Will Tom's, Anand, [H], etc., run with this story?

[DenverBuc]

Look at this quote from Anandtech mentioning the Nvidia "cheat":

"This is not to say the 5900 cards are perfect, either. Although the 5900 (NV35) chipset is not completely finalize, a slew of reviews have accused the video card giant of purposely inflating benchmarks by hard coding some acceleration into the chipset that inaccurately takes advantage of weaknesses in benchmark suites. While the evidence looks compelling, we cannot speculate this early on what is going on. We will most likely see a different “final” product and driver set that does not contain the same problems."

Sounds like they are withholding judgement for more concrete evidence. Very prudent if you ask me.

I thought that Futuremark's outright statement that Nvidia was cheating was irresponsible and they should hope they do not see some kind of legal action.

[digitalwanderer]

Originally posted by DenverBuc
I thought that Futuremark's outright statement that Nvidia was cheating was irresponsible and they should hope they do not see some kind of legal action.

I think Futuremark is kind of hoping nVidia DOES take legal action, because Futuremark did run that by their legal department and nVidia ain't got a legal leg to stand on!

[Grrrpoop]

OICAspork:

I located the original news post made on [H] which annoyed so many ppl :

Steve @ [H]
Futuremark has released a patch for 3DMark 2003 that eliminates “artificially high scores” for people using NVIDIA Detonator FX drivers. This is in response to the news item we posted last week ( as did several sites ). To us, things like this just solidify our belief that 3DMark03 overall score is useless as a real world benchmark. Thanks to everyone who sent this one in.

[H] still haven't updated their news with ATI's impressively honest statement.

Maybe this is something to do with "Memorial day" .. I don't even know what that is tbh
Edit: Checked, seems like a nice respectable day of remembrance. guess a little patience may be in order

But pushing that aside, the only guy at [H] who's making any positive noises about ATI's response and showing any real disapproval of nVidia's actions is Brent. I guess since all news would be vetted by Kyle that there's no point him posting anything on the front page?

[H] is so weird, sometimes they're very eager to reveal difficiencies in hardware or IHV behaviour (e.g. Quack, or IQ of nVidia's past drivers), but something as major as this and they're sitting on the fence..

[micron]

They arent sitting on the fence. [H] was quick to choose sides.
I visited their forums for a second, I didnt want to stay long.
They mostly take Kyle's word as gospel.....It was the worst forum I've ever seen.

[Grrrpoop]

Originally posted by micron
They arent sitting on the fence. [H] was quick to choose sides.
I visited their forums for a second, I didnt want to stay long.
They mostly take Kyle's word as gospel.....It was the worst forum I've ever seen.

haha well.. I was trying to be tactful

Personally I think Kyle was so overwhelmed at being included in the Doom3 exclusive that he's discovered a new love for nVidia and wants to keep getting those exclusives.

Not biting the hand that feeds etc and we all know the ad revenue from the Doom3 hits must have been sweet

Keeping your site at the forefront of news and reviews is very important, but morals and integrity will have to make an appearance at some point, otherwise you've got no credibility.

Reporting only the news you like is pretty crap :-\

Originally posted by Behemoth
obviously, instead of putting this "shuffle instructions" optimization into PS2 shaders, ati chose to remove it in the next driver, which makes me believe the "shuffle instructions" optimization only works in GT4 scenario, it does not work for all combinations of parameters hence, they are not fully PS2 compliant shaders, hence i believe they also are cheats

I'm not understanding how you reached that conclusion. Perhaps you could explain it in more detail? What exactly constitutes a "fully PS2 compliant shader?"

My understanding is that as long as you run all the calls a DX9 shader asks for, it is still compliant. nvidia obviously lowered precision, and rewrote the shader code. ATI is not doing less work, as you seem to imply in another thread. They are doing the exact same amount of work they are supposed to do, with the exact same output.

Now, the question is whether this is cheating. In a benchmark, it could be. Just because your claim may be correct(that ATI is cheating), doesn't mean that you reasoning is(they are somehow not running PS2 compliant shaders).

[Spotch]

Originally posted by Grrrpoop
haha well.. I was trying to be tactful

Personally I think Kyle was so overwhelmed at being included in the Doom3 exclusive that he's discovered a new love for nVidia and wants to keep getting those exclusives.

Not biting the hand that feeds etc and we all know the ad revenue from the Doom3 hits must have been sweet

Keeping your site at the forefront of news and reviews is very important, but morals and integrity will have to make an appearance at some point, otherwise you've got no credibility.

Reporting only the news you like is pretty crap :-\

Bull cookies... he is lining his pockets with dirty NVIDIA money. He is a sell-out and there is no question about it.

Have you seen the springdale mobo review article? If not go take a look. The NFORCE 2 solution is omitted from all the benchmarks that it would do poorly on compared to the 865 chipset. It is absolutely revolting to show such bias. How can anyone possible take the advice of a hardware sight who behaves in this manner? It makes as much sense to pick the biggest yankee fan on the planet to umpire a Yankees vs Braves world series.



In fact I wrote to him asking about the article:

------Original Message-----
From: Mama_Leoni@Pasta.com
Sent: Wednesday, May 21, 2003 8:44 AM
To: morry@hardocp.com; kyle@hardocp.com
Subject: Whats Going On?


Why is it that you show the NForce 2 solution in the results of only selected tests? Is it because you do not want to show the AMD platform in a bad light? It seems very unprofessional and biased to vary the results included in your comparisons and you should be ashamed both as an author and editor.


His Reply:

Yes, you obviously found us out.

______________________________

Kyle Bennett
Editor-in-Chief @ HardOCP.com
Proprietor @ Ratpadz.com
______________________________

I am not sure what type of guy he is in person but, based on this, he is either a wreckless arrogant bastard or he has a sarcastic streak in him.

You be the judge...

It was the worst forum I've ever seen.

And you post at Rage3D, do you not?

[micron]

Originally posted by The Baron
And you post at Rage3D, do you not?

Rage3D?...........whatever gave you that idea?

[Behemoth]

Originally posted by StealthHawk
I'm not understanding how you reached that conclusion. Perhaps you could explain it in more detail? What exactly constitutes a "fully PS2 compliant shader?"

My understanding is that as long as you run all the calls a DX9 shader asks for, it is still compliant. nvidia obviously lowered precision, and rewrote the shader code. ATI is not doing less work, as you seem to imply in another thread. They are doing the exact same amount of work they are supposed to do, with the exact same output.

Now, the question is whether this is cheating. In a benchmark, it could be. Just because your claim may be correct(that ATI is cheating), doesn't mean that you reasoning is(they are somehow not running PS2 compliant shaders).

ok i try to explain, but its just my opinion.
if ati shuttle shader instructions, the shader may not work properly in siturations other than sky and water in GT4, the shader have been altered, they are not strict PS2 shaders that work in every situration, the reason why i think it does not work in all situations is that ati remove it from next driver revision, i just cant believe why ati would not incorporate this "valid optimization" in its PS2 shader instead of just use them in GT4, it just doesnt make sense to me, if this optimization only works in GT4, they are not fully PS2 compliant shaders, they are just PS2 precison water shader and PS2 precison sky shader or PS2 precison GT4 shaders and i am sure futuremark is measuring strict PS2 shader performance that works in every case, not measuring a particular water shader performance, not measuring a particular sky shader performance, not measuring a particular PS2 variant shader performance. futuremark is just measuring strict PS2 shader performance that works in all cases. well of course i have assumed this "shuffle instruction" does not work in all situration. they are just sky shader and water shader with PS2 visual quality in my eyes.

[OICAspork]

Originally posted by micron
Lol...that seems like ages ago. I really liked that post....You kinda disapeared after that!

I don't have time to keep up with too many forums... I like Rage3d and Beyond3d... and NvNews seems to be a pretty nice place when you filter out the losers. The only reason I bothered to sign up at Tom's was to rail on Lars... and I only go back there when I have something to contribute. I came here initially to clear up misconceptions, but liked it so I hung around.

[micron]

Originally posted by OICAspork
I don't have time to keep up with too many forums... I like Rage3d and Beyond3d... and NvNews seems to be a pretty nice place when you filter out the losers. The only reason I bothered to sign up at Tom's was to rail on Lars... and I only go back there when I have something to contribute. I came here initially to clear up misconceptions, but liked it so I hung around.

Well, here's my rundown on forums. I have real life friends at the THG forums, so I'm there alot. I am constantly at Beyond 3D because they are so freakin' smart, but I rarely post there, because they are so freakin' smart. Rage 3D is my home base, but it gets a little monotonous(lots of the same questions/answers) when the "railgate" scandal broke, I was at Rage 3D reading one of Digitalwanderer's post's, where he was talking about having lots of fun over here at NV News, trying to convert the sinners(just j/k Digital), so I signed up here. I've been bouncing around ever since. Where are you at mostly OICA?