Hurk
08-12-03, 01:49 PM
http://www.hardocp.com/article.html?art=NTAz
Whoa!
Kyle from [H]
Date: Tuesday, August 12, 2003
Author: Kyle Bennett
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.
Whoa!
Kyle from [H]
Date: Tuesday, August 12, 2003
Author: Kyle Bennett
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.