Nvidia 169.XX drivers are being questioned in Crysis

[Eastcoasthandle]

Stretching found in the reflections from the water when using Crysis.exe




Reflections are not Stretched in the water when using Driverbug.exe




From reading the article, Crysis updates reflections at a preset value. However, the author indicates that the stretching reflection on the water is a result of the updates being reduced. Therefore, instead of getting updates every few frames it becomes infrequent. The author then changes Crysis.exe to driverbug.exe and claims that the reflection in the water is no longer found. In other words the reflections updates as they should.





Source

Visit the article (linked from the Source) for other details. However, the site appears very busy.


Edit: a new driver from Nvidia is released:
http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=243026

Forceware 163.75 WHQL (November 6, 2007)

* Beta driver for GeForce 6, 7, and 8 series GPUs including GeForce 8800 GT.
* Recommended driver for Crysis single player game demo and TimeShift.
* Several game and application compatibility fixes. Please read the release notes for more information on product support, features, driver fixes and known compatibility issues.

UPDATE:
The release notes indicate compatibility improvements for TWIMTBP games. Also one user in this thread reports problems installing this driver with his 8800GT


All we need now is a follow up regarding this article to see what the end results are from this update. For example is this post remotely true?

Because you get higher benchmark score. You optimise your code as best you can, you get correct rendering, and then a little cheat on the water IQ and you get a 7 percent speedup for reviews. Do that in a couple of places, and you're into significant speedups. Then a release or two later, you can "fix" the rendering, and go back to correct visuals at a slower speed.

In the meantime you've had great reviews, and trumped your competition on the benchmark scores.

I don't know why your so disbelieving, we've seen this kind of thing plenty of times before around the release of a big title.

post

Hopefully, this an other questions can be answered in a follow up!


UPDATE

With the release of beta 169.09 the author has revisited the Crysis benchmarks to see if there is any difference from 169.04. You can read it here