NVIDIA Drivers Sacrificing Crysis Quality for Performance

[Davidelmo]

The problem is that it was fully intentional. When you rename the crysis executable file it suddenly is fixed.



What about other games? How many other ones have people been missing the _________ on? Feel free to insert any number of things that can be filetered out


I found it funny that awhile back a friend and I got togeather and while playing CS:S with high res packs installed his always looked different than mine. Despite the same in game settings. Perhaps it was a previous gen of cards, but I was thinking it was 7600 something.


But the average consumer or some of the dumb gamers that only look at the top score to determine what they believe is best. Not average framerate, not quality, quality settings, etc.....


So in general this is pure and total horseshit. Nvidia has been caught yet again with their hands in the cookie jar and will no doubt try to play it off as a minor glitch that was accidental.

Dude, it is a BETA driver. They're meant to be TESTING new things - the obvious two things to change are image quality and performance.

Maybe when they start releasing full new drivers and bragging about more fps, then you'd have something to criticise! But until then they haven't been "caught" at all. They're not even doing anything wrong. It's a BETA driver for a DEMO of a game.

 

[EastCoasthandle]

Nvidia has always sacrificed image quality for performance. That is the main reason I will always run ATI cards because I'd rather lose a few FPS for better IQ. I would not call it cheating, but it's just another MAJOR reason to not use online benchmarking results to definitively define which card is best.

Excellent post!

It appears they have already updated their drivers to a certified WHQL 163.75

 

[Jimmy 2004]

It appears they have already updated their drivers to a certified WHQL 163.75

I think whoever posted that at Guru3D is a little confused

As you said, that is the new WHQL driver, which means that it is not a beta, as the poster describes on the first line. Secondly, it is not the recommended driver for Crysis as the poster writes on the second line, as the beta driver (169.04) is newer than the 163.75 driver (albeit without WHQL status of course) and has been optimised for Crysis. The 163.75 driver was written pre-Crysis, and I doubt it's any different from the 163.75 beta driver other than that it has been certified by Microsoft.

Edit: and the 8800 GT isn't listed as being supported by those drivers.

 

[AphexDreamer]

Does this have any relation to the F.E.A.R .exe name change thing that would give ATI Uers a 10 FPS boost in F.E.A.R on another Nvidia supported game? lol.

If you notice on those pics there is exactly a 10 FPS diffrence between the "Bug" and "the way it was meant to be played" lol

 

[AndyBroke]

Both Ati and Nvidia make drivers that they "optimize" for diffrent games to get better performance. Sometimes it affects image quality. The only diffrence is that Ati users can choose if they want the optimizations or not. Ati calls it Catalyst A.I.

 

[AphexDreamer]

Both Ati and Nvidia make drivers that they "optimize" for diffrent games to get better performance. Sometimes it affects image quality. The only diffrence is that Ati users can choose if they want the optimizations or not. Ati calls it Catalyst A.I.

Yeah but its not embedded into the dirver, I don't even have CCC on to use that Optimization.

 

[EastCoasthandle]

I think whoever posted that at Guru3D is a little confused

As you said, that is the new WHQL driver, which means that it is not a beta, as the poster describes on the first line. Secondly, it is not the recommended driver for Crysis as the poster writes on the second line, as the beta driver (169.04) is newer than the 163.75 driver (albeit without WHQL status of course) and has been optimised for Crysis. The 163.75 driver was written pre-Crysis, and I doubt it's any different from the 163.75 beta driver other than that it has been certified by Microsoft.

Edit: and the 8800 GT isn't listed as being supported by those drivers.

I think you are a little confused, the release notes do indicate improved compatibility for all TWIMTBP games. Which in essence is the same thing. Please read the release notes. Although they don't say Crysis specifically it is implied.

 

[Jimmy 2004]

I think you are a little confused, the release notes do indicate improved compatibility for all TWIMTBP games. Which in essence is the same thing. Please read the release notes. Although they don't say Crysis specifically it is implied.

Doesn't change the fact that it still isn't the recommended driver for Crysis. It may perform better than the previous WHQL driver, but NVIDIA still recommends the 169.04 beta. I'm afraid whoever wrote the post at Guru3D is making stuff up. NVIDIA's WHQL drivers always lag considerably behind the betas.

Anyway, this is off topic so I'm not going to talk about it anymore.

 

[EastCoasthandle]

Doesn't change the fact that it still isn't the recommended driver for Crysis. It may perform better than the previous WHQL driver, but NVIDIA still recommends the 169.04 beta. I'm afraid whoever wrote the post at Guru3D is making stuff up. NVIDIA's WHQL drivers always lag considerably behind the betas.

Anyway, this is off topic so I'm not going to talk about it anymore.

Actually that's not correct, it is the recommended WHQL drivers for Crysis because Crysis is part of the TWIMTBP. Please read the release notes it will clearly state Crysis as part of their TWIMTBP
:shadedshu.

Ok you can thank me

 

[lemonadesoda]

BENCHMARK WARS

Time for the marketing guys at nVidia (who forced the driver developers to do the "benchmark" cheating) to start falling on swords. Time to boycott (or at least bad-mouth) nVidia for their attempted cheating.

I really dont care WHO does it, the fact that they did it to boost FPS benchmarks, for some cheap benchmark ranking glory, is very sleazy and deserves a slap

 

[bassmasta]

I think I like my water shadows as they are.

 

[mandelore]

Oh no, subtle things I'll never notice while playing! Performance is king.

never notice? lol, its blatently obvious!

 

[PVTCaboose1337]

WHO CARES!?! If they can do better, let them... ATI can do the same thing!

 

[pt]

what a nice little fanboy war so i will add my fanboism sentence
nvidia sux44rz for trying to fool us with drivers optimizations that give worse image quality
ati ftw

 

[cdawall]

this is why i dont immediatly update my vid card drivers

this is 163.44 is the splotches caused by the driver issue?

well my settings are all low/1024X768 and this is how it looks in game

 

[imperialreign]

this is 163.44 is the splotches caused by the driver issue?

possible, but not neccessarily. It could just be the way a 'shadow' is being cast across the FOV when using the binoculars.

If I notice anything like that while fiddling with Crysis later, I'll screenshot it.

 

[cdawall]

possible, but not neccessarily. It could just be the way a 'shadow' is being cast across the FOV when using the binoculars.

If I notice anything like that while fiddling with Crysis later, I'll screenshot it.

thanks...at least its not artifacting

 

[imperialreign]

naw, those screenies look good, though.

in the second screenie you posted, the AI on the dock looks like he's taking a leak!

 

[cdawall]

he is!!! i missed the shot were he is actually peeing i think ill go back and try again

 

[petepete]

I always thought that Nvidia always tried to get the upper hand on games framerate wise over ATI... (unfairly rather)

Making all these games Nvidia 'the way it's meant to be played' had me thinking a bit


This is just like the good old Intel marketing cheating over AMD in the Athalon era..

 

[tkpenalty]

heh... while AMD tries to max out visual quality, nvidia tries to grab framerates... This is just personal preference... guys stop arguing about it.

 

[erocker]

Crysis is actually running pretty well with these new "pre-crysis" drivers they just came out with today.

 

[ThorAxe]

I have an 8800GTX at the moment but my previous cards were x1900xt, x1800xt, x800xt, 9800 Pro, Geforce4 Ti4400, Geforce3 Ti200, Geforce2 Ultra, Geforce Pro, Geforce, Voodoo2 12mb SLI. So you see I am not a fanboi.

I think it's great that the frame-rate challenged can get the opportunity to run the game a little faster without missing much. I've use a number of drivers for Crysis and you would really have to know what to look for to notice anything.

Talk about a lot of fuss over nothing! They are BETA drivers. YOU DON"T HAVE TO USE THEM.

 

[Scrizz]

man... I can't even run crysis... stupid GMA 950

 

[newtekie1]

This is a BETA driver. A beta driver that nVidia is currently working on implementing optimizations for Crysis in. Of course it won't be perfect, that is why it is still a beta.

NVidia is trying to find the best balence of IQ and performance and implementing optimizations in the driver. This driver screws up the shadow/reflexion rendering.

NVidia most likely was just playing around with the shadow rendering to see what it would do, not to purposely try to cheat. I wouldn't be surprised if the problem was fixed by the time the real drivers make it out to the market. Of course then we will get all the ATI fanboys flooding the forums claiming they only fixed it because they were caught...

Of course the problem goes away when you rename the exe, that is how nVidia drivers work, anyone that has actually used an NVidia card in the past few years would know that. The optimizations that they implement are based on profiles setup by nVidia for each exe. Change the name of the exe and kiss the optimizations good-bye.