Is NVIDIA cheats on 3DMark and UT3?
As you know,3DMark Vantage has four major components, two CPU and two GPU. One of the CPU subtests is a physics-based test. The physics test is based on the Ageia PhysX API, a fairly widespread API in use by a large number of games.NVIDIA had transfer the physics test to the GPU totally within the help of ForceWare 177.39.Instead of it running on the CPU or on the PhysX chip, it is running it on the GPU. It owns the GPU and it’s drivers along with the physics API and all those drivers. This is a dangerous situation.
Then is the UT3 test,look at the install guide below by NVIDIA,steps 4 and 5 that say “Uninstall the existing AGEIA PhysX v7.11.13 driver (installs with UT3 installation).” and “Install the new PhysX 8.06.12 driver.” Same with 3DMark Vantage, and they offer the helpful hint of “GeForce PhysX is enabled in CPU Test 2. We recommend testing in Performance Preset for the best final score with GeForce PhysX. In Extreme Preset the score is mainly determined by the GPU score. A faster CPU Test 2 result will not make much difference.”
This means two things, when you are running 3DMark Vantage with the 177.39 drivers, you are not doing the same work as every other driver running 3DMark Vantage. You are doing a completely different workload on 25 per cent of the tests. To rub salt into the wound, Nvidia then tells you that the Extreme preset, the one meant for high-end GPUs, doesn’t show off the cheat sufficiently, so use one that weights it more heavily.
Nvidia has not submitted 177.39 for approval, and likely will never do so because the chance of it being approved are something between zero and having to buy Futuremark. Until they submit a bad driver, no harm, no foul. The Futuremark policy is that if it isn’t up on ORB, it isn’t a 3DMark score, and that is quite sensible.
Nvidia engineers know that there is no way they can get this driver approved, so they don’t try. They know they are not running 3DMark, but they don’t even try to hide it. They are however disingenuously doing a different workload and trying to cynically pass it off as the same old workload. There is a word for this behavior, cheating.
[From：theinquirer]
June 24th, 2008 at 3:39 pm
They have cheated before, cheated now, and will cheat again.
June 24th, 2008 at 3:47 pm
Pimpidia Cheatidia
June 24th, 2008 at 4:48 pm
Read all the comments @ The (lame and fanboy) Inquirer.
The only one who cheats it’s the author of this bull.
June 24th, 2008 at 5:09 pm
how to say?CrazyBen
June 24th, 2008 at 6:57 pm
Don’t talk about why is it doing it? it’s “the way it’s meant to be played”(haha)
June 25th, 2008 at 10:28 am
Neo:
The author of this clearly doesn’t believe that PhysX supporting drivers will ever go public …. I’d call that absolute crap. It isn’t cheating, because there are no hidden disadvantages/etc to the method.
Its like saying that ATI can only use 128 shaders, because that’s all that NVIDIA use in the equivalent product lines. And that using more than 128 shaders is “cheating”. Of course, this isn’t the case.
PhysX on GPU is valid, get over it (and go read the AMD/Havok press releases).
t
June 26th, 2008 at 4:12 am
Typical Nvidia cheating once again. Its how a shady company runs their business. Then they have all their fanboys to defend their cheating.
June 26th, 2008 at 6:08 am
Thanks for the laughs to you who calls this cheating.
The PhysX just moves the physics processing from the CPU to the GPU, no cheating IMO, and I’ve been an ATi boy for life. Never been nVidia inside my case.