Sunday, July 20th 2008
GPU PhysX Doesn't get you to 3DMark Vantage Hall of Fame Anymore
With NVIDIA releasing their GeForce PhysX drivers, users of the PhysX accelerating GeForce cards were at an advantage over their Radeon counterparts, reason being that in a certain CPU test routine of the 3DMark Vantage benchmark, the physics processing abilities of the computer are tested, and since the physics API used happens to be PhysX, users of GeForce get higher scores despite not having a physics processor device such as an Ageia PhysX card. This differs from a real-life scenario where a GeForce accelerator does both graphics and physics and the overhead of physics processing affects the graphics processing abilities.
The relation of GPU acceleration for gaining higher 3DMark scores in physics tests has been controversial to say the least. Futuremark has now decided to update its Hall of Fame to exclude all results using PhysX on a GPU, simply because this was not how they intended it to work. It has also been updated to organise the results better for easier comparison. You will be able to use GPU physics processing to get a 3DMark score, you will not be able to make it to the Hall of Fame using it. You can use an Ageia PhysX card to assist your 3DMark score to make it to the Hall of Fame, as that's how Futuremark intended PhysX processing scores to assist your final scores.
Source:
NordicHardware
The relation of GPU acceleration for gaining higher 3DMark scores in physics tests has been controversial to say the least. Futuremark has now decided to update its Hall of Fame to exclude all results using PhysX on a GPU, simply because this was not how they intended it to work. It has also been updated to organise the results better for easier comparison. You will be able to use GPU physics processing to get a 3DMark score, you will not be able to make it to the Hall of Fame using it. You can use an Ageia PhysX card to assist your 3DMark score to make it to the Hall of Fame, as that's how Futuremark intended PhysX processing scores to assist your final scores.
62 Comments on GPU PhysX Doesn't get you to 3DMark Vantage Hall of Fame Anymore
Okay this is good and great, but if FM knew that GPU PhysX was going to happen, maybe even had it available to them? Why not make a test for it that is actually supportive of the technology of PhysX while Rendering to give more accurate results for starters...
So it makes one's score fair as long as they went out and purchased an Ageia PhysX card then? LoL...I'm sorry but maybe FM should've kept this program under wraps until they knew better what was going to happen with NV's and AMD's technologies that have been more recently released...
Really as long as my games look and play good on my rig, PhysX on or off....Vantage scores don't bother me at all...I feel bad for the world that feeds off of bench scores if this has those communities up in arms...Yeah I agree NV kinda bullied it's way in this, but if they have the technology, might as well use it! Claimed unfair or not, it's nice to to see for consumers using PhysX enabeled cards I'm sure...and hell now they can go check out much more entertaining pieces of software called games that support physx and hopefully use it TWIWMTBP!
Interesting story, not suprising, I jus thope AMD can get some official physx too so fanboi's stop pissing and moaning and FM can then update Vantange so the PhysX test is "more fair" to both companies' cards! lol...:roll:
:toast:
My main point is that I think you should expect to see CUDA support back in 3dMark in the future, just that it will be used in a graphics intensive scene where the score only gets bumped if your card is truly powerful and can handle doing graphics and physics at the same time.
I'm happy with my 4870, VERY happy with it. Just because an nvidia card gets more in a benchmark because of PhysX enabled drivers doesn't really mean anything. the 4870 IS capable of PhysX, there are just no drivers.
You can understand Futuremarks reasoning, but you can also understand nvidia owners frustrations. *shrugs* either way, isn't it real world performance than matters?
real world scenario, i am playing a game, so gpu gettting used for gpu stuff, but the gpu cant give its all to physx therefore i dont get the same effect like when i have a synthetic bench running when everything may be evalutaed independently
Since they had to alter their filtering system to prevent scores from one brand of video cards (do to not following Futuremark's guidelines) this can be considered grounds for cheating. This may take a few days before we see the removal of all invalid scores.
Back on topic:
My experience with the early PhysX software hasn't been too rewarding at all. Enabling it with both the 280 & 260 slows both cards down a bit in games. It might be great for benching but its doing nothing for gaming as of yet. The decreases can be anywhere from 5 to 10 fps. Its not that much of a hit with these cards since they're fast enough to deal with it anyway, but its still pretty apparent.
But it is still promising if games can be created to use PhysX, and whether AMD or NV, enable it, drop a few FPS for an increase in PhysX effects...depending on what resolution one games at, 5-10FPS may not even be noticable or missed. Maybe they can introduce a PhysX performance level that adjusts in 3 steps, and/or scales depending on the stress and monitored performance during gameplay? I dunno what adverse affects could be, but I would assume some wonky physx and sporatic FPS changes...but who knows.
Still promising tech on both sides, hopefully something good comes of it in the future! :toast: