This whole HalfLife2 thing is ridiculous

Umm, sorry to bust your bubble man, but ever heard of 3dmark 2003?

Oh, you mean the program that both ATI & Nvidia were caught writing routines
for? Yeah, whatever.


I think that is your twisted interpretation of things. They have acted as
if
HL2 is 100% representative of how HL2 will perform, but Doom3 for example
performs better on GFFX line (when properly downgraded in quality anyway).
Didn't see Valve saying anything about that.

Valve came out and started bashing Nvidia. Then, they concluded that Nvidia
products are simply inferior, period. Not just with HL2 - everything. Its
very easy to see the implications Valve made during their last press
conference.


Here you're putting words in their mouths. Unethical debating technique.
Please stop doing that, you know the Valve team isn't here to defend
themselves from your accusations!

Wait a minute - so, if I started saying, "Great white sharks are killers!",
it isn't fair - because the sharks aren't here to respond? In that case, no
one can ever post an opinion in this newsgroup again.

"Obviously", since DX9 games simply happen to perform better on current
ATi
hardware compared to current GFFX hardware.

No - "obviously", because until this last press conference, Nvidia had no
idea that their cards ran this slow in HL2 (at least according to Valve).
Valve kept talking with them, working with them - then suddenly came out and
blindsided them.

Geez man, why don't you take
Valve on their word when they say their relationship with ATi grew from
that
fact, and not the other way around?

Because that's not how corporate America works.


Not even Nvidia is claiming Valve
sabotaged Nvidia performance on purpose.

No, they're not - but they came as close as they could. They asked why
Valve never gave them these numbers beforehand, if their relationship was so
good. They asked why Valve didn't use the newer driver set. Etc., etc.

If you think I'm an "irate fanboy", go ahead. I'm not defending any
company. (I do believe YOU are the one doing that.) I dislike Nvidia,
actually - they used propaganda to help put 3dfx out of business. I don't
care for ATI, either - due to the fact that at least 50% of the games I've
played on my ATI systems have needed patches, tweaks, etc. to get them
working perfectly. Out of my 5 gaming systems, I have 3 Nvidia and 2 ATI
cards. I have no loyalties.
I am upset at Valve, though - it must be the conservative in me, but I hate
it when the media takes un-verified information and turns it into fact.

I'm using common sense man. For starters, they're in crunch mode to
finish
the game on time

so you believe everybody at Valve is coding at the moment ?

They're likely debugging and playtesting right now, making sure everything
works the way it's supposed to and fixing that which does not.

they wouldn't have time nor patience to read here what a
bunch of fanboys have to say slamming their game (which said fanboys
haven't
even played yet I might add).

Don't you think there are people at Valve that are paid to care about
communication ?

No, I don't think that. Well, not paid to read and respond to this newsgroup
anyway. I mean, it's not as if they can afford to just hire people left and
right to scan EVERY goddamn newsgroup and message board and such for stuff
that's Valve related. This NG isn't even games related, it's a hardware
group for crying out loud...

Now let's make an assumption : they're reading us.

Instead, let's make an assumption they're not. What do I base this on? Maybe
the fact we've NEVER seen anyone from Valve post here, at least not in any
kind of official capacity?

The whole point of my post was,
that Valve has decided that, because Nvidia cards run poorly on HL2, then
Nvidia cards are poor in general.

Except they haven't said that.

That is ridiculous - HL2 is NOT going to
become the one-and-only benchmark program out there. Valve has got to
knock
that chip off their shoulder - before Doom3 does it for them.

*Cough* Last time round, HL sold just WAYYYYYY more than Quake ever did, and
in 'most anticipated game' polls I see HL leading over Doom3.

Anyway, seems to me it's you with the chip, you're even going as far as
making stuff up about them. Stop that.

Umm, sorry to bust your bubble man, but ever heard of 3dmark 2003?

Oh, you mean the program that both ATI & Nvidia were caught writing
routines
for?

Yeah, I'm sure you think one re-ordered shader (with identical output to the
original shader) compares to several shaders giving a totally different
output, along with manually turning off buffer clears when it would not be
noticed, inserting static clip planes to remove part of the workload and
then lying about it and pressuring 3dmark's parent company to covering it up
compares?

Yeah, whatever.

Exactly.

Valve came out and started bashing Nvidia. Then, they concluded that
Nvidia
products are simply inferior, period.

....As supported by which quote, exactly?

very easy to see the implications Valve made during their last press
conference.

I don't see how you come to that conclusion.

Wait a minute - so, if I started saying, "Great white sharks are
killers!",
it isn't fair - because the sharks aren't here to respond?

LOL, it wouldn't be fair because technically they're HUNTERS, not killers.
Killers imply they kill for fun while they actually kill to survive, heh.

No - "obviously", because until this last press conference, Nvidia had no
idea that their cards ran this slow in HL2 (at least according to Valve).

I'm sure they were aware, Nvidia DID prepare the detonator 50 series to give
"optimized" performance for the game after all, and the two companies worked
on the Nvidia-SPECIFIC rendering path of the engine - which Valve now
regrets since it doesn't really help the mass-market NV3x cards at all and
it took 5x more time to finish compared to the regular D3D path.

Not even Nvidia is claiming Valve
sabotaged Nvidia performance on purpose.

No, they're not - but they came as close as they could.

Uh huh. They only spent 5x more time optimizing for Nvidia's cards
specifically than they did optimizing the game IN GENERAL. Not optimizing
for ATi or anyone else; IN GENERAL. That's right, there are NO ATi-specific
optimizations in HL2, just like there are Nvidia-specific optimizations in
Doom3 while ATi's DX9 cards use the general rendering path.

See a pattern developing here?

They asked why
Valve never gave them these numbers beforehand, if their relationship was
so
good. They asked why Valve didn't use the newer driver set. Etc., etc.

OH, so you don't believe Valve when they say they're collaborating with ATi
because HL runs just peachy on ATi hardware, but you believe Nvidia's
damage-control spinmeisters when THEY say Valve blindsided them? *Cough*
Makes excellent sense...not.

Valve probably didn't want people using the newer driver set because A: it
likely contains application-specific "optimizations" that Valve do not
approve of (see Aquamark comparison screenshots as circumstantial evidence),
and B: is not available to the general public yet.

If you think I'm an "irate fanboy", go ahead. I'm not defending any
company. (I do believe YOU are the one doing that.)

I dislike Nvidia, actually - they used propaganda to help put 3dfx out of
business.

Oh this is such an old BS accusation, I wish people could just forget these
silly ideas, hehe. 3dfx was quite capable of putting themselves out of
business, they didn't need ANYBODY'S help. They spent half their TOTAL R&D
budget on a card nobody ever got to see, they bought a factory they did not
need, they alienated their business partners, they had basically no OEM
contracts, they quite simply made many unsound business decisions. Don't
give Nvidia credit for what they did not accomplish.

It's not as if 3dfx didn't use propaganda too you know - and even lawsuits
actually.

I don't
care for ATI, either - due to the fact that at least 50% of the games I've
played on my ATI systems have needed patches, tweaks, etc

Oh really? I never had that problem on my ATi card. Which games would that
50% be then?

I am upset at Valve, though - it must be the conservative in me, but I
hate
it when the media takes un-verified information and turns it into fact.

What un-verified information? Valve only made the game - what do THEY know
about anything?

I think that is your twisted interpretation of things. They have acted as
if
HL2 is 100% representative of how HL2 will perform, but Doom3 for example
performs better on GFFX line (when properly downgraded in quality anyway).

Please remember that Nvidia tried to pull an end-run around ATI with the
early Doom3 benchmarks, just as ATI has done with HL2. There were many
statements at the time that they had droves of driver people all over the D3
benchmarking machine, and the whole production was controlled by them,
enough to make Carmack suspicious.

Payback time, baby.

rms

"TheHasselhoff" wrote in message
om...
I guess I still don't get it - why aren't any of the other game
development
companies coming out & saying these things? The whole point of my post
was,
that Valve has decided that, because Nvidia cards run poorly on HL2, then
Nvidia cards are poor in general. That is ridiculous - HL2 is NOT going
to
become the one-and-only benchmark program out there. Valve has got to
knock
that chip off their shoulder - before Doom3 does it for them.



Yep. MS is now in the final stages of DX-10 anyway. Probably be released
late this year or early 2004. Also, there is the update to DX-9b coming
soon. A few lines of code could make a world of difference for everything.
What many folks seem to forget is that DX is pure software that can
implement any HW calls it needs to (and support more than just one). With
all the criticisms of MS, one thing they always tend to do is to support as
wide a range of hardware as possible. I doubt seriously that they will leave
out 50% of the high-end video market.

Ed

Lenny wrote:
Uh huh. They only spent 5x more time optimizing for Nvidia's cards
specifically than they did optimizing the game IN GENERAL. Not optimizing
for ATi or anyone else; IN GENERAL.

so how do you rate that "IN GENERAL" optimization ? Would you believe
Valve if they came one day saying : "Our game is D3D 9, unfortunately
there's no video card that can display it" ? Of course not. So the
general optimization you are talking about is a general one, yes of
course, but what you see is the one dedicated for one card or the other.
Right now, it is for ATI.



OH, so you don't believe Valve when they say they're collaborating with ATi
because HL runs just peachy on ATi hardware, but you believe Nvidia's
damage-control spinmeisters when THEY say Valve blindsided them? *Cough*
Makes excellent sense...not.

In my opinion, when you design something, /one way or the other / you
end up making your tests on *one* device. When I want to code a webpage
and want it to be W3C-compliant, I don't code the whole page, validate
it, before watching how it renders in different browsers. On the
contrary, I take *one* browser, go on coding with respects of the W3C
recommendations until some checkpoint, and then validate it. And then I
try and look how it renders in the other browsers.
The *o,e* browser I choose for my first tests, is chosen with 2
different ways :
- first way is to see what will the website be browsed with. If I want
MSIE users I first test with MSIE.
- second way : I take the browser that renders the most as the W3C
says it must (that is, Mozilla).

Now, back to Valve. The second way is not possible, since they don't
have info on how each card will support D3D9. We're thus on the first
way. Which is dealt from another part of the company : the parnership part.



Valve probably didn't want people using the newer driver set because
A: it likely contains application-specific "optimizations" that Valve
do not approve of (see Aquamark comparison screenshots as
circumstantial evidence),
B: is not available to the general public yet.

B is not a valid argument. HL2 is not available either afaik.



it when the media takes un-verified information and turns it into fact.

What un-verified information? Valve only made the game - what do THEY know
about anything?

Well, apart from what Valve says, how can you be sure they used D3D9 and
not some ATI special features ? The only way to find out is to wait for
other D3D9 games.



--
XandreX
/I'm that kind of people your parents warned you about/

"TheHasselhoff" wrote in message . com...
I guess I still don't get it - why aren't any of the other game development
companies coming out & saying these things? The whole point of my post was,
that Valve has decided that, because Nvidia cards run poorly on HL2, then
Nvidia cards are poor in general. That is ridiculous - HL2 is NOT going to
become the one-and-only benchmark program out there. Valve has got to knock
that chip off their shoulder - before Doom3 does it for them.

You're wrong. Read this:

http://www.beyond3d.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=7873

The last I heard, DirectX 10 was going to be included with Longhorn, not a
separate release.....

Rich S.

"Ed Medlin" wrote in message
...

"TheHasselhoff" wrote in message
om...
I guess I still don't get it - why aren't any of the other game
development
companies coming out & saying these things? The whole point of my post
was,
that Valve has decided that, because Nvidia cards run poorly on HL2,
then
Nvidia cards are poor in general. That is ridiculous - HL2 is NOT going
to
become the one-and-only benchmark program out there. Valve has got to
knock
that chip off their shoulder - before Doom3 does it for them.



Yep. MS is now in the final stages of DX-10 anyway. Probably be released
late this year or early 2004. Also, there is the update to DX-9b coming
soon. A few lines of code could make a world of difference for everything.
What many folks seem to forget is that DX is pure software that can
implement any HW calls it needs to (and support more than just one). With
all the criticisms of MS, one thing they always tend to do is to support
as
wide a range of hardware as possible. I doubt seriously that they will
leave
out 50% of the high-end video market.

Ed

"Rich Selmon" wrote in message
news7n9b.463024$Ho3.74350@sccrnsc03...
The last I heard, DirectX 10 was going to be included with Longhorn, not a
separate release.....

Rich S.
And I doubt it's ready to come out either (even if it was a seperate
release), not with dx9 having just come, maybe another 12-18 months we will
see it, not before.....