Quackifier

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Quackifier is the name of a program that modified the OpenGL driver for ATI video cards, to change all references of "quake" to "quack". This was done because it was suspected that ATI was including enhancements in their drivers that were specific to Quake 3, in order to increase its performance in the game and, subsequently, benchmark scores that tested Quake 3 performance.

Tests showed that, indeed, the "quackified" drivers produced lower scores that the original drivers, indicating that ATI did indeed include speed enhancements that specifically targeted Quake 3. ATI supporters argued there was nothing wrong with this, as Quake 3 was a popular game, and increased performance in it was something gamers benefitted from. Critics contended that it was unfair not only because it made the overall performance look better than it really was, but that the "enhancements" for Quake increased the performance by simply lowering the image quality, as opposed to optimized code.

[edit] References

• Optimizing or Cheating Radeon 8500 Drivers - Kyle Bennett, [H]ardOCP