Nvidia: Inferior Open GL filtering quality despite of HQ driver setting

According to current investigations from PCGH, Nvidia's drivers don't always render what you expect them to do. We compared older and brand-new drivers with a Geforce 7 and 8, using Windows XP x86, Vista x86 and x64.

The Control Panel allows the user to disable all the "optimizations” concerning the anisotropic filter - but now it's obvious that these options only affect Direct 3D and not Open GL. Disabling the "optimizations” and setting "High Quality” still results in shimmering textures in our tested games (American McGee's Alice and Prey). The Riva Tuner shows why: the OGL filtering restrictions are still active.

You will find more information in the article which is in English, btw. We have animated Gifs and detailed pics to show the differences in picture quality.

Source (english):
http://www.pcgameshardware.de/?article_id=626622

have a look at the pictures:
http://www.pcgameshardware.de/?menu=...=753713&page=1
("nächstes Bild" means next picture, clicking on the picture will enlarge it)

Yeah, nVidia is the home of driver cheating. What should we expect? They wont stop cause many users just dont care.

Hey, if it wins a benchmark, who cares? Why else are they paying people off to limit the number of SPs a newer game uses? If they had such a superior product it just wouldn't matter.

nVidia: The Way It's Meant To Have Cash Thrown At It Till You Can Get A Good Score On Subpar Hardware.

Something that some of us well know, and some others know it but don't want to admit it. Just another confirmation.

since when has geforce cards ever been good at openGL? (aside from any softmoding)
same with radeon for that matter
want good openGL, get a quadro or fireGL

Actually, nVidia used to be the go-to for OpenGL. It's only with the advent of Vista and no OpenGL in Windows that it's changed. That's what makes this even funnier.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by w0mbat

Yeah, nVidia is the home of driver cheating. What should we expect? They wont stop cause many users just dont care.

---

So we'll all pretend that Quack (or any of the others) never happened? C'mon, both companies cheat like it's their job. Nobody is innocent.

Nvidia probably forgot about those Games and OpenGL to concentrated on DX10. How about comparing IQ on current titles and stop nit-picking at ancient games -_- ?

Because I still play some of those games?

Or because my ATi card has no issues with any of them? Both of those would be valid reasons. rather be with an honest (for the moment) loser than a cheating winner. That and I like low power consumption.

Reminds me of another recent issue brought to light with their drivers. Trend anyone?

I applaud some reviewers for returning back to what should have never left, IQ. Something has always been wrong when reviewers said IQ was the same when others said it was not. Now you are beginning to see they were right after all!

Standard looks better, manual treatment looks washed out :shrug:

I see no shimmering in CS 1.6 with HQ on NV compared to crappy IQ on quality settings

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Eastcoasthandle

Reminds me of another recent issue brought to light with their drivers. Trend anyone?

I applaud some reviewers for returning back to what should have never left, IQ. Something has always been wrong when reviewers said IQ was the same when others said it was not. Now you are beginning to see they were right after all!

---

What trend? That link you posted was a bug that was promptly fixed.

As for this, as someone else pointed out this does affect older games that few people actually play. It could also be a bug, as NVIDIA has more than enough texture filtering capability to drive high quality without a performance hit, but will people around here apply rational thought to it? No, because it's much less exciting and dramatic that way.

Way to jump to conclusions as always, guys.

So what's new about this ?

They've allready done it in good old fight with 3dfx 8 years ago.

IQ compares are just not really present in todays reviews, otherwise this would be usual and no news about stuff everyone knows would appear.

The fact that forceware 93.71 is free of this issue means that this's probably a bug anyways

Intel did it with MHz, nVidia does it with fps.

People like numbers.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Danylo

Intel did it with MHz, nVidia does it with fps.

People like numbers.

---

Intel's netburst architecture was built to clock high, people just happen to think that higher numbers = better.

I say B.S. Thats not happening for me with 8800 GT or 7950GX2 and Forceware 169.21 WHQL XP.

1.)CP set to Quality.______2.)CP set to High Quality.
http://thumbnails.keepmyfile.com/42/...6079278a79.gif http://thumbnails.keepmyfile.com/42/...60817432fd.gif

Just for :banana::banana::banana::banana:'s and giggles, low resolution and same spot as their gif here:
http://www.pcgameshardware.de/?menu=...mage_id=753895

1.)CP set to Quality.______2.)CP set to High Quality.
http://thumbnails.keepmyfile.com/42/...6003bab664.gif http://thumbnails.keepmyfile.com/42/...6012fa2970.gif

Even setting the CP to High Performance doesnt show any moire effect.
I tried lots of settings and couldnt get anywhere near the results they show.
Maybe its time for DriverCleaner at PCGH.:rolleyes:

NVIDIA's The Way It's Meant To Be Played program has raised some questions before, so it's not like it's anything new...

Quote:

---

American McGee's Alice

---

mhhh i love that game :D

its stupid though, isnt it?
most games arent opengl so whats the point?
and in opengl they tend to be faster than ati cards cause ati never really cared about opengl until recently... so why cheat to get 2% extra when your already 20%+ in the lead?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by saaya

mhhh i love that game :D

its stupid though, isnt it?

---

Alice rules :D

On topic: Seems like a bug, more or less, to me.

//Andreas

Forgot I still have prey on my computer lol, and like weeds said, I found no moire pattern like in the screen shots in the article, I'm using FW 169.21 btw.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by weeds

I say B.S. Thats not happening for me with 8800 GT or 7950GX2 and Forceware 169.21 WHQL XP.

1.)CP set to Quality.______2.)CP set to High Quality.
http://thumbnails.keepmyfile.com/42/...6079278a79.gif
http://thumbnails.keepmyfile.com/42/...60817432fd.gif

Just for :banana::banana::banana::banana:'s and giggles, low resolution and same spot as their gif here:
http://www.pcgameshardware.de/?menu=...mage_id=753895

1.)CP set to Quality.______2.)CP set to High Quality.
http://thumbnails.keepmyfile.com/42/...6003bab664.gif
http://thumbnails.keepmyfile.com/42/...6012fa2970.gif

Even setting the CP to High Performance doesnt show any moire effect.
I tried lots of settings and couldnt get anywhere near the results they show.
Maybe its time for DriverCleaner at PCGH.:rolleyes:

---

Once again this issue is laid to rest before it can even pick up.

Chalk it up to another Europian website with a vendetta against NVIDIA.

lmao

2 weeks ago I was accused to be a Nvidia fanboy, because the Nvidia cards I tested were better overclockers than the HD38x0 cards and now it's a "vandetta against Nvidia"? I did not do this test by myself, but I believe in what my collegues test. There is no reason why we should fake any benchmarks or pictures.

It might be a bug or just occurs on certain hardware configurations.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Cybercat

Once again this issue is laid to rest before it can even pick up.

Chalk it up to another Europian website with a vendetta against NVIDIA.

---

How is this put to rest when the pics are exactly 988.55k (1012272 bytes)? If anything it can be said those are 2 of the same pics using:
-another driver (beta perhaps)
-some third party fix as mentioned in the article.

In reality we have no way to verify what drives were used in those pics by weeds. Therefore, you jump to conclusions as all reviewers should examine IQ under a microscope.
:up:

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Eastcoasthandle

How is this put to rest when the pics are exactly 988.55k (1012272 bytes)? If anything it can be said those are 2 of the same pics using:
-another driver (beta perhaps)
-some third party fix as mentioned in the article.

In reality we have no way to verify what drives were used in those pics by weeds. Therefore, you jump to conclusions as all reviewers should examine IQ under a microscope.
:up:

---

WTF, I am not dishonest. Forceware 169.21 WHQL. No so called fix applied. I dont have Rivatuner currently installed nor nhancer! All settings were applied in Nvidia Control Panel. Anymore 8 series owners please test for yourselves. I dont appreciate your inuendo that I some how fudged the results I posted eastcoast, what the screens show is exactly what I see in game... I dont B.S.

1.)1600x1200 Q.png
2.73 MB (2,867,407 bytes)

2.)1600x1200 HQ.png
2.73 MB (2,869,103 bytes)

1.)1024x768 Q.png
987 KB (1,011,664 bytes)

2.)1024x768 HQ.png
988 KB (1,012,272 bytes)

MY DXDiag
http://thumbnails.keepmyfile.com/42/...8878a9f435.gif

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by [XC] Kayin

..... It's only with the advent of Vista and no OpenGL in Windows that it's changed. ....

---

off on a tangent... with all the moaning going on about vista (which I haven't personally tried yet), I'm glad of it.
Because, it forced autodesk into supporting D3D :bounces:
now, I'm just waiting for them to certify some main-stream GeForce cards without little quirks and buggies showing up everywhere
maybe next year, with '09s versions

I wouldn't call it cheating, I'd call it tweaking. :p:

As long as I don't clearly notice the difference in the games, the higher FPS numbers are welcome. Who says it has to be this and that quality standard, isn't it up to the manufacturers to decide. Then another thing is the opinions from the customers that follows but I see nowhere there's saying it has to look like this or meet this quality etc. I just think it's exaggerated when people start talking NVIDIA is cheating with the drivers like comparing to the competitor and claim it has to be at least as good, well it doesn't and if you care for that little extra quality go for the other manufacturer then, simple as that.

i have also noticed that with the 169.21 whql drivers there is no noticeable drop in iq between quality and high performance.theres no noticeable difference in the framerate either for that matter except for vastly improved minimum framerate in the crysis cpu benchmark so i just set the driver to high performance from now on :up: