goofer456
06-04-03, 05:48 AM
Real good read!
http://www.digit-life.com/articles2/radeon/herc-r9800-r7500.html
Obviously, NVIDIA made certain optimizations in the drivers v44.03. Is such quality loss adequate to the penalty of 20-23%? It's possible. Note that the speed of the RADEON 9800 PRO has dropped as well after the patch 3.30, though the CATALYST 3.4 doesn't worsen quality in this test. So, if quality losses are unnoticeable why to punish by bringing the speed down? Maybe the test developers feel hurt by the fact that ATI outdid them, but everyone must remember that an ultimate aim of any game and test is to make the image as good as possible. It doesn't matter much if there are any optimizations or tricks. A user sees the same picture irregardless of the speed.
The test developers affirm that the NV35 shows snow instead of the dark sky on the beta version of this test. Once again, if users have a perfect sky on their screens on the retail version of the test, then they do not care how some or other programmers make their optimizations. We can see no difference in quality between the versions 3.20 and 3.30 in case of the NV35 and RADEON 9800 PRO. But the NV35 has lost 10-13%, while the R350 has spun up. It looks strange, doesn't it? By the way, have a look at the artifacts when the RADEON 9800 PRO renders the space ship.
There is no difference in quality between the patches of both cards again. And again FutureMark finds something invisible for an ordinary user, which makes the NV35 speed down and the R350 speed up. By the way, the latter has some artifacts again.
Like in Game1, it's well seen that NVIDIA tries to raise the speed when rendering the water surface. Well, such tricks deserve punishment. Is the penalty of -50% fair in this test for NV35? I don't think so. Taking into account that water is displayed only 1/5 of the overall test time, , -50% is too much. The RADEON 9800 PRO doesn't suffer or gain from this patch.
Obviously, the programmers at NVIDIA use some cheats in the 3DMark03 test, first of all in Game1 and Game4. Whatever the test and no matter how a given company relates to the test, it's bad to accelerate cards at the expense of the image quality, and it must be punished.
We have noticed no quality losses in case of the RADEON 9800 PRO on v3.20, that is why it's hard to say what the test developers accused ATI of. But ATI admitted cheating, and there must be something. But these tricks are unnoticeable (though they correspond to those several percents in speed ATI is accused of). It's just strange that in some tests the new patch v3.30 lifted up the speed of the RADEON 9800 PRO on those drivers.
From the standpoint of an average user, so considerable speed drop of the NV35 is not adequate to the NVIDIA's cheats and tricks. Especially, in Game2, Game3 and Game4. In the first two games we noticed no cheats at all. In the Game4 the speed drop by 50 % is a too cruel punishment for the tricks with rendering of the water surface.
Certainly, we have no right to consider our standpoint the only true because the test developers can find some other cheats which are not noticeable but which can have a great effect on the scene. But still, if the programmers at ATI or NVIDIA have made some optimizations which do not affect the visual quality, then why not? Why to have a grudge if the FutureMark developers couldn't make some optimizations and others could?
I feel very disappointed at such situation around 3DMark03 and FutureMark, I can't believe that the patch 3.30 "has put everything back on track", and I can't believe that future patches will objectively reflect hardware capabilities instead of emotions. That is why all our future tests (except of the RADEON 9600 PRO which was tested before this article) will use 3DMark03 but just for the sake of statistics, without comments and analysis.
http://www.digit-life.com/articles2/radeon/herc-r9800-r7500.html
Obviously, NVIDIA made certain optimizations in the drivers v44.03. Is such quality loss adequate to the penalty of 20-23%? It's possible. Note that the speed of the RADEON 9800 PRO has dropped as well after the patch 3.30, though the CATALYST 3.4 doesn't worsen quality in this test. So, if quality losses are unnoticeable why to punish by bringing the speed down? Maybe the test developers feel hurt by the fact that ATI outdid them, but everyone must remember that an ultimate aim of any game and test is to make the image as good as possible. It doesn't matter much if there are any optimizations or tricks. A user sees the same picture irregardless of the speed.
The test developers affirm that the NV35 shows snow instead of the dark sky on the beta version of this test. Once again, if users have a perfect sky on their screens on the retail version of the test, then they do not care how some or other programmers make their optimizations. We can see no difference in quality between the versions 3.20 and 3.30 in case of the NV35 and RADEON 9800 PRO. But the NV35 has lost 10-13%, while the R350 has spun up. It looks strange, doesn't it? By the way, have a look at the artifacts when the RADEON 9800 PRO renders the space ship.
There is no difference in quality between the patches of both cards again. And again FutureMark finds something invisible for an ordinary user, which makes the NV35 speed down and the R350 speed up. By the way, the latter has some artifacts again.
Like in Game1, it's well seen that NVIDIA tries to raise the speed when rendering the water surface. Well, such tricks deserve punishment. Is the penalty of -50% fair in this test for NV35? I don't think so. Taking into account that water is displayed only 1/5 of the overall test time, , -50% is too much. The RADEON 9800 PRO doesn't suffer or gain from this patch.
Obviously, the programmers at NVIDIA use some cheats in the 3DMark03 test, first of all in Game1 and Game4. Whatever the test and no matter how a given company relates to the test, it's bad to accelerate cards at the expense of the image quality, and it must be punished.
We have noticed no quality losses in case of the RADEON 9800 PRO on v3.20, that is why it's hard to say what the test developers accused ATI of. But ATI admitted cheating, and there must be something. But these tricks are unnoticeable (though they correspond to those several percents in speed ATI is accused of). It's just strange that in some tests the new patch v3.30 lifted up the speed of the RADEON 9800 PRO on those drivers.
From the standpoint of an average user, so considerable speed drop of the NV35 is not adequate to the NVIDIA's cheats and tricks. Especially, in Game2, Game3 and Game4. In the first two games we noticed no cheats at all. In the Game4 the speed drop by 50 % is a too cruel punishment for the tricks with rendering of the water surface.
Certainly, we have no right to consider our standpoint the only true because the test developers can find some other cheats which are not noticeable but which can have a great effect on the scene. But still, if the programmers at ATI or NVIDIA have made some optimizations which do not affect the visual quality, then why not? Why to have a grudge if the FutureMark developers couldn't make some optimizations and others could?
I feel very disappointed at such situation around 3DMark03 and FutureMark, I can't believe that the patch 3.30 "has put everything back on track", and I can't believe that future patches will objectively reflect hardware capabilities instead of emotions. That is why all our future tests (except of the RADEON 9600 PRO which was tested before this article) will use 3DMark03 but just for the sake of statistics, without comments and analysis.