The new drivers release from Nvidia off-load the workload from the CPU to the GPU, but some consider it to be cheating

Jun 26, 2008 08:54 GMT  ·  By

It seems that the last week was quite a controversial one, ever since the new NVIDIA GeForce 9800 GTX+ graphics cards have been released. Most of the debates are based on Nvidia's new drivers, which seem to get on little tweaks when it comes to testing. Legit Reviews posted an article in which they try to shed some light on the subject, both by getting deeper on the 3DMark Vantage testing of the card, as well as by discussing the issue with AMD, NVIDIA and Futuremark.

All started with an article published by the Inquirer, which claims that the drivers released by the Santa Clara company are cheating on tests. The article states that Nvidia used in-house PhysX API's and that the 3DMark Vantage score was manipulated since the graphics card, drivers and physics API used on benchmarking came all from the same manufacturer. Legit Reviews says that their tests showed the same performance everyone jumped on, but mainly concentrated on off-loading the CPU and getting the workload to the graphics processor. The tests reveal what we've already said: the new drivers from Nvidia eliminate the need of a dedicated AGEIA PhysX card.

Some other companies, including AMD, fear that, when running the CPU physics test on the GPU, the results will be dazzled, and said that GPU physics testing is already done in the normal GPU tests. On the other hand, 3DMark already includes physics as simulation collision map rendering in the game tests, so they say things should just stay as they are.

According to Futuremark, the drivers are "truly innovative"

In an interview with Legit Reviews, Oliver Baltuch, the President of Futuremark, said the following when asked about Nvidia's 177.39 drivers and the 3DMark Vantage issue: "The driver in question has not been submitted for authorization and is for demo purposes only. NVIDIA has followed the correct rules for driver authorization and the BDP by sending us the 177.35 published driver (the same as AMD has now sent us the 8.6 published driver), both of which are currently undergoing the Authorization process in our Quality Assurance area at this moment. Only drivers that have passed WHQL and our driver Authorization Process have comparable results that will be allowed for use in our ORB database and hall of fame. Other drivers which have not been submitted will not be commented on. Otherwise, we would have to inspect every Beta and press driver that is released."

When asked about the rumors that the committee has been requested to change some rules and include the GPU PhysX for 3DMark Vantage testing, Oliver Baltuch said that, due to the transparency in the Benchmark Development Process, members are allowed to ask for changes in the specifications. He also said that any such request is subjected to all members? approval, and only after that the committee takes a step on it. "Outside of this matter, we have been introduced to this technology from NVIDIA and it is truly innovative for future games," he also added.

Baltuch refused to comment on the subject of one graphics chip developer using HAVOK and another one using PhysiX, and he did not say if the introduction of PhysX on the Nvidia GPUs would bring a future "apple to apple video card comparisons" either. The bottom line is that Baltuch's comments were carefully chosen, and, as the findings for his company come both from Nvidia and AMD, we can understand his position.

Nvidia: 3DMark Vantage only includes CPU physics and the Ageia PPU support

Nvidia also gave a comment on the issue, through Ken Brown, PR Manager at NVIDIA Corp: "The initial version of 3DMark Vantage shipped with a PhysX installer that only included support for CPU physics and the Ageia PPU. The initial version did not contain a GPU physics installer as nobody had that product. Once NVIDIA brought physics to the GPU through our Ageia acquisition, we updated our PhysX installer to add support for GPU physics. The same thing applies to Unreal Tournament 3. All we?ve done is update the installer to add support for GPU physics. The installer will be available for everyone to download off the NVIDIA.com website this week so folks can play with it and enjoy the new GPU physics effects."

Legit Reviews went a little further and talked to Brian Burke (Senior PR Manager) and Roy Taylor (Vice President of Developer Relations), which said a lot of things about PhysX. It seems that around 15 new PhysX game titles will be launched by Christmas, and more are due for the next summer. Intensive applications like real-time computer graphics can now be run on the computers that feature both a flexible CPU and a massively parallel processor like the GPU. The computer world is heading towards a more powerful heterogeneous computing model.

The 177.39 drivers and the PhysX driver 8.06.12 are the first releases since Nvidia purchased AGEIA Technologies that show a GPU PhysX ready for prime time. It seems that the GPU manufacturer is also preparing a new driver release this week, one that will include both the graphics and PhysX drivers in one installer. According to Burke, the PhysX-based physics calculations, which used to be sent to the CPU for handling, will be loaded on the GPU from now on, and, as the GPU have considerably more power in physics calculations, the benchmarking scores will increase. Everyone with a supported card will be able to easily install and try out the GPU PhysX.

Nvidia drivers are evolutionary; 3DMark Vantage needs updating

Nvidia is quite upset because of all the cheating claims, and that seems a natural thing, as all it did was to get the workload from the CPU to the GPU. Another problem is that 3DMark Vantage still works as if a dedicated PPU were installed. At this point, the only problem is that the industry does not have the proper benchmarking ready, and Nvidia has already come out with the ingredients. AGEIA PhysX SDK was still used when Futuremark Vantage was developed; a discrete Physical Processing Unit was used at that time to unload the DLLs from the CPU to the PPU.

The bottom line is that Nvidia is just doing now what a PPU was doing a few months ago. The company managed to get it all-in-one, and that is a revolutionary step for the graphics industry. The performance enhancements shown in the 3DMark Vantage are making companies like AMD, Intel or S3 worry. Nvidia has managed to become an innovator in the field, though it is not the only one running physics on the GPU.

AMD seems to have declined making any comments on the story, but it will have some talk with Futuremark, and will probably give an answer by tomorrow.