3DMark Vantage has four major components, two CPU and two GPU. One of the CPU subtests is a physics-based test. The physics test is based on the Ageia PhysX API, a fairly widespread API in use by a large number of games. Between the time that 3DMark Vantage development was started and the time it was released, Nvidia bought Ageia.

The problem is that the PhysX DLLs, and for that matter, the whole API is now owned by Nvidia. In and of itself, this is not a problem, especially if the company involved had a history of honesty, integrity, and fair play. Nvidia has none of these attributes, and has a proven history of cheating on 3DMark.

To be fair, ATI has been caught at the same thing as well, but nothing lately, and Intel compilers come with curious optimisation defaults as well. No one is clean, but only Nvidia seems to take dishonesty as a corporate mandate.

So, with the latest driver, Forceware 177.39 drivers, Nvidia put its now in-house PhysX APIs into the drivers. Instead of it running on the CPU or on the PhysX chip, it is running it on the GPU. It owns the GPU and it's drivers along with the physics API and all those drivers. This is a dangerous situation.

You can read the entire article at The Inquirer.