In
,
Ben Myers wrote:
Actually, the ATI benchmark cheats were pre-Radeon, back in '94 or
'95. I know well, because I was the author of the version of the PC
Magazine benchmark that was cheated upon with special code added to
drivers to look for repetitive sequences of primitive operations,
still the best way to measure raw horsepower of hardware plus close to
the metal drivers. (Actually, benchmarks written to the bare iron are
still truly the best, but writing software to talk directly to a
graphics chip has become a black art, and ever so much more
complicated given the computing power on the graphics chips
themselves.) PC Magazine, rather than exposing the cheaters in
public, simply redesigned the graphics benchmarks. It's not the first
time, nor is it the last time, that a hardware company, usually
graphics, has done something to the hardware or software to make their
product look better than it really is. Overclocked graphics cards are
very common, leading to burnout or malfunction of graphics chips run
beyond specification. Back before the day of the ATI cheats, graphics
cards manufacturers would put different fixed frequency oscillators on
cards, to drive graphics chips beyond spec. Now it is even easier to
tweak card performance with the variable oscillator circuitry on a
card. You can get software for free to overclock your nVidia or ATI
graphics card.

Honestly, the two-horse graphics race between AMD/ATI and nVidia is
now a pretty awful one to watch. Both seem to have regular disasters,
but there are no other alternatives any more, except for integrated
graphics. I'd like to hear one of their marketing shills spell the
work R-E-L-I-A-B-I-L-I-T-Y... Ben Myers

All very interesting Ben and informative. Thanks!

--
Bill
Gateway M465e ('06 era) - OE-QuoteFix v1.19.2
Centrino Core Duo 1.83G - 2GB - Windows XP SP3