What If.....

[macro6]

what if ATI released new drivers that gained 500-1000 points in 3dmark while making no difference in games?


i think review sites all over the net would be reporting how lame ATI is and its cheating. but since its nvidia, its no problem, their always right :rolleyes: there would be an uproar and a major backlash against ATI if they did the same thing.

agree?

[saturnotaku]

Originally posted by macro6
there would be an uproar and a major backlash against ATI if they did the same thing.

agree?

There already was. Remember the Quake 3/Quack 3 thing when the Radeon 8500 was first released?

[Gator]

I wouldnt say Nvidia is cheating exactly, what they've done is "improved" their HyperZ (or whatever Nvidia calls it). So the stuff you don't see behind you is not processed, thereby increasing performance. I say "improved" in quotes because many would argue thats not an improvement, but simply taking away from the picture quality.

Personally, I just shrug at all these cheat claims and look at it like this: my games seem smoother, my 3dmark is higher, my VIVO works fine and dandy... I'm happy. Is Nvidia cheating? Nah, just doing things differently. LOL :p

And if ATI released drivers that ONLY affected 3dmark and nothing else... well... that'd certainly be interesting, but I can't say it'd be a cheat really, just kind of lame. I don't think thats what Nvidia has done, because the changes they've made affect all games. If ATI made a driver that affected all games and just happen to improve 3dmark alot, then no it's not cheating. 3dmark only, then its lame.

[ATI LoVeR 9700]

I think there is a double standard. ATi get's treated like crap. ATi is knit-picked, nVidia is not.

But who cares, the 9700 put all the biased retards in their places. All they can say now is, "Wait for the NV30..." :rolleyes:

[Richthofen]

so what?
When it comes out all ATI can say is wait for the R350.

[netviper13]

Comparing the increase with 40.41s to what ATI did is Apples to Oranges man. You know why 3dMark scores are increasing? Because the 40.41 drivers significantly improve the implementation of DX8 Pixel/Vertex shaders.

Why doesn't Quake3 see improvements? Because it's not DX8. Nvidia themselves stated this! They said that games/apps like 3dMark and DroneZ would see improvements in DX8 effects, but never did they promise DX7 and lower improvements.

[Gator]

Originally posted by ATI LoVeR 9700
I think there is a double standard. ATi get's treated like crap. ATi is knit-picked, nVidia is not.

But who cares, the 9700 put all the biased retards in their places. All they can say now is, "Wait for the NV30..." :rolleyes:

that's very sweet, I'm sure all the people in the audiance who know a person with mental retardation appreciate your comment. And you're not treating Nvidia people like crap now? Double standard indeed :rolleyes:

It's a double edged sword, if you go to an ATI fan site you have to expect anti-Nvidia people, and if you go to an Nvidia fan site you have to expect anti-ATI people, plain and simple. I think the arguement of "mine is better than yours" is absurd, because in the end what you own and what works best for you will ultimately be the BEST video card in your eyes, even if benchmarks say a new card by the other company is 5000x faster.

Nvida VS ATI... ugh enough with the war I say, I just use what works best for me, with my motherboard, with my games, with my interest. ;) Happy owner of ATI and Nvidia cards here!

[saturnotaku]

Originally posted by Gator
I just use what works best for me, with my motherboard, with my games, with my interest. Happy owner of ATI and Nvidia cards here!

There's our shining beacon at the top of the hill. A voice of reason amidst the darkness of the video card war. :cool:

Honestly, the thing that ticks me off the most (and both NVIDIA and ATI people are guilty of this) is those people who say, "I have no problems with my video card. That makes me the representative sample. If you get this card and have issues, it's clearly you and not the card."

And when the people who are having issues say, "Well, my system worked perfectly with my previous (insert card here)." The response back is, "Well, it's still your fault anyway because you don't know what you're doing. You need to do this with your registry and tweak this and do that, etc, etc, etc."

I truly believe it's not too much to ask for a video card to work by putting it into a motherboard, installing drivers and then playing games. For me, this is what has happened when I use NVIDIA cards. For you, it may be ATI cards, others Matrox and so on.

There will always be debate over which is better. But look at it this way, at least we have true choices as to which card we might like that can offer us great performance and stability. :)

[Matthyahuw]

Why don't we just stick to Cola wars or something?
This is getting sooo old!

[saturnotaku]

Originally posted by Matthyahuw
Why don't we just stick to Cola wars or something?


Vanilla Coke is better than Red Fusion because I say so. And if you don't like it, that's your fault! :p :cool:

[fishlung]

Vanilla Coke is a joke. It's much better if you add your own vanilla syrup to Coke, and then drop in a couple cherries. If you can't tell the difference, you're a... uh... dork ass. Yeah. Red Fusion? That sounds like my bowel movements after a few bowls of chili. :cool: hee

[SnakeEyes]

Speaking of what the nV 40.41's were optimizing (DX8), didn't Epic release a beta D3D DX8 dll for Unreal Tournament, and then pull it back later? (or am I just confusing the later D3D S3TC enabled dll for that?)

[-=DVS=-]

Originally posted by Matthyahuw
Why don't we just stick to Cola wars or something?
This is getting sooo old!

i don't like cola and pepsi i prefer Doctor Pepper :D :p

[Bigus Dickus]

Originally posted by saturnotaku
Honestly, the thing that ticks me off the most (and both NVIDIA and ATI people are guilty of this) is those people who say, "I have no problems with my video card. That makes me the representative sample. If you get this card and have issues, it's clearly you and not the card." Yes, and it's equally absurd when someone says "I have tons of problems with this video card. That makes me the representative sample. If you got this card and are not having issues, you are clearly lying, because this card is a filthy POS."

I've seen it many times. Instead of posting specs, describing the error, and asking for help, they just declare the hardware to be crap and become a fanboy for the "other team." This happens with all hardware... NVIDIA, ATI, AMD, Intel, SiS, Via...

[Spiritwalker]

I just find it interesting that the only games that seemed to have gains with the 41s are all used as benches.

Almost any review that I have seen using them uses these games and the few games that arent typically used for the most part stayed the same or had performance decreases.

[netviper13]

According to nVidia, all games/benchmarks that use DX8 or greater will improve with 40.41s. That's why you haven't seen much improvement in games, because you can count on two hands the ammount of DX8 games. DroneZ is DX8 and it shows improvement, Nature is DX8 and it shows improvement.

[travbrad]

What about the scam earlier with 3dmark counting the loading screen FPS on Nvidia cards? That just got "brushed under the rug" so to speak. In the end just get whatever you feel like. Both Nvidia and ATI are COMPANIES. THEY WANT YOUR MONEY. You shouldn't be defending a piece of computer hardware to the death. I want both Nvidia and ATI to have equal market shares so then the prices are the best for us consumers :D

[SnakeEyes]

Um. No, 3DMark2K1SE never counted loading screen framerates for nV GF4's. ROFL.

What was happening is that nVidia cleared some buffers DURING the loading screens.

BIG Difference. :D

[DoinkyBottoms]

Originally posted by fishlung
If you can't tell the difference, you're a... uh... dork ass. Yeah.

Dork Ass? I swear some of you people need to be comedians, I don't even have to watch 3rd Rock anymore.

[DoinkyBottoms]

Originally posted by travbrad
Both Nvidia and ATI are COMPANIES. THEY WANT YOUR MONEY. You shouldn't be defending a piece of computer hardware to the death. I want both Nvidia and ATI to have equal market shares so then the prices are the best for us consumers :D

They want your money. Sometimes people forget that. It does us well to remember that nVidia releases so many nearly unchanged drivers because they want to seem ontopoftheball. It makes perfect sense that they add in some performance chocks that can be removed later for 100-300 points in 3DMark. On the other hand, ATI doesn't seem to care about updating drivers at all. I have been an nVidia buff since my VooDoo3 went obsolete, but I think I am going to give ATI a chance. They're just companies that want your dough, not your friends.

[SnakeEyes]

True DoinkyBottoms. But in general, nVidia's drivers, chocked or not, work better overall out of the box (all announced/publicized features normally work, even if performance isn't the greatest at times). That's why nVidia tends to get the benefit of the doubt more so than ATI. (erm, I understand that here it's also because it's an nV fan site, but that doesn't make what I just stated false)

In either case, I prefer to wait until all the users, reviewers, etc., have had a chance to weigh in on their experiences before I buy the new products. From what I've read about the 9700, there's enough serious issues floating around to make me want to wait, even if nV30 weren't in the pipelines. I understand that many people have no problems, but some of the people that do have problems are finding that it sometimes takes drastic measures to fix (power supplies, AGP8x, replacement cards on with newer revisions?).

But it's your money. Spend it however you see fit. So long as each buyer is satisfied with their purchases, it's all good. And you're definitely right about them not wanting your friendship. It's ALL about the money. :D

[DoinkyBottoms]

Remember when driver releases were farther apart and really kicked some ass? I still remember benching the 10.80s against the tried and true 6.50s. I wish a stable set like the 6.50s would be released again. Hell, you could put that beast of a driver set zipped in the root of a linux box and make it good. I burned it to a CD and put it in my car. Ford Taurus to Audi Roadster baby!

[sebazve]

what is the big issue. In 3d it all come down to optimization. So if ATI optmize its drivers for a popular game or Nvidia to a popular bench:rolleyes: , i dont see whats the problem??

[Gator]

Originally posted by SnakeEyes
True DoinkyBottoms. But in general, nVidia's drivers, chocked or not, work better overall out of the box (all announced/publicized features normally work, even if performance isn't the greatest at times). That's why nVidia tends to get the benefit of the doubt more so than ATI. (erm, I understand that here it's also because it's an nV fan site, but that doesn't make what I just stated false)...

As usual I agree with ya on this one SnakeEyes. Nvidia means "inset card in slot, insert CD, play games". I like the simplicity and ease of use Nvidia has instead of "tweak this, now tweak that, now disable this, now update that, now run at this res with this refresh rate with this color setting and make sure you enable this and yadda yadda ATI yadda"

:rolleyes:

[jbirney]

See the problem here is not every one had to do what Gator did. I dropped in my 8500 and had no major issues with it ever. Same thing for the 9700. A lot of people that Dont have issues wont post about it. So drawing your conclusions based on post over at rage3d is not the best way to go. Sure you find out some things but to draw a conclusion on a sample base like that is not true representitive of the cards nature.