nVidia doesn’t seem quite comfortable with the problems its graphics cards have run into lately. EIDOS’ Tomb Raider is one of the benchmarks in whihc nVidia has been put to shame and where e.g. a Radeon 9600 Pro has performed better than a GeForce FX Ultra.
“Tomb Raider: AOD Patch 49 was never intended for public release and is not a basis for valid benchmarking comparisons. Core and Eidos believe that Tomb Raider: AOD performs exceptionally well on NVIDIA hardware.”
Since nVidia has spoken to EIDOS, the game developer has decided to retract the game’s latest patch which introduced a benchmark mode. The question is why the patch was taken back; the built-in benchmark mode actually shows the real difference you notice while playing the game. The fact that the game should run exceptionally well on nVidia’s cards is false. We at NordicHardware have tested the game on a FX 5900 Ultra, and in some elements of the game we are talking about frame drops as low as 10 FPS.
This statement most likely has more to do with the fact that EIDOS participates in the so called “The Way It’s Meant To Be Played” program.
When Detonator 50 is released, we’ll see if EIDOS still takes part in this program, and if nVidia’s cards perform better.
The Beyond3D guys, normally quiet and impartial, react rather heavily to the situation:
“I am just totally amazed by the lengths NVIDIA are going This TRAOD/Eidos incidence is just very probably the last straw for me when it comes to any remaining respect I may have for a company that I once admired.”
Read more here.
