Futuremark: A little slow on the approved driver updates?

[Deathlike2]

Futuremark: A Little Slow On The Updates?

I'm not sure if it is in the correct forum.. please move it to the appropriate forum if that is the case..

I've noticed recently that Futuremark has updated their approved driver list. I'm somewhat disappointed as to what was updated there and it bothers me a bit as to some of the info presented:

ATI:
The X1800 was not part of the listed hardware that has been checked.. though it might not be a big deal (I guess they haven't gotten a board yet).

NVidia:
This has the more egregious problems...

This section doesn't seem to get updated often enough. It hadn't been updated in months.. around when the 77.72 drivers were released. It doesn't seem that 77.77/78.01 (though, 78.01 does not offer anything new except supporting newer hardware) and 81.95 have been considered...

I thought drivers that were WHQL certified would be looked at immediately when they are released... Am I wrong? (If I'm wrong, do these drivers have to be submitted or something?)

It just seems to me that Futuremark is a little slow when new drivers are out.. I can cut them some slack when it is "just released", but I don't understand how the info for ATI is updated more frequently than NVidia when they release WHQL drivers.. I understand that NVidia has their "own schedule" unlike ATI.. but it is almost like when NVidia does release a set, that they (Futuremark) doesn't get right on it. As I said earlier, it has been months since the last update for NVidia.. especially since 77.77 (let alone 78.01) have not been reviewed... (or give the appearance of being reviewed).. I doubt they have been rejected, but not mentioning them is not a good thing.

 

[Nick[FM]]

We review all WHQL drivers when they get released, but sometimes the testing procedure can take a while longer due to various reasons. We just updated the Approved drivers list a couple of days ago:

http://www.futuremark.com/community/drivers/?approved

The ATI Radeon X1x00 series wasn't listed, but is now. Sorry for that.

 

[Deathlike2]

Ah, ok. Thanks for the response. On average though, how long does the process take? (I'm kinda waiting for the CATALYST 5.12 to be approved.)

 

[Nick[FM]]

Ah, ok. Thanks for the response. On average though, how long does the process take? (I'm kinda waiting for the CATALYST 5.12 to be approved.)

It depends on several things really. The testing phase takes up to a day (or two) and then we need to analyse the results as well. Then if we stumble across any issues with the drivers we need to get feedback from the IHV and work from there. It's very difficult to say how long the process takes as a whole, but we aim to have the drivers approved within a week since the release. Unfortunately, sometimes it takes longer.

 

[Matasar]

The 77.72 lasted very long ?
It was a pain for everyone that wanted to bench with decent cooling and having to kill the temp sensor with biosflash to be able to do so.

 

[Nick[FM]]

The 77.72 lasted very long ?
It was a pain for everyone that wanted to bench with decent cooling and having to kill the temp sensor with biosflash to be able to do so.

Sometimes the approval can take longer than expected, but rest assured that we do not delay any approval on purpose. We try our best to get all drivers approved ASAP. We also redefined our approval mechanism a while ago, which caused some delays. We are constantly improving our tools and ways to analyse the drivers, and we will continue to do so in the future.

 

[Matasar]

Its not a bad thing sometimes with delay cuz the it keeps score fair for a long time =)

 

[Broken Hope]

Any chance of 3Dmark being patched to correctly read and display X1800 series cards clockspeeds in the program and in the ORB? Also at the moment I believe there isn't any seperation of XT's or XL's.

 

[Nick[FM]]

Any chance of 3Dmark being patched to correctly read and display X1800 series cards clockspeeds in the program and in the ORB? Also at the moment I believe there isn't any seperation of XT's or XL's.

We are preparing a patch for 3DMark05, but when it will be out is still unknown. We will update the clockspeed detection amongst other smaller updates in the benchmark, but I am not sure about the separation. The reason is that if any graphics cards use the same id, then it is impossible for our SystemInfo module to know which is which. I will however test this with the latest build of the SystemInfo module we have in-house and see if it works better than the one in 3DMark05 build 1.2.0. It should.

 

[Guden Oden]

You think you might also consider unlocking the friggin demo without having to pay for the full version? I bet the next 3dmark version will be a 600MB free download where every button in the interface will produce an alert box stating "some features of the program requires the full version blah blah blah"...

I swear, I'll never pay for a program that wants me to fork out some cash just to watch a damn demo mode.

 

[Nick[FM]]

You think you might also consider unlocking the friggin demo without having to pay for the full version? I bet the next 3dmark version will be a 600MB free download where every button in the interface will produce an alert box stating "some features of the program requires the full version blah blah blah"...

I swear, I'll never pay for a program that wants me to fork out some cash just to watch a damn demo mode.

The demo in 3DMark is simply extra bonus material. The benchmark itself is the key element. I can't comment on how the next 3DMark will work though. Besides, the next 3DMark will have even more extra bonus material than the previous 3DMark versions.