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Stonewalling: ( Ooops... Nvidia was and is cheating on 3dmark03 after all)



 
 
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  #1  
Old June 22nd 03, 04:02 PM
Derek Wildstar
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Default Stonewalling: ( Ooops... Nvidia was and is cheating on 3dmark03 after all)


"Roger Squires" wrote in message
.com...

Don't kid yourself. Nvidia silently and surreptitiously cheated on
3dmark in multiple, shockingly blatant ways, with the deliberate intention
to deceive consumers and reviewers about the performance of an entire
product line, and they are continuing to do so.



Prove it.




  #2  
Old June 22nd 03, 04:29 PM
Ben Pope
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Default

Derek Wildstar wrote:
"Ben Pope" wrote in message
...
Derek Wildstar wrote:
"Roger Squires" wrote in message
.com...

Don't kid yourself. Nvidia silently and surreptitiously
cheated on 3dmark in multiple, shockingly blatant ways, with the
deliberate intention to deceive consumers and reviewers about the
performance of an entire product line, and they are continuing to
do so.


Prove it.


I think cheating in 8 (or so) different ways, including replacing
code, setting clipping planes for particular frames which can and do
only work for the most respected and utilised consumer graphics
benchmark program is evidence enough.

8 seperate mistakes that all just so happen to improve scores in the
benchmark do not and cannot happen by mistake - the intention to
mislead customers is obvious.

Ben
--
I'm not just a number. To many, I'm known as a string...


That's not proof Ben.


Are we trying to prove that they cheated or that they intended to mislead
customers? I think one follows from the other.

Any court would go on reasonable doubt and nVidia would lose.

Tests that prove that nVidia was cheating*:

http://www.futuremark.com/companyinf...dit_report.pdf

*I'll define cheating as: "Optimisations or modifications that improve
performance."

To prove that nVidia intentionally wanted to mislead customers is a little
harder, but why would they go to any effort at all to increase scores?
Since scores are a fundamental part of many of not all comparisons, and that
customers rely on this to make purchasing decisions, then I would say that
beyond reasonable doubt, nVidia wanted to mislead customers over the
performance of their graphics chipset. Bear in mind that these
optimisations DO NOT affect any other game or application, ONLY the
benchmark in question.

Ben
--
I'm not just a number. To many, I'm known as a string...


  #3  
Old June 22nd 03, 05:24 PM
Merkutio
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Default

It doesn't detect the benchmark program by name, but by the way the program
tries to access features. Benchmarking is much different from gaming and
rendering.

"Mark B" wrote in message
...
To prove it, 3dmark03 on an Nvidia card then rename 3dmark03.exe to
something else and run the test again.


Mark




  #4  
Old June 22nd 03, 05:38 PM
Lithurge
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"Merkutio" wrote in
:

It doesn't detect the benchmark program by name, but by the
way the program tries to access features. Benchmarking is
much different from gaming and rendering.


Link to Futuremarks audit:

http://tinyurl.com/citj

Some will argue this is still not proof Nvidia deliberatley
tried to cheat. However taking into account the fact merely
changing certain call names 'fixed' it to work as intended is
strong circumstantial evidence.
  #5  
Old June 22nd 03, 07:50 PM
John Russell
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Default


"Pete" wrote in message
...
Derek Wildstar wrote:

That's not proof Ben.


The 3dmark affair was pretty conclusive proof of intent to deceive, as far
as I'm concerned. It takes a serious stretch of the imagination to call

the
file-renaming incident a 'bug'. I'm trying to evaluate the top 2 cards for
a prospective purchase (as opposed to justifying a purchase in

retrospect -
that always clouds your judgement) and this don't make nVidia any easier

to
trust. If they're going to divert time & money into cheating and away from
genuine driver improvements, then they deserve to get caught with their
pants down. Let's hope they learn a lesson from it.


So why should you believe a test program? Nvidia's arguement is that the
coding of this test does not reflect the advice given by Nvidia on how to
code for their cards. With only 2 major GPU makers it's rediculous to argue
that real games wouldn't use Nvidia's advice. I want games to run as fast as
possible by using both Nvidia and ATI's advice. I'm not interested in how a
few Finns decide to code a benchmark So many people feel they can't trust
Nvidia. Believing that does not make 3dmark a decent test of how cards play
games!
If you don't want time and effort wasted on 3dmark, then campaign for real
games to be used for tests. It's the fact people place so much importance on
3dmark results which is creating this situation.



  #6  
Old June 22nd 03, 07:55 PM
John Russell
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Default


"Lithurge" wrote in message
...
"Merkutio" wrote in
:

It doesn't detect the benchmark program by name, but by the
way the program tries to access features. Benchmarking is
much different from gaming and rendering.


Link to Futuremarks audit:

http://tinyurl.com/citj

Some will argue this is still not proof Nvidia deliberatley
tried to cheat. However taking into account the fact merely
changing certain call names 'fixed' it to work as intended is
strong circumstantial evidence.


Nvidia where trying to make the test work they way they advise coders to
program for their cards. I cannot believe with only 2 major GPU makers that
real game coders would ignore the limitations of these makers products. As a
Nvidia owner I want game coders to get the best from my card, so should ATI
owners.


  #7  
Old June 22nd 03, 08:26 PM
Lithurge
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Default

"John Russell" wrote in
:
Both ATI and Nvidia users will expect
games to run well on their cards and complain if they
don't.




If they have any sense then they will view 3dmark as one of a
large range of tools to test hardware, whether by others or
themselves. If 3dmark is showing it as running slower, then
people should be pleased when game x runs faster because of
these 'optimisations'.
  #8  
Old June 22nd 03, 08:29 PM
John Russell
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Default


"Lithurge" wrote in message
...
"John Russell" wrote in
:



Nvidia where trying to make the test work they way they
advise coders to program for their cards. I cannot believe
with only 2 major GPU makers that real game coders would
ignore the limitations of these makers products. As a
Nvidia owner I want game coders to get the best from my
card, so should ATI owners.




Did you look at the screenshots in that PDF?

I wouldn't want my games to look like that.

You seem to be missing the point this is not a chip maker
advising a coder on how to get the best out of their chipset,
it's about fiddling with the way a driver works to produce the
fastest results, in one set of circumstances that works to their
advantage in reports on the speed of their card.

Your argument might hold water if NVidia had publicly stated
they were doing this before (or even admitted to after being
found out), but they did not.

And if they were really that altruistic they would pay the money
to be in the 3dmark beta program. (Not that I necessarily agree
with the way futuremark are running things)

Lets wait for them to specifically code drivers to play games
the way they want to shall we? ;-)


If there coded as bad as 3dmark I hope so!


  #9  
Old June 22nd 03, 09:20 PM
bp
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On Sun, 22 Jun 2003 20:13:15 +0100, "John Russell"
wrote:

"with the deliberate intention to deceive consumers and reviewers about
the performance of an entire product line"


The opposite was true. It is futuremark who are decieving everyone as to how
good cards are at running games.


Then they should have made their cheating drivers look for game
benchmarks and cheated on them instead of 3d marks. or they could
,and should, have been up front about their feelings toward 3dmarks.
They didn't and the line from them now, which you now spew, is simply
back peddling to cover their ass.

Nvidia intent was to make the test reflect
how nvidia advise coders to code games, and hence how fast their cards would
be running games.


So are you planing on running your games with features turned off
just to get a better FPS rate than an ATi card ? I thought not


Clearly the degree to which this can be done is crude when done at the
driver level. Never the less,


Never the less it shouldn't have been done at all.

snip Nvidia's company, we got caught now what, line



  #10  
Old June 22nd 03, 09:48 PM
John Russell
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Default


"bp" wrote in message
...
On Sun, 22 Jun 2003 20:13:15 +0100, "John Russell"
wrote:

"with the deliberate intention to deceive consumers and reviewers about
the performance of an entire product line"


The opposite was true. It is futuremark who are decieving everyone as to

how
good cards are at running games.


Then they should have made their cheating drivers look for game
benchmarks and cheated on them instead of 3d marks. or they could
,and should, have been up front about their feelings toward 3dmarks.


They did when they left the 3dmark support group. No one listened. Their
rather crude tactic has created a debate about whole issue of graphic card
testing which wasn't there before. Now you can go on with the mistaken
believe that a handful of Finns have a benchmark that reflects how thousands
of game coders world wide will code games if you want too.
If we all give up on 3dmark, because we either believe it's coded badly, or
we can't trust the drivers, we will all be better off. The focus will then
be on how fast games run, and preferable the games each of like to run, not
somebody elses.



 




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