[H] vs. Futuremark

I see many of the benefits of 3DMark 2005 as a benchmark for vcards and disagree with several aspects of Kyle's and [H]'s stance on 3DMark . But I really cannot support this apparently softskinned and silly threat from Futuremark to [H] :

" Tero Sarkkinen, Executive Vice President of Sales and Marketing of Futuremark, wrote in this morning with a directive for HardOCP to stop slandering their 3Dmark product line and threatens to bring in lawyers. I do have to think that this is a shot across our bow as surely ATI and NVIDIA have told Futuremark about recent interviews we have done with the video giants in preparation for an upcoming HardOCP editorial.

I strongly advise you to not to slander our product, 3DMark, on your web site. Take down all your false and unjustified and baseless claims about 3DMark.

Sincerely,

Tero Sarkkinen
Executive Vice President of Sales and Marketing
Futuremark Corporation
[email protected], http://www.futuremark.com

As is normal operating procedure, we like to be specific as to what exactly the company wants removed. So I responded, " I have reviewed the document that you sent (Tero sent a 15 page PDF that was a reproduction of today's HardOCP news page in full (possibly a copyright violation in itself News Image)) and see no slanderous, false, unjustified, or baseless claims whatsoever about "3DMark." Could you please be more specific as to your allegations and advice?

Tero replied with...
You know what I mean. Your articles have consistently discredited 3DMark for years now and the few justifications there have sometimes been have been without merit. It seems to us as if you have something against our product personally and are using your popular website as a platform to attack and trying to discredit on purpose and with baseless claims and sometimes also with erroneous information.

I will no longer communicate with you after this. Our attorney is looking that this situation will get resolved and will contact you if necessary.

Tero Sarkkinen
Executive Vice President of Sales and Marketing
Futuremark Corporation
[email protected], http://www.futuremark.com

"You know what I mean," was hardly the answer I expected. But just remember that having an opinion these days means having a band of high priced lawyers at your side. "

There is of course more on www.hardocp.com .

Does Kyle like going to court?

Come on dude, your asking for it. Especially in this day and age.

The Phantom Console litigation, now this?

Oh well , Futuremark has withdrawn :

http://www.hardforum.com/showpost.php?p=1026710094&postcount=545

That was a good email of apology. Glad he sent it out, so he won't look like a complete idiot. I can understand where [H] is coming from about the scoring though. I'm wondering how pci-x will score though. I need to go check that out.

enduro said:

That was a good email of apology. Glad he sent it out, so he won't look like a complete idiot. I can understand where [H] is coming from about the scoring though. I'm wondering how pci-x will score though. I need to go check that out.

Click to expand...

Ya know... I got alot of respect for futuremark now. They decided to take the high road and I applaud them for it.

I do agree that their benchmarks has a great deal of flaws, but I think its so easily fixed.

My suggestion is to do what 3d01 was like, except do the following. Run all the tests using ever PS version and VS version. In addition run it in both GopenGL and DirectX. Then average the results per test, THEN calculate then.

If they would allow multiple rendering I think no one would have an issue with it.