3dMark 2005 - PS/VS 3 -vs- PS/VS 2 Scores

[Spags]

HUGE difference for me.

v3 = 4939
v2 = 3832

That's about a 30% difference.

Athlon 64 3200 @ 2365 (11x215)
GeForce 6800GT @ 415/1100 (67.70 drivers)
1 GB Ram

Anyone else see anything this drastic?

[Pandora's Box]

is that 2.0, 2.0a, or 2.0b? if its 2.0 then ofcourse there will be a massive difference.

[coldpower27]

From a review I have read it seems that NV40 doesn't like using general Shader Model 2.0

But you regain all the speed back if you use Pixel Shader 2.0a, 2.0b or 3.0 strangely enough :)

[msxyz]

Even the GeForceFX receive a noticeable speed boost from using Ps2.0a. Probably Futuremark threw in some freaky complex shaders just to highlight the speed boost that come from switching to 2.0+/3.0

[Omega53]

Even the GeForceFX receive a noticeable speed boost from using Ps2.0a. Probably Futuremark threw in some freaky complex shaders just to highlight the speed boost that come from switching to 2.0+/3.0

No Im sure they threw in some freakly complex shaders to strain the cards. The instruction limit for regular ps2.0 isnt that high at all and even ps2.0a has a greatly higher instruction limit. Im sure anything run in Ps2.0 is multipass while everything from ps2.0a and up can be run in a single pass.

[subbo]

66.70

ps3_0 = 5111
ps2_a = 5135

So I get kinda opposite results, but could be cause of the driver.