View Full Version : OMG HARDOCP REVIEW OF UT2003 AND FILTERING
bloodbob
21-Jul-2003, 08:22
OMG CAN ANYONE REPRODUCE HIS R350 AF SHOTS??? please note that AF WAS ENABLED IN UT SUPPOSEDLY ( drivers where set to application preference he stated in the start of the review ).
Cause not having UT2003 ( well or a r350 mines a r300 ) I can't tell. Frankly I think he deliberately incorrectly set the testing up and ATI should be making a libel case against him.
http://www.hardocp.com/article.html?art=NTAw
no this isn't the NV35 review either this is a new thing since ATI wasn't happy with how he portraited their cards in the NV35 review.
Before you read this latest [H] article I would suggest you read their ATI Radeon 8500 revisited article (http://www.hardocp.com/article.html?art=MjU1LDE=) to put into context what they feel "real" Trilinear should look like and the use of mipmap colors to highlight it... ;)
bloodbob
21-Jul-2003, 08:58
I didn't own a 8500 but are you trying to say that ATI don't do tri linear filtering or you trying to say this is normal for hardocp?
Because I've seen other pictures of UT2003 on a R3X0 with AF and trilinear here on the beyond3d forum and they looked the way they should have.
K.I.L.E.R
21-Jul-2003, 09:00
We all know [H] is the most unreliable site on the internet.
[H] is the comical Ali of the internet.
Kristof
21-Jul-2003, 09:08
In the first picture above we have a cut out from a screenshot on both cards in Phobos. In this map there is a nice floor texture that makes it easy to spot mip-map boundaries. Suffice it to say it is hard to notice any difference at all between the two pictures.
Did they select poor contrast textures on purpose so that the mipmap change is nicely hidden ? Ever texture I saw used was black on grey, or dark brown and light brown, or grey on grey... and all with poor lighting. How on earth would you see anything on such poor contrast pictures ? And why start of with 3 pictures with no chance of ever seeing a mipmap boundary (overly complex environments). We have shown them an ideal place to look at this when we discussed the problem on the forum before.
The mip-map shot shows otherwise, it says that there are some pretty hard transitions between mip-maps on the GFFX 5900 Ultra. But when you look at the in-game shot you just don’t see that.
Yeah right... just because they can not see it while playing does not mean the degradation in image quality is not there... and other people might notice. Now if they played on a LCD that blurs everything anyway then I can understand they did not see a problem... :wink: (actually they mention all the specs but the important one which would be the display device used, unless I am going blind and can't see it in their spec list - I mean who cares what HDD they used !)
Not one lick of difference here except in the mip-map shot where the 9800 Pro looks down right ugly compared to the 5900 Ultra. But again it doesn't translate to the in-game images.
Err... so what is it... either it is down right ugly or it is not... how can you say something is ugly and then next say it does not translate to in-game images ?
Reality IMHO is that trilinear filtering is an industry standard you don't go and change it. Make this a performance option sure but never a quality or application option.
Just my 2 personal cents...
K-
Hanners
21-Jul-2003, 10:40
NVIDIA has seemingly found a way to do less work doing Trilinear Filtering than ATI while producing an IQ that easily comparable with ATI's.
:?
mboeller
21-Jul-2003, 10:45
After looking over the article you could not expect an good article cause;
Editor's Note: As mentioned above, ATI has come to us and told us that our UT2K3 benchmarks were off in our BFGTech Asylum 5900 Ultra review and that the benchmark numbers we shared were damaging the 9800 line of products.
ATi attacked him (in his opinion, and thats all that count here)
Editor's Note: Bottom line is that we are still very comfortable with our recent benchmarks and thoughts that are reflected in our BFGTech Asylum 5900 Ultra review.
And so he defended himself.
Nothing more nothing less.
so overall an useless article, but nothing unexpected and something ATi should/could have expected when the informed Hardocp about the AF issue.
I had to go to anandtech forums also to say something to Evan Lieb as he was applauding Brent and Kyle for their "update"
http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.cfm?catid=31&threadid=1089592&STARTPAGE=1
The fun starts about 30 messages down there. :evil:
John Reynolds
21-Jul-2003, 15:02
They just don't have a clue the slippery slope their 'logic' operates on. By condoning such tactics these large and, yes, influential sites will force other vendors to endorse such tactics themselves to remain competitive. And I don't think consumers buying $400-500 USD video boards in 2003 should be using bilinear texture filtering. I wonder if game developers belonging to the Way It's Meant to be Played have the same vision as Nvidia appears to since the latter seems perfectly willing to hack a game's IQ down for their own purposes?
And for all his arrogant blustering, Kyle simply appears to be completely unaware of how to be a positive influence on the market. And that is truly a shame.
Are B3D going to run a short article on this? From the examples I've seen (e.g. in the post Dave made), it should be a startlinglingly obvious issue to illustrate. Not quite sure how [H] have managed to steer around it. :?
MuFu.
digitalwanderer
21-Jul-2003, 15:26
Was that a review or a justification? I swear every other paragraph was along the lines of, "even though some anal-technical types might be able to tell a difference with the colored mipmaps, you barely notice the mipmap lines in real game play if you're a real gamer and not some image quality freak..."
I feel disapointed, but unsurprised. :(
startlinglingly
Hehe. :lol:
MuFu.
digitalwanderer
21-Jul-2003, 15:28
Not quite sure how [H] have managed to steer around it. :?
Easy, lots of practice. 8)
Will someone be doing a follow up article to the [H] article?? Becasue I am interested in another perspective.
Perhaps 1 or 2 members on here could provide screen shots of there respective cards (9700/9800 and 5900 ultra) and let everyone draw there own conclusions as is the standard here.
They just don't have a clue the slippery slope their 'logic' operates on. By condoning such tactics these large and, yes, influential sites will force other vendors to endorse such tactics themselves to remain competitive. And I don't think consumers buying $400-500 USD video boards in 2003 should be using bilinear texture filtering. I wonder if game developers belonging to the Way It's Meant to be Played have the same vision as Nvidia appears to since the latter seems perfectly willing to hack a game's IQ down for their own purposes?
And for all his arrogant blustering, Kyle simply appears to be completely unaware of how to be a positive influence on the market. And that is truly a shame.
I see Dave posting in forums at [H] (before being banned ?), Rage3d, NVnews, Anandtech, etc. I applaud and thank him for that. He seems to be the only site operator/reviewer that seems to have finding the truth as his primary concern.
An infinite number of monkeys typing on an infinite number of keyboards will eventually write a more deceptive review than [H].
This was first brought to me by their PR Director, Chris Evenden, last Tuesday morning. At that time they did not submit any proof of their claims that shed light on the specific benchmarks we used. As of posting this, ATI has still never given us proof of any of their statements specific to the benchmarks they suggest are damaging to their product.
Some very important questions need to be asked of [H]. Did they ask ATI for proof? If they did not, why not? If so, were they denied? If ATI said they would provide proof, why did they not wait?
Kyle has lost all credibility.
Brent is fast approaching.
The longer this issue goes the more it looks like the Quak issue that they screamed about.
At this point Kyle is a 2 faced liar. Spin it how you want, he is.
They are simply choosing to argue the side they choose instead of the truth and looking out for the readers.
It's sad, years worth of credibiltiy built by fighting for us the enthusiasts, gone in a matter of a couple weeks.
This was first brought to me by their PR Director, Chris Evenden, last Tuesday morning. At that time they did not submit any proof of their claims that shed light on the specific benchmarks we used. As of posting this, ATI has still never given us proof of any of their statements specific to the benchmarks they suggest are damaging to their product.
Some very important questions need to be asked of [H]. Did they ask ATI for proof? If they did not, why not? If so, were they denied? If ATI said they would provide proof, why did they not wait?
According to Kyle's own rules you have to wait a month before any action can take place.
andypski
21-Jul-2003, 16:20
Turns round to rest of ATI driver guys...
"It's official - it's now open season on image quality guys - [H] says so."
Let's start hacking it up now, and leave no pixel unpolluted.
Turns round to rest of ATI driver guys...
"It's official - it's now open season on image quality guys - [H] says so."
Let's start hacking it up now, and leave no pixel unpolluted.
How about a new driver control panel option called [Kyle] to go with the others.
Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.
21-Jul-2003, 16:35
Turns round to rest of ATI driver guys...
"It's official - it's now open season on image quality guys - [H] says so."
Let's start hacking it up now, and leave no pixel unpolluted.
How about a new driver control panel option called [Kyle] to go with the others.
Seriously, I would not object to another control panel option called "Ultraspeed" (or maybe "Nvidia Compatabilty Mode") or somesuch that hacked everything out, as long as the current quality modes are still left in the control panel. That way, we could see what the ATI cards can do when hacked down to NV3x levels.
It's would still be a waste of resources, but would be better than the dirty war that Nvidia are engaged in.
Althornin
21-Jul-2003, 16:54
I really desire a B3D article on this subject, and i think its a nessecity, to clear up the confusion left in the wake of the [H] article...
digitalwanderer
21-Jul-2003, 17:02
Turns round to rest of ATI driver guys...
"It's official - it's now open season on image quality guys - [H] says so."
Let's start hacking it up now, and leave no pixel unpolluted.
How about a new driver control panel option called [Kyle] to go with the others.
Seriously, I would not object to another control panel option called "Ultraspeed" (or maybe "Nvidia Compatabilty Mode") or somesuch that hacked everything out, as long as the current quality modes are still left in the control panel. That way, we could see what the ATI cards can do when hacked down to NV3x levels.
It's would still be a waste of resources, but would be better than the dirty war that Nvidia are engaged in.
I'd really rather see their resources used to make their drivers better for gaming and such, and I'm pretty sure ATi & CatalystMAKER are of the same opinion from my conversations with them on the matter. :)
Althornin
21-Jul-2003, 17:13
I'd much rather see control panel options that actually give full trilinear in games wihtout having to choose "application" and then set aniso level in game.
this is becomnig ridiculous
BrentJ on anandtech forums:
Why would set the card to Performance AF? The main point was to see its default Non-AF Trilinear quality, as that was the main question brought up. Default on the ATI control panel is Application Preference, and on the NVIDIA control panel is Quality.
Isn't the main point because in the modes they set the cards in, the 5900 was doing bilinear and the 9800pro trilinear? Does he not understand this?
From HardOCP review:
You might think that when you set the driver to “Quality” that it would use the best filtering known as full Trilinear Filtering, although the 44.03 driver from NVIDIA does not seem to allow this...but does that matter?
how can it not matter? isn't one doing bi and one is doing tri taking a performance hit but having better IQ?. in an attempt to do apples-to-apples isn't this against all common sense?
You can see that according to this screenshot of the mipmaps that the GFFX has a more ‘harsh’ transition and the 9800p a more ‘softer’ transition bewtween textures. Even with that being so we just are not seeing it make a difference in the first in-game shot above. The tool seems to point out a difference in technique and not quality.
isn't that one of the differences with bi vs tri? trilinear gives you a softer transition taking away mip lines etc....
The mip-map shot shows a difference, but I don’t see it impacting the in-game shot negatively at all.
this is his theme in almost every comment... there IS a difference but you won't notice it running around playing the game.... I think he has gone mad with nvidiocy...
Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.
21-Jul-2003, 17:21
I'd really rather see their resources used to make their drivers better for gaming and such, and I'm pretty sure ATi & CatalystMAKER are of the same opinion from my conversations with them on the matter. :)
I'd agree completely, but I get the idea that ATI feel that they are doing everything right, and still they are losing out to Nvidia in this war of dirty tricks. Sooner or later, they may reach the point where they feel they are losing sales, and will have to fight back just as dirty in order to level the playing field of disinformation.
Unless more websites can put out the truth rather than parrot the Nvidia marketing spin, how long will it be before ATI also decide it's financial best interests to lie and cheat like the competition? I hope the day never comes, but there must be some way to give Nvidia and it's lackey fansites a bloody nose.
Dig. I was being somewhat facetious with the [Kyle] option thing. In a perfect world, yes, I would agree that I would much rather see the driver team focus on more important issues than lower I.Q. to gain performance. Unfortunately it seems that with sites such as [H], Anandtech and THG not being able to do honest “apples to apples” comparisons the idea of a control panel option that would enable just that seems like an understandable idea. At least to me. Employees of ATI come to these boards. They do not seem to duck any questions put to them. That benefits us users. They seem like nice people (they sent you a nice gift) Why should these people have their hard work sullied by unethical/incompetent reviewers. An option in the control panel that would produce comparable I.Q. to Nvidia's would remove (hopefully) any excuse from doing the fairest review possible.
swanlee
21-Jul-2003, 17:39
If it were up to Nvidia the drivers would atuomatically default to 320X240 resoltuion if it detected a benchmark or timedemo. That's pretty much what we are seeing here in Nvidia drivers. How can Anyone defend them? I hope Kyle is getting paid a lot of money cause once him and his site are completely discredited by being an Nvidia corporate shill his site hits will dwindle.
digitalwanderer
21-Jul-2003, 18:41
Dig. I was being somewhat facetious with the [Kyle] option thing. In a perfect world, yes, I would agree that I would much rather see the driver team focus on more important issues than lower I.Q. to gain performance. Unfortunately it seems that with sites such as [H], Anandtech and THG not being able to do honest “apples to apples” comparisons the idea of a control panel option that would enable just that seems like an understandable idea. At least to me. Employees of ATI come to these boards. They do not seem to duck any questions put to them. That benefits us users. They seem like nice people (they sent you a nice gift) Why should these people have their hard work sullied by unethical/incompetent reviewers. An option in the control panel that would produce comparable I.Q. to Nvidia's would remove (hopefully) any excuse from doing the fairest review possible.
I just don't like the thought of them stooping to nVidia's level. :( I've been following ATi since the Rage128 days and the last year or so has just been a joy to watch/participate in with 'em after YEARS of knocking heads with them.
I wouldn't object at all to a "Benchmark" setting in their drivers though I guess, if it means I get to honk of some of the blatant nVidiots left around.... ;)
I'd really rather see their resources used to make their drivers better for gaming and such, and I'm pretty sure ATi & CatalystMAKER are of the same opinion from my conversations with them on the matter. :)
I'd agree completely, but I get the idea that ATI feel that they are doing everything right, and still they are losing out to Nvidia in this war of dirty tricks. Sooner or later, they may reach the point where they feel they are losing sales, and will have to fight back just as dirty in order to level the playing field of disinformation.
Assuming that it is possible to mimick the GFFX behaviour in R3xx and the man-power is available to doc, implement, and test this, then the decision to carry it all out should have been taken already.
The wise choice will of course be to offer at least two new choices (1 new, 1 renamed), high quality (as in The New Standard) and higher quality. Competitive without really angering any consumer group.
It's just my experience that it can no longer be called a war. Dirty tricks have been validated and laundered (or not noticed, which is practically the same) by significant consumer organs. Plus, NV hasn't really expressed a desire to change - well, almost the contrary, but in softer terms. Which really leaves ATi with no compelling reason to educate the consumers.
Doomtrooper
21-Jul-2003, 19:51
Turns round to rest of ATI driver guys...
"It's official - it's now open season on image quality guys - [H] says so."
Let's start hacking it up now, and leave no pixel unpolluted.
I know you don't work in that department Andy, but why ATI continues to send review cards to the most laughable site on the net is beyond me.
It isn't as if they never got a review card it would relate to a big deal...and these inaccaurate reviews do more harm than good.
Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.
21-Jul-2003, 19:57
I know you don't work in that department Andy, but why ATI continues to send review cards to the most laughable site on the net is beyond me.
It isn't as if they never got a review card it would relate to a big deal...and these inaccaurate reviews do more harm than good.
True. Nvidia has been known to totally cut sites off from review samples if they arn't getting favourable copy. What's wrong with doing the same to sites that are just extensions of the Nvidia marketing teams? Or those that have faulty review methodologies and questionable ethics?
I know you don't work in that department Andy, but why ATI continues to send review cards to the most laughable site on the net is beyond me.
It isn't as if they never got a review card it would relate to a big deal...and these inaccaurate reviews do more harm than good.
wouldn't that only be detrimental in the end? I'm mean they're going to get the card eventually anyway and by precluding them, they might be biased to produce a negative review because of this. I mean come one.... they're not exactly building a reputation for unbiased reviews in the first place so I don't really think it's too far fetched that they might put ATI in unfavorable light out of spite....
McElvis
21-Jul-2003, 20:04
I know you don't work in that department Andy, but why ATI continues to send review cards to the most laughable site on the net is beyond me.
It isn't as if they never got a review card it would relate to a big deal...and these inaccaurate reviews do more harm than good.
wouldn't that only be detrimental in the end? I'm mean they're going to get the card eventually anyway and by precluding them, they might be biased to produce a negative review because of this. I mean come one.... they're not exactly building a reputation for unbiased reviews in the first place so I don't really think it's too far fetched that they might put ATI in unfavorable light out of spite....
Yep. Think of what they said about Parhelia when they did not get a review sample...
Perhaps I'm not understanding the issue, but at least from the screenshots, the IQ seems comparable in the game. Can someone explain what is wrong with what Nvidia is doing in UT2003?
so ATI could be stuck in a hard place here...
1) they supply [H] with hardware then they get a bad review because of incompetence
2) they don't supply hardware then they get a bad review out of spite
3) Tseng-Labs release the ET4000000000 and ursurp both power player positions in a single masterstroke of engineering genius and [H] is shutdown because they didn't know how octlinear filtering worked and no one visited them anymore
(sorry got carried away)
A few days ago [H] had a “serious” chat with Nvidia’s top brass. Today they publish an article that vindicated Nvidia’s behavior. What did they talk about then?
Perhaps I'm not understanding the issue, but at least from the screenshots, the IQ seems comparable in the game. Can someone explain what is wrong with what Nvidia is doing in UT2003?
this is the general issue with the review and the problems with nvidia filtering techniques in UT2k3 in particular:
http://www.beyond3d.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=6719&highlight=ut2k3+trilinear
digitalwanderer
21-Jul-2003, 20:34
A few days ago [H] had a “serious” chat with Nvidia’s top brass. Today they publish an article that vindicated Nvidia’s behavior. What did they talk about then?
How "sort of between bilinear and trilinear" filtering looks just as good as true trilinear filtering apparently. :(
OpenGL guy
21-Jul-2003, 20:47
Seriously, I would not object to another control panel option called "Ultraspeed" (or maybe "Nvidia Compatabilty Mode") or somesuch that hacked everything out, as long as the current quality modes are still left in the control panel. That way, we could see what the ATI cards can do when hacked down to NV3x levels.
It's would still be a waste of resources, but would be better than the dirty war that Nvidia are engaged in.
And it wouldn't help... So many people test the cards with the defaults (including OEMs) that you'd gain no ground. Also, people who want to make you look bad still can by just changing your settings to something more stressful.
OpenGL guy
21-Jul-2003, 20:50
Turns round to rest of ATI driver guys...
"It's official - it's now open season on image quality guys - [H] says so."
Let's start hacking it up now, and leave no pixel unpolluted.
"LOD-bias?"
"Check."
"Texture compression?"
"Check."
"Clipping planes?"
"Check."
"Trilinear disable?"
"Check."
"Shader replacement?"
"Check."
"Ship it."
Quinn1981
21-Jul-2003, 20:53
I was amused by this article. Although he does point out that nVidia is taking filtering shortcuts that look silly (at least to me) like on the 8500 (don't know if you can call them shortcuts ?), he just pussy foots around the fact that nVidia takes control of IQ away from the user... or steals rather. That and cheating... aren't those bad?
A few days ago [H] had a ?serious? chat with Nvidia?s top brass. Today they publish an article that vindicated Nvidia?s behavior. What did they talk about then?
When they would go sailing on their new boat and get lots of brown stuff on each other's noses. :wink:
I just found that total feel of the "research" to be spotty when compared to other works that [H] has published.
I guess I should be glad they are informing their readers. :roll:
Ichneumon
21-Jul-2003, 20:55
3) Tseng-Labs release the ET4000000000 and ursurp both power player positions in a single masterstroke of engineering genius and [H] is shutdown because they didn't know how octlinear filtering worked and no one visited them anymore
(sorry got carried away)
hehe... ATI bought Tseng-Labs (tech and engineers) many years ago... :)
IIRC, I think that among other things was the foundation of the 2D core of ATI chips through the Rage days...
John Reynolds
21-Jul-2003, 20:57
Perhaps I'm not understanding the issue, but at least from the screenshots, the IQ seems comparable in the game. Can someone explain what is wrong with what Nvidia is doing in UT2003?
The problem is that IQ is subjective, so while the reviewer may honestly be unable to tell a marked difference between bi and trilinear in-game, UT2003's colored mip-map option clearly shows that one board is performing one form of texture filtering and the other a different quality of filtering. So whether or not it's even noticeable in-game is completely irrelevent if you're going to compare benchmark scores between these two products, because, again, those colored mip-maps undeniably show that you're not conducting your benchmarks with apples to apples settings. It is truly that simple.
And in spite of Kyle's denial to the contrary, his articles are most definitely damaging the 9800 Pro's appearance as a competitor to the 5900 Ultras. I can only hope ATI continues to take the high ground and weather such sophomoric and unprofessional articles.
hehe... ATI bought Tseng-Labs (tech and engineers) many years ago...
really? didn't know that... so maybe they are renaming the ET4000000000 to the R420? :lol:
So whether or not it's even noticeable in-game is completely irrelevent if you're going to compare benchmark scores between these two products, because, again, those colored mip-maps undeniably show that you're not conducting your benchmarks with apples to apples settings. It is truly that simple.
I really wish it were that simple to [H] but it seems their eyesight is failing them, or they are colour blind so the mipmaps aren't apparent to them? :)
what raises my ire is the fact that he admits to a degree that there is a difference in quality but he doesn't care because it's not noticable whilst you are playing the game at full speed.
digitalwanderer
21-Jul-2003, 21:28
what raises my ire is the fact that he admits to a degree that there is a difference in quality but he doesn't care because it's not noticable whilst you are playing the game at full speed.
I think you hit the nail on the head there with the whole crux of my problem with [H]'s reporting on this.
They acknowledge the problem then say, "Meh, so what?". :(
Tim Murray
21-Jul-2003, 21:37
what raises my ire is the fact that he admits to a degree that there is a difference in quality but he doesn't care because it's not noticable whilst you are playing the game at full speed.
I think you hit the nail on the head there with the whole crux of my problem with [H]'s reporting on this.
They acknowledge the problem then say, "Meh, so what?". :(
Didn't mention it in my 5200 review because I wasn't comparing it to anything. Plus, on slow budget cards, it's *not* a bad thing. Should it still be user-configurable? Yeah, of course. But, probably 99% of people who have 5200s would use the UT2003 cheat/optimization/thingy.
Hanners
21-Jul-2003, 22:00
What I find kind of bizarre is that [H] still don't seem to understand why ATi had a gripe with their benchmarking in the first place, despite the marked performance differences we've seen in UT2003 with application detection (and thus the forced bilinear filtering) disabled.
It would have been wonderful to see [H] being brave enough to give Antidetector a shot to show the difference, but I guess they are too scared of external influences to do anything like that. :(
A few days ago [H] had a “serious” chat with Nvidia’s top brass. Today they publish an article that vindicated Nvidia’s behavior. What did they talk about then?
How many 0's they should add to the check?
digitalwanderer
21-Jul-2003, 22:09
What I find kind of bizarre is that [H] still don't seem to understand why ATi had a gripe with their benchmarking in the first place, despite the marked performance differences we've seen in UT2003 with application detection (and thus the forced bilinear filtering) disabled.
It would have been wonderful to see [H] being brave enough to give Antidetector a shot to show the difference, but I guess they are too scared of external influences to do anything like that. :(
Yup. They could have legitimately addressed the issue, but instead decided to stick to the old line of "Well, WE can't see any difference when gaming on it!". :rolleyes:
And as we all know by now; if we can't see it, it ain't a cheat... :(
I think I have a better understanding of the issue now, even though I have no idea what those wonderfully bright and colourful screenshots mean. Nor do I frankly care.
The issue here is Nvidia taking away control from the user and in it's own hands through the drivers. And that is something that really ticks me off as a consumer. If I pay good money for a video card, I want all basic options to be configurable without such underhanded tactics. The fact that I probably couldn't tell the difference between trilinear and bilinear texturing is irrelevant, as the option of choosing either should lie with me not the drivers. This is truly a slippery slope of a situation. Next thing you know nvidia drivers will start warning us about games that have not been "optimized" for nvidia hardware with a warning dialog box each you start such a game (Yeah I know I'm exaggerating a little but you get the point).
The sollution in my mind is simple though: benchmark UT2003 using bilinear on all boards for now.
Bolloxoid
21-Jul-2003, 23:09
The issue here is Nvidia taking away control from the user and in it's own hands through the drivers.
Exactly. And the real point that Hardocp completely fails to mention is that they do this selectively in the case of UT 2003 just because it is a commonly used benchmark. They do not do it, for example, with Unreal II which is using the same engine. This completely blows away the ridiculous argument that Nvidia is concerned for the best playing experience for the consumer.
What I find kind of bizarre is that [H] still don't seem to understand why ATi had a gripe with their benchmarking in the first place, despite the marked performance differences we've seen in UT2003 with application detection (and thus the forced bilinear filtering) disabled.
It would have been wonderful to see [H] being brave enough to give Antidetector a shot to show the difference, but I guess they are too scared of external influences to do anything like that. :(
I don't think fear has anything to do with it--more like a love affair with ignorance that [H] seems determined to carry on, no matter what. His detractors he calls "anal-technical" simply because they converse on general topics he cannot grasp. I am literally stunned that in 2003 we have "major" hardware sites saying that the difference between Tri and Bi-linear filtering isn't important because in certain screen shots you "can't see the difference" (while they studiously ignore the screen shots in which a difference can be seen--such as in the UT2K3 color-code filtering tests designed specifically to show the differences between filtering types such as bi and tri-linear.) Amazing and selective hypocrisy--not to mention the fact that in some cases the mip-map boundaries are visible while playing the game--a fact which [H] declares to be unimportant.
He basically says it's OK to compare tri-linear filtering on an ATi product with bilinear filtering on an GFFX product because in his opinion the IQ differences aren't noticeable while playing the game. So, OK, then, to avoid the hypocrisy the proper thing would be to compare the ATi performance with the GFFX performance while both products are running bi-linear, and to simply concede the GF FX has been deliberately crippled by nVidia so as not to provide Tri-linear filtering of detail textures in any case at all.
But no, it seems if [H] cannot declare a winner in a deliberately stacked contest [Ati's tri-linear versus GFFX's bi-linear] it isn't interested in declaring a winner at all. Like it or not folks the record at [H] post nv30 has been one of consistent apology for nVidia, regardless of how obviously and flagrantly it must skew its reporting.
Kyle is simply a nincompoop of the first order if he thinks nVidia's elimination of detail-texture trilinear support in its drivers is a non-issue. Lots of people care about issues such as these.
I said it in an earlier post: this is unfortunately boiling down to a classic struggle between the haves and the have nots; the generally educated vs. the unwashed ignorant. Basically, the boys at [H] have simply shut off the old brain cells and have decided to substitute whatever nVidia says and does for rational thought.
Who but nVidia might ever say or suggest "Oh, come now. Trilinear filtering isn't really important, is it?" And who but [H] it seems might ever officially respond in the affirmative to such an idiotic question? The hole just gets deeper and deeper--and only those digging it seem oblivious to it. Remarkable.
digitalwanderer
22-Jul-2003, 00:11
Who but nVidia might ever say or suggest "Oh, come now. Trilinear filtering isn't really important, is it?" And who but [H] it seems might ever officially respond in the affirmative to such an idiotic question? The hole just gets deeper and deeper--and only those digging it seem oblivious to it. Remarkable.
And utterly fascinating to watch, truly. The thread at [H] about their latest "findings" are a serious case study. :)
A serious case study of what I'm not sure of, but it just seems overly classic to me somehow already. ;)
Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.
22-Jul-2003, 00:42
Who but nVidia might ever say or suggest "Oh, come now. Trilinear filtering isn't really important, is it?" And who but [H] it seems might ever officially respond in the affirmative to such an idiotic question? The hole just gets deeper and deeper--and only those digging it seem oblivious to it. Remarkable.
I've said it before - people have forgotten their history. Nvidia has *always* rubbished any technology when they have not had the lead with that tech. Then Nvidia eventually bring out products that support that tech, and all of a sudden it is the best thing since sliced bread.
The reason *why* Nvidia use patsy websites instead of issuing official statements themselves is to distance themselves from all statements on their behalf, so Nvidia can selectively disown them at will. Nvidia don't have to live up to any promises because Nvidia didn't officially make them.
When it is convenient, Nvidia will cut Kyle free, and he will look like a patsy for supporting a stance that Nvidia will (a) no longer support, and (b) will deny they ever supported. Nvidia will say how they *always* values IQ, and how they *never* reduced quality, and how they certainly don't support the idea that "it's not a cheat if you can't see it" or that you can't tell the difference between bilinear and trilinear.
...
The reason *why* Nvidia use patsy websites instead of issuing official statements themselves is to distance themselves from all statements on their behalf, so Nvidia can selectively disown them at will. Nvidia don't have to live up to any promises because Nvidia didn't officially make them.
When it is convenient, Nvidia will cut Kyle free, and he will look like a patsy for supporting a stance that Nvidia will (a) no longer support, and (b) will deny they ever supported. Nvidia will say how they *always* values IQ, and how they *never* reduced quality, and how they certainly don't support the idea that "it's not a cheat if you can't see it" or that you can't tell the difference between bilinear and trilinear.
I think as well the reason they use individuals and web sites in this fashion is to get them to state untruths or to perpetuate and expand errors so that when the truth outs nVidia can plausibly deny ever having said such things--itself. They can say, "This is what [H] said. We never said anything like that ourselves." I've seen this happen a number of times in the last four years. (Edit: Belatedly, I see this is exactly what you said in the first para quoted above. Sorry...;))
Yes, it's unfortunate when a site either doesn't care or is actively complicit in being used by nVidia to make statements the company itself does not wish attributed to it. But for four years I've watched various such sap sites come and go--with the emphasis on the "go" part.
Witness the fact that even while [H] is busy swearing up & down to all who will believe it that nVidia just simply doesn't care about 3D benchmarks, the company publishes "performance increase" statements on new driver sets which deal with nothing but increases in benchmark performance. And even while [H] is stomping around vainly protesting nVidia's innocence nVidia not only continues special-case optimizing for 3DMk03 but goes to the further trouble of encrypting its drivers so that the anti-detection scripts written by people to disable such benchmarking frauds will no longer function. Heh...[H] even now is being used and made to look foolish.
I can understand a certain desire to be towards the center of attention, but not as an object of derision. Does Kyle really want to place [H] on the dunking seat? He must, as there is no shortage of balls to hurl at the target lever and the temptation to dunk [H] is overwhelming...;)
Forbidden Donut
22-Jul-2003, 02:37
I just wanna give Doomtrooper a pat on the back. He posted his ass off in that thread on the hard forums today. Kyle was playing the semantics game, unfortunately, and never ended up saying much. But damn man...that was a lot of posts :D
I just wanna give Doomtrooper a pat on the back. He posted his ass off in that thread on the hard forums today. Kyle was playing the semantics game, unfortunately, and never ended up saying much. But damn man...that was a lot of posts :D
Kyle seems to be concerned that the images that Doomtropper posted were using to much bandwidth even when Doom had them hosted on another site. :roll:
Is it me or is there someting fishy when even images on his own site are removed when they might counter his own stance. Look at this post below and check out the link. The image is not available. Hmm.
just saw the review and i could see a big difference in the af quality in this shot. http://hardocp.com/image.html? imag... /> 18xX2wuanBn looks as if the 9800 pro is using better af as for bi or tri filtering i dont know how to classify it but the ati card has better quality throughout the mip maps.
I would have a lot more respect for [H] if they included a caveat in there review of the BFG 5900 ultra. They should qualify the Ut20003 scores with something like this..... “ Using the 44.03 drivers the 5900 does not use full trilinear filtering while playing Ut2003. It is our opinion that this does not have a detrimental effect on image quality. Though it remains to be seen if this effects performance and image quality of other games.” Frgmaster and Brent, both seem to be going out of their way to mention that this article reflects testing of Ut2003 with 44.03’s on the 5900u only. This seems to me that they may have suspicions that the issue is wider reaching but are trying to spin it as to lessen impact on Nvidia. As it stands now [H] has turned a sow’s ear into a silk purse.
hehe... ATI bought Tseng-Labs (tech and engineers) many years ago...
really? didn't know that... so maybe they are renaming the ET4000000000 to the R420? :lol:
Yes, they did. Long time ago, in 1997:
Press Release - Archives 1997
ATI Technologies Inc. Acquires Graphics Design Assets of Tseng Labs
40 Person 3D Team to Join ATI
December 15, 1997
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Toronto, Ontario - ATI Technologies Inc. (TSE:ATY) a world leader in 3D graphics/video acceleration and multimedia solutions and Tseng Labs, Inc. (Nasdaq National Market:TSNG), today announced that approximately 40 members of Tseng's development team have joined ATI. In addition, ATI has acquired substantially all of the graphic design assets of Tseng for approximately US$3 million.
Source: http://www.ati.com/companyinfo/press/1997/4076.html
StealthHawk
22-Jul-2003, 07:12
They acknowledge the problem then say, "Meh, so what?". :(
Didn't mention it in my 5200 review because I wasn't comparing it to anything. Plus, on slow budget cards, it's *not* a bad thing. Should it still be user-configurable? Yeah, of course. But, probably 99% of people who have 5200s would use the UT2003 cheat/optimization/thingy.
And the people who are looking for more speed should be using Performance or High Performance mode instead of Quality mode. Or turning down the resolution, turning down game settings, etc.
The fact of the matter is that people through hissy fits when they can't run things at full quality.*
*Whether real or imagined. In the context of this case, it is the perception of full quality.
edit: fixed quote
Turns round to rest of ATI driver guys...
"It's official - it's now open season on image quality guys - [H] says so."
Let's start hacking it up now, and leave no pixel unpolluted.
"LOD-bias?"
"Check."
"Texture compression?"
"Check."
"Clipping planes?"
"Check."
"Trilinear disable?"
"Check."
"Shader replacement?"
"Check."
"Ship it."
Impressive. Most impressive. [H] has taught you well. You have controlled your image quality. Now, ignore buffer clears and disable aniso! Only your highest framerate can destroy me!
And it wouldn't help... So many people test the cards with the defaults (including OEMs) that you'd gain no ground. Also, people who want to make you look bad still can by just changing your settings to something more stressful.
Of course the default should be the reduced quality settings. The highest quality settings should be packed away, so it's not immediately enabled. Otherwise true, it would probably be a waste of time.
I'd also guess that the ignorant people far outnumber the malicious ones.
GreenBeret
22-Jul-2003, 10:38
And it wouldn't help... So many people test the cards with the defaults (including OEMs) that you'd gain no ground. Also, people who want to make you look bad still can by just changing your settings to something more stressful.
Of course the default should be the reduced quality settings. The highest quality settings should be packed away, so it's not immediately enabled. Otherwise true, it would probably be a waste of time.
I'd also guess that the ignorant people far outnumber the malicious ones.
Or maybe a wizard that runs straight after the driver installation and asks the user to choose one of the followings:
1: I'm a gamer and only care about games
2: I'm a competent reviewer and am reviewing the Radeon technology
3: I'm a reviewer and I want to compare this card with a Nvidia card
etc.
or something similar ^_^
and then enable the appropiate IQ settings ^_^
from H Forums
"This is easy enough. I have a 9800-256 in my personal box and UT2K3 v2225 installed.
I used all the same settings that we describe in our article except I went and turned off "Trilinear" in the UT2K3 control panel.
YES, it made a big difference.
With no AF enabled it took about a full second when moving to spot the mipmap transition points. Quite frankly the quality is not acceptable by my gaming standards.
With 8XAF enabled, the transitions were not near as noticeable when moving, but you could certainly spot them. But it was not the "in your face" lines you see without AF. When stopped and simply looking at the screen it was easy to pick out.
I would suggest that from that quick experience that ATI's Bilinear Filtering is in no way close to how NVIDIA is handling their filtering in UT2K3. So we will stick with the comments that NVIDIA's technique seems to be somewhere between Bi and Tri in this particular game."
Can someone verify this here please? Does FX5900 Aniso+bi look better than ATI Aniso+bi?
Is the NV system similar to forcing Aniso from ATI control panel rather than the application? (in terms of IQ) and what speed difference is there?
Dave Baumann
22-Jul-2003, 12:48
I said in thread on their 5900 Review (http://www.beyond3d.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=6877):
The precedent that [H] is setting here is just utterly fucking sad and stupid - all ATI has to do is release a set of drivers that does exactly the same - dial down IQ to increase performance, and that ultimately puts us on a path that screws all consumers.
That represented the shock from Brents initial response to me over [H]'s apparent stance on benchmarking and IQ, however he backtracked from that stating that he wasn't fully aware of the situation with UT2003, so ad some hope that that statement was an overreaction, however having seen the report I stand by it. [H] is setting a very dangerous precedent here.
Herr Baumann has read the [H] forum discussion over this (by masking my IP :roll: ) and its good to see that there is quite a discussion going on over there and that nopt everyone has quite agreed with the findings.
A couple of things that strike me: [H] suggests that these reductions in IQ could not be noticed based on the evidence of their screenshots, while that may be the case that there most certainly are combinations of textures and scene that make his difficult to notice, likewise there are combinations that are more easily notable - personally I thought we'd already shown this from the images indicated in our other thread (which I assume were the ones that DoomTrooper tried to post over at [H] forum - if so, Kyle he's free to "leech" them off our servers). In the instance we showed you are actually more likely to notice them in movement. Excuses for the type of game in use is a deflection of the issue as well.
Now, there's been lots of comments suggesting this is "OK, because there is such a divergence in the boards these days anyway".... NO!, for god sake, this is Trilinear filtering we're talking about here - this is a fundamental filtering process we're taliing about here. Tilinear has been with us since the days of Multitexturing; GeForce 256 even did the thing for free (fill-rate at least) why, in the era of $500 boards are we finding it acceptable to reduce the quality of such a basic element of image generation? This is fundamental - and we've shown there certainly is no actual issue with running this game with full Trilinear enabled (via Antidetect).
It good to see that some people over at [H] forum are annoyed that they effectively don't have the option to run the game as they want. It all well and good saying that "well the IQ looks OK and the performance is good", but surely something that renders pretty close with full IQ would perform much faster if the IQ were lowered? Surely thats the point of having the texture sliders - to allow the user to dial down the IQ as they see fit, rather than having that forced upon you.
We can either sit up and question whether these type of optimisation are correct in the hope that the IHV's will listen (and hopefully its beginning to sounds as though NVIDIA are now) or we can roll over and say "Well, that’s the way it is" in which case that will either make comparison just plain useless, false and misleading if the full details are not investigated (as they weren't in the 5900 Ultra review that sparked this - people were not informed) or it will end up on a slippery slope of spiralling IQ from the vendors in order to increase benchmarks scores, which will certainly not benefit the consumer.
K.I.L.E.R
22-Jul-2003, 12:53
Dave, ever thought about e-mailing the IEEE to set up a 3D benchmark standard? :)
I would wish one would appear before us. Then again, what are the chances that mediocre reviewers will benchmark by the satndards?
bloodbob
22-Jul-2003, 13:07
Cause nvidia will either A) cheat by lowering IQ or B) use precomputed data ( IE prolly 300 meg downloads )
The precedent that [H] is setting here is just utterly fucking sad and stupid - all ATI has to do is release a set of drivers that does exactly the same - dial down IQ to increase performance, and that ultimately puts us on a path that screws all consumers.
Well in the AF review [H] has accussed ATI of disabling trilinear filtering with AF please keep in mind in the first page in the driver set up they said it used application preference.
In-Game Still Screenshot 8XAF = 9800 Pro SLIGHTLY Sharper Textures with no mipmap transitions that are distracting.
So the question is do you agree that ati should be shot for doing the same thing or should ATI be making a libel case for this fruadlant (SP?) article?
Myrmecophagavir
22-Jul-2003, 13:11
I would suggest that from that quick experience that ATI's Bilinear Filtering is in no way close to how NVIDIA is handling their filtering in UT2K3. So we will stick with the comments that NVIDIA's technique seems to be somewhere between Bi and Tri in this particular game."
Can someone verify this here please? Does FX5900 Aniso+bi look better than ATI Aniso+bi?
I thought the comparison was between bilinear [+ AF] and Nvidia's new technique [+ AF]. Nvidia's technique ought to look better than bilinear because it does smooth the mipmap boundaries; the question is whether it look as good as trilinear. So this is independent of the ATI vs Nvidia aniso quality argument.
Hmmm - cannot register at Hard OCP - not allowing registering?!?
Given what I saw at the AMDMB site, its blatently apparent that there is IQ degradation - so the question is what are AMDMB doing different from [H]?
Personally, there is no way they can justify the rediction in quality from 44.03.
digitalwanderer
22-Jul-2003, 13:34
the question is what are AMDMB doing different from [H]?
Honestly reporting their findings. ;)
bloodbob
22-Jul-2003, 13:39
Okay yeah I stuffed up I missed this bit
Then we set the AF slider to Quality AF when AF was tested.
which means brent is forcing the drivers into a comptability mode of AF rather then the actual af that should be done in the game. How does he think he is gonna test filtering in a game if his overiding the settings manually.
We can either sit up and question whether these type of optimisation are correct in the hope that the IHV's will listen (and hopefully its beginning to sounds as though NVIDIA are now) or we can roll over and say "Well, that’s the way it is" in which case that will either make comparison just plain useless, false and misleading if the full details are not investigated (as they weren't in the 5900 Ultra review that sparked this - people were not informed) or it will end up on a slippery slope of spiralling IQ from the vendors in order to increase benchmarks scores, which will certainly not benefit the consumer.
I'm doing both. ;)
Why shouldn't we be pessimistic about the situation though? It could very well be that the best plan is to demand a choice rather than to oppose all of "those" optimisations. Wheels are set in motion, and I don't think NVidia wants to change as much as we are currently demanding.
But count one more who's hoping for a B3D front page story.
...
We can either sit up and question whether these type of optimisation are correct in the hope that the IHV's will listen (and hopefully its beginning to sounds as though NVIDIA are now) or we can roll over and say "Well, that’s the way it is" in which case that will either make comparison just plain useless, false and misleading if the full details are not investigated (as they weren't in the 5900 Ultra review that sparked this - people were not informed) or it will end up on a slippery slope of spiralling IQ from the vendors in order to increase benchmarks scores, which will certainly not benefit the consumer.
Asking the question of "Who benefits?" (at least theoretically) is the aspect from which to properly view these matters, IMO. As you point out, in this case it is not the potential consumer of nVidia's GFFX products. The only potential beneficiary in this situation is hypothetically nVidia, if it's assumed that consumers don't care that nVidia has rigged yet-another-driver-set to recognize a specific game, and in this case substitute an optimized bilinear filtering scheme to replace full trilinear filtering--without informing the GFFX end user of this fact.
If one assumes that the sentiments of [H] represent the norm, that consumers of nVidia's flagship $500US 3D cards only care about frame rates and don't give a hoot about the differences in IQ relative to trilinear and bilinear filtering, because they are too busy fragging people to care about scene rendering IQ, this still does not show how the GFFX consumer benefits by nVidia's decision to eliminate the ability of its GFFX products to do full trilinear filtering in UT2K3. It is easy to see, however, how this might benefit nVidia in terms of better benchmark framerate numbers provided its customers do not know, or better yet do not care, about the loss of full trilinear in this game. There is no benefit to the consumer in losing the ability to choose between full trilinear and nVidia's faux-trilinear while playing UT2K3. In this scenario only nVidia benefits even theoretically.
The flip side is that nVidia suffers if this is revealed and it turns out potential GFFX consumers find it objectionable enough to stay away from GFFX products. Under no circumstances can this be considered a "feature" compelling enough to stimulate sales--it's only value for nVidia is in remaining one of many undetected "application optimizations." The irony is that in attempting to portray faux-trilinear in UT2K3 as full trilinear support nVidia has done nothing more than shoot itself in the foot, whereas including the faux-trilinear support in addition to full trilinear support might well have garnered them praise. But then, obviously, to properly support both in the game would have resulted in the nV35 and the R350 being compared while running full trilinear in UT2K3, and the whole purpose of nVidia's action here was designed to prevent that from happening.
The main thing to me is that even if one accepts [H]'s premise that "the differences don't matter" it still doesn't excuse nVidia deliberately engineering its drivers to be unable to provide full trilinear support for UT2K3 through the application. The potential consumer certainly doesn't benefit from the complete removal of that choice in any fashion whatever that I can see.
In fact, the details of this issue have made me reconsider an earlier opinion of mine that games (as opposed to benchmarks) were "fair game" for IHV driver optimzation. When I formed that opinion I did not envision nVidia attempting to substitute a faux-trilinear filtering method for full trilinear support even when the application asks for full trilinear.
I still think of "optimization" in this case as "coding your driver to more efficiently provide full trilinear support on your hardware for the application requesting it" as opposed to "coding your drivers to apply trilinear filtering to 30%-50% of the onscreen textures even when the application asks that 100% of the textures be trilineared." That isn't "optimizing" in any real sense of the word--that's misrepresentation (or, yes, cheating.) So I guess I have to eat my earlier words about it "not being possible" for IHV's to cheat actual games themselves. nVidia's proved me wrong.
Dave, ever thought about e-mailing the IEEE to set up a 3D benchmark standard? :)
I would wish one would appear before us. Then again, what are the chances that mediocre reviewers will benchmark by the satndards?
SPEC is an industry standard group that does benchmarks, including graphics benchmarks with GPC. Believe it or not, one of the first two graphics application benchmarks was Quake II. And there was even a result published, see
http://www.spec.org/gpc/June99/apc.static/index.html .
Click on Quake II Benchmark Results [sic].
Since Quake III was already released, the Quake II benchmark was retired and SPECapc never did another game benchmark.
Also been there done that, on optimization rules, see:
http://www.spec.org/gpc/Jul99/apc.static/ARclean.htm
http://www.spec.org/gpc/Jul99/opc.static/Rulesv11.htm
Specifically, in the SPECopc rules, "General Rules for Optimizations" I.3.h and I.3.i cover optimizations that are not permitted even though not visible to the eye. (They were visible to image diff tools.)
Also, see IV.2.a (example, if the driver is asked for trilinear mipmaping, it must do trilinear mipmapping) and IV.2.c.
-mr. bill
A couple of things that strike me: [H] suggests that these reductions in IQ could not be noticed based on the evidence of their screenshots, while that may be the case that there most certainly are combinations of textures and scene that make his difficult to notice, likewise there are combinations that are more easily notable - personally I thought we'd already shown this from the images indicated in our other thread (which I assume were the ones that DoomTrooper tried to post over at [H] forum - if so, Kyle he's free to "leech" them off our servers). In the instance we showed you are actually more likely to notice them in movement.
This is really the crux of the issue. AFAICS, you only posted one set of regular screenshots (http://www.beyond3d.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=6719&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=20) in that thread. The mipmap transitions are clearly visible, although perhaps not what I'd call egregious in the stills (in motion I'd imagine they'd stand out quite a bit). [H] has posted a decent number of screens, and I can only see mipmap transitions on one of them, and even then it's very subtle. Several of them are obviously poorly chosen to illustrate the issue, but some of them seem like they should be adequate.
Both Kyle and Brett state that the transitions aren't visible even in motion. You seem to be implying the opposite. I trust your eyes a good deal more than theirs. But for that reason specifically--how noticable is it, exactly? I certainly don't buy the pablum that image quality doesn't matter in fast-paced shooters (if that's the case, why don't you save your $499 and play Quakeworld??). But I'd also like to know whether this is something one needs to actively search for to see it. Particularly if one isn't an eagle-eyed reviewer and hardware expert.
Second: about the most intruiging thing to come out of all this was a throwaway comment made by IIRC Kyle in the [H] forums, to the effect that he'd enabled Performance (i.e. bilinear) on the R3x0, and that the mipmap transitions were immediately obvious and annoying, in a way that is obviously not the case with whatever the crap Nvidia is doing.
Do you concur with this assessment? If so, at the least this suggests that the proper response is not to benchmark Nvidia's Quality against ATI's Performance, as some have suggested. It also suggests that Nvidia is doing something other than straight bilinear (which, in truth, was already suggested by the colored mipmap pics), and even perhaps something a bit more complicated than just mostly bilinear with a brief bit of mipmap blending just as the transition approaches.
What are your thoughts on this? Despite all the condemnation Kyle and crew are recieving for this latest article, IMO it's actually reasonably convincing. Not, of course, that disabling trilinear secretly on an application basis is at all kosher, or that this is a fair comparison to R3x0 with filtering set to application preference. But at least that this may be a reasonably smart approach to minimize the trilinear hit at a seemingly negligable IQ cost, and even one that we should be encouraging.
Now, there's been lots of comments suggesting this is "OK, because there is such a divergence in the boards these days anyway".... NO!, for god sake, this is Trilinear filtering we're talking about here - this is a fundamental filtering process we're taliing about here
Agreed that those comments on the [H] forums to the effect that "GPUs are so complicated these days" are ignorant drivel. Not agreed that IHVs shouldn't be looking for ways to get most of the benefit at less of the (significant) cost. I mean, supersampling is a fundamental antialiasing process, and it still confers some quality benefits over MSAA + AF in certain situations. That doesn't mean ditching SSAA for MSAA wasn't one of the most significant improvements in the last several years.
Tilinear has been with us since the days of Multitexturing; GeForce 256 even did the thing for free (fill-rate at least)
And NV1 did quadratic primatives for free. :) Isn't it established (or at least insanely likely) that GF1's free trilinear was more a case of a buggy 2nd TMU/pipe? Even if not, free trilinear is an extremely bad design decision, considering how many textures aren't meant to recieve trilinear even when it's properly enabled. There is a reason we haven't seen it since GF1.
why, in the era of $500 boards are we finding it acceptable to reduce the quality of such a basic element of image generation? This is fundamental - and we've shown there certainly is no actual issue with running this game with full Trilinear enabled (via Antidetect).
Because trilinear reduces performance significantly. If Nvidia comes up with a method to get most of the IQ benefits of trilinear at a fraction of the performance hit then by all means we should encourage it. As the purpose of trilinear is generally given as "removing the mipmap transitions from bilinear", it does seem a little silly to do trilinear over the entire mipmap if it only matters for a small portion. Now, I'm guessing there may be other benefits to doing "FSTF" (full-screen trilinear), perhaps in the realm of preventing texture aliasing. But I'm mostly just guessing this because otherwise full trilinear would seem a somewhat stupid thing to do. In the vein of doing full screen anisotropic filtering, instead of only oversampling those pixels at large anisotropic angles, and then only doing enough to keep under the Nyquist limit. So if trilinear actually prevents texture aliasing as well, I'd like to see some discussion of that over here for god's sake. And if it doesn't, then this optimization looks long overdue more than anything.
Of course our evaluation of this hinges on the claim that what they're doing really does look much more like trilinear than bilinear even though the mipmaps show that its workload is a lot closer to bilinear than trilinear. Kyle and Brett both say this is the case, and have put up some reasonable evidence. I don't have access to an NV3x card, but many people on this forum do. I'd certainly appreciate more objective testing and some subjective second opinions on the issue instead of just more moans and flames.
None of this excuses Kyle's ridiculous editorials, double-standards, or forum fascism. In particular banning you was about the most ridiculous move I can concieve of. But on the flipside none of that stuff should excuse us from getting to the bottom of what seems to be a very interesting issue.
And, I realize that you may be looking at this issue wearing your reviewer's hat, in which case it is surely absolutely unethical of Nvidia to sneak in an optimization that overrides requested settings (although only to the degree that "quality" implicitly requests "full trilinear filtering"), only in certain highly benchmarked games, and without telling anyone about it. But if you leave that aside for a moment and put on your hardware enthusiast's hat, perhaps there's something worthwhile here?
/turns to crowd
Or am I just totally off base on this one???
Myrmecophagavir
22-Jul-2003, 15:45
I would certainly like to see more discussion of the actual algorithm rather than simply stating that it must be "wrong" to use it.
When you use trilinear filtering, you get a linear blend between mipmap levels. So it's highly unlikely that you'll be accessing only one level, the value for the blend factor will hardly ever be integral.
But what exactly is so wrong about using say a piecewise-linear function instead? The function would be flat most of the time, then instead of jumping instantly to the next mipmap level you have a quick linear blend with a relatively high gradient. The mipmap transitions would not be so noticeable because there is some blending going on, yet the card only needs to pull data from one mipmap level most of the time. The tradeoff could be set by describing the function in terms of the slope of the non-flat part; at its minimum you have trilinear filtering, at infinity bilinear. Perhaps this would indeed be an acceptable tradeoff?
The problem I see is not with the use of an algorithm like this, but hiding it away and forcing its use even though "full quality" is specified.
Edit: of course you shouldn't compare performance levels of one system using this algorithm and another using bilinear or trilinear; and if a site doing a review is aware that this is in use then they shouldn't claim the settings are "trilinear" - the word is very specific and wouldn't apply to this algorithm.
Doomtrooper
22-Jul-2003, 15:49
The problem is Nvidia is disabling what you set in your control panel, on your $500 dollar video card. I'm sorry, changing what you select for quality without your permission is wrong.
With the Anti-detector script the 44.03 driver does apply what you set in the control panel...so obviousally Nvidia detects and lowers for frames..like 30% increase !!
Dave H, you are absolutely right that this may in fact be a very good way to get trilinear like filtering without a high performance penalty. The problem is that in the review of the BFG 5900 ultra that sparked this whole issue and the subsequent [H] article that information was not mentioned in the article. Herein lies the problem. I think it is fair to say that most people expect that if a video card runs one game exceptionally well that it would be reasonable to expect that level of capability to be reflected in other games. Maybe in other games, with different types of scenes this type of filtering would be very noticeable. That's why the omission of this information is wrong. [H] should have included a statement like this in that review...“ Using the 44.03 drivers the 5900 does not use full trilinear filtering while playing Ut2003. It is our opinion that this does not have a detrimental effect on image quality. Though it remains to be seen if this effects performance and image quality of other games.” That’s why I have problem with [H].
Dave Baumann
22-Jul-2003, 16:28
Both Kyle and Brett state that the transitions aren't visible even in motion. You seem to be implying the opposite.
That depends on the types of textures in use and the locations. Those on the Antalus map (the grass uses detail textures) aren’t actually visible, others are – so its neither true to say this is never an issue or always an issue in terms of visible IQ.
But I'd also like to know whether this is something one needs to actively search for to see it.
Its probably one of those things – you don’t notice until you do, then you always notice it!! ;)
In terms of how noticeable it is on game play, I don’t know as I’ve not really gone through every map to check.
Do you concur with this assessment? If so, at the least this suggests that the proper response is not to benchmark Nvidia's Quality against ATI's Performance, as some have suggested.
I’ve explicitly tested this, but its probably correct since there is a difference between full Bi and the mixed Bi/Trilinear modes.
And, I realize that you may be looking at this issue wearing your reviewer's hat, in which case it is surely absolutely unethical of Nvidia to sneak in an optimization that overrides requested settings (although only to the degree that "quality" implicitly requests "full trilinear filtering"), only in certain highly benchmarked games, and without telling anyone about it. But if you leave that aside for a moment and put on your hardware enthusiast's hat, perhaps there's something worthwhile here?
Dave, take a search in this forum – I’ve actually said this a number of times: the method is actually an exceptionally good one for removing most of the obvious issues with Bilinear, whilst still reducing the performance hit from Trilinear; you can get to close Trilinear quality in many situations, but with the lower cost. The issue I have with the entire concept is that it is open to abuse.
The entire point of NVIDIA’ texture slider is to put these type of controls in the hands of the user – they should be the ones taking control of whether they want full Trilinear or reduced Trilinear at higher performance, the IHV’s shouldn’t take that away from the user entirely (especially if it can be noticed in game). The point of starting that other texture thread is that ATI actually appear to have exactly the same types of filtering methods in 9600 but they have given it to the users to control – the defaul “Highest Quality” gives full trilinear while the other modes reduce the level of Trilinear.
The problem is Nvidia is disabling what you set in your control panel, on your $500 dollar video card. I'm sorry, changing what you select for quality without your permission is wrong.
Well, technically what you set in your control panel is "quality image quality" or something like that. The control panel doesn't mention nor guarantee trilinear. Nor does is offer an application preference setting.
Incidentally, the R3x0 doesn't do full trilinear on all textures when you set it for "quality image quality" (or is that "quality filtering"?), either. No, it doesn't affect most games, but it happens to affect UT2003. Of course, the ATI driver does have an application preference setting.
With the Anti-detector script the 44.03 driver does apply what you set in the control panel...so obviousally Nvidia detects and lowers for frames..like 30% increase !!
Obviously. That's not in doubt. (Although the 30% performance hit may be attributable to more than just forcing full trilinear. In fact it almost certainly is: trilinear will incur a pretty big hit, particularly in a texture-intensive game like UT2003; but 30% seems unreasonably large.)
Hanners
22-Jul-2003, 16:43
Just as an aside, I've put up an editorial at Elite Bastards today about recent events regarding this issue here (http://www.elitebastards.com/page.php?pageid=1643&head=1&comments=1).
Dave, DT fyi from H forums.
"As for leeching images, you have hit the nail on the head. The work is NOT yours to use. We have been sued over exactly what you are doing. Should beyond3D wish to give you the right to use any and all of their content and also allow you to leech their bandwidth, they will need to send a written letter stating so. I gave Dave Bauman my phone number last week, he can call and discuss the fine points should he wish."
Can you please let him know :) its hard to prove him wrong when he keeps removing the proof :P
This is really the crux of the issue. AFAICS, you only posted one set of regular screenshots (http://www.beyond3d.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=6719&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=20) in that thread. The mipmap transitions are clearly visible, although perhaps not what I'd call egregious in the stills (in motion I'd imagine they'd stand out quite a bit). [H] has posted a decent number of screens, and I can only see mipmap transitions on one of them, and even then it's very subtle. Several of them are obviously poorly chosen to illustrate the issue, but some of them seem like they should be adequate.
Both Kyle and Brett state that the transitions aren't visible even in motion. You seem to be implying the opposite. I trust your eyes a good deal more than theirs. But for that reason specifically--how noticable is it, exactly? I certainly don't buy the pablum that image quality doesn't matter in fast-paced shooters (if that's the case, why don't you save your $499 and play Quakeworld??). But I'd also like to know whether this is something one needs to actively search for to see it. Particularly if one isn't an eagle-eyed reviewer and hardware expert.
I can't speak for Dave B., but...
Dave H, I think you might be getting ahead of yourself here. First you say, "The mipmap transitions are clearly visible..." and then, "in motion I'd imagine they'd stand out quite a bit."
Then you say, "Both Kyle and Brett state that the transitions aren't visible even in motion " and "You seem to be implying the opposite. I trust your eyes a good deal more than theirs. But for that reason specifically--how noticable is it, exactly?"
In the first paragraph you correctly realize that if you can see a mipmap band in a screen shot you can bet it's visible when the game is in motion. But in your second paragraph you state that Dave B. "implies" the visible mipmap boundaries which in your first paragraph you state "... are clearly visible..." and then, "in motion I'd imagine they'd stand out quite a bit." Didn't you more or less answer your question as to what Dave B. "implied" by your observations as you stated them in your first paragraph? IE, the screenshots by Dave B. didn't just "imply" it, they proved it. Right?...;)
Also, what I got out of [H]'s text was not so much that they "couldn't see any mipmap boundaries" when playing the game, but rather that "what mipmap boundaries you can see while playing the game don't matter since you are running around fragging people and don't have time to judge the IQ." IE, what I got from [H] was simply that "it didn't matter" if mipmap boundaries were occasionally visible since in all likelyhood "you wouldn't notice them" when playing the game because your attention would be elsewhere.
Second: about the most intruiging thing to come out of all this was a throwaway comment made by IIRC Kyle in the [H] forums, to the effect that he'd enabled Performance (i.e. bilinear) on the R3x0, and that the mipmap transitions were immediately obvious and annoying, in a way that is obviously not the case with whatever the crap Nvidia is doing.
Do you concur with this assessment? If so, at the least this suggests that the proper response is not to benchmark Nvidia's Quality against ATI's Performance, as some have suggested. It also suggests that Nvidia is doing something other than straight bilinear (which, in truth, was already suggested by the colored mipmap pics), and even perhaps something a bit more complicated than just mostly bilinear with a brief bit of mipmap blending just as the transition approaches.
A couple of problems with this approach...
Yes, it's accurate to state that a direct comparison of nVidia's faux-trilinear with ATi's bilinear would be incorrect from an IQ standpoint. It is also, therefore, equally incorrect to compare nVidia's faux-trilinear with ATi's full trilinear, for the same reason. [H] incorrectly does this.
Second, it should not be forgotten that nVidia has not stopped doing full trilinear in other games--and that this situation only applies to UT2K3. As someone else stated, if nVidia does full trilinear in Unreal 2, and pretty much everything else, why is it only in UT2K3 that nVidia feels it is necessary or beneficial to eliminate the option of full trilinear filtering (regardless of whether faux-trilinear is made available as an option or not)? Best answer so far is that nVidia has singled out UT2K3 in this regard because its associated canned timedemos (Antalus Fly-By, etc.) are so often used for benchmarking by hardware review sites.
Clearly, nVidia obviously feels there is a difference between its faux-trilinear and full trilinear filtering, else the only thing the nVidia drivers would provide for every application would be its faux-variety of trilinear filtering. Right?
What are your thoughts on this? Despite all the condemnation Kyle and crew are recieving for this latest article, IMO it's actually reasonably convincing. Not, of course, that disabling trilinear secretly on an application basis is at all kosher, or that this is a fair comparison to R3x0 with filtering set to application preference. But at least that this may be a reasonably smart approach to minimize the trilinear hit at a seemingly negligable IQ cost, and even one that we should be encouraging.
Which would be fine and dandy provided nVidia did not displace the option of full trilinear filtering in the game with this faux-trilinear performance-oriented compromise. In fact, it would be even more fine and dandy if nVidia integrated the control of this mode into its control panel directly so that an end user could choose it, without omitting full trilinear capability if the end user desires that, instead, in all 3D games.
Agreed that those comments on the [H] forums to the effect that "GPUs are so complicated these days" are ignorant drivel. Not agreed that IHVs shouldn't be looking for ways to get most of the benefit at less of the (significant) cost. I mean, supersampling is a fundamental antialiasing process, and it still confers some quality benefits over MSAA + AF in certain situations. That doesn't mean ditching SSAA for MSAA wasn't one of the most significant improvements in the last several years.
SSAA and MSAA are simply different methods of doing the same thing--FSAA. Within the SSAA and MSAA IHV subgroups are greatly different methods of the implementation of either technique. The difference here would be the rough equivalent of an IHV claiming to do SSAA while it was in reality doing MSAA while claiming it was legitmate to call it "SSAA" because "most of the time" it looked "almost as good." Problem is that regardless of how good it looks there would be no justification for calling MSAA SSAA as the two aren't the same. Likewise, whatever nVidia's doing in UT2K3 it's not the same as full trilinear and "looks almost as good" simply doesn't count. Whatever is being done is being done at the expense of full trilinear support in the game, and that's the problem. The fact that this situation seems unique to UT2K3 merely complicates the matter even further.
And NV1 did quadratic primatives for free. :) Isn't it established (or at least insanely likely) that GF1's free trilinear was more a case of a buggy 2nd TMU/pipe? Even if not, free trilinear is an extremely bad design decision, considering how many textures aren't meant to recieve trilinear even when it's properly enabled. There is a reason we haven't seen it since GF1.
Nothing is free in 3D (to quote Kristoff.) Any misapprehension you may have along those lines is, well...a misapprehension...;) BTW, like nv30, nv1 was a failure commercially.
Because trilinear reduces performance significantly. If Nvidia comes up with a method to get most of the IQ benefits of trilinear at a fraction of the performance hit then by all means we should encourage it. As the purpose of trilinear is generally given as "removing the mipmap transitions from bilinear", it does seem a little silly to do trilinear over the entire mipmap if it only matters for a small portion. Now, I'm guessing there may be other benefits to doing "FSTF" (full-screen trilinear), perhaps in the realm of preventing texture aliasing. But I'm mostly just guessing this because otherwise full trilinear would seem a somewhat stupid thing to do. In the vein of doing full screen anisotropic filtering, instead of only oversampling those pixels at large anisotropic angles, and then only doing enough to keep under the Nyquist limit. So if trilinear actually prevents texture aliasing as well, I'd like to see some discussion of that over here for god's sake. And if it doesn't, then this optimization looks long overdue more than anything.
Of course our evaluation of this hinges on the claim that what they're doing really does look much more like trilinear than bilinear even though the mipmaps show that its workload is a lot closer to bilinear than trilinear. Kyle and Brett both say this is the case, and have put up some reasonable evidence. I don't have access to an NV3x card, but many people on this forum do. I'd certainly appreciate more objective testing and some subjective second opinions on the issue instead of just more moans and flames.
The problem, again, is that it is only for UT2K3 that nVidia has tried to eliminate full trilinear filtering. In most everything else, if not everything else, nVidia still does full trilinear. As such, nVidia's driver behavior in UT2K3 in this regard is very much the exception, not the rule.
The simple answer as to why nVidia does not universally discard full trilinear filtering support in favor of the faux-trilinear employed for UT2K3 should be obvious--full trilinear support produces better IQ than nVidia's performance-oriented compromise, and this is not lost on nVidia. The central question here is not whether nVidia's compromise is "almost as good" as full trilinear, the central question is why has nVidia coded its drivers to deliver a performance trilinear, even when the application itself requests the drivers provide full trilinear support? And of course there's the question of why nVidia thinks this is needful for UT2K3 but apparently nothing else?
None of this excuses Kyle's ridiculous editorials, double-standards, or forum fascism. In particular banning you was about the most ridiculous move I can concieve of. But on the flipside none of that stuff should excuse us from getting to the bottom of what seems to be a very interesting issue.
It's interesting only because nVidia has removed the option of full trilinear support from its drivers with respect to UT2K3, IMO.
And, I realize that you may be looking at this issue wearing your reviewer's hat, in which case it is surely absolutely unethical of Nvidia to sneak in an optimization that overrides requested settings (although only to the degree that "quality" implicitly requests "full trilinear filtering"), only in certain highly benchmarked games, and without telling anyone about it. But if you leave that aside for a moment and put on your hardware enthusiast's hat, perhaps there's something worthwhile here?
/turns to crowd
Or am I just totally off base on this one???
I think you are reading way too much into it. nVidia is obviously not proposing "an alternative to full trilinear support" or anything like that. If that was the case we'd see an option in the Detonator control panel allowing this technique for all 3D games. Instead, the truth seems much more mundane and, sadly, predictible: it's just a hack nVidia's put into its drivers for UT2K3 to help out its scores relative to R3xx in UT2K3 when trilinear filtering support is enabled in the application.
Just to clarify:
I'm in no way happy with or defending Nvidia's behavior in sneaking this "adaptive trilinear" into the drivers without informing anyone or offering the ability to disable it for full trilinear. But frankly it's not like Nvidia doing untoward things with their drivers in order to get a leg up in benchmarks is something new or surprising.
What I'm interested in is the notion that, in this case, the "optimization" really might be a pretty legitimate optimization; one with IQ tradeoffs in certain situations, yes, but ones that are well worth the added performance the majority of the time. I'm interested in examining more fully the space of those tradeoffs. And I'm wondering why we haven't seen more of this "trilinear only near mipmap boundries" before. It seems like a clever idea--perhaps even the Right Thing to do--to me. (Yes, it was part of the original "Aggressive" and "Balanced" settings in the first GFfx drivers, but there it was tacked onto a horrid simplification of the LOD calculation, such that the resulting mode wasn't much worth using. This does look worth using...although the 8xAF results, from [H] and AMDMB, do give one pause.)
Finally, I just can't get myself terribly worked up at Kyle and Brett over this issue. They seem to have done a reasonable job investigating the issue, and come to reasonable conclusions. They appear to agree with all of us that Nvidia should offer the option for full trilinear in their drivers. It certainly doesn't seem like they'll withdraw the UT2003 results in their recent review, but it does appear that they'll at least offer some comments on the issue from now on, which seems like a proper response assuming one comes to the conclusion they have after this investigation.
The thing is that Wavey doesn't appear to agree that they've done a good job or reached the right conclusions. And as I trust him enormously and as he's seen the issue in action and I haven't (beyond a couple screenshots), I'd really like to see him (or any other forum members with NV3x cards) offer a more detailed examination of the IQ loss at stake here.
Reverend
22-Jul-2003, 16:51
Personally, I do see what NVIDIA is doing as some sort of "optimization" but they are cheating while doing it. Don't make sense? Well, they're cheating because they used UT2003 and SamX's app and said to reviewers (i.e. they explained how to benchmark their cards) that "Quality" means proper trilinear. While this may be true on all games, it certainly isn't the case with UT2003... and they said that it should apply to UT2003. They lied, and hence cheated reviewers, the end result of which is the public being misled. This wouldn't have created a furore as it seems to have if NVIDIA didn't tell the reviewers what they told them. If NVIDIA hadn't told reviewers this, then if reviewers had noticed what was happening with the 44.03 drivers in UT2003 and brought it to light, it is simply information about what's happening.
I am not particularly concerned if Brent or Kyle or whoever said that "We think that what NVIDIA is doing doesn't really affect IQ significantly to the point where it jumps out at you". I am concerned with the fact that NVIDIA lied to reviewers (or didn't update them, as the case may be).
Doomtrooper
22-Jul-2003, 16:55
Yep I'm banned too :lol:
Doomtrooper
22-Jul-2003, 17:01
Well, technically what you set in your control panel is "quality image quality" or something like that. The control panel doesn't mention nor guarantee trilinear. Nor does is offer an application preference setting.
Well all tests performed using the filtering test, and other games show full trilinear.
Obviously. That's not in doubt. (Although the 30% performance hit may be attributable to more than just forcing full trilinear. In fact it almost certainly is: trilinear will incur a pretty big hit, particularly in a texture-intensive game like UT2003; but 30% seems unreasonably large.)
UT 2003 takes a serious performance hit with Trilinear AF, as shown here:
http://www.beyond3d.com/previews/nvidia/gffxu/index.php?p=8
44%
BAND! :( :(
That is pretty sad, some people will just do anything to hide the truth.
Doomtrooper
22-Jul-2003, 17:07
Thats ok, the proof is there for people to see. It was only a matter of time.. people need to wise up now and realize how much covering up is going on.
They banned Dave for exposing the truth, then banned myself for the same..the actions of a dictator.
Personally, I do see what NVIDIA is doing as some sort of "optimization" but they are cheating while doing it. Don't make sense? Well, they're cheating because they used UT2003 and SamX's app and said to reviewers (i.e. they explained how to benchmark their cards) that "Quality" means proper trilinear. While this may be true on all games, it certainly isn't the case with UT2003... and they said that it should apply to UT2003. They lied, and hence cheated reviewers, the end result of which is the public being misled. This wouldn't have created a furore as it seems to have if NVIDIA didn't tell the reviewers what they told them. If NVIDIA hadn't told reviewers this, then if reviewers had noticed what was happening with the 44.03 drivers in UT2003 and brought it to light, it is simply information about what's happening.
I am not particularly concerned if Brent or Kyle or whoever said that "We think that what NVIDIA is doing doesn't really affect IQ significantly to the point where it jumps out at you". I am concerned with the fact that NVIDIA lied to reviewers (or didn't update them, as the case may be).
Makes perfect sense to me, and I agree. Where I disagree with [H] is in the characterization of this as some sort of glorified "alternative" to full trilinear filtering support, which it certainly isn't. Already this brash, apologetic sentiment has affected the otherwise sound judgement of folks like Dave H., who is driven accordingly to grant it the inflated label of "adaptive trilinear"--Heh--which of course it isn't--except maybe in the sense that when the drivers detect that UT2K3 is being run they "adapt" and substitute a faux-trilinear for full trilinear support in the game when the game calls for full trilinear....;)
[H] has, as usual, managed to miss the point: the crime isn't in offering a performance alternative to full trilinear filtering--of course not. The crime is in substituting it for full trilinear support in the game--that's the issue that [H] has completely missed, IMO.
digitalwanderer
22-Jul-2003, 17:21
Yep I'm banned too :lol:
<The Dig runs up and gives Doomtrooper a BIG fuzzy hug and a BIG wet kiss, in a very hetero-sexual and masculine he-man kind of way.>
Good gods did you last a lot longer there than I thought you would!
THANK YOU DOOMTROOPER, THANK YOU FOR YOUR POSTS THERE!!!!!
Sorry, I just had to get that out. Everytime I was ready to punch me monitor 'cause of something extreme that K or B wrote you were putting up just what I wanted to. ('Cept better since you know more. ;) )
Thanks DT, thank you very much. :)
Yep I'm banned too :lol:
OK....Hmmmm, let's see....a Purple Heart for you, one for Dave B., and...everybody else felled in the line of fire....! (I've only got about 20 of these...sorry...)
:D
Quinn1981
22-Jul-2003, 17:36
You know something has gotten bad when it's become a joke. :roll:
demalion
22-Jul-2003, 17:42
When you move the determination of equivalency to descriptions purely dependent on the personal evaluation of the reviewer, you replace user information as a factor with whatever the reviewer can represent, which is by nature incomplete. Incomplete facts are a common tool for outright lying, and from what I've seen, Kyle seems to be trying to ensure that the facts are most assuredly and definitely left very incomplete indeed.
Separately, trust is an issue with regards to the people making the observation and the objectivity of how they are conducting that, and as discussed above, it does not seem to be something that Kyle is earning.
For example, the default for ATI is a boosted LOD and the default for UT 2k3 for high end configuration options is boosted LOD as well. Even aside from the other issues discussed above, did Kyle's comparison between ATI Performance mode and nVidia's tri/bi Quality mode for UT2k3 take this into account at all? The representation provided here doesn't make it seem so.
Given what the AMDMB article is saying, for example, LOD might be turned down as part of the application detection for nVidia...wouldn't that serve to soften mip map transitions? Even aside from that, I thought it was well established that bilinear mip map transitions were worsened for ATI with LOD defaults for both the ATI cp settings and the UT2k3 ini file settings?
At the moment, I'm still wondering: how does bilinear really compare when competent evaluation of LOD settings is a factor...and whether such an evaluation was part of Kyle's representation of this issue?
This is related to whether the image quality observations have validity at all, even before the issue of trust of the personal evaluation of "eyeballing" them come into play.
As for such trust, please note that Wavey's discussion of AF comparisons, as one example, doesn't depend on "trust", but on discussing these factors with specifics and encouraging users to establish and share their own determinations in these forums.
Given the [H] forum environment, I don't think [H] conducts itself the same way, and the viewpoint they are proposing seems to depend on selling the idea of "trust me" in place of that (and any dissenting viewpoint as well, AFAICS).
BTW, the questions above aren't rhetorical...please share your answers if you've formed an opinion.
digitalwanderer
22-Jul-2003, 18:04
When you move the determination of equivalency to descriptions purely dependent on the personal evaluation of the reviewer, you replace user information as a factor with whatever the reviewer can represent, which is by nature incomplete. Incomplete facts are a common tool for outright lying, and from what I've seen, Kyle seems to be trying to ensure that the facts are most assuredly and definitely left very incomplete indeed.
Separately, trust is an issue with regards to the people making the observation and the objectivity of how they are conducting that, and as discussed above, it does not seem to be something that Kyle is earning.
For example, the default for ATI is a boosted LOD and the default for UT 2k3 for high end configuration options is boosted LOD as well. Even aside from the other issues discussed above, did Kyle's comparison between ATI Performance mode and nVidia's tri/bi Quality mode for UT2k3 take this into account at all? The representation provided here doesn't make it seem so.
Given what the AMDMB article is saying, for example, LOD might be turned down as part of the application detection for nVidia...wouldn't that serve to soften mip map transitions? Even aside from that, I thought it was well established that bilinear mip map transitions were worsened for ATI with LOD defaults for both the ATI cp settings and the UT2k3 ini file settings?
At the moment, I'm still wondering: how does bilinear really compare when competent evaluation of LOD settings is a factor...and whether such an evaluation was part of Kyle's representation of this issue?
This is related to whether the image quality observations have validity at all, even before the issue of trust of the personal evaluation of "eyeballing" them come into play.
As for such trust, please note that Wavey's discussion of AF comparisons, as one example, doesn't depend on "trust", but on discussing these factors with specifics and encouraging users to establish and share their own determinations in these forums.
Given the [H] forum environment, I don't think [H] conducts itself the same way, and the viewpoint they are proposing seems to depend on selling the idea of "trust me" in place of that (and any dissenting viewpoint as well, AFAICS).
BTW, the questions above aren't rhetorical...please share your answers if you've formed an opinion.
Yes. :)
Good point about LOD, D...I think it also goes to the broader question of why nVidia might seek to encrypt a driver set to defeat anti-detection scripts. If the driver is overflowing with such detections designed to subtly decrease IQ (and sometimes obviously decrease it) in many games in order to prop up general performance, such a defense would add up. I certainly think it's worth checking out. I fear though that nVidia's foray into such application-specific "optimizations" for nv3x driver sets might well be so extensive that we'll simply never catch them all.
As to your comments characterizing [H]'s "trust me" positioning, I agree, and can only say I'd love to be a fly on the wall at [H] because that's probably the only way I think I might eventually understand the position...;) IE, I think behind-the-scenes observation might be essential to understanding it.
Bolloxoid
22-Jul-2003, 18:33
Finally, I just can't get myself terribly worked up at Kyle and Brett over this issue. They seem to have done a reasonable job investigating the issue, and come to reasonable conclusions.
People are annoyed because they completely dodge the most important question: Nvidia was intentionally screwing reviewers, them included. They make no mention of the fact that this is really a question of illegitimate application detection and that Nvidia made false claims of improved performance with UT 2003. There were no performance gains.
Had they mentioned in the article that they were screwed and the issue is about application detection and not about a "new" filtering method at all I would have been content. The article is misleading because it gives the reader the impression that Nvidia has come up with a "new" filtering method when in reality they just made a quality slider dysfunctional.
Hrm I wass banned too for discussing this article. Kyles only responce was "We have said what we have to say on it, and our reasoning is not changing. Thanks."
Close-minded anybody?
I think i see a pattern with these banning, everyone banned was speaking the truth and kyle just wont accept it, so he bans you....
CorwinB
22-Jul-2003, 18:44
So it seems that the first technology Nvidia used from the 3dfx IP (apart from the patented "Missed Product Cycle" and "Delayed GPU") is not high quality FSAA, but rather the cheap mipmap dithering (AKA "poor's man trilinear") ?
When people used to bash 3dfx products for the lack of true trilinear when compared to the GF1 and GF2, I never thought we would see the same argument a few years later, except the other way around (I mean, if mipmap dithering is looking so good right now, why was it looking that bad 2 years ago).
swanlee
22-Jul-2003, 18:48
I got banned at hardocp in about two hours after registering, and did not cuss while there. Do I get a badge to?
Can someone with a login and who's not banned just make a post in the videocard forums at H and ask them why they are so frikkin' afraid of AntiDetector.
DoomTrooper tried but apparently they were afraid of the pictures and removed them. :roll:
Hey btw, Anand still has his 1600x1200 4x AA 8x AF 300+ fps scores in his review of the 5900 Ultra. :roll:
Yeah, internet journalism at its best.
So it seems that the first technology Nvidia used from the 3dfx IP (apart from the patented "Missed Product Cycle" and "Delayed GPU") is not high quality FSAA, but rather the cheap mipmap dithering (AKA "poor's man trilinear") ?
When people used to bash 3dfx products for the lack of true trilinear when compared to the GF1 and GF2, I never thought we would see the same argument a few years later, except the other way around (I mean, if mipmap dithering is looking so good right now, why was it looking that bad 2 years ago).
Heh... "Mipmap dithering"....Until you mentioned it, I had all but forgotten it....;) Yep, this whole "debate" is doing little more than setting the industry back 3-4 years.
"The only reason that "NVIDIA was caught" was because ATI took the information to FutureMark and they delivered it to their supposed journalists on their Beta Program as well." ([K]yle B., PR specialist)
Corwin, please tell me this is a paraphrase and not an actual quote. He didn't actually state this for public consumption, did he? If he did, he sounds much more unhappy with the fact that nVidia got caught as opposed to what nVidia did to get caught. Unbelievable...;)
Heathen
22-Jul-2003, 19:32
Can someone with a login and who's not banned just make a post in the videocard forums at H and ask them why they are so frikkin' afraid of AntiDetector.
I'll register just to ask if you want. :)
{Sniping}Waste
22-Jul-2003, 19:36
Looks like Kyle is doing the same thing like the P4 3.04 TH review. He is lieing then and know. He is also removing any proof on his forms that proofs him wrong. He won't do anything that puts Nvidia in a bad spot light and the sad thing is that he is draging Brent down with him.
digitalwanderer
22-Jul-2003, 19:39
"The only reason that "NVIDIA was caught" was because ATI took the information to FutureMark and they delivered it to their supposed journalists on their Beta Program as well." ([K]yle B., PR specialist)
Corwin, please tell me this is a paraphrase and not an actual quote. He didn't actually state this for public consumption, did he? If he did, he sounds much more unhappy with the fact that nVidia got caught as opposed to what nVidia did to get caught. Unbelievable...;)
No, that sounds pretty much like the direct quote I remember him making at the time too....I'll see if I can hunt up the link.
It's truly getting to be a bit pathetic to read K & B in their forums right now, I have a feeling they're having even less fun writing it. :(
Can someone with a login and who's not banned just make a post in the videocard forums at H and ask them why they are so frikkin' afraid of AntiDetector.
I'll register just to ask if you want. :)
No you can't, registration has been disabled since shortly before the article came online....methinks they new there might be a tiny bit of dissent over it. ;)
EDITED BITS: Doh! I had two posts I was going to edit together but spaced it and hit the "post" button before doing so. Added the other comment.
Myrmecophagavir
22-Jul-2003, 20:05
"The only reason that "NVIDIA was caught" was because ATI took the information to FutureMark and they delivered it to their supposed journalists on their Beta Program as well." ([K]yle B., PR specialist)
Corwin, please tell me this is a paraphrase and not an actual quote. He didn't actually state this for public consumption, did he? If he did, he sounds much more unhappy with the fact that nVidia got caught as opposed to what nVidia did to get caught. Unbelievable...;)
I asked him the same question a while back :)
http://www.beyond3d.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=6241
I suppose it doesn't really count as being intended for public release.
digitalwanderer
22-Jul-2003, 20:11
"The only reason that "NVIDIA was caught" was because ATI took the information to FutureMark and they delivered it to their supposed journalists on their Beta Program as well." ([K]yle B., PR specialist)
Corwin, please tell me this is a paraphrase and not an actual quote. He didn't actually state this for public consumption, did he? If he did, he sounds much more unhappy with the fact that nVidia got caught as opposed to what nVidia did to get caught. Unbelievable...;)
I asked him the same question a while back :)
http://www.beyond3d.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=6241
I suppose it doesn't really count as being intended for public release.
Thanks for finding that, I wasn't even looking on the right forum. :roll: :lol:
digitalwanderer
22-Jul-2003, 20:28
Would it be a fair analogy to say that the way [T] compared AF on the 5900/9800 was about the equivalent of running 4xquincuxAA vs 4xAA? (if that makes any sense)
CorwinB
22-Jul-2003, 20:38
Heh... "Mipmap dithering"....Until you mentioned it, I had all but forgotten it....;) Yep, this whole "debate" is doing little more than setting the industry back 3-4 years.
Wait until NV40 introduces a brand new and incredibly good-looking 22-bits post-filter... And [K]yle will explain how this incredible high-tech feature (impossible to disable in popular benchmarks even if you specify high-quality) looks just like 32-bits to him, and has incredible performance...
Corwin, please tell me this is a paraphrase and not an actual quote. He didn't actually state this for public consumption, did he? If he did, he sounds much more unhappy with the fact that nVidia got caught as opposed to what nVidia did to get caught. Unbelievable...;)
No no, that's an actual quote. I wouldn't dare putting words in his mouth.
Thats ok, the proof is there for people to see. It was only a matter of time.. people need to wise up now and realize how much covering up is going on.
They banned Dave for exposing the truth, then banned myself for the same..the actions of a dictator.
Don't get ahead of yourself. You were 3rd. They banned me 2nd. No cutting in line. :lol: :lol:
digitalwanderer
22-Jul-2003, 20:41
Thats ok, the proof is there for people to see. It was only a matter of time.. people need to wise up now and realize how much covering up is going on.
They banned Dave for exposing the truth, then banned myself for the same..the actions of a dictator.
Don't get ahead of yourself. You were 3rd. They banned me 2nd. No cutting in line. :lol: :lol:
Pagh, you're all "Johnny-come-lately" on the [H] banning train.
I've been banned TWICE from there now. :p
Seem Kyle doesnt think too higly of this site either
" will not sit here and watch people slander HardOCP with our own bandwidth. There are places they can go and be welcomed to do that. Rage3D will allow you to do it all day long and B3D has a pretty good track history there as well. The mods will let you say pretty much anything and launch all sorts of vicious attacks that are personal and make all sorts of outlandish statements. "
How the hell anybody can say anything bad about B3d is beyond me, the people on this site know more about what they are talking about than Kyle or Brent have ever known in their lifetime
Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.
22-Jul-2003, 20:55
Seem Kyle doesnt think too higly of this site either
" will not sit here and watch people slander HardOCP with our own bandwidth. There are places they can go and be welcomed to do that. Rage3D will allow you to do it all day long and B3D has a pretty good track history there as well. The mods will let you say pretty much anything and launch all sorts of vicious attacks that are personal and make all sorts of outlandish statements. "
Kyle has got his terms wrong again - it's "libel" if it's printed or published falsehoods, and "slander" if it's spoken. Besides, it's only "slander" if it's a malicous falsehood, i.e. untrue.
He sure likes to ban over there :roll: . I never have had an urge to signup on his forums and never will.
Can someone with a login and who's not banned just make a post in the videocard forums at H and ask them why they are so frikkin' afraid of AntiDetector.
Maybe because AntiDetector is useless? It just shows that you can make the driver perform worse by changing a couple of bytes. Big surprise there - might as well have inserted a sleep(1) while messing with it ;-)
-- Daniel, Epic Games Inc.
Can someone with a login and who's not banned just make a post in the videocard forums at H and ask them why they are so frikkin' afraid of AntiDetector.
Maybe because AntiDetector is useless? It just shows that you can make the driver perform worse by changing a couple of bytes. Big surprise there - might as well have inserted a sleep(1) while messing with it ;-)
Is that what you think is going on here or is that what NVIDIA is telling you? Have you examined Unwinder's code? Do you understand what he is doing?
Judging by your comments, I'd say "no" to the last question at least.
If you think Unwinder's program is useless, explain to us why image quality improves on UT2003 (your game) and other games when using Unwinder's program on the GeForce FXs. Inserting "sleep" wouldn't improve image quality.
-FUDie
Doomtrooper
22-Jul-2003, 22:34
Maybe because AntiDetector is useless? It just shows that you can make the driver perform worse by changing a couple of bytes. Big surprise there - might as well have inserted a sleep(1) while messing with it ;-)
-- Daniel, Epic Games Inc.
Can you explain why it is ueseless, when currently it is the only way to get trilinear filtering AF on a FX card ?? When the developer is part of the cover up it is a sad day for PC gamers.
No, that sounds pretty much like the direct quote I remember him making at the time too....I'll see if I can hunt up the link.
It's truly getting to be a bit pathetic to read K & B in their forums right now, I have a feeling they're having even less fun writing it. :(
I asked him the same question a while back
http://www.beyond3d.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=6241
I suppose it doesn't really count as being intended for public release.
No no, that's an actual quote. I wouldn't dare putting words in his mouth.
Thanks much, guys. I thought that was pretty shocking, and then I read this:
Seem Kyle doesnt think too higly of this site either
" will not sit here and watch people slander HardOCP with our own bandwidth. There are places they can go and be welcomed to do that. Rage3D will allow you to do it all day long and B3D has a pretty good track history there as well. The mods will let you say pretty much anything and launch all sorts of vicious attacks that are personal and make all sorts of outlandish statements. "
OK, so this is clear evidence Kyle doesn't believe in free speech and free-flowing ideas in a discussion--evidently these are attributes he believes should be practiced in forums other than his own, such as B3d or Rage3D. Unreal, it really is...
What's the "personal" part he's referring to, I wonder--the fact that people use the name "Kyle" that he plasters all over the front page of [H] every day? And this from the guy who wrote the "Two days after the Doom 3 preview..." character assassination attempt on ET which never attempted to prove any points beyond the realm of hearsay? Apparently, Kyle thinks he's the only one who can analyze and criticize--or at least that this is the way things "ought" to be...unless you do so on another site where such "outlandish things" are tolerated... :roll:
I saw on these forums alone at least a dozen invitations for Kyle to defend his point of view on some of these topics--he declined to do so at every instance as I recall. Now I see on his own site forums that he edits and deletes posts, locks threads, and bans individuals for the crime of asking questions and making points which do nothing more outlandish than disagree with his positions--and he worries about what other sites are doing? I think he should worry much less about being wrong and much more about being right.
Sorry, should've been more elaborate. Yes, I do know exactly what the code change does and I don't think he was/is aware of the side effects on performance. My "useless" statement was with regard to performance and not image quality. I should've been a bit more verbose about that. What I meant to say is that using AntiDetector is useless for performance comparisions.
-- Daniel, Epic Games Inc.
Is that what you think is going on here or is that what NVIDIA is telling you? Have you examined Unwinder's code? Do you understand what he is doing?
Maybe because AntiDetector is useless? It just shows that you can make the driver perform worse by changing a couple of bytes. Big surprise there - might as well have inserted a sleep(1) while messing with it ;-)
-- Daniel, Epic Games Inc.
Following up on Doom's question, your description sounds very much like the patch FutureMark did for 3DMk03 in which the "couple of bytes" changed in a recompile completely corrected nVidia's clip planes, buffer overrun artifacts, and unrendered frame segments--while it also dropped the performance of the hardware running the benchmark by 30%. According to one description by nVidia (there were several) these artifacts were originally caused by a "driver bug" which the 3DMK03 recompile patch was miraculously able to cure by simply "moving a couple of bytes"--no assistance from nVidia required. Of course the recompile '03 patch had but a single purpose--to defeat driver-detection routines for the benchmark--which it seems to have accomplished handily.
But as to anti-detector I guess your position is that it doesn't work, even though oddly enough many of the ATi driver scores are unaffected by it....?
Edit: Following up:
...My "useless" statement was with regard to performance and not image quality. I should've been a bit more verbose about that. What I meant to say is that using AntiDetector is useless for performance comparisions.
Well, how do you separate IQ from performance, exactly? I think Doom's point was that using the anti-detector was the only way to enable a certain level of IQ from the Dets--an IQ level which should ordinarily be available normally (without having to use anti-detection.) Generally speaking, when you increase IQ you lower performance, no anti-detection code required. So it would appear that anti-detection in that case did precisely what it was intended to do, seems to me: the driver simply ran the game as it would run any other application for which no performance-optimization was coded into it. Hence, there was no difficulty in getting the proper IQ--but only after anti-detector was run. The drop in performance comes because of the increased IQ--not because of the anti-detector code.
CorwinB
22-Jul-2003, 22:51
vogel has a good point regarding performance comparisons, as the Anti-detector patch disables both "valid optimisations" (in the Sweeney/Carmack definition, ie faster result for identical output) as well as "cheats^H^H^H^H^H^Hoptimisations" (in the FutureMark non-definition).
Sorry, should've been more elaborate. Yes, I do know exactly what the code change does and I don't think he was/is aware of the side effects on performance. My "useless" statement was with regard to performance and not image quality. I should've been a bit more verbose about that. What I meant to say is that using AntiDetector is useless for performance comparisions.
Why? If you are CPU limited, then I can see how Unwinder's code could *possibly* hurt performance, but if you are graphics card limited, I don't see how this can be so, except for the fact that you are forcing different rendering (i.e. the requested trilinear instead of bilinear). What I am saying is that the reason performance is different with Unwinder's program is not because of the program itself but because things are being rendered as they should be. Of course there's a performance difference: application settings wouldn't have been changed things if there weren't, right?
-FUDie
My point is that it doesn't work as intended and that you therefore can't draw any performance conclusions from it. I don't really believe in any driver hacks like this as unless you have the source you don't really know what's going on behind the back and you don't really know what you are changing if you just look at the assembly.
It's hard to make a serious point if you use a hacked driver and there certainly are better ways to investigate issues. I'm surprised I haven't seen many people using small unlit cube test maps with a basic single texture material applied to it as this sounds like a much more scientific approach to me.
-- Daniel, Epic Games Inc.
But as to anti-detector I guess your position is that it doesn't work
croc_mak
22-Jul-2003, 23:02
>>Sorry, should've been more elaborate. Yes, I do know exactly what >>the code change does and I don't think he was/is aware of the side >>effects on performance. My "useless" statement was with regard to >>performance and not image quality. I should've been a bit more >>verbose about that. What I meant to say is that using AntiDetector is >>useless for performance comparisions.
>>-- Daniel, Epic Games Inc.
No offense, but it's likely you may not know what the code change is doing.
The app detection in NV drivers seems to occurs at context create time and/or createshader time. All the script is doing is disabling a "positive" app/shader detect from hapenning.
Basically you are running the driver in fully API compliant mode when you run the script.
Granted some of the app detects and shader detects are being used for working around application or hardware issues. But that doesn't make the script invalid for performance measurements
One example from our engine - we have a hashing function as well and if you were to mess with it you'd end up uploading resources all the time.
-- Daniel, Epic Games Inc.
but if you are graphics card limited, I don't see how this can be so
" will not sit here and watch people slander HardOCP with our own bandwidth. There are places they can go and be welcomed to do that. Rage3D will allow you to do it all day long and B3D has a pretty good track history there as well. The mods will let you say pretty much anything and launch all sorts of vicious attacks that are personal and make all sorts of outlandish statements. "
Funny how he bans Wavey and the subsequently makes comments like these - at least there's an open house here. Of course, if he continues to ban people from voicing their opinion when it disagree's naturally they are going to want to vent elsewhere.
digitalwanderer
22-Jul-2003, 23:17
It's hard to make a serious point if you use a hacked driver
Yes it is, could you please pass along that bit of wisdom to nVidia for all us?
My point is that it doesn't work as intended and that you therefore can't draw any performance conclusions from it. I don't really believe in any driver hacks like this as unless you have the source you don't really know what's going on behind the back and you don't really know what you are changing if you just look at the assembly.
It's hard to make a serious point if you use a hacked driver and there certainly are better ways to investigate issues. I'm surprised I haven't seen many people using small unlit cube test maps with a basic single texture material applied to it as this sounds like a much more scientific approach to me.
But this completely fails to work because of the changes that are being done per application.
-FUDie
Althornin
22-Jul-2003, 23:19
Mr Vogel, would you mind pointing out some specific issues you see/anticipate with UnWinders AntiDetect "hack"?
I am with you on the statement that one cannot use it for realistic performance comparisons, however, you must also admit that higher IQ will be reflected in performance, and as such, some of the performance drop is most surely coming from the increased IQ (else, why would nvidia lower it in the first place?).
I also dont quite understand your comment about a simple cube map being a more scientific approach - approach to what? I dont understand.
One example from our engine - we have a hashing function as well and if you were to mess with it you'd end up uploading resources all the time.
I can buy that. But what I can't buy is how said "hashing function" can result in lower image quality per application without a deliberate act on the part of the coder. Also, benchmarking applications are the ones where the biggest changes in performance were noted and I don't think that's coincidental.
-FUDie
My point is that it doesn't work as intended and that you therefore can't draw any performance conclusions from it. I don't really believe in any driver hacks like this as unless you have the source you don't really know what's going on behind the back and you don't really know what you are changing if you just look at the assembly.
It's hard to make a serious point if you use a hacked driver and there certainly are better ways to investigate issues. I'm surprised I haven't seen many people using small unlit cube test maps with a basic single texture material applied to it as this sounds like a much more scientific approach to me.
-- Daniel, Epic Games Inc.
But DV what the subject of concern is here is an IHV who hacks his drivers to provide substandard IQ simply to inflate benchmark performance framerate scores (Lets not even discuss IHV LOD and AF hacks done to accomplish the same thing.) The inability of the end user to select for full trilinear filtering in UT2K3 (detail textures included) with the latest Dets is the result of IHV driver hacking--and has nothing to do with anti-detection. In fact, the IHV driver hacks of this type not only predate UW's anti-detector but are the primary reason you see "anti-detection" software at all these days. Right? I mean, lets not pretend than an IHV can't hack his drivers--and hack them better than anyone else...;)
That's why I brought up the issue of how the ATi drivers seem almost unaffected by the anti-detector code. Nobody is saying that anti-detection software is the "perfect" approach--of course it's not. But right now it's about the only approach to ferret out whether or not an IHV is hacking his drivers to return inflated benchmark scores that are incongruent with average-case 3D game performance as supported in those drivers.
I agree that other, better methods are needed. One thing I can think of that would really be nice is to see Epic code in its own "anti-cheat" software, directly into the game engine, so that if the game calls for full trilinear either the driver provides it or the game doesn't run (until you set it for bilinear.) That would be nice--but very difficult to do, I'm sure. But there it is. If developers were doing their part we wouldn't have to worry about UW's anti-detection scripts...right?....;) This is basically nothing more than an effort being made by people to force a level of truth in advertising that some vested interests in the industry seem reluctant to provide. No mystery here.
kkevin666
22-Jul-2003, 23:40
So what are we saying about the anticheat detector exactly?
It removes all app specific code paths and makes all cards run an api industry standard rendering code?
It doesnt make any/little difference when running on ati cards.
It makes a huge difference to nvidia cards.
My real questions are -
is this programme biased in any way towards ati cards?
is anybody here compitent to know exactly why we see these results?
if they are can they prove it?
Doomtrooper
22-Jul-2003, 23:51
The anti-detector is not biased, just one IHV (starts with a N and ends with a A) has 70 references in its drivers for 'optimizations'.
I can't see how anyone can argue without those scripts, Nvidia users could not get full trilinear AF something the 44.03 driver is supposed to do when selecting 'quality'.
vogel has a good point regarding performance comparisons, as the Anti-detector patch disables both "valid optimisations" (in the Sweeney/Carmack definition, ie faster result for identical output) as well as "cheats^H^H^H^H^H^Hoptimisations" (in the FutureMark non-definition).
This is definitely a valid point, and also applies to game-bug fixes coded to require game-recognition to function. These would be disabled as well.
But you know, nVidia hacking its drivers to substitute a performance trilinear mode for full trilinear, even when UT2K3 calls for full trilinear, was something I did not anticipate. With lack of corrective action coming from nVidia, or from the game developers of the affected software, what else can you do besides something like "Anti-Detector"...? As DV points out there are other ways to investigate the problem apart from AD, but none of them that I'm aware of do anything to solve the problem in actual game play as AD does, imperfect as it is. Perhaps if game developers "develop" more of a sense for what their markets want they'll be of more assistance here. The relationship between 3D IHV's and 3D software game developers is certainly symbiotic. But both of them depend more on their market customer base than they do on each other. Possibly it may take developer pressure on nVidia to correct their present course--as nVidia seems fairly deaf to its (potential) customer base on these issues. I'll tell you I haven't seen conduct like this on the part of an IHV since I bought the V1 long years ago. I've never seen the like.
croc_mak
23-Jul-2003, 00:04
>>One example from our engine - we have a hashing function as well >>and if you were to mess with it you'd end up uploading resources all >>the time.
Good point...But the impact with disabling the hash detect seems to be higher in HW limited cases(with 4xAA 8X Aniso) than the default cases...So, I seriously doubt if the performance degradation is coming from inefficient resource loading.
Also, the fact that the trilinear works fully in UT2003 and the shaders in 3dmark03 look higher precision indicates that this hash function is being used for a lot more than optimizing redundant resource loading
CorwinB
23-Jul-2003, 00:19
This is definitely a valid point, and also applies to game-bug fixes coded to require game-recognition to function. These would be disabled as well.
But you know, nVidia hacking its drivers to substitute a performance trilinear mode for full trilinear, even when UT2K3 calls for full trilinear, was something I did not anticipate. With lack of corrective action coming from nVidia, or from the game developers of the affected software, what else can you do besides something like "Anti-Detector"...?
I agree, the driver dropping quality in spite of what the app asks for is, shall we say, a "convenient bug". But, while we should never anymore take any benchmark number at face value, we should also be very careful when toying with things like the Anti-Detector, and not always conclude "result drops from 30% with AD enabled, hence this increase comes from cheats only" (an increase may come from "cheats", or from genuine optimizations, or from bug-fixes/workarounds...). Only the combination of various drivers testing, AD testing, and actual IQ analysis (with and without AD) can be of any help. If anything, this whole cheating/optimizing fiasco put even more burden on reviewers. On the positive side, perhaps it will be a bit easier to distinguish good reviewers from "PR specialists".
bloodbob
23-Jul-2003, 00:21
changed in a recompile completely corrected nVidia's clip planes, buffer overrun artifacts, and unrendered frame segments
Sorry waltc but you keep on saying this but I think if there were buffer overruns it would be more likely crashing the vid card or cpu. The artificates are from failure of clearing the artifacts not writing past the end of the buffer.
Oblivious
23-Jul-2003, 00:22
I'm not familiar with UT2K3 but wouldn't it be possible to force bilinear (on purpose) in the driver or app, benchmark it, do it again with the same settings and Unwinder's script running and then compare the results to see if there's a difference in fps? You can isolate the performance difference between forcing trilinear via the script and any adverse effects it may have on legitimate optimizations. Would this work?
I'm not familiar with UT2K3 but wouldn't it be possible to force bilinear (on purpose) in the driver or app, benchmark it, do it again with the same settings and Unwinder's script running and then compare the results to see if there's a difference in fps? You can isolate the performance difference between forcing trilinear via the script and any adverse effects it may have on legitimate optimizations. Would this work?
Theoretically, it might. Except that Nvidia's drivers are not forcing bilinear filtering. They're forcing some sort of quasi-trilinear that only blends mipmaps close to the transition point. The overall surface isn't blended, but the mipmap lines are masked. With a good aniso algorithm this could end up looking just fine for most folks, but Nvidia needs to make it an -option-, not a requirement.
Oblivious
23-Jul-2003, 04:18
That's what happens when you use the Quality image setting, but what I'm wondering is what the Performance and High Performance settings do. Do these force bilinear or is it a lower form of hacked up tri?
I'm wondering if there's a way to force card and the game to do bilinear on everything (none of that quasi-trilinear stuff). It would seem obvious to me that the game would allow this since there are cards out there that only do bilinear (8500) but I want to make sure.
If it is possible to do just bilinear filtering, than someone with a 5900 could test Unwinder's script to see if it disables something important to the performance of the game (see my previous post). Then, we would know if that hit on performance Dave B. noticed earlier is due to the 5900 being forced to do trilinear, if it's disabling something important and legitimate in the drivers or if it's a combination of both.
Of course, I could be way off base here. Anyone care to comment?
Scorched
23-Jul-2003, 06:47
This question was asked on the Hardforums:
I'm just wondering...
Why you guys banned Dave Baumann's IP from the [H]ardForums? Isn't it a bit childish to ban the owner of one of the most respected hardware sites out there over an argument?
This was Kyle's response:
Dave is not part of community here as he does not spend time here or post here. He only comes here to push his own agenda. He has his own forums for that.
I have given him my phone number and invited him to call should he wish to discuss it. He has not done that.
At least he finally admitted to banning him... :roll:
K.I.L.E.R
23-Jul-2003, 06:58
I have given him my phone number and invited him to call should he wish to discuss it. He has not done that.
Can I have Kyle's phone number? :lol: ;)
I promise I won't make smutty comments on the line. ;)
On a more serious note, Dave is only trying to educate people, I hope he does keep pushing that agenda.
Reverend
23-Jul-2003, 07:43
I have given him my phone number and invited him to call should he wish to discuss it. He has not done that.
The onus, I believe, is on Kyle to make the call, not Dave.
StealthHawk
23-Jul-2003, 07:57
As I see it, the degree of performance differences revealed by using anti-detection scripts are irrelevant. I don't think anybody is saying that the whole performance drop is the result of disabling optimizations, whether valid or invalid. The whole point of testing with anti-detector is to ascertain which applications are being detected.
Clearly some or all of the performance discrepancy is from the dialing down of IQ in UT2003's case. Some of the performance drop may be a side effect of anti-detector. Unwinder (I think) has claimed otherwise, but he may be wrong, and DV may be right. But again, it is also clear that IQ is being affected by NVIDIA, and performance is also going up. This is very sensible logic, as it should be obvious that NVIDIA would not spend time hacking away IQ in one game which is highly benchmarked for reviews if there was no apparent and immediate gain.
Dave Baumann
23-Jul-2003, 09:09
This was Kyle's response:
Dave is not part of community here as he does not spend time here or post here. He only comes here to push his own agenda. He has his own forums for that.
I have given him my phone number and invited him to call should he wish to discuss it. He has not done that.
At least he finally admitted to banning him... :roll:
Yes, I know. I'd like to know what agenda this it - the same one as AMDMB?
As for phoning him - he's in the US and I'm in the UK, I'm not really bothered enough about not posting on their forums to waste money on it. Email will suffice.
Hanners
23-Jul-2003, 10:08
As I see it, the degree of performance differences revealed by using anti-detection scripts are irrelevant. I don't think anybody is saying that the whole performance drop is the result of disabling optimizations, whether valid or invalid. The whole point of testing with anti-detector is to ascertain which applications are being detected.
Exactly. I can understand the reluctance to use AntiDetector to measure performance differences, but if it's used careful I see no harm in using it to check for image quality differences, especially when the difference is pretty obvious as with the case of Unreal Tournament 2003.
Regardless of how you feel about AntiDetector, the fact remains that it seems to be the only way to get full trilinear in UT2003 on GeForceFX cards at present. If you are examining the image quality in that particular game in the way that [H] have, it seems prudent to me to use AntiDetector to show the game 'the way it's meant to be played' for comparison purposes.
K.I.L.E.R
23-Jul-2003, 10:26
I thought you lived in the USA. Anyway, I can call you if you wish? :D
This was Kyle's response:
Dave is not part of community here as he does not spend time here or post here. He only comes here to push his own agenda. He has his own forums for that.
I have given him my phone number and invited him to call should he wish to discuss it. He has not done that.
At least he finally admitted to banning him... :roll:
Yes, I know. I'd like to know what agenda this it - the same one as AMDMB?
As for phoning him - he's in the US and I'm in the UK, I'm not really bothered enough about not posting on their forums to waste money on it. Email will suffice.
RaolinDarksbane
23-Jul-2003, 11:34
Heh, it's kinda amusing that Kyle closed a 21 pages thread(the UT2k3 filtering article) citing that it is too long and shoud be continued on another thread. He then closed that second thread when it barely hit second page.
Kyle is really working overtime in damage control the way he bans people, reply to post with mostly semantics, and close threads, and deleting countless post.
I don't feel sorry for the poor bastard from what I heard of him and read from a few of his reply in those threads. He really had it coming. Kinda ironic that his site is getting so many hits for his FUD.
THe_KELRaTH
23-Jul-2003, 12:29
HardOCP have come along way since their early NV30 v R300 review where they clearly demonstrated, using UT2003 images, that the NV30 didn't perform AA on the horizontal axis and it's offsets.
I would imagine if they had found that today it would have been ignored or classified as unimportant as it doesn't effect IQ either!
The question has been raised before, but now that we have Mr Vogels attetion I'd like to take the opportunity to ask if this is the way Ut2k3 is meant to be played, or if Epic has issues with NVs trilinear filtering. Has Epic been in contact with NV regarding this issue? What is their stance?
Thanks,
Ollo
Dave Baumann
23-Jul-2003, 13:18
http://www.beyond3d.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=7006
digitalwanderer
23-Jul-2003, 14:50
This was Kyle's response:
Dave is not part of community here as he does not spend time here or post here. He only comes here to push his own agenda. He has his own forums for that.
I have given him my phone number and invited him to call should he wish to discuss it. He has not done that.
At least he finally admitted to banning him... :roll:
Yes, I know. I'd like to know what agenda this it - the same one as AMDMB?
As for phoning him - he's in the US and I'm in the UK, I'm not really bothered enough about not posting on their forums to waste money on it. Email will suffice.
PM me the number, I'll give him a few words for ya... :bleh:
Fred da Roza
23-Jul-2003, 15:30
Dave is not part of community here as he does not spend time here or post here. He only comes here to push his own agenda. He has his own forums for that.
I find it funny to see Kyle Bennet talking about someone pushing their agenda. Kyle is pretty quick with questioning everyone else’s motives. I guess stating the facts is now an agenda. You have to ask yourself what is Kyle's agenda?
Dave H, I think you might be getting ahead of yourself here. First you say, "The mipmap transitions are clearly visible..." and then, "in motion I'd imagine they'd stand out quite a bit."
Yes, referring to one screenshot posted here and clearly chosen to highlight the effect.
Then you say, "Both Kyle and B
rett state that the transitions aren't visible even in motion " and "You seem to be implying the opposite. I trust your eyes a good deal more than theirs. But for that reason specifically--how noticable is it, exactly?"
Right, across a cross-section of representative environments throughout the game.
In the first paragraph you correctly realize that if you can see a mipmap band in a screen shot you can bet it's visible when the game is in motion. But in your second paragraph you state that Dave B. "implies" the visible mipmap boundaries which in your first paragraph you state "... are clearly visible..." and then, "in motion I'd imagine they'd stand out quite a bit." Didn't you more or less answer your question as to what Dave B. "implied" by your observations as you stated them in your first paragraph? IE, the screenshots by Dave B. didn't just "imply" it, they proved it. Right?...;)
No. The screenshot by Dave B. proves that the problem is visible in certain selected corners of the game. I only have the 2-level demo of UT2003, so I can't speak on this with any authority, but I get the feeling that the environments shown in Kyle's pics are more representative of the game as a whole. Indeed I don't think Wavey would deny that he picked that spot for the screenshot because it showed off the issue to greater effect than any old average spot in the game. What I'm wondering--and what I'd like Dave to comment on--is just how unrepresentative of the game as a whole that spot is.
It strikes me that Dave mentioned that both the IQ degredation and the performance benefits increase in levels where detail textures were more heavily used. (Which makes a lot of sense.) If it turns out that [H] chose areas of the game where few detail textures were in use, then their investigation would lose a lot of credibility. One would hope they at least checked out all the areas shown in those benchmarks that caused the controversy in the first place; if they didn't, then shame on them.
Again: I don't have the game, so I don't know the answers to these questions. Just one of the things I'm hoping Dave or anyone else with an NV3x will be able to quantify and comment on.
Also, what I got out of [H]'s text was not so much that they "couldn't see any mipmap boundaries" when playing the game, but rather that "what mipmap boundaries you can see while playing the game don't matter since you are running around fragging people and don't have time to judge the IQ." IE, what I got from [H] was simply that "it didn't matter" if mipmap boundaries were occasionally visible since in all likelyhood "you wouldn't notice them" when playing the game because your attention would be elsewhere.
That's not what I got out of their text. What I got from it was that they couldn't see any mipmap boundaries, except perhaps very faintly, only with no AF, and only when looking explicitly for them. They are quite clear that in their opinion the differences in texture filtering quality (or perhaps LOD?) between the two cards (a factor that is almost never discussed) greatly overshadowed any difference due to visible mipmap boundaries.
A couple of problems with this approach...
Yes, it's accurate to state that a direct comparison of nVidia's faux-trilinear with ATi's bilinear would be incorrect from an IQ standpoint. It is also, therefore, equally incorrect to compare nVidia's faux-trilinear with ATi's full trilinear, for the same reason. [H] incorrectly does this.
Not at all. According to [H], the difference between Nvidia's faux-trilinear and ATI's bilinear was immediately noticable, distracting, and caused an obvious degredation in output quality. Whereas, according to them, the difference between faux-trilinear and full trilinear was not at all noticeable unless one went looking for it (and usually not even then); and even then was not as noticable as other IQ differences which are commonly accepted in "apples-to-apples" comparisons.
Should we not compare R3x0 to NV3x with no AF because it is generally agreed that NV3x has slightly better texture quality at those settings? Should we not compare NV3x to R3x0 at 8xAF with UT2003 and 44.03 drivers because both [H] and AMDMB found the R3x0 has significantly better texture quality on certain polygons at those settings? (Possibly...but then what are you going to compare?) Should we not compare R3x0 to NV3x at 8xAF in other games/with other drivers, because previous comparisons have generally found that NV3x has slightly better texture quality at those settings? Should we not compare NV3x to R3x0 at 4xMSAA? (I know your feelings on the subect, but not very many people agree.)
No. We should try to set up as fair a comparison as possible, first of all. But then, in addition to providing fps numbers, we should
Provide screenshots and/or other means of verification so that readers can decide for themselves how fair the comparison is and whether they prefer one card to another
Discuss in detail the reviewer's subjective opinion on the IQ impact of any output discrepancies
Discuss the technological reasons for any performance advantages the various cards may be getting by various known deviations from the competition and/or reference behavior, whether resulting in visible IQ differences or not
Obviously not all reviews are going to live up to this standard, particularly the last part, which is something I would only expect from a technologically competent reviewer like Dave. While [H] has not done much on the technology detail part, with the publication of this article they've done a beautiful job on the first two items. (And frankly, if [H] were to try to go into the details of what's going on they'd get everything wrong, so best that they didn't.)
Just to be clear--"IQ" doesn't refer to a checklist of features. IQ refers to how good the image looks on the screen. If faux-trilinear looks broadly the same as full trilinear, then by definition it has broadly the same IQ. Even though it may be rendering a significantly different workload. If that were the case, comparing faux-trilinear to full trilinear may not be proper in a technology oriented review like one here at B3D, but it would be perfectly appropriate in a game output oriented review like those at [H].
Second, it should not be forgotten that nVidia has not stopped doing full trilinear in other games--and that this situation only applies to UT2K3. As someone else stated, if nVidia does full trilinear in Unreal 2, and pretty much everything else, why is it only in UT2K3 that nVidia feels it is necessary or beneficial to eliminate the option of full trilinear filtering (regardless of whether faux-trilinear is made available as an option or not)? Best answer so far is that nVidia has singled out UT2K3 in this regard because its associated canned timedemos (Antalus Fly-By, etc.) are so often used for benchmarking by hardware review sites.
Another good answer is that UT2003 is heavily texture-filtering bound, and that thus this optimization is particularly likely to address a bottleneck. Another good answer is that UT2003 is particularly full of environments where this optimization is not noticeable, which is why Kyle was able to post so many pictures without finding any problems. Or perhaps it is in use in other games, and we just don't know about it. How many games support turning on colored mipmaps to examing texture filtering properties?
Clearly, nVidia obviously feels there is a difference between its faux-trilinear and full trilinear filtering, else the only thing the nVidia drivers would provide for every application would be its faux-variety of trilinear filtering. Right?
Not necessarily. See above.
SSAA and MSAA are simply different methods of doing the same thing--FSAA.
Yeah, and flat shading and photon mapping are simply different methods of doing lighting. Are you really trying to argue that the difference between SSAA and MSAA causes less of a subjective change in the output than this faux-trilinear does vs. full trilinear in UT203? :?
The difference here would be the rough equivalent of an IHV claiming to do SSAA while it was in reality doing MSAA while claiming it was legitmate to call it "SSAA" because "most of the time" it looked "almost as good." Problem is that regardless of how good it looks there would be no justification for calling MSAA SSAA as the two aren't the same. Likewise, whatever nVidia's doing in UT2K3 it's not the same as full trilinear and "looks almost as good" simply doesn't count. Whatever is being done is being done at the expense of full trilinear support in the game, and that's the problem.
Where did Nvidia claim they were doing full trilinear? All they promised was "quality image quality"!
Now, Rev has suggested that Nvidia did claim in their materials for reviewers that Quality == trilinear, in which case they are reneging on a promise made to reviewers. I don't want to underplay the fact that that's a really bad thing. Bad Nvidia!
But obviously it's nothing new in the context of Nvidia's behavior over the past year or so. Of course it is a problem in that it has lead to a bunch of reviews incorrectly assuming that NV3x Quality was performing the same workload as R3x0 Quality...although the latter turned out not to be doing trilinear on UT2003 detail textures either, let's not forget.
All of this highlights the need for reviewers to be vigilent that their benchmarks are really testing what they expect. In the case of a technically oriented review like those at B3D, that means practicing due diligence to make sure that benchmarked configurations are undergoing broadly the same workload (up to API-conformance invariance). In the case of a game experience oriented review like those at [H], that means practicing due diligence to make sure that benchmarked configurations are producing output of broadly the same subjective quality. Perhaps they should search for and comment on game-specific optimizations so that their audience realizes that results may not be applicable to all games, but that is generally true even without drivers using game-specific settings, and tends to undercut the fallacy that game experience oriented reviews are really all that useful.
But I digress. The point is not that Nvidia was misleading. Everyone knows that. Everyone agrees on that. I'm not defending Nvidia.
The point is that, having discovered that, [H] is behooved only to determine the IQ impact of this optimization, and thus determine whether the assumption underlying their benchmarks--that NV35 and R350 offer comparable image output when running UT2003 at the settings benchmarked--was actually false. They did an apparently quite thorough investigation, and came to the apparently correct determination that the IQ actually is comparable at those settings. And you and others are condemning them for their determination, despite offering absolutely no evidence or reasoning why it was incorrect for [H]'s purposes as a game experience oriented review site.
And NV1 did quadratic primatives for free. :) Isn't it established (or at least insanely likely) that GF1's free trilinear was more a case of a buggy 2nd TMU/pipe? Even if not, free trilinear is an extremely bad design decision, considering how many textures aren't meant to recieve trilinear even when it's properly enabled. There is a reason we haven't seen it since GF1.
Nothing is free in 3D (to quote Kristoff.) Any misapprehension you may have along those lines is, well...a misapprehension...;) BTW, like nv30, nv1 was a failure commercially.
Heh. I know that; that was essentially the subtext of my admonition to Wavey. Of course using quadratics as the primatives for NV1 wasn't free; it gutted the performance of the entire part. (And believe me, compared to NV1, NV30 was the success of the decade.)
Neither was trilinear really "free" on the GF1. Given that the refresh part, GF2, mysteriously made a 4x2xbilinear part out of the 4x1xtrilinear of the GF1, it seems extremely likely that GF1 was designed to be 4x2xbi, but for some reason--whether bug or just some contraint that prevented them from putting in or validating that last little tiny bit of logic functionality--the second TMU in each pipe was unable to read from a different texture than the first, hence its usefulness was restricted to sampling and filtering a second mipmap of the same texture dealt with by the first TMU.
Having said that, and in no way meaning to contradict Kristof's words of wisdom, the notion that nothing comes for free in 3d is an emergent property that just happens to almost always be true, rather than a fundamental law. And it only holds true when the people who have come before you have done their jobs right and not left any pure performance wins on the table. That is, the only reason there are no new techniques to be had that are all advantage and no disadvantage vs. existing methods is that the people who came up with the existing method were not idiots.
But in the case of full trilinear, I'm wondering why not. I'm sure someone on this board call fill in my flimsy knowledge: why should we be sampling from two mipmaps even when the calculated LOD is close to the mipmap LOD (i.e. around the middle of a mipmap band)? If the point of trilinear is merely to avoid visible mipmap transitions, what on earth is wrong with just doing trilinear in a narrow range around the transitions and leaving the rest of the image bilinear? Is there some texture aliasing problem that trilinear helps? Or what?
Surely this faux-trilinear is not a new idea. But what exactly is wrong with it, beyond not conforming to the definition in Fundamentals of Computer Graphics as per Tim Sweeney's email (http://www.beyond3d.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=7006)?
The problem, again, is that it is only for UT2K3 that nVidia has tried to eliminate full trilinear filtering. In most everything else, if not everything else, nVidia still does full trilinear. As such, nVidia's driver behavior in UT2K3 in this regard is very much the exception, not the rule.
The simple answer as to why nVidia does not universally discard full trilinear filtering support in favor of the faux-trilinear employed for UT2K3 should be obvious--full trilinear support produces better IQ than nVidia's performance-oriented compromise, and this is not lost on nVidia. The central question here is not whether nVidia's compromise is "almost as good" as full trilinear, the central question is why has nVidia coded its drivers to deliver a performance trilinear, even when the application itself requests the drivers provide full trilinear support? And of course there's the question of why nVidia thinks this is needful for UT2K3 but apparently nothing else?
Well we should hardly forget that this shortcut is being applied only in the case of UT2003's detail textures. Presumably there is something about extremely high-resolution textures that makes enabling faux-trilinear less noticeable. It is obvious why it makes cutting down on trilinear work yield a much higher speedup.
But on the flipside none of that stuff should excuse us from getting to the bottom of what seems to be a very interesting issue.
It's interesting only because nVidia has removed the option of full trilinear support from its drivers with respect to UT2K3, IMO.
Guess this is an agree to disagree kind of thing. But honestly, aren't you the least bit intrigued that they managed to find such a significant performance increase on the table without noticeably affecting output quality? If not, I'd suggest that you're more interested in the graphics market as morality play than for its technological content. (Not that there's anything wrong with that.)
I think you are reading way too much into it. nVidia is obviously not proposing "an alternative to full trilinear support" or anything like that. If that was the case we'd see an option in the Detonator control panel allowing this technique for all 3D games. Instead, the truth seems much more mundane and, sadly, predictible: it's just a hack nVidia's put into its drivers for UT2K3 to help out its scores relative to R3xx in UT2K3 when trilinear filtering support is enabled in the application.
These sorts of hacks have always existed, are used by Nvidia, ATI and every other IHV [Q: then why doesn't Unwinder's anti-detect impact ATI performance on more games? A: we have no proof it is detecting all game-specific optimizations in either ATI's or Nvidia's drivers], and are 100% commonly accepted practice so long as output conformance is not broken. Here we have a situation where the output is not conformant, but the difference is apparently not subjectively noticeable to the end-user. But this is far from the only example of that sort of optimization either.
All those other optimizations are uncontroversial or at least unremarked upon. I'm not saying this sort of thing shouldn't be looked into. In fact that they should be looked into--and that's exactly what [H] has done. They've found that in this case the optimization doesn't impact subjective output quality, which, by the standards of their reviews, is all that matters.
They're also calling on Nvidia to make this optimization selectable in the drivers, and indicated that Nvidia will be doing exactly that. The fact that it wasn't is bad on Nvidia's part, and [H] has criticized Nvidia for that.
The only thing they haven't done is the only thing that would satisfy you, namely disqualify all Nvidia products from consideration because Nvidia has engaged in slimy behavior.
That's the problem with viewing the realtime graphics ASIC industry as a morality play. It may be fun for a while. But the actors would rather view it as reality, and thus they're inevitably going to disappoint you.
Dave Baumann
23-Jul-2003, 16:49
I only have the 2-level demo of UT2003, so I can't speak on this with any authority, but I get the feeling that the environments shown in Kyle's pics are more representative of the game as a whole.
the points used were only at the spawn points, so it will depend on the number of detail textures, and the types of textures at that point only. the level I used was well away from a spawn point becuase there weren't any detail textures close to the spawn point.
Where did Nvidia claim they were doing full trilinear? All they promised was "quality image quality"!
Dave, I went over to Santa Clara for a days worth of meetings on the day of the 5900 launch - I sat through at least an hour presentation going over the IQ changes of 44.03 and how it matches ATI, and how the "Quality" mode gives Trilinear but without the "Debugging" - I think I even have this recored on my PDA still! (Also, given that they are doing these types of things in the quality mode this does in fact bring into question whether there really was any debug stuff going on). NVIDIA also guied reviewers to use particular tools to highlight the IQ output under the various modes and then, consequently that is removed in UT2003 at least.
But in the case of full trilinear, I'm wondering why not. I'm sure someone on this board call fill in my flimsy knowledge: why should we be sampling from two mipmaps even when the calculated LOD is close to the mipmap LOD (i.e. around the middle of a mipmap band)? If the point of trilinear is merely to avoid visible mipmap transitions, what on earth is wrong with just doing trilinear in a narrow range around the transitions and leaving the rest of the image bilinear? Is there some texture aliasing problem that trilinear helps? Or what?
think about it for a second Dave - what does Trilinear do over Bilinear? Take more samples; by reducing the the level of Trilinear you are reducing the number of samples taken per pixel, and what does undersampling result in? Aliasing.
I mentioned before the Antalus level that was used (this is the grass covered level thats used in the standard UT2003 benchmark, along with another level) does feature a detail map acorss the entire grass surface. The detail map is there to generate the grass detail - now, in this level it is actually more difficult to see the mipmap transistions introduced by the lowering of the filtering, however because of the nature of the textures you are more likely to increase the amount of texture alaising noticed when in motion.
Althornin
23-Jul-2003, 17:01
Dave, who gives a rats ass about all that.
The point is, when running other games, QUALTIY DOES MEAN FULL TRILINEAR. It also means that when you run popular aniso tests (the tunnel thing).
So to change that in one specific game is wrong. The user expects one thing (and rightly so!) and recieves an inferior result behind his back.
Doomtrooper
23-Jul-2003, 17:47
Brents views also contradict this thread where he states QUITE clearly:
http://www.beyond3d.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=4772&highlight=application
Yep, i have looked at it in motion and in motion is where you can notice the differences the most rather then just a static screenshot
clearly in SS2 Application is superior to Balanced and matches ATI's default Tri with no af
Yes we are talking about AF being on here, but he states now that he doesn't notice IQ changes even though it is definatley defaulting back to the old 'balanced mode'.
Sorry waltc but you keep on saying this but I think if there were buffer overruns it would be more likely crashing the vid card or cpu. The artificates are from failure of clearing the artifacts not writing past the end of the buffer.
I use that phrase to describe not clearing the buffers properly so that visual artifacts result. I've tried to call it "buffer overrun artifacts" simply as a kind of acronym to describe it. Probably I should say "buffer clearing artifacts" instead, no doubt. Main thing I think is that if nVidia did anything like that in a game it would definitely be a serious bug and I imagine would eventually cause a crash...Of course that's moot because nVidia's not going to program its drivers for a game like that.
digitalwanderer
23-Jul-2003, 18:18
Lemme guess, Kyle didn't think quincux looked blurry either.... :bleh:
Heh-Heh....Always nice to encounter folks more long winded than me, Dave H...;) There's too much for me to go about this point by point, so I'll just say I stick with my previous post to you on the subject and address a couple of things...
.....
Guess this is an agree to disagree kind of thing. But honestly, aren't you the least bit intrigued that they managed to find such a significant performance increase on the table without noticeably affecting output quality? If not, I'd suggest that you're more interested in the graphics market as morality play than for its technological content. (Not that there's anything wrong with that.)
I think you're for some reason missing the obvious...;) It was because people noticed a difference that they first started looking into whether or not the Dets were doing Trilinear in UT2K3. Your position seems to effectively be that they are doing trilinear filtering without doing trilinear filtering. They aren't, and the differences are noticeable, which is why this topic has come up. If there were no visible differences, the topic would most likely never have been raised in the first place, right?
You're reading way too much into [H]'s pronouncements that they couldn't tell much difference. As well, not even [H] says they can't tell any difference. As I said, I have no problem with nVidia offering a performance trilinear which is a mixture of tri and bilinear....none whatsoever. I understand what that is and am not curious about it (what's there to be curious about?) My problem is with the fact that they *substitute* it for full trilinear, even when the application asks for full trilinear. Very simple.
The reason you are "curious" is because nVidia, in this game, has substituted this performance bi/trilinear mode for full trilinear, and [H] editorializes that the substitution is A-OK with them because they "can't tell much difference" in the resulting IQ, although as I said even they don't deny differences exist. For some reason, you've concluded that this is a "great thing" having significant import. As pointed out by about everyone, the significant import is that in UT2K3 these Detonator users cannot get full trilinear filtering at all in the game. That's what I find significant and if I'm curious about anything it's about nVidia explaining why, in this one game, it substitutes its performance trilinear for its full trilinear without saying so much as a single word about it. Aren't you curious as to why initial information on this subject came from neither nVidia or [H]? nVidia still has yet to comment on it and [H] is only reacting to previous publicity generated by B3d. [H] at no point ever denies that nVidia is not doing full trilinear filtering in UT2K3--in fact, their entire article affirms and confirms it...;) Their only contribution otherwise is to state that they don't care, for one reason or another.
These sorts of hacks have always existed, are used by Nvidia, ATI and every other IHV [Q: then why doesn't Unwinder's anti-detect impact ATI performance on more games? A: we have no proof it is detecting all game-specific optimizations in either ATI's or Nvidia's drivers], and are 100% commonly accepted practice so long as output conformance is not broken. Here we have a situation where the output is not conformant, but the difference is apparently not subjectively noticeable to the end-user. But this is far from the only example of that sort of optimization either.
Missing the obvious here Dave H, again... First of all there are no similar driver hacks in the current Catalysts, are there? All one need do is to use the UT2K3.ini to turn on trilinear--and presto, the game is fully trilineared. Can't do that with the Dets, though. So let's dispense with lumping all of the IHV's together in a big pot and stirring it with the same stick. There are many, many obvious differences between the IHVs aside from the products they produce.
Did you write the Anti-Detector software, DaveH? The guy who wrote the software claims it does the same thing for the Catalysts and the Dets. Argue with him if you like...
Again you keep reaching an erroneous conclusion that the "output isn't subjectively noticeable"--of course that's simply not so. Were it so, no one would ever have been able to notice the difference, hence none of us would be talking about it right now.
You seem to have a problem with "almost as good" and "as good"....there is a distinct difference between these two states. Nobody, not even [H], claims that it's "as good." The entire [H] piece revolves around their subjective opinion that it's "almost as good" as far as they can see and where it isn't "as good" they flatly state they don't care. That's what subjective opinions do for you...;)
All those other optimizations are uncontroversial or at least unremarked upon. I'm not saying this sort of thing shouldn't be looked into. In fact that they should be looked into--and that's exactly what [H] has done. They've found that in this case the optimization doesn't impact subjective output quality, which, by the standards of their reviews, is all that matters.
Nope, that is not what the [H] article states at all. They've said that what differences they can see, and they do see them, are so "minor" in their opinions (because "all you do in the game is run around fragging people and so don't have time to look at the image quality" if I got that right) that they just don't care whether nVidia provides full trilinear like the Cats do or not. That's very, very different from your characterization of what they said.
Has it ever struck you that their article is so subjective it's worthless? Listen, opinions abound about IQ. Whereas I run with 2x FSAA enabled, 16x AF in my games by default--some people state they prefer 0x FSAA/8xAF for their own reasons. Which of us is "right?" Correct answer is "neither" because it's a matter of subjective preference only.
So.....what [H] views as "minor" IQ degradation because of the lack of full trilinear support in this game, someone else might view as a "major" IQ difference. The important point about this whole affair is this: nVidia has removed the option of full trilinear support from its drivers for UT2K3. Nothing else matters--at all. Had they not done this, there would be no issue whatever as no one would care what lesser IQ modes nVidia built into its driver support. There is no issue apart from this one in my view and as such [H]'s entire attempt at apology is a waste of epaper.
They're also calling on Nvidia to make this optimization selectable in the drivers, and indicated that Nvidia will be doing exactly that. The fact that it wasn't is bad on Nvidia's part, and [H] has criticized Nvidia for that.
They can "call on" nVidia all they like but until nVidia *does something* relative to the issue such statments are pompous and mean nothing, right? Heh...would have been nice if [H] had ONCE "called on" nVidia to stop cheating in its drivers relative to benchmarks...! What did [H] do instead? Tell everyone to dump their benchmarks, that's what [H] did... That's pretty funny, Dave H....;)
Until nVidia does restore full trilinear to its driver support for UT2K3 nothing anybody "says" means a bloomin' thing...;)
The only thing they haven't done is the only thing that would satisfy you, namely disqualify all Nvidia products from consideration because Nvidia has engaged in slimy behavior.
Don't know where this comes from....*chuckle* I can only count my lucky stars that I'm not a nVidia apologist. Sigh--what would satisfy me is simply [H] stopping its infantile behavior of apologizing for nVidia and plainly stating that you can't compare nVidia's faux-trilinear to the Catalysts' full trilinear in terms of performance because its not an apples-apples IQ comparison. A subjective opinion that something is "almost as good" for reasons I've already stated doesn't suffice, no.
That's the problem with viewing the realtime graphics ASIC industry as a morality play. It may be fun for a while. But the actors would rather view it as reality, and thus they're inevitably going to disappoint you.
Then your suggestion would be that we view it as an "immorality play" and that "anything goes" and we throw veracity out of the window? Excuse me--I don't want to personally verify the old saying that "a fool and his money are easily parted"....;)
I think Phineas T. Barnum's more appropriate quote would be "Never give a sucker an even break."
BTW Dave H. Kyle liked your post so much that he made a thread about it.
http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?s=b265cc63d4ed44bb6297dff3dd64e732&threadid=644239
Doomtrooper
23-Jul-2003, 19:12
Kyle just doesn't get it(does but doesn't want to lose some $$), and contradicts what their own reviewer discovered here from Brent, sad.
http://www.beyond3d.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=4772&highlight=application
I'm sorry the story changes whever they like, and Nvidia IS dropping down to performance filtering (the old balanced Default Mode).
Doomtrooper
23-Jul-2003, 19:19
I would like to add the only way this stops is IHVs need to start policing these review sites. Anand had false information on his 5900 review for months, and still does.
Now Brent says he can't see any difference between the Peformance (Balanced) and Quality (Application) filtering. The lies have got to stop, yet every new release these sites get the cards 1st, even though posting garbage.
Hundreds of thousands of people read these, and if they are inaccurate impact sales. Doesn't mean the review has to be all roses, but ACCURATE.
Mariner
23-Jul-2003, 19:30
BTW Dave H. Kyle liked your post so much that he made a thread about it.
http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?s=b265cc63d4ed44bb6297dff3dd64e732&threadid=644239
Interesting.
Dave is not part of community here as he does not spend time here or post here. He only comes here to push his own agenda. He has his own forums for that.
Hands up everyone who thinks Dave should block Kyle's IP! Pot, kettle black. :P
BTW Dave H. Kyle liked your post so much that he made a thread about it.
http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?s=b265cc63d4ed44bb6297dff3dd64e732&threadid=644239
Heh. Well, at least for the first time in my posting career I've got a .sig...
BTW Dave H. Kyle liked your post so much that he made a thread about it.
http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?s=b265cc63d4ed44bb6297dff3dd64e732&threadid=644239
Of course, not surprising that he didn't provide a *link* to the B3d thread in which the post was made....*chuckle* Wouldn't do to have his audience corrupted by the alternative points of view in the thread they'd be exposed to by following the link and seeing the context, now would it?....;)
What a soap opera this is...;)
Edit: Ah, I see that "Lab Rat" thought to provide a link to the entire thread....
Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.
23-Jul-2003, 19:53
I suggest that B3D/ Dave H contact Kyle and let him know he is in breach of copyright by reposting selected parts of someone elses thread verbatim, and ask him to remove the post.
Myrmecophagavir
23-Jul-2003, 20:03
Again you keep reaching an erroneous conclusion that the "output isn't subjectively noticeable"--of course that's simply not so. Were it so, no one would ever have been able to notice the difference, hence none of us would be talking about it right now.
Might that not be only because of the mipmap level colouring option? Where was the first time this was noticed and what were the circumstances?
This was Kyle's response:
Dave is not part of community here as he does not spend time here or post here. He only comes here to push his own agenda. He has his own forums for that.
I have given him my phone number and invited him to call should he wish to discuss it. He has not done that.Kyle forgot to add "exclusive" to describe his community. Assuming his current banning binge is not based on the banned's poor behavior (I didn't see any in the [H] threads I read, but I haven't read them all), it would seem anyone who doesn't fall in line with his opinion is pushing his own agenda, thus not useful. That sounds like suppressing free, and potentially enlightening, conversation. In other words, it sounds like he has something to hide or protect, and that isn't the Truth.
This question was asked on the Hardforums:
I'm just wondering...
Why you guys banned Dave Baumann's IP from the [H]ardForums? Isn't it a bit childish to ban the owner of one of the most respected hardware sites out there over an argument?
This was Kyle's response:
Dave is not part of community here as he does not spend time here or post here. He only comes here to push his own agenda. He has his own forums for that.
I have given him my phone number and invited him to call should he wish to discuss it. He has not done that.
At least he finally admitted to banning him... :roll:
I am just amazed....Every time I think I've heard it all, then I read something like this....Incredible...
What century does Kyle inhabit? Has he heard of email? Is there some reason Dave B. should have to pick up the phone and call Kyle...? Heh...Wavey, I think you should email frgmstr (or pm him in his account here at B3d that apparently you haven't rescinded as of yet) and suggest that you would be glad to pick up the phone and call him collect and bend his ear for about an hour....;) Maybe you could arrange to keep his line open for about 24 hours and run up a $500 collect call bill. Perhaps that would shock him into the 21st century. Imagine that--a webmaster suggesting that there's a better way to communicate something like this than emailing (or pm'ing through the B3d forums.) What a ridiculous suggestion--"I asked him to call me." Huh? Just couldn't "hash it out" over the Internet, right Kyle? Good grief--preposterous....;)
Ok, let's rehash...Kyle is invited on numerous occasions to take part in a discussion (any one of them) of his ideas within the B3d forums (I posted such an invitation more than once)--which he declines to do, even once. Dave B. visits [H] and weighs in with information and is banned from the site and accused of having an "agenda" by Kyle. Amazing contrast....truly remarkable. Unreal.
Well, I suppose this is Kyle's way of admitting that he himself follows an "agenda," and so its natural for him to suspect everybody else of the same thing. Wow. Right, Kyle--it's not the information people have that's important--it's the agendas that underlie that information, which of course you telepathically divine (since Dave B. has never done anything I might think of as following an "agenda".) Uh, in much the same way you were able to divine ET's unspoken motives in your "Two days after the D3 preview..." character assassination story which impugned motives which you never attempted to prove existed. (Even funnier, today I read D3 won't ship until 2004! So much for the relevancy of the vaunted "Doom 3 Preview"...)
The question I have is why some people become so threatened by simple information--which is neither good or bad in itself...? What is it they are afraid of, and why? If I wanted to make a pessimistic wager I might say that Kyle is scared to death of what he imagines to be "his community" defecting to another one. More's the pity...the Internet itself is a big community and the people in it are beholding to no man--or web site. What--Kyle imagines that the people who contribute to [H] forums never read and contribute anywhere else? Very difficult nut to crack here...
swanlee
23-Jul-2003, 20:53
I think it's pretty simple Kyle is a paid shill. He's been targeted by Nvidia because of the following he has built up, that following is his life blood because if that falters his checks from Nvidia will stop. Nvidia doesn't care one flip about Kyle all they care about is the fact they can speak through him and use him without reflecting anything on the nvidia PR department. Kyle is trying desperately to try and maintain his audience but he has freakin paniced and has completely lost his mind.
Like any great dictator near the end of his run every day that passes by means he has to resort to more and more outlandish measures to try and maintain his control.
His kingdom is crumbling around him and at the rate he is banning people from his forums pretty soon he will only be talking to himself there.
Might that not be only because of the mipmap level colouring option? Where was the first time this was noticed and what were the circumstances?
That might be a valid point of view, except for a couple of things:
1) The color-code filtering option is built into the UT2K3 engine for the express purpose of allowing people to look at filtering that may or may not be obvious in a certain scene. It is the same method used in Q3, I believe, for the same purpose. These tools have routinely been used by hardware reviewers for a long time to illustrate differences in filtering techniques.
2) What often happens is that people who use these tools then go back to the scenes and view them again and notice things they didn't see before. It's a tool designed specifically for the purpose of evaluating filtering. That's all it is.
What's being implied is that somebody did something "wrong" by using the engine's color-code filtering tool to check on the quality and type of filtering used in the game by different hardware and different driver sets. Of course, that's nonsense. It's standard hardware-review fare and has been done routinely by a variety of hardware review sites over the years--including [H.]
[H] has completely mischaraterized the issue in its zeal to apologize for seemingly anything nVidia does these days. Nobody's criticizing nVidia's performance trilinear filtering option--I'm certainly not. What I'm criticizing, and what I think other people object to, is the fact that nVidia told no one that it was substituting this filtering mode in place of full trilinear in UT2K3, even when the application instructs the drivers to provide full trilnear support. In another UT2k3-engine game, Unreal 2, nVidia's drivers provide full trilinear when asked to do so. So this is something nVidia's not even doing for a specific game engine--but for a specific game.
Now, if nVidia saw it as a "feature" and an "advantage"--why not publicize it ahead of time--or make it available as a driver-selectable option....? Why not make some "hay" on it, if nVidia thinks it's such a great thing? That's the key question, I think.
The answer I think follows a predictible pattern: knowing that many hardware review sites use UT2K3 and its associated timedemos for hardware benchmark comparisons, nVidia gambled on slipping this change in for a performance boost and hoping no one would ever be the wiser. That's IMO, of course.
So to answer your question as to whether it makes a difference whether the filtering tool first discovered the problem--I think not. If that was the case than we'd never have needed a color-coded filtering tool in the past, right? The fact is that differences in filtering techniques, depending on a variety of in-scene factors, are not always immediately evident. This what what the color-code approach was implemented to detect *years* ago--making it easy to spot the differences between bilinear and trilinear filtering, etc. It's the height of hypocrisy for a hardware review site to suddenly pipe up and declare that tools such as these are "nerdy and useless" simply because its favorite IHV got caught misrepresenting something again. Were nVidia and its dupes able to "get away" with this kind of thing it would set the 3D industry back several years, IMO.
I was under the impression Kyle didn't like "Leeching" off of other sites for fear of copyright issues. Perhaps he meant that he only doesn't agree to leeching when it disagree's with his agenda, but its fine to leech when it agree's...
Bolloxoid
23-Jul-2003, 21:13
I suggest that B3D/ Dave H contact Kyle and let him know he is in breach of copyright by reposting selected parts of someone elses thread verbatim, and ask him to remove the post.
The fact that Kyle is censoring opinions opposite to his own does not mean we should start doing so. And anyway, threats like that would only give him more ammunition.
Besides, that really is not a breach of copyright, just selective quoting.
the points used were only at the spawn points, so it will depend on the number of detail textures, and the types of textures at that point only. the level I used was well away from a spawn point becuase there weren't any detail textures close to the spawn point.
Ok, fair enough. Clearly in order for the mipmap transitions to be visible we need an area with cooperating geometry (long flat areas extending in the z-direction) that is detail textured, and decent lighting. I'd appreciate some vague approximation of how often such areas arise in practice. Obviously they exist--you have pictures to prove it. But would you say that the fact that apparently Brett and Kyle didn't come across any such areas while running around to assess the issue in motion means that they didn't do a very thorough job, or are they actually relatively rare?
An answer (from anyone) in the form of "in my estimation, mipmap transitions would be visible in motion to someone actively interested in general IQ but not specifically looking for them across x% of the overall UT2003 game world" would be highly appreciated. :)
Where did Nvidia claim they were doing full trilinear? All they promised was "quality image quality"!
Dave, I went over to Santa Clara for a days worth of meetings on the day of the 5900 launch - I sat through at least an hour presentation going over the IQ changes of 44.03 and how it matches ATI, and how the "Quality" mode gives Trilinear but without the "Debugging" - I think I even have this recored on my PDA still! (Also, given that they are doing these types of things in the quality mode this does in fact bring into question whether there really was any debug stuff going on). NVIDIA also guied reviewers to use particular tools to highlight the IQ output under the various modes and then, consequently that is removed in UT2003 at least.
Understood. I didn't realize quite how explicitly the claim had been made that 'quality' meant trilinear. I understand why you'd be pissed about this.
But to me this is still different than if the setting was labelled "trilinear filtering" in the drivers themselves. As it is, Nvidia lied (or perhaps, if you could examine an exact transcript of the meeting you'd find in hindsight that they'd merely carefully mislead, as they did with the whole 8x1/4x2 mess) to reviewers, and thus facilitated a round of incomplete if not partially misleading reviews. That's quite bad. But at least it's been discovered and disseminated, and any future review failing to discuss the issue will have only the reviewer's incompetence to blame. Only that fraction of consumers who pays attention to the review sites were ever affected, and presumably most are now aware that the issue exists (although for some too late to affect their purchase decision). Those who don't read the review sites were never under any impression that 'quality' necessarily meant trilinear in the first place, only that it offers sufficiently higher quality than 'performance', which it does.
That's different than if Nvidia had actively mislead their users by misrepresenting what the slider does in the drivers. I suppose it's a subtle difference, but it's worth something IMO.
think about it for a second Dave - what does Trilinear do over Bilinear? Take more samples; by reducing the the level of Trilinear you are reducing the number of samples taken per pixel, and what does undersampling result in? Aliasing.
Right, that's why I asked. But it's not as open and shut as you make it seem: you have to be "undersampling" not in some general sense but relative to the Nyquist limit, and the mere fact of having extra samples won't necessarily help if they don't provide the right sort of extra data. It was my impression that by keeping the mipmap LOD within .5 of the ideal LOD, bilinear was enough to prevent texture aliasing (assuming the LOD bias wasn't screwed with to make nicer-looking screenshots). Now that I think about it, though, I'm not at all sure that that impression is correct.
Nor am I sure that trilinear should necessarily help things. Yes it takes more samples, but it also samples from a more detailed mipmap half the time. I would guess the blend with the less detailed mipmap should handle any aliasing, but I can't convince myself one way or another without quite a bit more thought or even an overdue purchase of a graphics textbook. Instead I'd rather one of the many forum members who've already read graphics textbooks just explain it to me. :)
In any case, it doesn't help matters that the purpose behind trilinear is universally given as "getting rid of those mipmap transition lines you get with bilinear".
I mentioned before the Antalus level that was used (this is the grass covered level thats used in the standard UT2003 benchmark, along with another level) does feature a detail map acorss the entire grass surface. The detail map is there to generate the grass detail - now, in this level it is actually more difficult to see the mipmap transistions introduced by the lowering of the filtering, however because of the nature of the textures you are more likely to increase the amount of texture alaising noticed when in motion.
Perfect! This is exactly the sort of thing I'm looking for. If you (or someone else with access to an NV3x) would compare texture aliasing in that detail textured grass, under normal "quality" filtering and with the anti-detect to enable true trilinear (and perhaps a comparison to an R3x0 for fun), and post your subjective findings, I'd be entirely satisfied. In fact, if it turns out that Nvidia's faux-trilinear leads to noticeable texture aliasing, I'll even register at [H] and post in the Dave H Lovefest thread about it!
As it is I can't tell if you've actually seen such issues or if you're just noting that they theoretically might exist. For [H] to be wrong on their own terms (as a site reviewing only on the basis of actual in-game experience), the quality differences have to be noticeable in-game.
EDIT: BTW, Dave B., I wanted to add that I've just now (after I posted this) noticed the reply you made to me (http://www.beyond3d.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=143905#143905) several pages and several posts ago. I'd still like more detail, but it does answer many of the questions I keep asking. In particular, the comment that once you notice the difference you always notice it indicates to me that perhaps [H] came to the wrong conclusions after all.
So if it seems I've been ignoring that post, sorry, but I'd just somehow missed it until now.
I suggest that B3D/ Dave H contact Kyle and let him know he is in breach of copyright by reposting selected parts of someone elses thread verbatim, and ask him to remove the post.
The fact that Kyle is censoring opinions opposite to his own does not mean we should start doing so. And anyway, threats like that would only give him more ammunition.
Besides, that really is not a breach of copyright, just selective quoting.
Actually it is technically a breach of copyright; he published my entire post (slightly incorrectly, as it apparently couldn't reproduce the nested quotes), instead of selectively quoting it which would fall under fair use. But as I don't much agree with that aspect of copyright law, I'm not going to ask him to change the post. As you say, just because Kyle has been a dick to a bunch of people doesn't mean I should be a dick to Kyle. And just because I don't often agree with Kyle doesn't mean he can't think he agrees with me.
(Although I did notice he didn't quote my earlier post where I referred to his "ridiculous editorials, double-standards, [and] forum fascism". :wink:)
Blackwind
23-Jul-2003, 21:39
All in all I find the process of finding issues a great idea. Wanting better tool function within the drivers great. Better control from the user side ideal.
Wasting breathe Riding Moral High horses? A big fat waste of time. Great techincal posts, keep em coming. Great information with out any vendor worshiping pomposity would be Eden.
Althornin
23-Jul-2003, 21:48
But to me this is still different than if the setting was labelled "trilinear filtering" in the drivers themselves. As it is, Nvidia lied (or perhaps, if you could examine an exact transcript of the meeting you'd find in hindsight that they'd merely carefully mislead, as they did with the whole 8x1/4x2 mess) to reviewers, and thus facilitated a round of incomplete if not partially misleading reviews. That's quite bad. But at least it's been discovered and disseminated, and any future review failing to discuss the issue will have only the reviewer's incompetence to blame. Only that fraction of consumers who pays attention to the review sites were ever affected, and presumably most are now aware that the issue exists (although for some too late to affect their purchase decision). Those who don't read the review sites were never under any impression that 'quality' necessarily meant trilinear in the first place, only that it offers sufficiently higher quality than 'performance', which it does.
DAVE H:
You dont find it misleading that said "quality" option shows 100% trilinear filtering in our aniso test apps? (The tunnel test).
Or that Quality apparently means full level aniso in morrowind and freelancer? (according to the amdmb look at the issue)
You dont think THAT might be enough to tell people that "quality" means trilinear????
You dont find that to be dishonest? To change what a settings means for just one game? (and a heavily benchmarked one at that!)
By itself, this breaks one of nVidias optimization rules - its only good for a benchmark. If it was good enough for all games, then there wouldnt be any trickery...
Heh, it's kinda amusing that Kyle closed a 21 pages thread(the UT2k3 filtering article) citing that it is too long and shoud be continued on another thread. He then closed that second thread when it barely hit second page.
Kyle is really working overtime in damage control the way he bans people, reply to post with mostly semantics, and close threads, and deleting countless post.
I don't feel sorry for the poor bastard from what I heard of him and read from a few of his reply in those threads. He really had it coming. Kinda ironic that his site is getting so many hits for his FUD.
I just checked the site to pull some quotes and apparently he's taken the whole article down now, citing technical difficulties with his page display software. Heh...;) I guess the technical problems were specific to that one particular article. Wouldn't it be ironic if nVidia asked him to pull it, citing "trade secrets" yet again.... ? Well, I guess I'll have to wait until it's back up...
front page]I have currently taken down the UT2K3 Texture Filtering article. We did some major hardware installs this weekend and have been having some page issues every since. We are trying to locate the source of our issues and this is simply a test. The article will be put into rotation again soon.
Dave Baumann
23-Jul-2003, 22:55
Understood. I didn't realize quite how explicitly the claim had been made that 'quality' meant trilinear. I understand why you'd be pissed about this.
But to me this is still different than if the setting was labelled "trilinear filtering" in the drivers themselves. As it is, Nvidia lied (or perhaps, if you could examine an exact transcript of the meeting you'd find in hindsight that they'd merely carefully mislead, as they did with the whole 8x1/4x2 mess) to reviewers, and thus facilitated a round of incomplete if not partially misleading reviews. That's quite bad. But at least it's been discovered and disseminated, and any future review failing to discuss the issue will have only the reviewer's incompetence to blame. Only that fraction of consumers who pays attention to the review sites were ever affected, and presumably most are now aware that the issue exists (although for some too late to affect their purchase decision). Those who don't read the review sites were never under any impression that 'quality' necessarily meant trilinear in the first place, only that it offers sufficiently higher quality than 'performance', which it does.
That's different than if Nvidia had actively mislead their users by misrepresenting what the slider does in the drivers. I suppose it's a subtle difference, but it's worth something IMO.
I'm bringing this bit out into a discussion here:
http://www.beyond3d.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=7025
Scorched
23-Jul-2003, 23:12
I'm waiting for Kyle to turn registration back on at Hardforums, if he even does this time around.
Scorched
23-Jul-2003, 23:19
Heh, it's kinda amusing that Kyle closed a 21 pages thread(the UT2k3 filtering article) citing that it is too long and shoud be continued on another thread. He then closed that second thread when it barely hit second page.
Kyle is really working overtime in damage control the way he bans people, reply to post with mostly semantics, and close threads, and deleting countless post.
I don't feel sorry for the poor bastard from what I heard of him and read from a few of his reply in those threads. He really had it coming. Kinda ironic that his site is getting so many hits for his FUD.
I just checked the site to pull some quotes and apparently he's taken the whole article down now, citing technical difficulties with his page display software. Heh...;) I guess the technical problems were specific to that one particular article. Wouldn't it be ironic if nVidia asked him to pull it, citing "trade secrets" yet again.... ? Well, I guess I'll have to wait until it's back up...
front page]I have currently taken down the UT2K3 Texture Filtering article. We did some major hardware installs this weekend and have been having some page issues every since. We are trying to locate the source of our issues and this is simply a test. The article will be put into rotation again soon.
Don't worry. He compensated by putting "[H]arder Than Trilinear Filtering on GFFX" as the latest [H] description on the front page earlier today. No kidding. :P
Scorched
23-Jul-2003, 23:35
Kyle also posted this in the forum:
I did not feel comfortable saying this earlier, but I am in a WTF state of mind at the moment so....
The entire Trilinear issue was brought up with NVIDIA in face-to-face meetings over two months ago. Long before the B3DPolice came to the scene of the crime. Myself and the owner of another hardware site that is in the spotlight often talked specifically about Bi/Tri/AF with NVIDIA and how it was handled in the drivers. We specifically asked for NVIDIA to add a mode that allowed the application/game being used to set those settings as well a some others without entering a "debug" mode as their previous driver did (that was removed after our 5200/5600 article). AA etc..
NVIDIA has implemented this and tested this and has given me written re-verification as of Monday of this week that this feature will surely be included in their next driver release. I have seen the driver first hand, as of two weeks ago in the NVIDIA offices, and it is very simple in its implementations.
Also, we asked for a few other features a couple of months ago. I would say that about 75% of our suggestions were taken to heart and implemented in their upcoming driver set. Quite frankly, it is very likely going to be the most robust driver you have ever seen for a video card.
So all in all, it could be said that all of this was fixed before it started..... You will get true Trilinear if that is what you so desire. You have to keep in mind that a driver release is far from a trivial thing. It takes an incredible amount of resources for both ATI and NVIDIA to do so. So keep in mind, while it may seem very simple it is an incredibly demanding process.
Both ATI and NVIDIA get kudos for staying on top drivers. The industry would be totally different if we did not have commitments from both in this arena.
Dave Baumann
23-Jul-2003, 23:38
The entire Trilinear issue was brought up with NVIDIA in face-to-face meetings over two months ago. Long before the B3DPolice came to the scene of the crime. Myself and the owner of another hardware site that is in the spotlight often talked specifically about Bi/Tri/AF with NVIDIA and how it was handled in the drivers.
If this is actually the case, is sitting on this information and not mentioning supposed to be a good thing for everyone? And why get so annoyed by the "B3DPolice" for doing so?
Fred da Roza
23-Jul-2003, 23:52
Kyle also posted this in the forum:
I did not feel comfortable saying this earlier, but I am in a WTF state of mind at the moment so....
The entire Trilinear issue was brought up with NVIDIA in face-to-face meetings over two months ago. Long before the B3DPolice came to the scene of the crime. Myself and the owner of another hardware site that is in the spotlight often talked specifically about Bi/Tri/AF with NVIDIA and how it was handled in the drivers. We specifically asked for NVIDIA to add a mode that allowed the application/game being used to set those settings as well a some others without entering a "debug" mode as their previous driver did (that was removed after our 5200/5600 article). AA etc..
NVIDIA has implemented this and tested this and has given me written re-verification as of Monday of this week that this feature will surely be included in their next driver release. I have seen the driver first hand, as of two weeks ago in the NVIDIA offices, and it is very simple in its implementations.
Also, we asked for a few other features a couple of months ago. I would say that about 75% of our suggestions were taken to heart and implemented in their upcoming driver set. Quite frankly, it is very likely going to be the most robust driver you have ever seen for a video card.
So all in all, it could be said that all of this was fixed before it started..... You will get true Trilinear if that is what you so desire. You have to keep in mind that a driver release is far from a trivial thing. It takes an incredible amount of resources for both ATI and NVIDIA to do so. So keep in mind, while it may seem very simple it is an incredibly demanding process.
Both ATI and NVIDIA get kudos for staying on top drivers. The industry would be totally different if we did not have commitments from both in this arena.
Clearly Kyle was aware of the problem. So he posts his review and covers up the driver issues.
Why exactly is he trying to fix the problem with nVidia instead of reporting about it? Does he work for nVidia or is he a journalist? Did he try to fix the Quack problems with ATI or was he just interested in giving them a black eye. Clearly there is a double standard!
Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.
23-Jul-2003, 23:53
Kyle also posted this in the forum:
"Blah, blah, blah, Nvidia will release new drivers and everything will be fixed" (rinse & repeat for twelve months).
Nvidia makes a lot of promises, but never delivers results.
Bolloxoid
24-Jul-2003, 00:00
I wonder how Nvidia justified to Kyle the fact that this driver behavior was unique to UT 2003 and managed to convince him that this was worth covering up and not worth mentioning even though he used UT 2003 in his reviews. Clear lack of integrity on his part.
And I still think it is misleading to say that Nvidia is "adding" an option to do full trilinear as requested by the application. That option has been there all along, it is the "quality" setting in the slider. All Nvidia is doing is removing a behind-our-backs application detection trick after they were caught.
Nvidia is leading Kyle down the garden path by making him feel important and influential with their "serious face-to-face talks".
Dave Baumann
24-Jul-2003, 00:03
Nvidia is leading Kyle down the garden path by making him feel important and influential with their "serious face-to-face talks".
Which they are doing with most of the US editors at the moment, and I'll be doing here soon as well.
Heh-Heh....Always nice to encounter folks more long winded than me, Dave H...;)
I know the feeling. That's why I love having demalion around sometimes... :P
I think you're for some reason missing the obvious...;) It was because people noticed a difference that they first started looking into whether or not the Dets were doing Trilinear in UT2K3. Your position seems to effectively be that they are doing trilinear filtering without doing trilinear filtering. They aren't, and the differences are noticeable, which is why this topic has come up. If there were no visible differences, the topic would most likely never have been raised in the first place, right?
Actually I think it was noticed because the new UT2003 build offered the option to display colored mipmaps, and when Wavey or Rev (looking at the original thread (http://www.beyond3d.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=6719), I think Rev) tried it out, they immediately noticed the lack of trilinear filtering. I don't know this for a fact--perhaps they noticed something suspicious in normal mode and subsequently decided to turn on the colored mipmaps to check it out. But that's the impression I got.
Perhaps Rev (or Wavey, or whoever it was that first discovered this) would like to comment?
You're reading way too much into [H]'s pronouncements that they couldn't tell much difference. As well, not even [H] says they can't tell any difference.
...
Again you keep reaching an erroneous conclusion that the "output isn't subjectively noticeable"--of course that's simply not so. Were it so, no one would ever have been able to notice the difference, hence none of us would be talking about it right now.
...
The reason you are "curious" is because nVidia, in this game, has substituted this performance bi/trilinear mode for full trilinear, and [H] editorializes that the substitution is A-OK with them because they "can't tell much difference" in the resulting IQ, although as I said even they don't deny differences exist.
...
You seem to have a problem with "almost as good" and "as good"....there is a distinct difference between these two states. Nobody, not even [H], claims that it's "as good." The entire [H] piece revolves around their subjective opinion that it's "almost as good" as far as they can see and where it isn't "as good" they flatly state they don't care. That's what subjective opinions do for you...;)
...
Nope, that is not what the [H] article states at all. They've said that what differences they can see, and they do see them, are so "minor" in their opinions (because "all you do in the game is run around fragging people and so don't have time to look at the image quality" if I got that right) that they just don't care whether nVidia provides full trilinear like the Cats do or not. That's very, very different from your characterization of what they said.
...
So.....what [H] views as "minor" IQ degradation because of the lack of full trilinear support in this game, someone else might view as a "major" IQ difference.
You can repeat it as often as you like, but that's not what the article, or Kyle and Brent's forum comments, said. Unfortunately the article is down, but some quotes by Brent from the forum discussion:
"as we shown in the Non-AF screenshots there aren't any mip-map boundary difference"
"Actually the conclusion is that we can't tell any in-game mip-map boundary difference between NVIDIA's "Quality" setting and ATI's Application Preference setting in a Non-AF situation. The 5900u seems to have a SLIGHT sharper texture in this situation as well.
With 8XAF there is also no in-game mip-map boundary differences and the 9800 Pro has a slight sharper texture."
"But currently we are NOT seeing it differ from the quality of ATI's mip-map transitions in a regular game view."
"My stance is purely observation, you see what i saw with the screenshots. The same is also said with movement as we indicated.
I played this game, first in all, yes ALL, the maps with NO bots, running around, backing into corners, looking in open spaces, looking at the floor, the walls, the ceilings, slopes, slants, gradiants, moving back and forth sometimes in one spot or one path looking hard for mip-map boundaries."
"We are just saying that NVIDIA's current filtering has no IQ difference in a regular game view compared to ATI's. The only place it shows a difference is with the mip-map levels highlighted, and i don't know anybody that plays the game in that mode."
"remember, the mip-map boundaries are what was in question and is what we are saying are not noticeable between the two"
There's more; they can repeat themselves almost as much as you can, albeit not all in the same post. Meanwhile, even though the original article is down the uncomressed pics are still available for download (http://www.fileshack.com/file.x?fid=3341). Since you obviously do care about those minor differences that Kyle and Brent can see but choose to ignore (no doubt helped by Nvidia slush money), why don't you point them out for us in those screenshots?
As I said, I have no problem with nVidia offering a performance trilinear which is a mixture of tri and bilinear....none whatsoever. I understand what that is and am not curious about it (what's there to be curious about?)
I'm curious how well it is actually working in UT2003. (Kyle/Brent and Wavey seem to disagree about this, and neither has shown enough evidence for me to have a real sense of the actual IQ costs.) I'm curious whether there are specific features of UT2003 that make it particularly applicable for this optimization, or whether this optimization would be a good idea for more or all games. I'm curious why this sort of thing has been rejected in the past. I'm curious whether it could be improved in either the IQ or performance directions.
My problem is with the fact that they *substitute* it for full trilinear, even when the application asks for full trilinear. Very simple.
What the game asks for is irrelevant. Nvidia doesn't have an "application preference" mode in their drivers. The issue is that Nvidia's "quality" mode doesn't do the same thing in all games, and that they led reviewers to believe that it always did full trilinear.
[H] at no point ever denies that nVidia is not doing full trilinear filtering in UT2K3--in fact, their entire article affirms and confirms it...;) Their only contribution otherwise is to state that they don't care, for one reason or another.
I think only for one reason--it's not visible in the game. And going by the criteria on which they conduct their reviews, that's the only reason that matters.
Missing the obvious here Dave H, again... First of all there are no similar driver hacks in the current Catalysts, are there? All one need do is to use the UT2K3.ini to turn on trilinear--and presto, the game is fully trilineared.
Gee how come you can't just turn on "quality" in the drivers? Doesn't that mean trilinear?? Why should you have to muck around in the .ini???
There are many, many obvious differences between the IHVs aside from the products they produce.
Don't disagree with you there. So why not focus on the Nvidia scandals that actually do hurt the end-user?
[Q: then why doesn't Unwinder's anti-detect impact ATI performance on more games? A: we have no proof it is detecting all game-specific optimizations in either ATI's or Nvidia's drivers]
Did you write the Anti-Detector software, DaveH? The guy who wrote the software claims it does the same thing for the Catalysts and the Dets. Argue with him if you like...
Completely false. But thanks for being a sarcastic jerk.
ATIAntiDetector scripts is a bit more complicated. ATI use different ways of application detections so it's much more difficult to collect and block _all_ the application detection related pieces of code. At this time I was able to identify and block at least 8 application detection routines in the driver, but I cannot give you any warranties that there are no more detections left (this applies to NVAntiDetector too).
So actually, it doesn't do the same thing for the Cats as for the Dets. And he doesn't claim it "is detecting all game-specific optimizations in either ATI's or Nvidia's drivers", like I said. But you can argue with him (http://www.beyond3d.com/forum/privmsg.php?mode=post&u=864) if you like.
Has it ever struck you that their article is so subjective it's worthless? Listen, opinions abound about IQ. Whereas I run with 2x FSAA enabled, 16x AF in my games by default--some people state they prefer 0x FSAA/8xAF for their own reasons. Which of us is "right?" Correct answer is "neither" because it's a matter of subjective preference only.
If some people posted 81MB of screenshots comparing 2xFSAA to no FSAA I think it would be easy to tell the difference.
Look. IQ is subjective. I know you want to make it objective by replacing IQ with a big checklist of rendering features, but that doesn't serve any purpose. The goal of 3d rendering is to appear as realistic as possible to most people, and thus success can only be judged by a person commenting on how well he/she thinks this has been done. But "subjective" doesn't mean "meaningless". You are well aware of this, but as your only chance of winning this argument is to muddy the waters, you choose to ignore it.
The important point about this whole affair is this: nVidia has removed the option of full trilinear support from its drivers for UT2K3. Nothing else matters--at all. Had they not done this, there would be no issue whatever as no one would care what lesser IQ modes nVidia built into its driver support. There is no issue apart from this one in my view and as such [H]'s entire attempt at apology is a waste of epaper.
This is like the pot calling the tablecloth black.
They can "call on" nVidia all they like but until nVidia *does something* relative to the issue such statments are pompous and mean nothing, right?
Something like...
We specifically asked for NVIDIA to add a mode that allowed the application/game being used to set those settings as well a some others without entering a "debug" mode as their previous driver did (that was removed after our 5200/5600 article). AA etc..
NVIDIA has implemented this and tested this and has given me written re-verification as of Monday of this week that this feature will surely be included in their next driver release.
Is that what you wanted?
Heh...would have been nice if [H] had ONCE "called on" nVidia to stop cheating in its drivers relative to benchmarks...! What did [H] do instead? Tell everyone to dump their benchmarks, that's what [H] did... That's pretty funny, Dave H....;)
I'm assuming you remember how strongly I argued against [H]'s position on 3dMark03? Or is there some other reason for bringing up this totally irrelevant subject??
Sigh--what would satisfy me is simply [H] stopping its infantile behavior of apologizing for nVidia and plainly stating that you can't compare nVidia's faux-trilinear to the Catalysts' full trilinear in terms of performance because its not an apples-apples IQ comparison.
If it looks the same then it's by definition an apples-apples IQ comparison. It's not an apples-apples workload comparison, but that's not what [H] is interested in.
A subjective opinion that something is "almost as good" for reasons I've already stated doesn't suffice, no.
Their opinion is that it is as good. Is better, actually, with no AF. And their screenshots agree with them, subjectively speaking. Incidentally, you haven't stated any reasons why it doesn't suffice, except that Nvidia doesn't also offer a full trilinear mode, which is neither here nor there when all that's required is "an apples-apples IQ comparison".
Excuse me--I don't want to personally verify the old saying that "a fool and his money are easily parted"....;)
Presumably because you'd be broke awful quick.
And by the way, in the future it might be nice if you used "quotation marks" to enclose words that people "actually used" instead of "misleading paraphrases".
Blackwind
24-Jul-2003, 00:24
The entire Trilinear issue was brought up with NVIDIA in face-to-face meetings over two months ago. Long before the B3DPolice came to the scene of the crime. Myself and the owner of another hardware site that is in the spotlight often talked specifically about Bi/Tri/AF with NVIDIA and how it was handled in the drivers.
If this is actually the case, is sitting on this information and not mentioning supposed to be a good thing for everyone? And why get so annoyed by the "B3DPolice" for doing so?
How is it bad for everyone? Especially when several other creditable sites are already applying extensive energy to the topic? IMO they did what was best for them in their efforts and direction. Let other sites apply effort in that arena, we will apply effort here.
Kyle also posted this in the forum:
I did not feel comfortable saying this earlier, but I am in a WTF state of mind at the moment so....
The entire Trilinear issue was brought up with NVIDIA in face-to-face meetings over two months ago. Long before the B3DPolice came to the scene of the crime. Myself and the owner of another hardware site that is in the spotlight often talked specifically about Bi/Tri/AF with NVIDIA and how it was handled in the drivers. We specifically asked for NVIDIA to add a mode that allowed the application/game being used to set those settings as well a some others without entering a "debug" mode as their previous driver did (that was removed after our 5200/5600 article). AA etc..
NVIDIA has implemented this and tested this and has given me written re-verification as of Monday of this week that this feature will surely be included in their next driver release. I have seen the driver first hand, as of two weeks ago in the NVIDIA offices, and it is very simple in its implementations.
Also, we asked for a few other features a couple of months ago. I would say that about 75% of our suggestions were taken to heart and implemented in their upcoming driver set. Quite frankly, it is very likely going to be the most robust driver you have ever seen for a video card.
So all in all, it could be said that all of this was fixed before it started..... You will get true Trilinear if that is what you so desire. You have to keep in mind that a driver release is far from a trivial thing. It takes an incredible amount of resources for both ATI and NVIDIA to do so. So keep in mind, while it may seem very simple it is an incredibly demanding process.
Both ATI and NVIDIA get kudos for staying on top drivers. The industry would be totally different if we did not have commitments from both in this arena.
Clearly Kyle was aware of the problem. So he posts his review and covers up the driver issues.
Why exactly is he trying to fix the problem with nVidia instead of reporting about it? Does he work for nVidia or is he a journalist? Did he try to fix the Quack problems with ATI or was he just interested in giving them a black eye. Clearly there is a double standard!
Actually [H] did attempt to resolve the problem with ATI well before they ever reported on it. ATI insisted for well over a month that [H]ard findings were inaccurate and attempted to cover it up. Any effort applying by anyone, whether here or other that results in change or improvement in our experiance as a consumer is a good thing.
DAVE H:
You dont find it misleading that said "quality" option shows 100% trilinear filtering in our aniso test apps? (The tunnel test).
Or that Quality apparently means full level aniso in morrowind and freelancer? (according to the amdmb look at the issue)
You dont think THAT might be enough to tell people that "quality" means trilinear????
No, not really. I'm more bothered by the fact that they seem to have explicitly told reviewers that "quality" means trilinear. That was either a lie or, if it turns out that their statement actually left themselves a tiny loophole, purposely misleading behavior. Or if they app-detected the tunnel test specifically for the purpose of turning trilinear on, and it was normally off, then that would clearly be beyond the pale.
As it is, their definition of "quality" seems to be "trilinear by default, and partial trilinear in those cases where we can verify that it has no noticeable effect on IQ and provides a substantial speed boost". I would much prefer that they made that definition explicit. And that they provided a way to override it and force full trilinear all the time. Their not having done so is certainly yet another example of slimy Nvidia behavior (although IMO far from the worst).
But that definition of "quality" seems both consistent and reasonable to me.
You dont find that to be dishonest? To change what a settings means for just one game? (and a heavily benchmarked one at that!)
By itself, this breaks one of nVidias optimization rules - its only good for a benchmark. If it was good enough for all games, then there wouldnt be any trickery...
It's not only good for a benchmark--UT2003 is a fairly popular game, you know. If they were only turning the optimization on during benchmark runs, then that would be breaking their optimization rules. Believe me, Nvidia is not swearing off application-specific optimizations for heavily-benchmarked games. (They would probably claim "for popular games", but I doubt any IHV has worried much on optimizing a popular game that isn't used in video card reviews.)
Fred da Roza
24-Jul-2003, 00:38
Actually [H] did attempt to resolve the problem with ATI well before they ever reported on it. ATI insisted for well over a month that [H]ard findings were inaccurate and attempted to cover it up. Any effort applying by anyone, whether here or other that results in change or improvement in our experiance as a consumer is a good thing.
Kyle could have reported his findings. As he has said it's been over 2 months just on this issue. How about the 3DMark03 issue where nVidia has publically defended their cheats and Kyle is also very aware of them. This is just a long string of cheats that nVida is now trying to worm their way out of.
banksie
24-Jul-2003, 01:22
[snip]
Why exactly is he trying to fix the problem with nVidia instead of reporting about it? Does he work for nVidia or is he a journalist? Did he try to fix the Quack problems with ATI or was he just interested in giving them a black eye. Clearly there is a double standard!
What is worth quoting here is the comments he made in the conclusion to the Quack article authored by Kyle and still available from the HardOCP site :-
'We think that ATi should be producing Radeon drivers that are 3D engine specific and not game specific. Especially when the one targeted game is a widely used benchmark that people trust.'
What I want to know is if that was the stance Kyle took for ATi with the, as noted by him in the article, hard to notice in game optimisations it involved then what is the difference here? How does nVidia's gain moral correctness when ATi's Quack did not?
Does someone want to quote that and ask him? I can't register to do it.
Philip
digitalwanderer
24-Jul-2003, 02:59
The entire Trilinear issue was brought up with NVIDIA in face-to-face meetings over two months ago. Long before the B3DPolice came to the scene of the crime. Myself and the owner of another hardware site that is in the spotlight often talked specifically about Bi/Tri/AF with NVIDIA and how it was handled in the drivers.
If this is actually the case, is sitting on this information and not mentioning supposed to be a good thing for everyone? And why get so annoyed by the "B3DPolice" for doing so?
Simple, cause it's BS. :)
Kyle also posted this in the forum:
I did not feel comfortable saying this earlier, but I am in a WTF state of mind at the moment so....
The entire Trilinear issue was brought up with NVIDIA in face-to-face meetings over two months ago. Long before the B3DPolice came to the scene of the crime. Myself and the owner of another hardware site that is in the spotlight often talked specifically about Bi/Tri/AF with NVIDIA and how it was handled in the drivers. We specifically asked for NVIDIA to add a mode that allowed the application/game being used to set those settings as well a some others without entering a "debug" mode as their previous driver did (that was removed after our 5200/5600 article). AA etc..
NVIDIA has implemented this and tested this and has given me written re-verification as of Monday of this week that this feature will surely be included in their next driver release. I have seen the driver first hand, as of two weeks ago in the NVIDIA offices, and it is very simple in its implementations.
Also, we asked for a few other features a couple of months ago. I would say that about 75% of our suggestions were taken to heart and implemented in their upcoming driver set. Quite frankly, it is very likely going to be the most robust driver you have ever seen for a video card.
So all in all, it could be said that all of this was fixed before it started..... You will get true Trilinear if that is what you so desire. You have to keep in mind that a driver release is far from a trivial thing. It takes an incredible amount of resources for both ATI and NVIDIA to do so. So keep in mind, while it may seem very simple it is an incredibly demanding process.
Both ATI and NVIDIA get kudos for staying on top drivers. The industry would be totally different if we did not have commitments from both in this arena.
Clearly Kyle was aware of the problem. So he posts his review and covers up the driver issues.
Why exactly is he trying to fix the problem with nVidia instead of reporting about it? Does he work for nVidia or is he a journalist? Did he try to fix the Quack problems with ATI or was he just interested in giving them a black eye. Clearly there is a double standard!
What I'm wondering about now is if he was in secret discussions with nVidia fixing the "problem" than why did he and Bent write up that justification for the "almost-trilinear" filtering?!?
I hate it when he contradicts himself and sends mixed messages, I get so confused! ;)
Reverend
24-Jul-2003, 03:44
Kyle also posted this in the forum:
I did not feel comfortable saying this earlier, but I am in a WTF state of mind at the moment so....
The entire Trilinear issue was brought up with NVIDIA in face-to-face meetings over two months ago. Long before the B3DPolice came to the scene of the crime. Myself and the owner of another hardware site that is in the spotlight often talked specifically about Bi/Tri/AF with NVIDIA and how it was handled in the drivers. We specifically asked for NVIDIA to add a mode that allowed the application/game being used to set those settings as well a some others without entering a "debug" mode as their previous driver did (that was removed after our 5200/5600 article). AA etc..
NVIDIA has implemented this and tested this and has given me written re-verification as of Monday of this week that this feature will surely be included in their next driver release. I have seen the driver first hand, as of two weeks ago in the NVIDIA offices, and it is very simple in its implementations.
Also, we asked for a few other features a couple of months ago. I would say that about 75% of our suggestions were taken to heart and implemented in their upcoming driver set. Quite frankly, it is very likely going to be the most robust driver you have ever seen for a video card.
So all in all, it could be said that all of this was fixed before it started..... You will get true Trilinear if that is what you so desire. You have to keep in mind that a driver release is far from a trivial thing. It takes an incredible amount of resources for both ATI and NVIDIA to do so. So keep in mind, while it may seem very simple it is an incredibly demanding process.
Both ATI and NVIDIA get kudos for staying on top drivers. The industry would be totally different if we did not have commitments from both in this arena.
I just made my first ever post in their forum, in the same thread.
Gee, I hope I don't get banned.
Althornin
24-Jul-2003, 03:57
I'm curious why this sort of thing has been rejected in the past.
Wonder no more, DaveH - it was done by ATI in the not so distant past, and they got slammed for it, upon the release of the 8500, iirc, there was a driver set that didnt do "full trilinear" and ATI got hammered for it.
digitalwanderer
24-Jul-2003, 04:15
Kyle also posted this in the forum:
I did not feel comfortable saying this earlier, but I am in a WTF state of mind at the moment so....
The entire Trilinear issue was brought up with NVIDIA in face-to-face meetings over two months ago. Long before the B3DPolice came to the scene of the crime. Myself and the owner of another hardware site that is in the spotlight often talked specifically about Bi/Tri/AF with NVIDIA and how it was handled in the drivers. We specifically asked for NVIDIA to add a mode that allowed the application/game being used to set those settings as well a some others without entering a "debug" mode as their previous driver did (that was removed after our 5200/5600 article). AA etc..
NVIDIA has implemented this and tested this and has given me written re-verification as of Monday of this week that this feature will surely be included in their next driver release. I have seen the driver first hand, as of two weeks ago in the NVIDIA offices, and it is very simple in its implementations.
Also, we asked for a few other features a couple of months ago. I would say that about 75% of our suggestions were taken to heart and implemented in their upcoming driver set. Quite frankly, it is very likely going to be the most robust driver you have ever seen for a video card.
So all in all, it could be said that all of this was fixed before it started..... You will get true Trilinear if that is what you so desire. You have to keep in mind that a driver release is far from a trivial thing. It takes an incredible amount of resources for both ATI and NVIDIA to do so. So keep in mind, while it may seem very simple it is an incredibly demanding process.
Both ATI and NVIDIA get kudos for staying on top drivers. The industry would be totally different if we did not have commitments from both in this arena.
I just made my first ever post in their forum, in the same thread.
Gee, I hope I don't get banned.
Here's the page with Reverend's post (http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?s=40be84042ce8ccdbfe5ab22a17badebc& threadid=644163&perpage=15&pagenumber=4), to save giving Kyle a few hits. ;)
I'm curious why this sort of thing has been rejected in the past.
Wonder no more, DaveH - it was done by ATI in the not so distant past, and they got slammed for it, upon the release of the 8500, iirc, there was a driver set that didnt do "full trilinear" and ATI got hammered for it.
If you're referring to the "quack" scandal, what was going on there was that the 8500 was for some reason fetching really high mipmaps (i.e. mipmaps with far too little detail) for a handful of textures in Q3 which were nonetheless heavily used enough to make a big difference in both performance and IQ. Unlike the current issue, the IQ loss was extremely noticeable when it existed.
Also unlike the current issue, there is at least a reasonable chance that this "optimization" was in fact a bug on ATI's part. (Or perhaps a working optimization that for some reason failed for those particular textures. Or an optimization that worked fine on the R1xx but for some reason did not on R2xx. That is, there was definitely active app-detection going on, but one seriously doubts that the IQ results were what ATI was expecting.)
Meanwhile, the 8500 didn't do trilinear at all when AF was enabled. Obviously that was almost two chip generations ago (another way for saying, "just last chip generation") but it does go to show how far we've come to be worrying about problems with partial trilinear that apparently can't even be seen in most situations.
EDIT: And if you're referring to the fact that the 8500 didn't do trilinear at all when AF was enabled...it didn't do trilinear at all when AF was enabled! It wasn't a driver bug but a hardware limitation; AFAIK, the 9200 you can go out and waste your money on buy today will have the exact same behavior. And straight bilinear is way way more noticeable than this partial trilinear NV3x is using in UT2003.
Reverend
24-Jul-2003, 04:43
Here's the page with Reverend's post (http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?s=40be84042ce8ccdbfe5ab22a17badebc& threadid=644163&perpage=15&pagenumber=4), to save giving Kyle a few hits. ;)
Please, I only want clarifications from Kyle. There is no need to be nasty (anymore) towards Kyle because most of you have already voiced your opinion about him/his site.
Althornin
24-Jul-2003, 04:44
Wonder no more, DaveH - it was done by ATI in the not so distant past, and they got slammed for it, upon the release of the 8500, iirc, there was a driver set that didnt do "full trilinear" and ATI got hammered for it.
<Buncha stuff i already know>
nope, nice rant about stuff i already know though!
i thought about it some more, and i just cant remmeber which card it was that did the same thing (not quite trilinear). It just seems like it was longer ago, but the 9700 launch was a year ago! However, i am sure that some of the other peiople here remember what i am talking about.
Again, thanks for the long story on stuff that was known, and appologies for my mistake (tho i said "iirc", when apparently i did not recall correctly).
digitalwanderer
24-Jul-2003, 04:49
Here's the page with Reverend's post (http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?s=40be84042ce8ccdbfe5ab22a17badebc& threadid=644163&perpage=15&pagenumber=4), to save giving Kyle a few hits. ;)
Please, I only want clarifications from Kyle. There is no need to be nasty (anymore) towards Kyle because most of you have already voiced your opinion about him/his site.
Sorry, I did not post that for people to flame on...and I've been banned from posting there for a while now so I'm pretty harmless. :)
Reverend
24-Jul-2003, 05:52
The point I was trying to get across is that if you personally do not feel like you want to visit a website for whatever reasons, I don't think there is any need, nor is it appropriate, to suggest to people to feel/do the same. I would appreciate it if this doesn't happen in our forums. I do not like the possibility of Beyond3D's forum to appear to be "at war" with another site's forum.
K.I.L.E.R
24-Jul-2003, 06:00
No one is at war with anyone, nor will these forums be at war with [H]'s forums. People are attacking the credibility of Kyle and Brent. People feel that they are being lied to. People know they are being mislead.
Hence the attacks.
Rev, If I were to mislead you will you be okay with that?
The point I was trying to get across is that if you personally do not feel like you want to visit a website for whatever reasons, I don't think there is any need, nor is it appropriate, to suggest to people to feel/do the same. I would appreciate it if this doesn't happen in our forums. I do not like the possibility of Beyond3D's forum to appear to be "at war" with another site's forum.
OpenGL guy
24-Jul-2003, 06:01
If you're referring to the "quack" scandal, what was going on there was that the 8500 was for some reason fetching really high mipmaps (i.e. mipmaps with far too little detail) for a handful of textures in Q3 which were nonetheless heavily used enough to make a big difference in both performance and IQ. Unlike the current issue, the IQ loss was extremely noticeable when it existed.
How do you know it had a large impact on performance? Once the problem was fixed, performance stayed the same, and even improved later.
Meanwhile, the 8500 didn't do trilinear at all when AF was enabled. Obviously that was almost two chip generations ago (another way for saying, "just last chip generation") but it does go to show how far we've come to be worrying about problems with partial trilinear that apparently can't even be seen in most situations.
EDIT: And if you're referring to the fact that the 8500 didn't do trilinear at all when AF was enabled...it didn't do trilinear at all when AF was enabled! It wasn't a driver bug but a hardware limitation; AFAIK, the 9200 you can go out and waste your money on buy today will have the exact same behavior. And straight bilinear is way way more noticeable than this partial trilinear NV3x is using in UT2003.
Except that when you compare a part that is doing no or partial trilinear to a part that is doing full trilinear (AF or no) then it's not a fair comparison, is it? I wouldn't expect people to compare bilinear-AF on an 8500 to trilinear-AF on a GeForce card, or, if they did, then the image quality differences need to be pointed out.
digitalwanderer
24-Jul-2003, 06:05
The point I was trying to get across is that if you personally do not feel like you want to visit a website for whatever reasons, I don't think there is any need, nor is it appropriate, to suggest to people to feel/do the same. I would appreciate it if this doesn't happen in our forums. I do not like the possibility of Beyond3D's forum to appear to be "at war" with another site's forum.
My apologies, I'll shut up.
Reverend
24-Jul-2003, 06:18
No one is at war with anyone, nor will these forums be at war with [H]'s forums. People are attacking the credibility of Kyle and Brent. People feel that they are being lied to. People know they are being mislead.
Hence the attacks.
Rev, If I were to mislead you will you be okay with that?
No, it will not be okay with me and I will shoot you an email saying "You sonofab*tch, you suck so bad for misleading me... I am never going to visit your site again and I will tell my buddies via emails to do the same"... while posting in Beyond3D's forum "In this article by K.I.L.E.R. he said these things... here are my point-by-point reasons why I don't think K.I.L.E.R's words expresses the truth of the situation and appears misleading to me..."
That is what I would do, mostly out of being able to act rationally and also out of respect for the wishes of one of B3D's site partners in his efforts to improve the content quality of the site's forums.
Althornin
24-Jul-2003, 06:33
No, it will not be okay with me and I will shoot you an email saying "You sonofab*tch, you suck so bad for misleading me... I am never going to visit your site again and I will tell my buddies via emails to do the same"... while posting in Beyond3D's forum "In this article by K.I.L.E.R. he said these things... here are my point-by-point reasons why I don't think K.I.L.E.R's words expresses the truth of the situation and appears misleading to me..."
That is what I would do, mostly out of being able to act rationally and also out of respect for the wishes of one of B3D's site partners in his efforts to improve the content quality of the site's forums.
I would also like the personal attacks on kyle and brent to cease.
They are unproductive, and all they do is lower this site, and cloud the very real issue brought up with FUD - and they give reason for all the fanpeople to point out "bias". We all have our favorite forum that allows and is cool with rants and insults, so lets put em there and not here.
Not that anyone would not listen to Rev. but then listen to me :)
K.I.L.E.R
24-Jul-2003, 06:36
That is what I would do, mostly out of being able to act rationally and also out of respect for the wishes of one of B3D's site partners in his efforts to improve the content quality of the site's forums.
I hope you are not implying that I'm being disrespectful towards the B3D site partners.
My intentions never were to be disrespectful.
The entire Trilinear issue was brought up with NVIDIA in face-to-face meetings over two months ago. Long before the B3DPolice came to the scene of the crime. Myself and the owner of another hardware site that is in the spotlight often talked specifically about Bi/Tri/AF with NVIDIA and how it was handled in the drivers.
If this is actually the case, is sitting on this information and not mentioning supposed to be a good thing for everyone? And why get so annoyed by the "B3DPolice" for doing so?
It seems that Kyle has known about all of these issues in nVidia's drivers way before those were posted here. He says "I've know that for months" to every new thing you post here. So a) He has really known about these but didn't report them to public b) Doesn't want to be the second and that's why claims that he has known about these issues for a long time.
I'll say B is more likely.
Reverend
24-Jul-2003, 06:55
That is what I would do, mostly out of being able to act rationally and also out of respect for the wishes of one of B3D's site partners in his efforts to improve the content quality of the site's forums.
I hope you are not implying that I'm being disrespectful towards the B3D site partners.
My intentions never were to be disrespectful.
I am not implying anything against any one specific person -- I have simply given an example of the type of forum participation I/B3D prefers while taking into account its forum participants wish to "vent", which we prefer to be done via private correspondences, separate from B3D forums. As much as possible, B3D prefers criticism of content here rather than criticism of the author of the content. Look at Dave -- he has more reasons than anyone to criticize Kyle here due to the attacks (not criticisms but actual written attacks) on B3D Kyle has made in his own forums (and AFAICT Dave has not attacked neither Kyle nor [H] anywhere) but Dave is above this kind of thing. So am I, although I have had to practice incredible self restraint. Yes, sometimes we forget, or simply cannot stand it anymore, and let slip a criticism or two but we are almost always conscious of the fact that we should not be doing this all the time. Many of you here will not let this go and you just want to continue criticizing Kyle/[H] again and again in the same thread or let this permeate into other threads. I hope you'll respect my wish for this to discontinue being the case.
Rev,
I won't cut and paste Kyle's reply, but wow, you sure do have some restraint.
(and FYI, it took massive restraint not to cut and paste it :P)
Dave Baumann
24-Jul-2003, 08:47
If you're referring to the "quack" scandal, what was going on there was that the 8500 was for some reason fetching really high mipmaps (i.e. mipmaps with far too little detail) for a handful of textures in Q3 which were nonetheless heavily used enough to make a big difference in both performance and IQ. Unlike the current issue, the IQ loss was extremely noticeable when it existed.
No, he wasn't referring to that. 8500 also had a Bi/Trilinear mix functionality. Read [H]'s 8500 Revisited review fo their views on it then and the use of mipmap colorings.
Except that when you compare a part that is doing no or partial trilinear to a part that is doing full trilinear (AF or no) then it's not a fair comparison, is it? I wouldn't expect people to compare bilinear-AF on an 8500 to trilinear-AF on a GeForce card, or, if they did, then the image quality differences need to be pointed out.
Well, [H] pointed out the differences, didn't they ?
They showed some screenshots, played the game and decided that they couldn't see the difference, at least not while playing. They also specifically mentioned that UT was a fast paced FPS which made it even more difficult to see the "problem". Maybe not all here would agree with them, after all, we're talking about a subjective thing. But that's another issue.
Now, i tend to trust B3D a bit more when it comes to subjective opinions though which means that i won't really trust [H] in this matter unless i tried both cards and could verify it myself. But i don't see what they did wrong. At least not to such an extent as to what some people here think they did.
Maybe i should add that i agree with most of the stuff Dave H has posted here :-)
Reverend
24-Jul-2003, 10:45
Rev,
I won't cut and paste Kyle's reply, but wow, you sure do have some restraint.
(and FYI, it took massive restraint not to cut and paste it :P)
I'd been refreshing that thread for an hour earlier and the page just won't load, so I didn't know if Kyle replied or not. Now that I have seen his reply, I have just made mine.
Reverend
24-Jul-2003, 10:59
But i don't see what they did wrong
They didn't do anything wrong in my opinion.
They just have a website with personnels that have different interests than B3D's. Leaving aside "trusts of websites", it is ultimately down to readers to gather information, not from just one website, but from many others, to make an informed decision on a particular subject matter.
Whether that subject matter matters to that one or many representative of the general public is one thing we, as reviewers, cannot determine. Presenting facts should be the agenda of reviewers. Presenting subjective opinions as a result of knowing the facts should not be attempted by reviewers, but only by the general public.
Dave Baumann
24-Jul-2003, 11:15
DaveH. WRT to your comments as to whether this is noticable or not, I think my earlier comment that "once you know its there you can see it easier" really has affected me now.
I looked at a few more maps, at random to see if I could actually see any mipmap issues. Here are a few images that I believe I can see issues with. Note: I've done mip colour images as well, but I wont put them directly in the thread to pinpoint them.
LostFaith Map
http://www.beyond3d.com/previews/nvidia/nv35/images/utmip/lostfaith.jpg
http://www.beyond3d.com/previews/nvidia/nv35/images/utmip/lostfaith-mip.jpg
Citadel Map
http://www.beyond3d.com/previews/nvidia/nv35/images/utmip/citadel.jpg
http://www.beyond3d.com/previews/nvidia/nv35/images/utmip/citadel-mip.jpg
Antalus Map
http://www.beyond3d.com/previews/nvidia/nv35/images/utmip/Antalus.jpg
http://www.beyond3d.com/previews/nvidia/nv35/images/utmip/Antalus-mip.jpg
Note: Png's of the images are available here if you really want download them.
http://www.beyond3d.com/previews/nvidia/nv35/images/utmip/utmip.zip
Now in these images the effects are subtle, but I can actually spot the different mipmap levels, which you shouldn't be able to do with full Trilinear enabled. Its quite interesting that once you know its there it becomes even more clear there are different mip levels on the uneven levels, as all of these are. You can see that one some polygons there are clearly two different mip levels being used, which you shouldn't be able to see if full Trilinear was in operation. I'm also going to do 100% turaround on my comments on the Antalus map, since it is quite evident to me that there are different mip levels in use once you come out from a shadowed.
Now, is this a representative sample of the entire game? No, I only looked at a few maps. Its ture to say that I looked at as many maps that I could see an issue with as one that I couldn't.
To my mind, yes the effect is subtle, but I can see an IQ difference that would wouldn't expect to be there if full Trilinear was used. From what I've seen its also not true to say that this is either always an issue or never an issue.
(FYI - No I haven't done a full side-by-side analysis to look if there is increase texture aliasing, thats just a theoretical premis. I think I've wasted enough time on this now as it is and really need to crack on with a review or article!)
Hanners
24-Jul-2003, 11:34
Thanks Dave - I think all of those screenshots show that the mip-map transitions are obvious to the naked eye without the need for colouring them. I'm not a great one for spotting these things myself at times, but it seems very apparant in all those shots to me.
Dave Baumann
24-Jul-2003, 11:37
Thanks Dave - I think all of those screenshots show that the mip-map transitions are obvious to the naked eye without the need for colouring them. I'm not a great one for spotting these things myself at times, but it seems very apparant in all those shots to me.
No, the mip map transitions are not obvious, what is apparent is that I can tell there are different mip map levels in use. Its a subtle difference, but one that Trilinear prevents.
swanlee
24-Jul-2003, 13:27
I'm sorry but Kyle and Brent are purposely trying to help Nvidia perpetuate consumer fraud. It's that simple Nvidia for years now have had a plan on how to maintain there performance lead over every card maker out there, and this plan includes driver cheats and grass roots campaigning by influencing and bribing hardware review sites to do the marketing PR for them.
They are part of this and they need to be stopped plain and simple. Nvidia has single handily ripped off consumers for millions of dollars worth of video cards and ripped off oem's for millions of dollars by selling video cards that simply are not nearly as good in reality as they are on benchmarks which consumers and oem's base there buying decisions on.
That in a nutshell is consumer fraud and any party that contributes to this fraud needs to be taken down.
It may not be politically correct to have these personal attacks but Kyle's entire business model relies on the fact that he have an image of unbiased hardware reviewer which is obviously not the case. This image of his needs to be tarnished, people need to be taken off there high horse and brought down to reality. For this industry to move forward these events of the past few months need to have long lasting consequences so that they are not repeated again.
By the way things are going it seems Nvidia and [T]ardocp are going to get away with this by skating the issues putting on there pr face and trying to bs the unsuspecting public away from the facts. They will rely on the fact 90% of consumers have no clue about these type of forums or the extent of what's going on. And it seems they will get away with it scott free make a couple of pr statements and just dig deeper and find new ways to rip off the consumer.
This needs to be stopped by any means.
Doomtrooper
24-Jul-2003, 13:30
I tested a 5600 U with the 44.03 drivers and played some custom CTF maps and could see the mip map boundries quite often..especially in maps with alot of grass/stairs like CTF MUSE.
Reminded me alot of the old 8500 Days and Serious Sam 2...for some it may not be noticeable, but when running the anti-detector script and enabling trilinear you could see it night and day..and the performance hit too.
CTF MUSE (http://www.fragilicious.com/mortalplague/Musing.jpg)
Blackwind
24-Jul-2003, 14:40
Actually [H] did attempt to resolve the problem with ATI well before they ever reported on it. ATI insisted for well over a month that [H]ard findings were inaccurate and attempted to cover it up. Any effort applying by anyone, whether here or other that results in change or improvement in our experiance as a consumer is a good thing.
Kyle could have reported his findings. As he has said it's been over 2 months just on this issue. How about the 3DMark03 issue where nVidia has publically defended their cheats and Kyle is also very aware of them. This is just a long string of cheats that nVida is now trying to worm their way out of.
He could have. He chose not to. Does that mean there is a shooter on the grassy knoll? [H] has apparently been in a weeks worth of heart to heart discussion with Nvidia talking about many of the very "issues" talked about on this board and many others. From all indications Nvidia is paying attention. Again, regardless of the path, if the final destination improves our experiance as users, more power to em.
What I'm wondering about now is if he was in secret discussions with nVidia fixing the "problem" than why did he and Bent write up that justification for the "almost-trilinear" filtering?!?
I hate it when he contradicts himself and sends mixed messages, I get so confused! ;)
The write up was not a justification for "almost trilinear." It was a review of IQ between cards if anything.
Hanners
24-Jul-2003, 14:47
He could have. He chose not to. Does that mean there is a shooter on the grassy knoll? [H] has apparently been in a weeks worth of heart to heart discussion with Nvidia talking about many of the very "issues" talked about on this board and many others. From all indications Nvidia is paying attention. Again, regardless of the path, if the final destination improves our experiance as users, more power to em.
Agreed, if it benefits us as users in the end, then it's not all in vain. The problem is that if [H] knew about issues with UT2003, why did they insist on still using it for benchmarking in all their shootouts? In the short-term, that's damaged both [H]'s reputation, and resulted in what could be perceived as inaccurate benchmarks being used by them and a whole host of other sites.
I don't see why it has to be a one or the other approach between talking to nVidia about an issue, and informing the public of an issue. If they do both, then everyone that [H] should care about wins.
John Reynolds
24-Jul-2003, 14:53
He could have. He chose not to. Does that mean there is a shooter on the grassy knoll? [H] has apparently been in a weeks worth of heart to heart discussion with Nvidia talking about many of the very "issues" talked about on this board and many others. From all indications Nvidia is paying attention. Again, regardless of the path, if the final destination improves our experiance as users, more power to em.
Yes, but knowing full well that your comparative benchmarks are not being conducted under apples to apples settings and justifying it through subjective visual checks does not benefit the industry. If one of the major hardware sites will not only condone but, for all intents and purposes, knowingly enable such practices for one IHV, the others will certainly feel pressured to engage in such standards themselves, and in the end the consumer will only see a continuation of popular games used as benchmarks displayed with lowered image quality. Less power to 'em, IMO.
And on a site note, seeing Kyle not only refuse to answer Rev's politely worded questions on his forums and instead launch into a personal attack accusing Anthony of failing to have a positive influence on the 3D graphics market (describing him as a "wasted talent") is my new personal definition for the word ironic.
Blackwind
24-Jul-2003, 14:54
He could have. He chose not to. Does that mean there is a shooter on the grassy knoll? [H] has apparently been in a weeks worth of heart to heart discussion with Nvidia talking about many of the very "issues" talked about on this board and many others. From all indications Nvidia is paying attention. Again, regardless of the path, if the final destination improves our experiance as users, more power to em.
Agreed, if it benefits us as users in the end, then it's not all in vain. The problem is that if [H] knew about issues with UT2003, why did they insist on still using it for benchmarking in all their shootouts? In the short-term, that's damaged both [H]'s reputation, and resulted in what could be perceived as inaccurate benchmarks being used by them and a whole host of other sites.
I don't see why it has to be a one or the other approach between talking to nVidia about an issue, and informing the public of an issue. If they do both, then everyone that [H] should care about wins.
If perception was what we all had to be measured by, we'd all be screwed. :D I don't believe there was any insistance to use UT2003 or any other tool [H] presently uses for reviews. You work with what you have to use. In this case in question it was specifically used due to ATI's accusation/concern. Would kind of make it really pointless of them to address it using Sponge Bob Square pants to prove otherwise. [H] does apparently still use it in their video card reviews but again, what else can they use? It's not as though there are tons of tools out there. That and apparently it's still pretty popular to play.
Kyle and Brent have expressed time and time again their frustration as a review site and just how much more difficult the job is to do that, review. It's not as cut and dry as it once was when all you had to do was look at a FPS and you knew. (misses 3dfx) I find current standings much more exciting simply thinking of the potential. ATI and Nvidias hardware are apparently very differant. They also choose to render differant. In the end, I'm willing to bet, the consumer will win. Very rarely in the history of business has that failed to happen.
Hanners
24-Jul-2003, 15:00
[H] does apparently still use it in their video card reviews but again, what else can they use? It's not as though there are tons of tools out there. That and apparently it's still pretty popular to play.
Therein lies my point. In the situation it appears [H] were in regarding what they knew, the only two choices they had were to:
a. Stop using UT2003 as a benchmark, or
b. Inform the public that their UT2003 benchmarks were not a fair comparison, and explain the reasons why this wasn't the case.
Blackwind
24-Jul-2003, 15:05
[H] does apparently still use it in their video card reviews but again, what else can they use? It's not as though there are tons of tools out there. That and apparently it's still pretty popular to play.
Therein lies my point. In the situation it appears [H] were in regarding what they knew, the only two choices they had were to:
a. Stop using UT2003 as a benchmark, or
b. Inform the public that their UT2003 benchmarks were not a fair comparison, and explain the reasons why this wasn't the case.
Unfortuantly I find that to simply be a matter of opinion in regard to appearance. Not one I can say I share. I think they did a good job of stating that already. They stated, its not an apples to apples comparison. How many more times must they say it?
He could have. He chose not to. Does that mean there is a shooter on the grassy knoll? [H] has apparently been in a weeks worth of heart to heart discussion with Nvidia talking about many of the very "issues" talked about on this board and many others. From all indications Nvidia is paying attention. Again, regardless of the path, if the final destination improves our experiance as users, more power to em.
Yes, but knowing full well that your comparative benchmarks are not being conducted under apples to apples settings and justifying it through subjective visual checks does not benefit the industry. If one of the major hardware sites will not only condone but, for all intents and purposes, knowingly enable such practices for one IHV, the others will certainly feel pressured to engage in such standards themselves, and in the end the consumer will only see a continuation of popular games used as benchmarks displayed with lowered image quality. Less power to 'em, IMO.
And on a site note, seeing Kyle not only refuse to answer Rev's politely worded questions on his forums and instead launch into a personal attack accusing Anthony of failing to have a positive influence on the 3D graphics market (describing him as a "wasted talent") is my new personal definition for the word ironic.
Never had a shitty day? :D I know I have. I can't say I'd be too receptive either sitting in his shoes especially as of late. I'm not excusing him but I think in review what you are asking is for him to have is the kind patience of Buddha. I think he’s done pretty well. I’d have hunted em all down and proceeded with Chinese Water Torture. They did state it wasnt an apples to apples comparison and why.
Hanners
24-Jul-2003, 15:15
Unfortuantly I find that to simply be a matter of opinion in regard to appearance. Not one I can say I share. I think they did a good job of stating that already. They stated, its not an apples to apples comparison. How many more times must they say it?
To be honest I don't remember reading that in any of their reviews of the past couple of months when it came to the specific case of UT2003 (this last article which dealt directly with the issue notwithstanding). And if they did say 'we can't do an apples to apples comparison in UT2003', I don't recall them explaining the reasons why.
As for Kyle's behaviour, I think that he needs to remember that he presides over one of the most popular hardware sites on the Internet, and when you are in that enviable position you are going to be subjected to a great deal of scrutiny. Unfortunately, I get the impression that Kyle wasn't, and never has been, prepared for it, hence his reactions whenever the going gets tough. It's a fact of life that when you're at the top people will want to knock you off your pedestal and pick up on every error, and you need to react to that in the right way. In my opinion, Kyle hasn't.
Fred da Roza
24-Jul-2003, 15:17
He could have. He chose not to. Does that mean there is a shooter on the grassy knoll? [H] has apparently been in a weeks worth of heart to heart discussion with Nvidia talking about many of the very "issues" talked about on this board and many others. From all indications Nvidia is paying attention. Again, regardless of the path, if the final destination improves our experiance as users, more power to em.
After 6 months of denial. In other words he practiced a double standard, which is exactly what I originally said.
You don't find the statement that he knew about this "two months ago" a little spurious? Doesn't that mean he knew about this the moment NV35 was available to reviews (or even before)? If so, how did he know? Evidently [H] can't tell the difference between NVIDIA's hacks and real Trilinear and nobody knew how to enable the mipmap colors in ut2003 until this site pointed it out. So, how on earth could he know this "two months ago"???
Blackwind
24-Jul-2003, 15:31
Unfortuantly I find that to simply be a matter of opinion in regard to appearance. Not one I can say I share. I think they did a good job of stating that already. They stated, its not an apples to apples comparison. How many more times must they say it?
To be honest I don't remember reading that in any of their reviews of the past couple of months when it came to the specific case of UT2003 (this last article which dealt directly with the issue notwithstanding). And if they did say 'we can't do an apples to apples comparison in UT2003', I don't recall them explaining the reasons why.
As for Kyle's behaviour, I think that he needs to remember that he presides over one of the most popular hardware sites on the Internet, and when you are in that enviable position you are going to be subjected to a great deal of scrutiny. Unfortunately, I get the impression that Kyle wasn't, and never has been, prepared for it, hence his reactions whenever the going gets tough. It's a fact of life that when you're at the top people will want to knock you off your pedestal and pick up on every error, and you need to react to that in the right way. In my opinion, Kyle hasn't.
I 100% agree. I do not think he was prepared for just how well and noted a site [H]ardOCP and [H]ardforum have become. Being human as well, we can only recommend some area's of improvement and hope for the best. :D
After 6 months of denial. In other words he practiced a double standard, which is exactly what I originally said.
I'm not following your double standard comment. How is that a double standard?
You don't find the statement that he knew about this "two months ago" a little spurious? Doesn't that mean he knew about this the moment NV35 was available to reviews (or even before)? If so, how did he know? Evidently [H] can't tell the difference between NVIDIA's hacks and real Trilinear and nobody knew how to enable the mipmap colors in ut2003 until this site pointed it out. So, how on earth could he know this "two months ago"???
I assume this was directed at me so I'm responding. I don't find anything suspicious, fishy, cagey, green-eyed or suspect about it. For as long as I have read [H]ardOCP they have been consistent in doing things behind the scenes to try and help us all. At an appropriate time, telling us all about it. It’s only been recently (last year or so) where I’ve noticed everything they do being put under the microscope.
Therein lies my point. In the situation it appears [H] were in regarding what they knew, the only two choices they had were to:
a. Stop using UT2003 as a benchmark, or
b. Inform the public that their UT2003 benchmarks were not a fair comparison, and explain the reasons why this wasn't the case.
When their 5900 review came out and Brent got raked over the coals about the whole UT2K3 thing, his reactions to it definitely indicated to me he was unaware of the issue, or at least unaware of the scope. He certainly made no mention of [H] already discussing the issue with Nvidia.
Therein lies my point. In the situation it appears [H] were in regarding what they knew, the only two choices they had were to:
a. Stop using UT2003 as a benchmark, or
b. Inform the public that their UT2003 benchmarks were not a fair comparison, and explain the reasons why this wasn't the case.
When their 5900 review came out and Brent got raked over the coals about the whole UT2K3 thing, his reactions to it definitely indicated to me he was unaware of the issue, or at least unaware of the scope. He certainly made no mention of [H] already discussing the issue with Nvidia.
I didn't know of the issue until dave pointed it out to me a while ago when he showed me the screenshots he had taken
What the game asks for is irrelevant. Nvidia doesn't have an "application preference" mode in their drivers. The issue is that Nvidia's "quality" mode doesn't do the same thing in all games, and that they led reviewers to believe that it always did full trilinear.
On the contrary--what the game asks for is paramount. I think this is where you've gotten a bit off track here.
The ideal situation is that all 3D games allow for the user to set up his preferences with respect to FSAA, AF, filtering, resolution and color depth from within the application. That is the goal and has been for a long time.
Use of control panel settings to *force* settings changes for these parameters has been implemented by IHVs because of the lack of such configurability in the great majority of 3D software which has shipped to date. Forcing doesn't always work, though, because of the application and not specifically because of problems in the drivers--witness the inability to force FSAA in Splinter Cell, for instance. Sometimes the issues have to do with the API and get more complex, but that's really not the point here. The point here is that forcing these settings through driver control panels is not the best approach and never has been--setting games internally to instruct the 3D card drivers to initiate various display options has always been the "ideal." The IHV's have simply taken up the slack left by developers unwilling or unable to implement simple application controls to instruct the driver how to render, and in cases of older 3D software which predates the implementation of AF/FSAA, etc.
Bottom line is that the application should be the ultimate authority. Hence, even if full trilinear filtering does not occur when the option is selected in the control panel, it should occur when the game itself instructs the drivers to provide it. The fact that it does not do so with the Detonators is proof that nVidia has simply hard-coded its drivers not to provide full trilinear filtering when the UT2K3 game is running and is recognized by the Dets. And that's the problem.
kemosabe
24-Jul-2003, 16:09
Therein lies my point. In the situation it appears [H] were in regarding what they knew, the only two choices they had were to:
a. Stop using UT2003 as a benchmark, or
b. Inform the public that their UT2003 benchmarks were not a fair comparison, and explain the reasons why this wasn't the case.
When their 5900 review came out and Brent got raked over the coals about the whole UT2K3 thing, his reactions to it definitely indicated to me he was unaware of the issue, or at least unaware of the scope. He certainly made no mention of [H] already discussing the issue with Nvidia.
I didn't know of the issue until dave pointed it out to me a while ago when he showed me the screenshots he had taken
Sorry if this sounds like the Spanish Inquisition, but does that imply that you were unaware of Kyle's discussions about this matter with NVIDIA, which presumably occurred before Dave's revelations here on B3D? If so, why would Kyle not inform his reviewers about an ongoing issue of such relevance, especially with your NV35 review about to be posted?? :?
This almost deserves its own thread, but I thought it was interesting and quite on the topic here:
http://www.halflife2.net/forums/showthread.php?s=dee899331a5a90065429c2154f74af40&threadid=3071&perpage=15&pagenumber=1
Specifically, this one quote I found demonstrative of the topic in this thread:
To put this in perspective, not doing tri-linear filtering on mipmaps is a lot worse. (emphasis mine)
..
Specifically, this one quote I found demonstrative of the topic in this thread:
To put this in perspective, not doing tri-linear filtering on mipmaps is a lot worse. (emphasis mine)
The problem is that that could also mean that the problem they're having with FSAA is a very small. But he said that they would make videos to show that "problem" so i guess we'll find out pretty soon.
Counter Strike has the same problem when using certain cfg-settings.
It's not very bad but of course I'd rather be without them.
Sorry if this sounds like the Spanish Inquisition, but does that imply that you were unaware of Kyle's discussions about this matter with NVIDIA, which presumably occurred before Dave's revelations here on B3D? If so, why would Kyle not inform his reviewers about an ongoing issue of such relevance, especially with your NV35 review about to be posted?? :?
Because Kyle doesn't want to be seconded so if someone finds out something new, he says "I've known that for months".
And sorry for bashing Kyle again, but I think I haven't seen anyone over 10-years-old acting like this.
The problem is that that could also mean that the problem they're having with FSAA is a very small. But he said that they would make videos to show that "problem" so i guess we'll find out pretty soon.
Yes, the impression I got was that it was a small problem, basically from reading his descriptions of other software, including HL, running with current MSAA implementations. I don't see, or else can't notice, the artifacts he's referring to when running HL with FSAA on my 9800P. But at the same time it would appear he's stating that in his opinion the artifacts caused by the lack of FSAA in the movies are less severe than those caused by running it with current FSAA MSAA implementations. As the lack of FSAA in the movies is very obvious...well, like you say we'll have to wait and see what he's talking about when they compile their FSAA movies.
I didn't know of the issue until dave pointed it out to me a while ago when he showed me the screenshots he had taken
So when Kyle apparently talked about this with Nvidia long before "the B3DPolice arrived at the crime scene", he didn't tell his staff? Please tell me I'm misreading something because otherwise, eeeesh.
swanlee
24-Jul-2003, 16:41
Gees people you can tip-toe and over analize the technical issues till the cows come home but it is plain as day, the final conclusion to all of this is Nvidia has cheated in every benchmark and from what we've seen every major game that is used as a benchmark in order to maintain the image that their video cards are the best money can buy. that is the bottom line and that is consumer fraud. Regardless of the technical speak that is what this all boils down to.
What is also obvious by his recent actions is that Kyle is getting either paid or special treatment by Nvidia in order for Nvidia to use him to to speak through his web site to his user base. Kyle is mearly an extension of Nvdidia marketing dept. and should be treated with the same skeptisim as Nvidia.
Nvidia is probably hoping this issue will get bogged down in the technical mumbo jumbo because then the actual issue become clouded and very difficult to show average joe what is going on.
If this were any other industry or if this issue was easier to explain to the average user their would already be a class action lawsuit and the feds would have gotten involved by now. This is consumer fraud on it's most basic level and the players invovled in this fraud need to be called out.
don't let these technical nit piks cloud the issue that is simply playing into nvidia's hands.
If you're referring to the "quack" scandal, what was going on there was that the 8500 was for some reason fetching really high mipmaps (i.e. mipmaps with far too little detail) for a handful of textures in Q3 which were nonetheless heavily used enough to make a big difference in both performance and IQ. Unlike the current issue, the IQ loss was extremely noticeable when it existed.
How do you know it had a large impact on performance? Once the problem was fixed, performance stayed the same, and even improved later.
Good point. My "reasoning" was that when the app-detection was prevented (by "quackifying"), performance dropped quite significantly. Obviously if I'd thought I would have realized that this could be due to other, legitimate, app-specific optimizations being prevented at the same time.
Considering "quackified" scores indicative of the 8500's "true" performance (on that driver set) without the buggy mipmap selection suffers from the same falacy as considering AntiDetected UT2003 scores indicative of NV3x's "true" performance with full trilinear.
Meanwhile, the 8500 didn't do trilinear at all when AF was enabled. Obviously that was almost two chip generations ago (another way for saying, "just last chip generation") but it does go to show how far we've come to be worrying about problems with partial trilinear that apparently can't even be seen in most situations.
EDIT: And if you're referring to the fact that the 8500 didn't do trilinear at all when AF was enabled...it didn't do trilinear at all when AF was enabled! It wasn't a driver bug but a hardware limitation; AFAIK, the 9200 you can go out and waste your money on buy today will have the exact same behavior. And straight bilinear is way way more noticeable than this partial trilinear NV3x is using in UT2003.
Except that when you compare a part that is doing no or partial trilinear to a part that is doing full trilinear (AF or no) then it's not a fair comparison, is it? I wouldn't expect people to compare bilinear-AF on an 8500 to trilinear-AF on a GeForce card, or, if they did, then the image quality differences need to be pointed out.
Agreed entirely. I'm not saying [H] was right to run their original 5900 review and not mention that the UT2003 partial trilinear issue existed. What they should have done in the first place is what they ended up doing after complaints and pressure--run their own tests to see if the partial trilinear impacted IQ or not.
My only issue is with people bagging on [H] after they made an apparently good-faith effort to do the right thing, and merely came to conclusions that people didn't like. I say "apparently" because in light of Dave B.'s new screenshots, it seems that the pics in the [H] article may not be representative of the game as a whole. Still, "never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence."
If you're referring to the "quack" scandal, what was going on there was that the 8500 was for some reason fetching really high mipmaps (i.e. mipmaps with far too little detail) for a handful of textures in Q3 which were nonetheless heavily used enough to make a big difference in both performance and IQ. Unlike the current issue, the IQ loss was extremely noticeable when it existed.
No, he wasn't referring to that. 8500 also had a Bi/Trilinear mix functionality. Read [H]'s 8500 Revisited review fo their views on it then and the use of mipmap colorings.
Interesting reading (http://www.hardocp.com/article.html?art=MjU1LDM=). Thanks for the tip.
As for [H]'s views of the issue back then, it seems to come out of the "here are the results of a bunch of tools I don't entirely understand, so I'll just print it all under the notion that the more information the better" school of review-writing. He says that the final "image quality looks the SAME" to him (although you get the idea he didn't bother to look very hard or check in motion), but gives the mipmaps anyways and then proclaims that Nvidia is "a bit" ahead in quality. Several screenshots, but only two completely contradictory sentences of text.
Kyle and Brent have expressed time and time again their frustration as a review site and just how much more difficult the job is to do that, review. It's not as cut and dry as it once was when all you had to do was look at a FPS and you knew. (misses 3dfx) I find current standings much more exciting simply thinking of the potential. ATI and Nvidias hardware are apparently very differant. They also choose to render differant. In the end, I'm willing to bet, the consumer will win. Very rarely in the history of business has that failed to happen.
Well, let me suggest something novel: perhaps the "frustration" Kyle and Brent feel, as you've characterized it, stems from the fact that they might not understand the issues involved and therefore are overreaching when doing anything beyond writing a fluff piece for the benefit of the manufacturer?
I mean, anybody at home can pull out fraps or turn on a game-engine frame counter and jot down the numbers it spits out. Anybody at home can run 3DMK03 and record the scores it generates. That's why being a hardware review site entails much greater knowledge and experience than simply doing something like that. If a person feels "frustrated" when asked to go beyond the point of what anybody at home can do for himself I think it's apparent that he's admitting he isn't qualified to look at the situation under the kind of critical magnifying glass people who read hardware review sites want to see.
In this case you have Dave B. very generously and uncritically passing along the benefit of his expertise to the guys at [H] in the form of *information* which [H] can freely use---and, he gets slapped in the face and insulted for his trouble. He's banned from the forums and accused, moronically, of having an "agenda." It would be laughable if it wasn't so sad.
The purpose of the Internet, since the guys at [H] apparently are a bit behind on the subject, is to dispense information. It's not called the "information superhighway" for nothing. People go to the Internet over any other kind of media in order to get the kind of information the manufacturers won't provide and the paper magazine fluff pieces almost always seem to miss. That's the attraction and the charm of Internet forums. Over the years I've received a lot of valuable information in these venues that is unavailable anywhere else. I have also been able to pass on a few things from time to time that I've picked up in my experience which has benefitted others. A more accurate term might be to call the Internet the "information-sharing superhighway." People frequent technical forums precisely because they can often explore information not available on the PR-propaganda pages of a given company's web site.
By doing things like assuming an [H] "community" while overlooking the larger Internet community at large, [H] is simply shooting itself in the foot, if not the brain. Tactics of attempting to control the information on the Internet are doomed to complete failure, because the Internet is far, far larger than *any* single web site within it. It's like trying to control a 300-foot high tidal wave by putting your finger in a tiny hole in a 20-foot tall dike. It's ludicrous to try and control the information content of the Internet by clamping down on the information shared in a single web-site forum. Anyone who tries it will fail--there's no question about it.
To that end, my own estimation of the "frustration" you've described is that it comes from a certain sense of being unable to control what people think. Why else would you ban individuals, delete posts, lock threads, and all of the rest if not to attempt to control what the people who are reading your forums are thinking? Why else, indeed. Attempting to control the thinking of your forum members who are free to visit any site they choose on the Internet has got to be excruciatingly frustrating even at the "best" of times, because it simply cannot be done.
As a remedy, I would propose that the staff at [H] recognize they are fighting a war that they cannot ever hope to win, and a war they must inevitably lose no matter how many people they ban or how many threads they delete and lock. I would urge them to go easy on themselves and stop looking at things through the tainted lens of ideology, and relax, settle back, and let the information flow. There is no reason to fear information, or the exchange of less-than-perfect ideas. The best and smartest of us are imperfect and there is no need to fear information because you disagree with it. Instead of wasting so much time policing his forums, Kyle might experiment with engaging people in a discussion on the topics raised with which he disagrees. You can influence far more people far more effectively through persuasion than through naked attempts at censorship. Censorship is the intellectual domain of the idiot, IMO. This is something I wish Kyle would take to heart.
Heh...;) Kyle's really got some stupid nerve to term B3d the "B3d police", since the censorship tactics he routinely engages in in his own forums are exactly representative of the worst kind of "thought police" imaginable. If I didn't see it happening before my eyes I wouldn't believe it.
kkevin666
24-Jul-2003, 18:37
Heres exactly how kyle responded to a polite / direct question on his trilinear filtering knowledge
quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by FrgMstr
I did not feel comfortable saying this earlier, but I am in a WTF state of mind at the moment so....
The entire Trilinear issue was brought up with NVIDIA in face-to-face meetings over two months ago.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by Reverend
It isn't clear to me from your wording if this means [H] brought this up with NVIDIA, even given what you said below. To clarify, did [H] bring this up?
And in those two months, how many shootouts involving NV3x cards and R3x0 cards using UT2003 were written by [H]? Why was there no mention of this "entire Trilinear issue" in all those shootouts, but only in your recent-but-now-pulled UT2003 Filtering article?
Also, I need some clarification -- are you saying that we will get "true Trilinear" in UT2003 in "their upcoming driver set"? Would this mean next driver set, or some driver set further down the road? Also, which is the "most robust driver ever seen for a video card" -- the "upcoming" one or the next one? If the next one is not the one you refer to as "upcoming", then which one (next or upcoming) will allow "full trilinear" in UT2003?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by FrgMstr
Congrats on your first post with the mighty unwashed. It only took you over five years....funny that it should be about getting credit.
You can have all the credit. I will state here right here right now that B3DPolice are fully responsible for getting this issue fixed. I am glad to see that Dave solved this problem months ago......You can have 100% credit for it all, as I really don't care.
It is sad that you have let all your influence mean nothing in an industry that you could have truly helped shape. Anthony, you have truly wasted what could have been greatness in the industry on the likes of VE and B3. I can fully say you are one of the wasted talents in our industry that was bound for greatness and lost it to the disappointment of many.
Greatness...thrown away. It makes me sad to see such talent wasted on B3DPolice postings.
Thats the most well thought out anwser the man could give?
Do not trust ANYTHING this man says.
Blackwind
24-Jul-2003, 18:39
Kyle and Brent have expressed time and time again their frustration as a review site and just how much more difficult the job is to do that, review. It's not as cut and dry as it once was when all you had to do was look at a FPS and you knew. (misses 3dfx) I find current standings much more exciting simply thinking of the potential. ATI and Nvidias hardware are apparently very differant. They also choose to render differant. In the end, I'm willing to bet, the consumer will win. Very rarely in the history of business has that failed to happen.
Well, let me suggest something novel: perhaps the "frustration" Kyle and Brent feel, as you've characterized it, stems from the fact that they might not understand the issues involved and therefore are overreaching when doing anything beyond writing a fluff piece for the benefit of the manufacturer?
I mean, anybody at home can pull out fraps or turn on a game-engine frame counter and jot down the numbers it spits out. Anybody at home can run 3DMK03 and record the scores it generates. That's why being a hardware review site entails much greater knowledge and experience than simply doing something like that. If a person feels "frustrated" when asked to go beyond the point of what anybody at home can do for himself I think it's apparent that he's admitting he isn't qualified to look at the situation under the kind of critical magnifying glass people who read hardware review sites want to see.
In this case you have Dave B. very generously and uncritically passing along the benefit of his expertise to the guys at [H] in the form of *information* which [H] can freely use---and, he gets slapped in the face and insulted for his trouble. He's banned from the forums and accused, moronically, of having an "agenda." It would be laughable if it wasn't so sad.
The purpose of the Internet, since the guys at [H] apparently are a bit behind on the subject, is to dispense information. It's not called the "information superhighway" for nothing. People go to the Internet over any other kind of media in order to get the kind of information the manufacturers won't provide and the paper magazine fluff pieces almost always seem to miss. That's the attraction and the charm of Internet forums. Over the years I've received a lot of valuable information in these venues that is unavailable anywhere else. I have also been able to pass on a few things from time to time that I've picked up in my experience which has benefitted others. A more accurate term might be to call the Internet the "information-sharing superhighway." People frequent technical forums precisely because they can often explore information not available on the PR-propaganda pages of a given company's web site.
By doing things like assuming an [H] "community" while overlooking the larger Internet community at large, [H] is simply shooting itself in the foot, if not the brain. Tactics of attempting to control the information on the Internet are doomed to complete failure, because the Internet is far, far larger than *any* single web site within it. It's like trying to control a 300-foot high tidal wave by putting your finger in a tiny hole in a 20-foot tall dike. It's ludicrous to try and control the information content of the Internet by clamping down on the information shared in a single web-site forum. Anyone who tries it will fail--there's no question about it.
To that end, my own estimation of the "frustration" you've described is that it comes from a certain sense of being unable to control what people think. Why else would you ban individuals, delete posts, lock threads, and all of the rest if not to attempt to control what the people who are reading your forums are thinking? Why else, indeed. Attempting to control the thinking of your forum members who are free to visit any site they choose on the Internet has got to be excruciatingly frustrating even at the "best" of times, because it simply cannot be done.
As a remedy, I would propose that the staff at [H] recognize they are fighting a war that they cannot ever hope to win, and a war they must inevitably lose no matter how many people they ban or how many threads they delete and lock. I would urge them to go easy on themselves and stop looking at things through the tainted lens of ideology, and relax, settle back, and let the information flow. There is no reason to fear information, or the exchange of less-than-perfect ideas. The best and smartest of us are imperfect and there is no need to fear information because you disagree with it. Instead of wasting so much time policing his forums, Kyle might experiment with engaging people in a discussion on the topics raised with which he disagrees. You can influence far more people far more effectively through persuasion than through naked attempts at censorship. Censorship is the intellectual domain of the idiot, IMO. This is something I wish Kyle would take to heart.
Heh...;) Kyle's really got some stupid nerve to term B3d the "B3d police", since the censorship tactics he routinely engages in in his own forums are exactly representative of the worst kind of "thought police" imaginable. If I didn't see it happening before my eyes I wouldn't believe it.
I believe they understand the “issues” just fine. What you deem important, frankly, I do not. I cannot speak to the opinions of Kyle or Brent other then what I have read.
They have been up front about it. What apparently appears to be the case is that many believe there level of expressing their own opinion wasn’t good enough. If they express it and you fail to understand, but everyone else does, seems to me it may be something to do with you. What you describe as a fluff piece I describe as informative and to the point. A review of IQ. I see what you believe entails a site to be a hardware review site, a matter of opinion. Not everyone wants to read “techie junk” when trying to decide what to buy. We are fortunate as enthusiast to have several sites on the Internet that review to various levels and degrees. Simply because you prefer reviews done in a certain fashion, to a level of thoroughness, containing this or that information, or making certain statements in a certain fashion, does not make a site wrong or right in doing so.
On the subject of Dave B’s “generously and uncritically passing along the benefit of his expertise” I can say I highly enjoy reading his findings. For the reasons for Kyle’s actions there is only one person to ask, Kyle. I would state if asked whether or not Dave B. had an agenda or other in posting there my response would be I don’t know. From what can be seen or reviewed of persons who frequent B3D and have decided to post on [H] I would have to state, yes, as group they appear to have an agenda. Quite possibly, boiling down to simple guilt by association.
I do not believe [H] assumes a [H] "community" will overlook the larger Internet community at large. In fact they go to great lengths every single day and post several times day right on the front page of [H]ardOCP other sources of information. And lengths to peruse it. What you label a “naked attempt at censorship” I would point out as something that has been missing for a long time right here on this very board. The number one reason for never posting here. I have been reading B3D for about a year and a half now. Primarily links that a friend supplies me with. I had attempted to simply stroll through and find things on my own here but was very much put off by what I deem “retarded behavior.” There has been a level of improvement and that would be why I finally decided to actually setup a login of my own. B3D shines with technical expertise, and that’s why I come here to learn new things. I go to [H] for some of the very same reasons. I believe both sites do what they do rather well.
Dave Baumann
24-Jul-2003, 18:47
What you describe as a fluff piece I describe as informative and to the point. A review of IQ.
In your opinion was the conclusion correct?
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