Thanks for posting fellas, I appreciate all the povs!
Here is a little something from me to-
Mega
"Without games to use those advanced features those advanced features are worthless to gamers (i.e. who cares about DX9). So it matters not if we can't test those new features since we don't care if they exist or not, right?"
This would be valid if DX9.0 games weren't on the horizon. 4 months from now we will have at least one game on the market that uses DX9.0. The fact is we should care about DX9.0 because hardware vendors need to make sure that their hardware runs it efficently and at this stage in hardware development the only software to test the performance of a video card in Dx9.0 is 3dmark.
Your statement would have made sense about 5 months ago but at the moment when dx9.0 games are finally merging with the horizon gamers should know if their new 500$ card is going to play those DX9.0 games well.
Also some more info regarding the "semantical" problem with the accusation.
Q: Does this mean what you called originally as "cheats" actually were acceptable "optimizations", and that you made a wrong decicion in releasing Patch 330 and the Audit Report?
A: By the definition of our benchmark and process, the optimizations are not acceptable. 3DMark scores are only comparable if drivers perform exactly the work 3DMark instructs them to do.
Patric Ojala - 3DMark Producer"
http://www.beyond3d.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=6230
rogo