- NVIDIA's DX10 hardware-based multi-sampled Anti-Aliasing resolve is disabled in the benchmark, with all NVIDIA GPUs now being forced to use software-based AA resolve similar to the ATI DX10 GPU (which lacks hardware AA resolve). This artificially deflates performance on NVDIA graphics cards and users are not getting the benefit of a key NVIDIA hardware feature.

- A hidden "ExtraQuality" parameter only accessible via a configuration file is automatically enabled when the benchmark is run on NVIDIA hardware, no matter what the setting in the configuration file. This setting has no apparent visual quality enhancement, but reduces NVIDIA GPU performance.

- Changes to shaders that deflate NVIDIA performance by approximately 10-14%, without improving visual quality on either NVIDIA or ATI GPUs.