i can't see how nVidia could add anything to cheat the tests, as your score is based on your overall FPS for all of the given tests + your CPU fps rating.
so really i can't see how its possible for them to get any advantage, add to this the fact that this would increase not decrease the scores.
i mean feel free to explain this to me because i honestly can't figure out any way they could give themselves and advantage ... and usually i'm pretty good at figuring ways around the impossible.
its not just my machines that seem to perform well with the FX line, the machines at where i used to work also got similar benchmark results ... this was even prior to the release of the DetonatorFX drivers - there are also my friends machines, and several companies that make pure games machines suchas Alienware, Games Basement & Ulitmate Gaming Rigs.
It seems only reviewers and home users who bitch about the speed, and i don't do anything special - i mean christ only my FX5900 & nv40 machines even have AGP8x support, all the rest of my rigs only have 4x with less than 512MB Ram ... they only think really special about them i suppose is the fact that they're virus free and defragged weekly.
i don't really have any other optimisation on the systems, most are running at standard speeds for the processors with standard either sdram or clk2 ddr (PC2100) ... so really hardly anything special.
Most are even on SiS & Via chipsets rather than the Northridge or nForce2 chipsets unlike most home & reviewers systems now.
you add to this i'm using the DirectX9.02 SDK Debug which runs a good sight slower than the retail one that adverage gamers use... anyway you look at it, really my systems should be performing dismally comparied to other peoples.
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and yeah 3.0 is really what the next generation of cards should be using, but the GeForceFX 5800/5900 are the next generation cards, as 3.0 was specified in late 2001, and has been developed for since March 2002 by nVidia who are setting all of the standards in the format - hense why not alot of information on it.
But Cg uses it, for DirectX its specified as nv30 and for OpenGL you use ps30 ... the specification is no doubt going to be nVidia only though because they've developed 4.0 which superceeds it.
So like OpenGL 1.5 being only nVidia Shaders 3.0 will no doubt be too
if you get a chance to check through the Dx9 SDK it has the specification of its format as of October 2002, and alot of the stuff are very nVidia orientated.
DirectX doesn't even detect cards that can use it yet either ... max version it'll return is 2.0 (even though the FX and Radeons use upto 2.5 & 2.2 specifications respectively)
personally i doubt anyone here should worry about the newer formats if they're getting into the development - just use HLSL or Cg and let them worry about the fragment and pixel formats
i generally stick to 1.1 anyways because that covers
GeForce3, GeForce4Ti, GeForceFX, Radeon 9x00 (except 9000)
