3dm2k3's new policy; WHQL or official drivers only, NO MORE CHEATING!

CATALYST maker

Just wondering why would you care anyways if you can not submit a score on a beta driver?

To actually lead an interesting discussion I would like to ask a couple of questions:

1) What is a beta driver anyways. All my life I have interpreted beta software as something that is incomplete but will be revised and be evolved to a final completed product. In the graphics industry world people have taken "beta driver" to mean all sorts of things. So the question I have to people on here is what do you consider a beta driver

2) You do realize that it would be very easy to do things in the driver such as: disabling sliders so that even though your slider says 2X AA you are actually at 0X AA which would really boost your score, or just not rendering the images to the DirectX specifications, or even just not taking the GPU cycles to draw the screen the way it is meant to be seen. All those things can easily impact benchmark scores. So the question is do you realize that caring *only* about performance as the deciding factor about which graphics card is better is very incorrect.

3) You guys do know the value of Windows Hardware Quality Labs (WHQL) right? I went to the Microsoft site about it and here is the quote I found "Microsoft promotes driver signing (i.e. certifaction) for designated device classes as a mechanism to advance the quality of drivers, provide a better user experience, and reduce support costs for vendors and the total cost of ownership for customers." So I guess the quesion is has Microsoft done a good job letting you the consumer know what WHQL really is and what its value is?


Lets discuss

brc64

I think most people consider beta drivers to be leaked versions of new, unfinished drivers. It seems that the hardcore (and even some novice) tweakers are always looking for that new edge, and are willing to sacrifice stability to gain a few exta performance points by using a driver that isn't quite finished. I used to think like that, but then I got tired of constantly changing my drivers, so now I stick with official releases only. So far, I've been happy with the results of that decision.


I've never been happy with 3DMark being used as a benchmark. The points you get really are meaningless to everybody but the people who made the software. When I'm looking for information about a new video card, I tend to look for actual game benchmarks (specifically, ones that specify what quality settings are being used), and if possible, screenshots comparing image quality of two different cards.


I've never cared much about WHQL. I have several pieces of hardware that don't even have WHQL-certified drivers, yet they function correctly with whatever driver I end up using. Maybe if I knew exactly what it meant for something to have WHQL certification, I'd care more about it... but right now, it's just an annoying window that pops up when I install certain drivers.

- Me

Mark_Fox

When it comes to drivers, people have many different interpretations of what "beta" driver is. In the days when driver "leaks" were happening on weekly basis, I used to attach term "beta" to them to give people warning that if they use them - its only at their own risk. I've done that with both nvidia and ati drivers.

Extremly buggy drivers are also seen as "beta" even though they might not be or not intended to be by the software developers. There has been few of these in last few years.

Both nvidia and ati has also posted drivers on their official websites attaching term BETA to them - warning people they either might get no support if they use them or warning people they might not be stable and have unresolved issues in them. I don't know what they mean by BETA in this case - perhaps they mean they are not finished yet.

Of course, we can also go all fanboy here and say that all nvidia drivers since 40.41 has been BETA or all ATi drivers before catalyst 2.0 or something


As to WHQL - I don't belive Microsoft has stressed enough the advantages of such drivers or have pushed companies to release WHQL drivers more often. NVIDIA certainly has not bothered much with WHQL recently, I really don't know why... Personally, I found that WHQL drivers do not always perform better then non-whql ones. They might be more stable - but a lot of people would prefer occasional error here and there for more speed (at least in the old days)...What would be best, is to see WHQL drivers that do not sacrifice extra performace for stability - and vice versa when it comes to non-whql drivers. I wonder if BOTH ATi and NVIDIA has got the balance just right...

digitalwanderer

One I get my hands on before the manufacturer wants me to.

kkevin666

my 3dmark2003 system details says the whql on the cat 3.2 drivers are false

i havent modded them at all

running xp/sp1/dx9

whats weird is 3dmark2001 shows them AS BEING whql certified

Whats /whos at fault here please?

CATALYST maker

Nobody is at "fault".
Can you give me a screen capture of this and where it says that it is "false"? I can help investigate what is going on

The_Neon_Cowboy

personaly the WHQL does not mean that there will not be any cheating/optumiseing in games and benchmarks ..... by ati or nvida so I don't know why people keep dredging it up..... they both cheated here and there so when you pick on one your picking on both in my book......