Only For FPS

Although it is conceivable that this "trick" can be applied to any game, the only games Ninja Graphics would be of any use in are those of the first-person shooter type and to a lesser extent, flight simulators. Ninja Graphics will have no impact on arcade, strategy or turn-based games. Hence, NVIDIA naturally intends to mainly limit their Ninja Graphics program to FPS game developers.

Their document does not reveal which other games already support Ninja Graphics, or may do so in the future. This is probably because such information isn't supposed to be known to the Joe Public.

Beta Driver

Part of the package we received was a GeForce R310 beta driver for the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680, which is currently the only available NVIDIA Kepler-based graphics card. We don't have an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680 ourselves (yes, we are one of the unfortunate few NOT to receive a sample from NVIDIA - boo hoo hoo...) so we will be uploading it for you guys to test.

We are not sure if it will work with the current version of Battlefield 3, or if it needs a special patch. Guess you lucky guys with the GeForce GTX 680 will have to test it out and let us know!

This driver has a revision number of 310.08 and is only meant for Windows 7 64-bit systems. It is a bit over 160 MB in size, so it took us a while to upload. Plus we had to rezip it just in case there were identifying signatures in the original package. You can download it off our server here.

Be sure to let us know if it works!

Trivia

According to an NVIDIA source, the idea for Ninja Graphics actually came from the notorious GeForce 8800 GTX/GTS vertex shader bug. Although that bug inadvertently caused poorer gaming skills on the part of gamers using NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTX/GTS graphics cards, they used the same concept in reverse for the NVIDIA Ninja Graphics Technology.

Conclusion

Will the other game developers be open to such a "trick"? After all, it would give NVIDIA gamers an unfair advantage over non-NVIDIA players. Correction - only gamers who spend money on NVIDIA's latest Kepler-based graphics cards would benefit. Those who insist on running on older NVIDIA graphics cards will not enjoy this benefit. It is likely that NVIDIA will have to sweeten the pot for developers, probably through a development grant for future games. We honestly cannot think of any developer who would give such an advantage to NVIDIA for nothing in return.

Obviously, we don't think they intend for this information to leak out. AMD will certainly scream foul play but we are not certain what they can actually do about NVIDIA's "little nefarious trick". Serious gamers will probably be alarmed by this development and may choose to avoid playing with other gamers using Kepler-based graphics cards. On the other hand, it may encourage them to just "invest" in an NVIDIA Kepler-based graphics card for the "extra edge".

What do you think? Are you for, or against, the NVIDIA Ninja Graphics Technology? Tell us why!

Questions & Comments

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