somebody <x### [at] ycom> wrote:
> So, a driver reconfiguring itself to maximize performance of CATIA
> is not much different than a driver doing the same for 3DMark. Why should a
> graphics driver optimized for many such applications let itself be
> underspec'd through a synthetic benchmark, if it can help it?

  Performing application-specific optimizations which result in the exact
same images being produced faster is completely different from producing
images of lower quality faster.

  You'd agree that if the driver detects that 3DMark is being run and
then just presents a black screen and gives a score of 10000 frames per
second, that's not an acceptable result. The speed is staggering, but
obviously unacceptable because the visual result is not acceptable.

  Why would the driver artificially reducing the number of polygons (thus
resulting in a poorer-quality image) just to get a higher benchmark score
be any more acceptable than the black-screen extreme example?

  Or think about it like this: Imagine that a benchmark tests how fast
the graphics card can render using 4x antialiasing. The driver detects
this and artificially turns on 2x antialiasing instead, in order to score
better. This is obviously unacceptable.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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