at the situation, I think you will find that Nvidia did quite a bit more than ATI as far as "cheating". For example, the tests run exactly as they are supposed to with the ATI card, and the performance increase of 1.9% exists throughout ALL tests, and during in-game performance. Nvidia, on the other hand, basically tried to "fool" the benchmark into thinking certain items were being rendered, when in fact they were not. And ATI already stated that the improvements would be restructured in the next driver release, while Nvidia hasn't really said much. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
quint Posted May 29, 2003 Share Posted May 29, 2003 If you look at the situation, I think you will find that Nvidia did quite a bit more than ATI as far as "cheating". For example, the tests run exactly as they are supposed to with the ATI card, and the performance increase of 1.9% exists throughout ALL tests, and during in-game performance. Nvidia, on the other hand, basically tried to "fool" the benchmark into thinking certain items were being rendered, when in fact they were not. And ATI already stated that the improvements would be restructured in the next driver release, while Nvidia hasn't really said much.Welcome doctormidnight,Interesting info...Is this the good DM from "Off-Topic Lounge"? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
doctormidnight Posted May 29, 2003 Share Posted May 29, 2003 Thats what they keep telling me, but I refuse to believe it Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest genaldar Posted May 31, 2003 Share Posted May 31, 2003 Ati's cards are actually superior to nvidia's. If you look at just the raw info (gpu speed, etc.) then nvidia's are superior, but their implementation isn't as good. Look at the p4 vs te athlon xp. The p4 wins in speed, but in many cases the athlon wins in performance. It's about efficiency.The 5900 will beat the 9800 (stupid numbering the ati should be called the radeon 9.8 and the nvidia should be the fx 2 or 1.1), but ati is releasing a new .13 micron card this summer that should beat the 5900. Hopefully they'll name it the radeon 2 or something.btw the new radeon is supposed to have a redisgned core, the nvidia's haven't really changed since the geforce 2. Much like the new hammer and the p4. Goog analogy *high fives self*. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Prelude76 Posted June 1, 2003 Share Posted June 1, 2003 what's nVidia working on, btw? are they going to make a Geforce5 soon?personally, i think competition is real good. and theres always going to be a leader, back and forth, back and forth, kinda like AMD vs Intel. everyone has their preferences, i like AMD and nVidia combo. but honestly, did you see the stats on all their newest cards? i'm sure no one can see difference between 225 and 230 fps. isn't 30 fps what the human eye sees as fluid motion? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gus K Posted June 1, 2003 Share Posted June 1, 2003 'm sure no one can see difference between 225 and 230 fps. isn't 30 fps what the human eye sees as fluid motion?That's an interesting question. The film we've been watching for years is running at 24 fps, and obviously looks great, video is 30 fps. And of course the movies we've been watching on video at 30 still came from a 24 source (film).Video games are somehow different though. A fast first person shooter at 24 fps seems choppy, at 30 it seems pretty good. All in all I would say in fast games 60 is the magic number, anything higher makes no difference. Could this all be related to the 60 hz line current we have? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
doctormidnight Posted June 1, 2003 Share Posted June 1, 2003 Gus K, you might find this site informative.http://www.100fps.com/how_many_frames_can_..._humans_see.htm Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GolfProRM Posted June 1, 2003 Share Posted June 1, 2003 Dr. That page made my head hurt! Very interesting... very informative as well (although it really didn't say ANYTHING! ).I suppose it's tough to make much sense out of a site like that at 2AM, so may have to read it again in the morning.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest genaldar Posted June 1, 2003 Share Posted June 1, 2003 A lot of it has to do with what you're used to. If you're used to 90 fps then 45 seems choppy. But if you're used to 30, 45 seems extremely fluid. A great example of this is aladin for the genesis. Back then games were around 20 fps (its between 18 and 24 anyway), but aladin was 30. Because of that it seemed so much more fluid than anything else.btw don't try to type after playing age of mythology for 6 hours. My right hand is too used to working the mouse to keep up with my left hand and typing. Interesting feeling though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zox Posted June 1, 2003 Author Share Posted June 1, 2003 Well, it's not just framerate.Don't forget that games evolve too and for example Doom and Half-Life 2 are about to come out.Both games are sophisticated with lot of new bells and whistles.They put enormous task on your Graphic card so it is just natural that cards evolve too.Accordingly they change benchmarks to accomodate latest versions of the games.Game developers still say they are limited by hardware as they can't do what they want.I can tell you that games never looked so good as now and adding FSAA (full screen antialiasing), and other technologies slows down greatly any graphic card, but visual improvement is fantastic.Those high rates of 100 or 200 are just on lower resolutions and and lower bit depth.We are going towards bigger monitors, with higher resolutions and more bit depth so it is just natural that graphic cards follow the path. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gus K Posted June 1, 2003 Share Posted June 1, 2003 Gus K, you might find this site informative.http://www.100fps.com/how_many_frames_can_..._humans_see.htm Cool site, liked the 'blurring' part in regards to film. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peachy Posted June 3, 2003 Share Posted June 3, 2003 Looks like NVIDIA and Futuremark kissed and made up. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Prelude76 Posted June 3, 2003 Share Posted June 3, 2003 woah, Futuremark did total 180! Futuremark now has a deeper understanding of the situation and NVIDIA's optimization strategy. In the light of this, Futuremark now states that NVIDIA's driver design is an application specific optimization and not a cheat .interesting. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest genaldar Posted June 5, 2003 Share Posted June 5, 2003 Looks like 3dmark has a new sponser. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gus K Posted June 5, 2003 Share Posted June 5, 2003 No one has commented how awfull the visuals are in 3DMark2003. Sure doesn't look like it's testing for the latest and greatest. 3Dmark 2001 SE was very pretty and seemed to showcase all of a card's 3D abilities. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
doctormidnight Posted June 6, 2003 Share Posted June 6, 2003 The framerates are low because they developed them to run on future cards as well as todays more advanced units. The same thing happened when 2001SE came out, people were getting scores in the 5-6K range (just like I get in 03 right now).. eventually, cards will catch up. All that development takes time, so in that sense, FutureMark did themselves a favor by making it "forward compatible". Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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