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We present a new artificial driving force for the determination of grain boundary mobility by molecular dynamics. The new driving force is a symmetric version of the synthetic driving force formerly introduced by Janssens et al 2006 Nature Mater. 5 124–7. The new version depends on two orientation parameters instead of one. We analyze the advantages and disadvantages of these two driving force methods. Grain boundary mobilities are simulated for eight symmetric CSL tilt grain boundaries in Al, Cu and γ-Fe, and two MD potentials for each of these materials. Boundary conditions are kept as similar as possible to show the influence of the different materials and to compare to the influence of the different MD potential types on simulated GB mobilities. We find that the newly introduced artificial driving force is a slight improvement, but it cannot remove the shortcomings of the original approach. Also, it is found that the differences in calculated MD mobilities between different materials are of the same order as those between different MD potentials of any one element. Sources for such differences are identified and classified by severity.