Noticed over on TeamRadeon (an ATI fansite judging by the name) they got some ATi response regarding ATI's performance in Doom 3:

"Hi Richard - this is a non issue - Doom 3 isn't even available yet, & we all know that some of our competitors use partial precision where possible. We expect to have updated drivers available in the coming weeks."

More here. So, ummm, basically ATi will (think they'll) have better performing Drivers out shortly & NVIDIA's speed can be attributed (in part) to them using only partial precision.

ole farte already brought this up in the release thread of the 1.2 far cry patch. apparently nvidia did encourage crytek to use partial precision in some areas, as nvidia claims, the reason for the pulling of the far cry patch was a 500k payout to do so, by ATi until it can establish a patch w/ ati optimizations. 24 bit is considered full precision, but 32bit is 3.0 compliant, so ATI is using this platform to bag on nvidia. nonetheless, the fully compliant 32 bit 3.0 board rests in nvidias hands. and, on and on

we are only a week or so away from the release.....the 6800 cards are in spots 1 & 2 on the pole, x800xt in the 3 spot. gentlemen, start your engines.

Oh, conspiracy theories abound....

I think it's really quite simple. If you take even a short glance at the FarCry user forums, it is -very- clear what drove Ubisoft to this decision. I've never seen so many complaints about patch problems in so little time.

As for Doom3 performance... not much of a surprise. NVidia has always had a faster OpenGL implimentation.

Unregistered guest, whoever you are, you speak the truth