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Kyle Bennett (HardOCP) blasts NVIDIA
quote:
"The last year has been an incredible year when it comes to video cards. No wait, it has not. It has been an incredible year when it comes to video card companies that develop the technology. As far as the actual hardware goes, the Radeon R3XX series still remains the most impressive VPU introduction in recent memory as it truly revolutionized the way we play games and continues to do so. On the other end of the scale we have the GeForceFX 5800 series that without a doubt turned into the biggest joke in our community since Matrox brought us the Parhelia. That is not what I want to talk about however. I want to talk about the way NVIDIA is treating the people that have bought its products recently and every enthusiast that keeps up with the goings on in the world of VPU/GPUs. ATI has been building targets for NVIDIA to aim at for the last year and NVIDIA has done little more than shoot themselves in the foot every chance they have gotten. Let?s recap a couple of the highlights shall we? On the topic of 3DMark03, everyone but NVIDIA, Futuremark, and their lawyers will tell you that NVIDIA cheated in that benchmark to get a better score. No matter what the press releases say about optimizations, I think many of us know very well that it was cheating. You can characterize NVIDIA?s actions as ?optimizations? and argue that point well, but to accept that take on the issue you have to throw out everything you know about past experience when it comes to benchmarking. The way that NVIDIA went about optimizing for 3DMark03 recently can only be looked at as an attack on the enthusiast community and everything we have built and believe in. NVIDIA?s actions and optimizations for 3DMark03 tear at the very fabric of our community and violate some unwritten laws. I personally put no real value in 3DMark03 scores, but many folks did, and certainly it is used by large OEMs. NVIDIA got caught with their hand in the cookie jar and when they pulled it out, they gave everyone the bird. I cannot be sure of their motives behind those actions but NVIDIA has ensured us that they have taken measures so that it will not happen again. Sadly, the person they need to be talking to is you. The person they need to be apologizing to is you. What NVIDIA has done in the world of benchmarks is inexcusable and they simply owe us all an apology for dumping on every person that ever supported them. We took NVIDIA to task earlier this year on the topic of image quality and they got down to brass tacks and fixed some things that were wrong. We were impressed, but they seem to be backsliding. We recently addressed the issue of NVIDIA and their Trilinear Filtering that they use in UT2K3. I still stand behind our results, but that article raised a wealth of other questions. Why is NVIDIA ?decreasing? Trilinear Filtering samples? Why do they force the optimization in this one game? Why do I not have the control over image quality that I think I should have? It seems that to me that NVIDIA has implemented a legitimate optimization with UT2K3 in order to win what is a very widely used benchmark. I personally do not have an issue with that. The optimizations are present in the benchmark are also applied in the game which is widely played and many persons might find that useful during gameplay. The issue with this ?quasi-Trilinear Filtering? optimization is that you cannot turn it off should you wish to. If you go into the UT2K3 video setup GUI, there is a checkbox there for ?Trilinear Filtering?, so it seems obvious to me that the game developer seemed to think that Trilinear Filtering would be something that would enhance the game. Some folks are upset that they do not get to enable this feature using NVIDIA GFFX cards as it is commonly understood to work. Quite frankly, I don?t like not having that ability taken from me either. I think when we spend $400 or $500 on a video card, we should be able to turn on true Trilinear Filtering in the game if that is what we want, and NVIDIA has taken this away from us. We spoke to NVIDIA about this months ago, and we thought we had negotiated an answer that would make everyone happy. We have publicly referred to this multiple times. We expected a control in their new drivers that would allow the application to set influences that affect image quality. As of last night, using NVIDIA?s new driver set, we were not able to turn on true Trilinear Filtering in UT2K3. We went to NVIDIA and asked about this. They explained that we had never been told what we thought we had been told. It seemed to turn into a semantics game; one I did not feel like playing. Why NVIDIA is refusing to give this option to the enthusiasts is simply beyond me. The fact of the matter is that this option is not our birthright or anything close. NVIDIA has a fiduciary duty to its stockholders to make them money and apparently they think this decision on forcing their optimizations on the end user is one that will go their way and help them be profitable. Now we are hearing rumors of NVIDIA once again joining Futuremark?s 3DMark Beta program. As of this morning NVIDIA PR neither confirmed nor denied the rumor. IF this is true it simply leaves me numb after all the efforts that NVIDIA has expended to discredit Futuremark. We have already seen Futuremark roll over at NVIDIA?s command here recently. What integrity Futuremark had was spent this year. I am not sure how anyone can actually use their benchmarks now and think that there is some semblance of objectivity. Futuremark takes direct payments from the companies that profit from the hardware it benchmarks and that is unacceptable as it is a glaring conflict of interest. We are talking about payments adding up to millions of dollars. At this point, if NVIDIA does in fact climb back into the Futuremark Beta program I can only think of the move as being laughable. I am sorry, but I have now had enough. NVIDIA needs to fess up to their actions publicly. NVIDIA needs to apologize for their actions publicly. NVIDIA needs to spell out the corrections they are going to make publicly. NVIDIA needs to make the community aware of the optimizations they will make that affect benchmark scores in games and synthetics. NVIDIA needs to treat the community with the respect they deserve. If they do not, the enthusiast community needs to go spend their money with the competition and urge all the people that ask them for buying advice to do the same. The bottom line is this. NVIDIA has broken a sacred trust between themselves and the community and unless they get their issues together very quickly and address them, I have a feeling that many more of you will not be buying their products. NVIDIA?s current line of cards is very strong and they look to be good products, but as a consumer I would personally have a hard time giving them my money right now. The only real power we consumers have is to vote with our wallets. ATI and NVIDIA need to pull out of the Futuremark Beta Program and recommit themselves to focusing on their customers gaming experience. But, this is all just my opinion. Feel free to steal, rip, copy, fax, email, and post this article in whole or in part, as your own words, or as mine." |
B wrote:
Interesting you should mention Futuremark because as of today NVIDIA has rejoined Futuremarks testing. http://news.com.com/2100-1040_3-5062667.html?tag=fd_top I also noticed that you didn't say much about how ATI also cheated on some of their drivers some time ago. If you look again at his posting subject and the first word: "quote:" then you understand that it's a copy-paste from HardOCP news article. It was just ment as news. Mario PS! not that your point's would have been wrong, just emphasizing on the words not being his. |
"Radeon350" wrote in message om... quote: Kyle Bennett is a complete ****wit at the best of times. Given his past record on his childish rants his opinions count for nothing. K |
Hi There
Kyle is right. Nvidia has scared me away after a long time having owned more than 6 different cards in a row. The performance of NV cards is very unbalanced lately, but they might improve themselves in the future. Meanwhile i`m stickin with ATI , it`s my pleasure and they seem friendly to the enthousiast community. BYE Jack |
K wrote:
"Radeon350" wrote in message om... quote: Kyle Bennett is a complete ****wit at the best of times. Given his past record on his childish rants his opinions count for nothing. K Henceforth the name "editorial" instead of news. Kyle puts up with a lot of **** from companies he deals with and sooner or later he's gonna let it out. Just take the hipocrisy that reviewers must face for example; they must use an objective benchmark to compare performance between hardware, but the benchmark itself is crap - yet the hardware vendors still insist on beating each other in it (completely ignoring any of the [H]'s often suggested benchmarking and performance tuning guidelines. |
"K" wrote in message ... "Radeon350" wrote in message om... quote: Kyle Bennett is a complete ****wit at the best of times. Given his past record on his childish rants his opinions count for nothing. Translation: he slammed Nvidia so he doesn't know what he's talking about, once he praises Nvidia again he'll be a clear/logical thinker who deserves praise. Fanboys, gotta love 'em! Chris Smith |
"who be dat?" wrote in message ... "K" wrote in message ... "Radeon350" wrote in message om... quote: Kyle Bennett is a complete ****wit at the best of times. Given his past record on his childish rants his opinions count for nothing. Translation: he slammed Nvidia so he doesn't know what he's talking about, once he praises Nvidia again he'll be a clear/logical thinker who deserves praise. Fanboys, gotta love 'em! No fanboy here, my next card is probably going to be a Radeon unless Nvidia come out with something better. I totally agree with Kyle about 3Dmark03, it's a completely worthless benchmark but I realised this long before his tiny brain thought of it. My point is that because of Mr Bennetts' past record of spewing forth utter drivel, his opinions should be taken with a sack of salt. K |
Kyle Bennett is a complete ****wit at the best of times. Given his past
record on his childish rants his opinions count for nothing. Translation: he slammed Nvidia so he doesn't know what he's talking about, once he praises Nvidia again he'll be a clear/logical thinker who deserves praise. Fanboys, gotta love 'em! Chris Smith And when he slams ATI,we'll be hearing from you......................................... |
No fanboy here, my next card is probably going to be a Radeon unless
Nvidia come out with something better. I totally agree with Kyle about 3Dmark03, it's a completely worthless benchmark but I realised this long before his tiny brain thought of it. My point is that because of Mr Bennetts' past record of spewing forth utter drivel, his opinions should be taken with a sack of salt. K Every card I've had since a Diamond Viper V550 has been an nVidia card, up to the Ti4200 I now have, but it's looking right now like the next one is going to be a Radeon 9800 or better. -- chainbreaker |
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OverKlocker wrote:
one point is 'yes' ati has done this as well. another would be that nvidia seems to be doing it alot with their new product (5900 ultra). i dont have my new issue of maximumPC here, but some of you prob read the article which basically shows that by removing the 'optimizations' the nvidia card takes ALOT bigger hit on preformance than the ati card. that kinda struck me as funny, since maximumPC is now showing both cards as their 'high end' choices. From what I can tell, there seems to be little difference between the two very top end cards. Right below that, though, the various Radeon offerings seem to offer more for the money. -- chainbreaker |
He did say the current FX cards were very strong. Speaking out of bth sides of
his mouth or afraid to completely burn his bridges?Hmm. Kyle Bennett is a complete ****wit at the best of times. Given his past record on his childish rants his opinions count for nothing. Translation: he slammed Nvidia so he doesn't know what he's talking about, once he praises Nvidia again he'll be a clear/logical thinker who deserves praise. |
On Wed, 13 Aug 2003 17:06:33 GMT, "Mike P"
wrote: I'd prefer to see ATI and nVidia stay in competition to keep prices down and viable alternatives for each other's products. I loved my TNT and the TNT2U that replaced it but I've been an ATI fan since my 32mb RadeonLE (screamed with registry hack and oc). that was my first 'mainstream' ati card. it was rockin... then went to an 8500 64mb, then an 8500 128mb, and now a 9700pro (all BBA) |
From what I can tell, there seems to be little difference between the two very top end cards. Right below that, though, the various Radeon offerings seem to offer more for the money. i like the 'more bang fer yer buck' option. that is why i also like AMD... (but if i had the money... a 3.2P4 would be really nice...LOL) |
"YanquiDawg" wrote in message ... He did say the current FX cards were very strong. Speaking out of bth sides of his mouth or afraid to completely burn his bridges?Hmm. You tell me, isn't OCP and nvidia going to be working closely together at quakecon in dallas this year? At the OCP workshop, or whatever it's called. The whole enthusiasts online press sucks ass. |
"Derek Wildstar" wrote in message et... "YanquiDawg" wrote in message ... He did say the current FX cards were very strong. Speaking out of bth sides of his mouth or afraid to completely burn his bridges?Hmm. You tell me, isn't OCP and nvidia going to be working closely together at quakecon in dallas this year? At the OCP workshop, or whatever it's called. His editorial kinda made me wonder if he wasn't sticking his neck out a little too far on the chopping block of PR, even if he did make some valid points (some of which I agree with). The cynic in me says he's "whoring for publicity by typical ****stirring 101" (the bigger cynic thinks it's one of these "any publicity is good publicity" things for Nvidia, and that they can now set the stage for looking like heroes meeting everyone's expectations by enabling features that shouldn't have been disabled in the first place once they're able to get around the performance hit a little with another angle of spoogery, or God forbid actual valid optimizations) but there's a lot of things he said that were right on target (and should have been common knowledge awhile ago). OTOH, dropping the toast on the buttered side isn't exactly a good thing to do on the dorm kitchen floor...but it did make me feel good to see SOMEONE out there wallowing thru the muck of hardware journalism with a big enough pair to say their piece without worrying so much about the payola...almost makes up for that Jayson Blair-inspired article of his about the P4 3-gig release...;-) The whole enthusiasts online press sucks ass. Damn, Derek! Did I just see this coming out of you? ... ....There's hope for the world yet! ;-) |
"Derek Wildstar" wrote in message et... "Dave" wrote in message news:aAz_a.94972$cF.28702@rwcrnsc53... His editorial kinda made me wonder if he wasn't sticking his neck out a little too far on the chopping block of PR, even if he did make some valid points (some of which I agree with). While he does enjoy the sticky-floored demographic in readership, which applauds this type of outburst, they don't pay his bills. Those twitchy ad-banners and ridiculous mouse pad thingys do. Like anyone in Press PR is going to bother with him anymore. Not because he raises 'issues', but because he's a pandering simpleton, pandering to the fickle loyalty of the immature gamer. Just making his fan club happy, I suppose...pandering to this mindset doesn't necessarily lose anyone any money or readership. It also helps sell games and hardware. Nvidia doesn't do this as well? Come on now! What did P.T. Barnum say? ;^) So why indeed is he wagging his finger at nvidia, for such trivial issues? It's a goddamn driver issue when all is said and done. Why not instead take them to task for making the abortion FX5200, They had to do something with those bottom-binned FX chips that failed more than one pipeline here and there, and besides, the 5200 is a shoo-in MX replacement, incremential improvement though it may be. The driver issues with the FX *should have* really been taken care of before gold date, now don't you think? Someone is gonna shell out top dollar for a card to find out their trilinear filtering doesn't do what it's s'pota in one of their favorite games, when the competition (ATI, natch) can offer proper functionality here as well as better performance at a lesser price? That is hardly an unimportant point. The fact it *has yet to be fixed* by a driver release, and the IMNSHO unacceptable shortcuts Nvidia is using to try to get back to the top in the meantime while this issue is not being fixed really says something about the focus of the company... or not being 'more' competitive with ATI, I think we covered this angle awhile ago, now didn't we? Seems you sat on a different side of the fence than "more competitive"... or their abysmal nforce drivers. I'll bite. What's so bad about the Nforce drivers? And another thing: the integrated graphics are not bad at all...maybe the 2d image quality is right down there with the GF3, but it runs Q3 at just over 100 FPS at 1024x768x32 max detail. That may not be much compared to even a GF2U, but it is nonetheless quite respectable for onboard video...with an older Athlon Tbird mitten-warmer that originally ran at 11x100 (now 7x166), no less. The original UT averages over 70 FPS during gameplay at the same res. and bit depth using the OpenGL renderer in "utglr23.zip", with S3TC enabled. UT '03 is even quite playable at 800x600. A far cry from this VIA/S3 and Intel onboard crap, even anything from ATI so far (and what does ATI offer for a decent chipset?). The Nforce 2 integrated platform is the best integrated platform going for all-around use. Especially for the price. Instead of focusing on these pickyune issues. Yes, he has points, but they smack of rearranging the deck chairs on the titanic. The [H]orde has to sit somewhere and watch the water rising, don't they? ;-) And I'm not so sure about the "sinking ship" aspect of this metaphor. I would say Nvidia's situation is more like the USS Cole, only the hole was blown from within by someone playing medicine ball with live torpedoes when they should have been racking and counting them...and if you don't think opinions like Kyle's and their aftereffects don't affect sales in any way, guess again. He's right on about the trust issue. As far as 3DMarket goes, I've been saying practically the same thing he has from the beginning. And it certainly does nothing to improve Nvidia's image by first publicly decrying Futuremark and then hopping enthusiastically back into the sack with them...things that make you go "Hmmmm..." Trust is a wonderful thing... The whole enthusiasts online press sucks ass. Damn, Derek! Did I just see this coming out of you? ... We are discussing an opinion thread, no? Therefore I can opine without being out of character. :) Oh, sure! I get like that too sometimes...but it sounded like...like something Kyle might say! ;-) God forbid you should be human as the rest of us, I suppose, though for all I know, you're just a bunch of text strings... ;-) Bit-Death to OCP and their semi-literate readership! Long live EE! I'm embarassed Kyle is from Texas! Shame on you! Me? Now whatever for? I am just stating my opinion, after all... http://www.eetimes.com/ Yeah, EE Times is a much better read than the [H]...but there are nonetheless a few worthwhile tidbits therein if you can get beyond the editorializing and pandering fluff and other such lack of objectivity at times. This is actually one editorial he spewed out that I can actually read and agree with the majority therein. Came as a little surprise... |
"Dave" wrote in message news:5oG_a.141239$Ho3.17332@sccrnsc03... They had to do something with those bottom-binned FX chips that failed more than one pipeline here and there, and besides, the 5200 is a shoo-in MX replacement, incremential improvement though it may be. I'll work with you on that entirely reasonable idea, however, here's a notable problem..once you actually embed the 5200 in a chipset, say goodbye to that add-in card's sales. Of course, they are crafty enough to only implement that embedding action once the [lack of] sales for the 5200 justify it. Either way, it's two turkey's in a row for them, and so close to thanksgiving too. The driver issues with the FX *should have* really been taken care of before gold date, now don't you think? Absolutely, and I'll do you one better than the filtering silliness, lack of 2d panels in FS2004:Cof on the FX series of cards due to additional driver irregularities. And, since this problem persisted to the retail release, I can tell you it was identified ages ago (several weeks prior to release) and nvidia sat on it much to the detriment of simmers who lacked the luck or foresight to *not* pick up the aforementioned bogus FX card. I think we covered this angle awhile ago, now didn't we? Seems you sat on a different side of the fence than "more competitive"... Unlike our mutual irritant, Kyle, I'm not a fair weather complainer. I still support NV and like their products, and will continue to buy them. They are really in a world of hurt right now, losing mindshare, losing contracts...Xbox 2 + ATI = lower stock price, losing focus. There is a lot to like with their products, the 5600 ultra is posied to be the next GeForce4 4600, which was/is probably the best DX7/8 card around. Their mobo chipsets are a huge success, and if they ever get back to basics, like solid engineering, they will continue winning OEM contracts which will give them the luxury of titilating the enthusiast market, which you might recall, is the bugaboo of these video card companies. That was you I chatted with about that, right? There are so many 'Dave's' running about. I'll bite. What's so bad about the Nforce drivers? Many things, the last two releases have been recalled (by rolling back certain internal elements, note the revision numbers) due to creating more problems than they solved, and some of the most siginificant probelms a incompatibility with Nero, loss of HDD data, shutdown issues, incompatibility with NTFS in WinXP, failure to recognize safedisc protected CD's, total failure of the IDE miniport driver. While the number of installations experiencing problems is unacceptably high (I've seen three distinct issues on four NF2 PC's), it's not enough to cripple the chipset, and I have high hopes they can finally satisfy completely in this area. The NF2 is already a more robust performer than the brand new KT600 and they are negotiating with intel for the P4 platform as well. And another thing: the integrated graphics are not bad at all... Oh stop. As if you really play those creaky antiques any more. Or at those 15" monitor resoluitons. it certainly does nothing to improve Nvidia's image by first publicly decrying Futuremark and then hopping enthusiastically back into the sack with them...things that make you go "Hmmmm..." I know that tune, and I'll join you in the 2nd verse when Kyle heaps praise on nvidia again, shall we set a date on it? Perhaps when the Det 50's are released? Or maybe the next silicon refresh. He's now backed himself into a corner: Either forever malign nvidia and look petty, or backpedal when his earth shattering issues of 'trust' and 'noblesse oblige' of the graphic card designers dissolve with the next batch of hardware or software that fix those issues (and create new ones! fun.) Yeah, EE Times is a much better read than the [H]...but there are nonetheless a few worthwhile tidbits therein if you can get beyond the editorializing and pandering fluff and other such lack of objectivity at times. This is actually one editorial he spewed out that I can actually read and agree with the majority therein. Came as a little surprise... Raise your standards dear boy. While I too sometimes enjoy the IT-Queen peevishness that Kyle oozes like a drunken sailor in denial, there's only so much heat sink fan reviews and links to 'round-ups' of 18 month old hardware in some cowboy's rodeo I can stand. Not to mention his insistent links to those terminally unfunny comics. Oh right, anything that has an [H] in it is instantly hilarious. Wouldn't it be funny if the only readers of OCP were merely rubberneckers? Oh, the [H]umanity. |
Yeah well that's the problm isn't it? These guys have to work together so they
really can't say or do things that are irrevicable. Although,Kyle did have some pretty strong words,he left himself an out. Although someone does need to inform the public of what's available and how it stacks up. It's just too bad so much ad money is involved. Dawg He did say the current FX cards were very strong. Speaking out of bth sides of his mouth or afraid to completely burn his bridges?Hmm. You tell me, isn't OCP and nvidia going to be working closely together at quakecon in dallas this year? At the OCP workshop, or whatever it's called. The whole enthusiasts online press sucks ass. |
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