View Full Version : New [H] editorial...
5150 Joker
12-Aug-2003, 08:47
http://www.hardforums.com/showthread.php?s=fda98598f1c621358994b62edd444a37&threadid=653287
So is everyone going to pat Kyle on the back now? I don't believe for a minute this is anything but a ploy to get hits by posting yet another controversial editorial--and I do not believe for a second that his pro-nVidia bias has changed at all.
Reply to [H] topic
so I can once again trust them with my hard earned $ and take advantage of my friend's employee discount
Oh praise the Lord! ;)
5150 Joker
12-Aug-2003, 08:54
Reply to [H] topic
so I can once again trust them with my hard earned $ and take advantage of my friend's employee discount
Oh praise the Lord! ;)
LOL I thought I was the only one that got a laugh out of that comment. :)
I think that Kyle honestly thought that Nvidia was going to start making things better, starting with being able to turn on true Trilinear filtering in the new version of the Dets. However, they apparently had been lying to him the whole time and he is seeing them for what they really are, and he's pissed that they strung him along - and that he believed them.
Just my two cents...
Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.
12-Aug-2003, 09:28
He still tried to sound reasonable, still making swipes at 3Dmark, but that's because he still can't quite reach beyond the Nvidia propoganda and into the truth of what happened. He can't quite admit the full facts to himself, but maybe he is getting there.
Now what I said a long time ago has happened. Now it's convenient for Nvidia, they have cut Kyle loose, and he's come to the realisation that the has been played for a chump. Kyle parotted the Nvidia party line while Nvidia themselves stayed silent. Now Nvdia can disassociate themselves from all the words that came via [H], and it leaves Kyle looking like a fool.
The next question is how big a patsy Kyle wants to be. I'm sure Nvidia PR will be on the phone to him today, trying to smooth things over, making more promises, saying it's company policy and not their fault. Will Kyle be taken in again, or has he finally seen the light?
Dave Baumann
12-Aug-2003, 09:32
He's done pretty much what everyone asked him to do - write about some of the elements that we know are wrong outside of the forums. Sure there were some things in there that he obviously still believes, but he's taken a stance on the actual issues and that should be applauded.
Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.
12-Aug-2003, 09:40
He's done pretty much what everyone asked him to do - write about some of the elements that we know are wrong outside of the forums. Sure there were some things in there that he obviously still believes, but he's taken a stance on the actual issues and that should be applauded.
It's a start, but as one of the main Nvidia supporters, he's got a long way to go before he balances out the damage he has done.
If sites like [H] had supported the truth of what was going on with Nvidia cheats in 3DMark, instead of supporting their friends at Nvidia, maybe Nvidia wouldn't have set the lawyers on Futuremark, and maybe Futuremark wouldn't have felt the need to capitulate. Maybe the situation would be quite different now, without having the whole state of industry benchmarking dragged into the gutter with Nvidia's non-existent principles.
EDIT: I've just re-read Kyle's editorial. He's not upset at what is a betrayal of the community, he's upset at what is a betrayal of Kyle! Nice to see his ego still isn't dented! :roll:
Reverend
12-Aug-2003, 09:48
Good to read this at HardOCP.
Not sure if this is a calculated or arranged move (and if you don't know what I mean, I'm not about to post my, er, suspicions in a public forum) but it really shouldn't matter since the editorial is there for all to read.
Dave Baumann
12-Aug-2003, 09:50
Yeah, I do wonder the same as well.
incurable
12-Aug-2003, 09:58
Good to read this at HardOCP.
Not sure if this is a calculated or arranged move (and if you don't know what I mean, I'm not about to post my, er, suspicions in a public forum) but it really shouldn't matter since the editorial is there for all to read
I think it's nice that Kyle finally saw some light and I agree with Bouncing Zabaglione Bros., this editorial is about his own hurt feelings, nothing else, nothing more.
Much more important than this local outbreak of reality in Texas is how he'll treat the nVidia's products in the future. IMHO, that'll show if he's genuinly concerned about his readers and their money.
cu
incurable
Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.
12-Aug-2003, 10:06
Good to read this at HardOCP.
Not sure if this is a calculated or arranged move (and if you don't know what I mean, I'm not about to post my, er, suspicions in a public forum) but it really shouldn't matter since the editorial is there for all to read.
You think this is a pre-arranged lead-in for Nvidia to come out and see "Gee guys, we're *really sorry* and we *promise not to do it again*. We're nice guys really - look, we've even rejoined Futuremark" ?
If so it's too little, too late. Try bringing out drivers that don't cheat. Try bringing out hardware with good IQ and good speed. Try doing something more than just upping the clock speed and whacking on a hairdryer. Try spending money on hardware design instead of marketing BS. Stop talking and bring us good products instead of lies and slow/hot/noisy/cheating/poor IQ hardware.
Reverend
12-Aug-2003, 10:08
I think it's nice that Kyle finally saw some light...
That's what I meant about my "suspicions"... I truly hope Kyle "saw the light" himself. But don't let my maybe-silly-maybe-totally-untrue suspicions cloud the fact that Kyle said what he said in his article.
CorwinB
12-Aug-2003, 10:23
Unless proven wrong, I'll take this article at face value and believe that Kyle realized what was wrong with Nvidia.
What remains :
- Kyle doesn't like 3DMark scores, but recognizes that some people use them. Fair enough. He even uses the "C." word.
- Kyle thinks the UT2K3 "false trilinear" doesn't distract from gaming experience (fair enough, although different people are affected by different IQ settings), but feels that users should be able to select full trilinear if they choose to. I think pretty much everyone agrees on this.
- He thinks Nvidia rejoining FutureMark Beta program would be pathetic. I think most people agree here too... :)
IMHO, the only thing missing is that Kyle assessed all blame to Nvidia, without questioning his own actions (his and the other "guys with webpages").
Still a good move forward.
Reverend
12-Aug-2003, 10:54
- He thinks Nvidia rejoining FutureMark Beta program would be pathetic. I think most people agree here too... :)
Not me. I think it is great that NVIDIA is back in the FM beta member fold. It is essential for a good and impartial FM benchmark application (regardless of how you view FM's benchmark applications, because we see its use), it is essential for a comprehensive-taking-opinions-from-all-sides approach to content development. Again, if you have never seen any value in 3DMark03 (for example), then this matters not a bit to you.
Sidetracking a bit off topic : many of you guys don't see any value in 3DMark03 mainly because you say it doesn't represent how games are made (or doesn't represent games at all per se). While I don't disagree with this, I think that is missing the actual picture, much like missing the picture of using various purely synthetic tests. Many folks tell me :
Just wtf do those results using MDolenc's (or pcchen's or Humus' or any others) test mean?? Sure, it gives me a bunch of stats and comparing these stats between different video cards tell me one video card is performing faster than another video card in that test... but what does it all mean really?? What about the present?
Well, yes, those stats do give you some results per se but it also may be giving us a glimpse of the future about why games look the way they do. In a year's time (or maybe two years' time), there will be games coming out bearing a "DX9 game!" advertisement and then folks will be saying "Gee, it doesn't look all that great...". Well, then perhaps it may be good to look back to such synthetic performance tests for the reason why this is so. Most likely it is becasue the synthetic test results show that a particular company's hardware isn't performing that great (in those specific synthetic tests) and this needs to be taken into account during game development. 3DMark03 however will show you what graphics (not games, but just graphics) can look like if many technologies are used, where performance considerations take a back seat (or is not even considered at all).
Sorry if this is going off-topic... just felt like rambling a bit :)
Why o why do I get the feeling Kyle and co are like a bunch of spoilt teenagers? The moment a company disagrees with them I see an article like this?
Lets be honest, and I apologise for repeating whats already been said a dozen times, Kyle and co. made their own bed with nvidia? Now Nvidia has obviously decided to cut them loose they offer this! I would have much prefered to see the guys simply admit they'd been taken for a ride due to naitivity [and I'm being kind here ;)] and to post a piece clearly defining their review objectives etc and what they'll be doing to try and help protect the consumer from underhand tactics etc.
Anyway, as others have said, its a start. Although I'd suspect this has more to do with Kyle and co. wanting to be the first with NV40 and being told nope. But hey, I guess I'm turing into a cynical old fart :roll: !
;)
K.I.L.E.R
12-Aug-2003, 10:58
3dmark 2003 (NOT 2K3, some of you guys need to learn engineering notation) is used to measure a video card's architecture and compare it against other architectures.
3dmark 2001 is a system benchmark.
Nick[FM]
12-Aug-2003, 11:10
3dmark 2003 (NOT 2K3, some of you guys need to learn engineering notation) is used to measure a video card's architecture and compare it against other architectures.
3dmark 2001 is a system benchmark.
FYI, it's not 3dmark 2k3, but not 2003 either. It's simply 3DMark03! :wink:
Don't even think about understanding why nVidia does or say something anymore.
If anything, I'd more pity nVidia of having made of confusion, both internal and external, what nearly seems to be a company policy.
I wouldn't be surprised at all if Jen Hsun Huang *seriously* believed all the BS he said about their current product line, seeing how bad communication seems to be at nVidia.
Just all IMO of course. That's based on things sources told me, and I may be seeing them in a much too exagerated light.
But if you asked some nV employees, I wouldn't be surprised if they thought [H]'s editorial was still too kind... Although I don't know about most of them, and it's thus probably not true for most of them.
Uttar
http://www.hardforums.com/showthread.php?s=fda98598f1c621358994b62edd444a37&threadid=653287
So is everyone going to pat Kyle on the back now?
Even if Kyle is being honest about this he still has a lot to explain. He still owns ExtremeTech a full public apology (not an “I am sorry I made this statement in public” on a forum). The issue about him banning people left and right for disagreeing with him also still exists and the fact that they kept the UT2003 filtering issue secret for months (according to Kyle) while they continued to post reviews using it as a benchmark.
I don't believe for a minute this is anything but a ploy to get hits by posting yet another controversial editorial--and I do not believe for a second that his pro-nVidia bias has changed at all.
I take the editorial as a step in right direction but only a step Kyle has a long way to go.
Ooh.... that must have been a painful editorial to write. It's too little, too late but good to see nevertheless.
At least he seems to have stopped avoiding the real issues. http://smilies.xibase.com/thumb_up.gif
MuFu.
CorwinB
12-Aug-2003, 12:37
Not me. I think it is great that NVIDIA is back in the FM beta member fold. It is essential for a good and impartial FM benchmark application (regardless of how you view FM's benchmark applications, because we see its use), it is essential for a comprehensive-taking-opinions-from-all-sides approach to content development. Again, if you have never seen any value in 3DMark03 (for example), then this matters not a bit to you.
Sidetracking a bit off topic : many of you guys don't see any value in 3DMark03 mainly because you say it doesn't represent how games are made (or doesn't represent games at all per se). While I don't disagree with this, I think that is missing the actual picture, much like missing the picture of using various purely synthetic tests. Many folks tell me :
Well, I do see the value of 3DMark03 as a synthetic benchmarking tool (especially for individual test results), although I disagree with the "gamer's benchmark" title. Also, I certainly see value in IHVs participating to the beta program in good faith. But NV rejoining the Beta program after several months of dissing the benchmark (either directly or through the "guys with webpages" gang) and complaining about the price does not improve FutureMark's credibility at all, especially after the "it's only an optimization" backpedaling exercise... IMHO, NV rejoining the program would not be to actively and honestly participate in it, but rather to further destroy FM's credibility and bury 3DM before next year.
It's just a PR-move, they set a scene for R360 launch at the end of August. At that time HL2 benchmark also will be released. GeForce-line is poor at pixel shading performance-wise and when AA is enabled in HL2, their cards look so bad it's beyond belief.
What NVidia has to do is paint a very negative picture of themselves and they used trilinear filtering for that. When HL2 is benchmarked and everybody is convinced that NVidia is doomed (so to speak), they come up with new drivers and apologies etc. Suddenly Kyle, Anand, TomsHardware etc. are eager to give them a second chance.
"See - NVidia is good company. They really care about us. They listen to us. They apologied and fixed the filtering. Just wait for Det50 and HL2 performance will be top notch by the time the actual game is released. And their next card is SUPER and just around the corner".
Or something along the lines of that; just wait and see :lol:
Ooh.... that must have been a painful editorial to write. It's too little, too late but good to see nevertheless.
At least he seems to have stopped avoiding the real issues. http://smilies.xibase.com/thumb_up.gif
MuFu.
Its not necessarily too little, too late, when it comes to a change of heart. From what I gather from the editorial, Kyle did the community some good service by at least addressing the issue to Nvidia directly. Kyle did not publicly damn Nvidia because he is on good terms with them and they gave him alot of promises. Now he realizes that they basically lied to him. Kyle still has work ahead of him to regain trust, but IMO that editorial is a good step forward as it exposed his vulnerability that he can be led by the hand.
martrox
12-Aug-2003, 13:11
I have to say “BRAVO” to Kyle for this – it’s about time. And I have to agree with him on everything he said here – including the 3DM03 part – just not for the same reasons. Futuremark rolling over and becoming nVidias’ bitch has totally destroyed Futuremarks objectivity and reputation, and has basically made the benchmark useless when trying to compare products from different manufacturers.
As far as Kyle goes….well, it’s time to wave the olive branch, and give him the benefit of the doubt here. If he has a failing, it’s his pride and stubbornness – guess it goes with the “[H]ard”(ie. male ego/testosterone poisoning) thing…… ;). For those who have questioned his honesty, I think this more than covers it. However, this does bring up the realization (I hope you remember this, Kyle) about just how important it is for these websites to remain objective in all things. It’s the least you owe your readers.
5150 Joker
12-Aug-2003, 13:20
I have to say “BRAVO” to Kyle for this – it’s about time. And I have to agree with him on everything he said here – including the 3DM03 part – just not for the same reasons. Futuremark rolling over and becoming nVidias’ bitch has totally destroyed Futuremarks objectivity and reputation, and has basically made the benchmark useless when trying to compare products from different manufacturers.
As far as Kyle goes….well, it’s time to wave the olive branch, and give him the benefit of the doubt here. If he has a failing, it’s his pride and stubbornness – guess it goes with the “[H]ard”(ie. male ego/testosterone poisoning) thing…… ;). For those who have questioned his honesty, I think this more than covers it. However, this does bring up the realization (I hope you remember this, Kyle) about just how important it is for these websites to remain objective in all things. It’s the least you owe your readers.
So you honestly believe he's going to be objective from here on out? :lol: He did a huge disservice to his readers for months by leading them astray and I'm sure many spent a lot of money on these cards after paying attention to his ramblings. I wouldn't be so quick to forgive him...
Rev,
normally I would agree in part with NV joining back to FM. However to me they seem like that Spolied Child we see at the stores. You know the one where he aks his mom for a candy bar, she says no, then the kid throws an un-holy temper tantrum, cries, throws stuff until sooner or later Mom finally gives in and gets the candy bar just to shut him up. I feel the same way here. Question is will NV do this again when they dont get their way in the future? What about ATI? Again having all major players on board is a good thing. However after what happened here, I will be a bit more cautious...
I am glad Kyle stood up for the consumer! He still needs to do more (like that B3D Police and banning dave still rubs me wrong).
kyle has a good point or two... but they are the same points that have been echoed for ages around the web...
and it still irks me that we have to read all his trilinear/bilinear stuff which happens to be... IMO... an incorrect assessment... especially in light of benchmarking... to get to his point...
90% of the article is bogus and could very well have been edited out... it is after all an editorial...
ah well... least he eventually got to the point...
kudos ?
K.I.L.E.R
12-Aug-2003, 14:05
Uttar: A CEO of any corporation is out to make money. They are not out to set ethics. Some companies will go to ANY lengths to make as much money as possible.
That includes things like coverups, insider trading, etc...
Not every company behaves that way. Keeping the examples well outside this industry, think Ben & Jerry's.
They're doing just fine, thankyouverymuch, while pursuing 'ethical' company policy.
OTOH, one could read the whole thing as Kyle's continuing crusade against FM. "IF this is true it simply leaves me numb after all the efforts that NVIDIA has expended to discredit Futuremark".
martrox
12-Aug-2003, 14:32
So you honestly believe he's going to be objective from here on out? :lol: He did a huge disservice to his readers for months by leading them astray and I'm sure many spent a lot of money on these cards after paying attention to his ramblings. I wouldn't be so quick to forgive him...
Ok, first, nowhere did I say what Kyle will do from here on out....that's up to Kyle. Joker, you need to read exactly what I said.
However, this does bring up the realization (I hope you remember this, Kyle) about just how important it is for these websites to remain objective in all things. It’s the least you owe your readers.
There is no reason to carry a grudge here.... I'm sure that many here will attest that no one here took Kyles' stance any worst that I did - I'm the one quoted - and condemned - as saying he is an ass! I meant that as in "stubborn as an jackass! :wink: While in retrospect I shouldn't have gotten personal, I'm pretty sure, in retrospect, Kyle wishes he hadn't accepted nVidia's whispers to him as the truth, too. It not only did his readers a disservice, but also did his site a great deal of damage - it's tough to regain trust that's been betrayed. BTW, if anyone buys anything, videocards included, doing so little reseach in reading only one source.....well, it's as much(or more, actually) their fault as the reviewers.
So, you can choose to hold a grudge here, and believe the worst of Kyle, or you can take him at his word - on this. So...... what's it going to be? Is Kyle the All Evil Denis Leary* of the Internet? Or, is he a person that just made a mistake, compounded by ego and stubborness?
BTW, try putting yourself in Kyles' shoes...... wouldn't you want the ability of others to forgive.......you?
*self proclamed asshole
http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Hills/4735/
Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.
12-Aug-2003, 14:50
BTW, try putting yourself in Kyles' shoes...... wouldn't you want the ability of others to forgive.......you?
That depends on whether I am holding others up to higher standards than I am holding myself up to. Do you think Kyle wants or deserves our forgiveness? Do you think he should come clean as we want Nvidia to do so? Do you think he should earn our forgiveness and trust, rather than being given it on the basis of finally admitting what the rest of us knew all along?
This editorial is a small step. Yes it's a forward step for Kyle, but it's still only a small one, and it still only the start of the journey before I'll let him off the hook for misleading readers (like I used to be) and for contributing greatly to the situation we find ourselves in now.
Hellbinder
12-Aug-2003, 15:21
This Article means exactly Squat. He'll just deny its exsistance or meaning by 4 Oclock This afternoon if it suits him. Look at how he even today twists, Lies, and rewrites the entire Quak event while at the same time Spinning every move Nvidia does into a posotive light.
If anyone thinks otherwise they are a Fool who does not learn from history. Let none of you forget that this Jackass even Banned Dave Bauman, and has all his little Faithful Zombie followers convinced that The leaders and moderators of B3D and even Nvnews (mikeC) are nothing but Mindless Fanboys.
Its really Sad that one person can be so totally *Blind* and Borderline Delisional.
Reverend
12-Aug-2003, 16:37
Hellbinder, you are entitled to your opinion but it appears the way you express them in our forums is not welcomed.
I was thinking of either editing your post or deleting it... but I'll let it stand... I think letting it stand is a better form of a reminder of just what we don't appreciate here.
Reverend
12-Aug-2003, 16:40
Rev,
normally I would agree in part with NV joining back to FM. However to me they seem like that Spolied Child we see at the stores. You know the one where he aks his mom for a candy bar, she says no, then the kid throws an un-holy temper tantrum, cries, throws stuff until sooner or later Mom finally gives in and gets the candy bar just to shut him up. I feel the same way here. Question is will NV do this again when they dont get their way in the future? What about ATI? Again having all major players on board is a good thing. However after what happened here, I will be a bit more cautious...
I am glad Kyle stood up for the consumer! He still needs to do more (like that B3D Police and banning dave still rubs me wrong).
The question isn't if NVIDIA would do this again. The question is how FM will react if NVIDIA does this agin.
In almost all of my emails to Markus Maki and Patric Ojala, I have always made it a point (and made sure they know it) that I don't speak diplomatically or formally. Just to let you know how I personally deal with FM.
Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.
12-Aug-2003, 16:40
:lol: Made the Inq http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=10994 :lol:
Ozymandis
12-Aug-2003, 16:41
Seems strange that Kyle would bite the hand that feeds him...
Oh, sorry, didn't mean to say that out loud :twisted:
I think he owes his readers an apology, but I doubt it's forthcoming. This is a start, at least.
epicstruggle
12-Aug-2003, 16:46
im reposting this from the press release section as that part of the forum doesnt get alot of attention. :)
I dont think this has been said, but could NV be getting back into the beta program because NV40(or whatever the next gen. card is called) can perform very well in 3dmark03. If memory serves me right they got out of the beta program because nv30 pretty much sucked at this benchmark.
With rumors that NV40 could be around the corner, they might have run tests showing that NV40 has increased its score and so they can come back to the beta program.
[conspiracy mode on]
This could very well explain [h] editorial, and create a (premade) scenario where NV, apologizes and states that their new products will be cheat free.
[conspiracy mode off]
just my 2 cents.
later,
epic
martrox
12-Aug-2003, 16:49
Jesus!......not very Christian* here.......are we?
* as in turn the other cheek :wink:
BTW, I'm not Christian myself, but at least I can open myself up to the possibility of forgiveness...... Of course, at my age, I have to be able to give up a grudge....else they would weigh me down! Righteous indignation is the realm of the young........ and it's not very righteous! :shock:
epicstruggle
12-Aug-2003, 16:53
...
Let none of you forget that this ******* even Banned Dave Bauman, and has all his little Faithful Zombie followers convinced that The leaders and moderators of B3D and even Nvnews (mikeC) are nothing but Mindless Fanboys.
...
I dont want to go off topic, but did this really happen?
later,
digitalwanderer
12-Aug-2003, 17:08
Good to read this at HardOCP.
Not sure if this is a calculated or arranged move (and if you don't know what I mean, I'm not about to post my, er, suspicions in a public forum) but it really shouldn't matter since the editorial is there for all to read.
I agree. It's good, but it could be a scam too. :(
If nVidia comes out today and admits the errors of their ways since Kyle showed them the light and swears never to sin again, I for one will personally not be surprised..."outraged", "livid", & "ranty-shouty" are more terms that come to mind. ;)
EDITED BITS: This post stood out to me:
quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by SacLANd
thanks for the link, in fact i hate to say but i stopped looking at the Hocp homepage because i find the same info here.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
We know, that is why we drop the links in here. It is all good though.
He knows? He noticed that his frontpage hits are disappearing and people are only going to his forums?
And he then does what everyone asks him to do....
(Yeah, I'm the overly paranoid type lately. ;) )
Fred da Roza
12-Aug-2003, 17:12
I think it's nice that Kyle finally saw some light...
That's what I meant about my "suspicions"... I truly hope Kyle "saw the light" himself. But don't let my maybe-silly-maybe-totally-untrue suspicions cloud the fact that Kyle said what he said in his article.
Pure speculation here but I am guessing since [H] have recently (for the past 7 months or so) demonstrated a blatant bias towards nVidia, they have lost their usefulness as a nVidia PR tool. This editorial is a premeditated attempt to regain [H] credibility.
Edited for grammar.
Well Nvidia's next product release wil have 3dmark hardware acceleration built in to. Seriously , Nvidia probably received working silicon recently that had good performance in 3dmark and have decided it suits their purpose again.
In regards to Kyle
"Forgive but don't forget!"
Don't forget the mass bannings.
Posting of personal information and suggesting ppl. submit there email addresses to pornographic sites.
Don't forget Dave being banned !
Don't forget how he went to other Forums such as Rage 3d and taunted members.
This list is could be near endless. Being blind to Nvidia cheating is only one of the many revolting behaviors Kyle has exhibited. "Don't be so harsh in judging him" should be balanced by "Don't forgot the past so quickly"
Fred da Roza
12-Aug-2003, 17:20
double post
digitalwanderer
12-Aug-2003, 17:23
]3dmark 2003 (NOT 2K3, some of you guys need to learn engineering notation) is used to measure a video card's architecture and compare it against other architectures.
3dmark 2001 is a system benchmark.
FYI, it's not 3dmark 2k3, but not 2003 either. It's simply 3DMark03! :wink:
For your information "Mr.Smarty-pants", it's '3dm2k3'. :roll:
;) :p
Killer, was it you I had the "2k3 does NOT equal 2003!" argument with?
Sharkfood
12-Aug-2003, 17:24
Wow! This is a funny article!
Kyle and [H] after completely playing the role of PR/IHV puppet, blind to all facts and reality, harshly disposing of and censoring all reality from their readerships eyes, and going to absolutely all ends necessary to push NVIDIA products throughout all the product releases/review cycles is now trying to revert back to reality?
It's WAY too late! The plan/agenda and project set forth by NVIDIA was to puppeteer sites like [H] to soil and obfuscate the product release/review cycle in order to gain sales. Simple reality. [H] participated fully and did so with zeal and willingness, pulling out all the stops towards this end. It's all over now. The mission was completed with flying colors. The object was to soil and taint and all goals were achieved.
This reminds me of prisoners of war waving a flag of surrender while they sit in jail. It's too late- the battles are all long over.
brent_anderson
12-Aug-2003, 17:25
<snip>....
In regards to Kyle
"Forgive but don't forget!"
Don't forget the mass bannings.
Posting of personal information and suggesting ppl. submit there email addresses to pornographic sites.
Don't forget Dave being banned !
Don't forget how he went to other Forums such as Rage 3d and taunted members.
This list is could be near endless. Being blind to Nvidia cheating is only one of the many revolting behaviors Kyle has exhibited. "Don't be so harsh in judging him" should be balanced by "Don't forgot the past so quickly"
Agree, he is 50% redeemed for his actions ;) I am still waiting for the apologies to the readers and reinstatement of the banned into the fold......
Brent
digitalwanderer
12-Aug-2003, 17:27
<snip>....
In regards to Kyle
"Forgive but don't forget!"
Don't forget the mass bannings.
Posting of personal information and suggesting ppl. submit there email addresses to pornographic sites.
Don't forget Dave being banned !
Don't forget how he went to other Forums such as Rage 3d and taunted members.
This list is could be near endless. Being blind to Nvidia cheating is only one of the many revolting behaviors Kyle has exhibited. "Don't be so harsh in judging him" should be balanced by "Don't forgot the past so quickly"
Agree, he is 50% redeemed for his actions ;) I am still waiting for the apologies to the readers and reinstatement of the banned into the fold......
Brent
Gotta agree with that, I still can't post there. :)
A sudden epiphany has occurred. Suddenly all of us that got banned turned out to be correct.
Question is will Kyle come clean and reinstate those he banned for being correct and honest and truthful. Will his ego allow that?
Doomtrooper
12-Aug-2003, 17:50
As of last night, using NVIDIA’s new driver set, we were not able to turn on true Trilinear Filtering in UT2K3. We went to NVIDIA and asked about this. They explained that we had never been told what we thought we had been told. It seemed to turn into a semantics game
You know we talked about this, him being played...we were not the 'bad guys'. The only reason why the article was written was because of the above situation. Nvidia promised Kyle full Trilinear and he actually expected them to listen to him, and lose all their benchmarks in UT 2003...not going to happen :lol:
The article is overdue, but it is a start anyways.
MasterBaiter
12-Aug-2003, 17:52
It's good to see him finally acknowledge his errors in judgement . I do agree with Kyle in regards to Nvidia going back to FM though. Or rather I should say how do you ally yourself with a company you just tore down and attempted to discredit? It seems to be a hypocritical thing to do IMO.
It's hard to take someone seriously if they don't maintain an objective POV on subjects, and Kyle has shown that he has not remained objective. His responsability is to his readers, not to Nvidia, so he may feel betrayed by Nvidia, but it makes me wonder how his readers feel about him. :oops: Code of ethics aside, I still go to his site, but I take a salt shaker with me now. :lol:
Kyle should have done this long ago. No way am I going to congratulate him for doing what should have been done in the first place.
Funny, for months he labeled anyone who pointed out these cheats and "optimizations" as fanboys who should be banned from his forums. Now that Nvidia has personally pissed him off he goes on this rant. Where was this rant when Nvidia was defrauding his readers with their cheats as Kyle sat by and defended them?
Kyle owes a HUGE apology to his readers. Period.
Whether you like the guy or not, this is a good thing for the community. We smaller sites (mostly this one ;)) have been aware of this for a long time but never had the voice or the clout that [H] has. But now that Kyle has turned around, hopefully it'll bring some new awareness to the sad state of NVIDIA, drivers, and benchmarking.
I'm grateful for that.
However, this sort of outlash we have seen before. Anyone remember the whole CPL fiasco @ [H]? It's the same sort of thing here. Kyle feels crossed by NVIDIA and he lashes out leveraging his biggest weapon: his site and his community.
I have to say, I'm pleasantly pleased to see the [H] take some shots at NVIDIA. Perhaps NVIDIA will finally smarten up and produce products that are worth the money paid.
One thing that makes me wonder however, what do the licensees think of all this? Abit has been vocal these days on political issues, don't they have an opinion as to what NVIDIA is doing? What about DELL? Certainly this bad press can't be helping their bottom line. How come we don't see any licensees or large OEM companies leaning on NVIDIA? Seems like it's only the community making noise and no one else.
- Jonathan.
Doomtrooper
12-Aug-2003, 18:07
How come we don't see any licensees or large OEM companies leaning on NVIDIA? Seems like it's only the community making noise and no one else.
The internet 'community' makes up a very small portion on sales overall...and large OEMs only care if they sell. There is little 'ethics' in big business...the only time Dell would say something if the part is faulty and costs THEM money.
Sharkfood
12-Aug-2003, 18:14
Absolutely. And I'm baffled some people are still falling for it.
How can there be any such thing as 50% regaining of respect for a mission set out and accomplished? Kyle and [H] have completed their mission in every way, so I'd expect this kind of rebuttal after the fact, but a bit confused by those that aren't able to figure out the reality.
Marketing lives by increasing returns. It's a goal of IHVs with new product releases. This goal is to get a new product momentum on the market since once this momentum is established, it's fairly hard to slow down. It's the same old story as the old VHS/Beta debate, even though Beta was technically superior.
Figure Car A and Car B are released and assume both are equal. If a consumer goes out and randomly buys Car A, when he gets it home, more people are exposed to Car A and therefore rules of increasing returns may give Car A additional sales (which in turn improves the effect). Car A has been given the momentum to likely surpass Car B, even though both are assumed equal. It's standard marketing practice.. and in the case of Beta/VHS, the one with the initial momentum was even inferior to the previous.
The current generation of video hardware relies on the same kind of marketing momentum, but with the side effect of manipulation by the IHV. Kyle/[H] participated in this manipulation and has done so throughout the entire product release, preview and review process. Other websites did this during the preview/pre-release process, but fell back during the review process due to moral implications or felt the manipulation was too obvious or insulted the intelligence of the consumer. [H] stuck to the program and continued to form the agenda.
It is just silly now that the entire product preview, release, review cycle has been totally manipulated... (as in long, long Game Over) to then go back and try to take the opposite standpoint. People should be more intelligent than to suddenly think it's "okay" to participate in such agenda, then months after the fact to think an appology will regain confidence and re-establish the source as being somewhat trustworthy. The deals have been done. The mission/goal was completed 100%.
The only way Kyle/[H] can regain confidence is for the next generation of hardware to be unbiased or without agenda/IHV manipulation. There is absolutely nothing that can be done now that the whole process is over to objectively regain this. From the standpoint of manipulating initial product launch/IHV agenda, it has been done to completion.. and still stands on his pages unchanged.
digitalwanderer
12-Aug-2003, 18:18
The internet 'community' makes up a very small portion on sales overall...and large OEMs only care if they sell. There is little 'ethics' in big business...the only time Dell would say something if the part is faulty and costs THEM money.
Yes, but the 'community' is what people listen to when they really want to know what-the-what is...and I DO feel that word-o-mouth on how lousy the 5200s are will catch up with nVidia and bite-em-in-the-arse!
We are a little, tiny portion of their sales...but out of curiousity how many times a day are you asked for advice on what video card to get? :lol:
How come we don't see any licensees or large OEM companies leaning on NVIDIA? Seems like it's only the community making noise and no one else.
The internet 'community' makes up a very small portion on sales overall...and large OEMs only care if they sell. There is little 'ethics' in big business...the only time Dell would say something if the part is faulty and costs THEM money.
Well DELL is selling more and more PCs using the 3DMark benchmark. They're also marketing Dimension PCs towards gamers too. You'd think that using marketing material based on tainted data would make DELL a little squeemish (could be false advertising? :?: ).
I certainly think this is costing Dell money... but perhaps not enough to be worried about.
Update:
Just took a stroll through the Dell support forums... no chatter about Kyle's editorial there.
brent_anderson
12-Aug-2003, 18:20
<snip>.... Will his ego allow that?
That is the real question. Kyle's ego got him into this. Let’s see if it will let him get out!
Kyle needs to swallow a little pride, apologize to the readers, and have a mass un-banning fest ;) , and maybe grow a little bit in the process. IHHO, it would go a long way in reestablishing his credibility in the community.
I think the "other" WWW sites have made an effort to clean up the personal attacks in the forums, not to the extremes that the [H] goes to, (thank god), but at least keeping it civil.
That was brought about by people who disagreed with Kyle's position on the whole NVIDIA thing, (some got banned for it! ), but still listening to his complaints, agreeing with them, and taking action.
Now it is his turn to listen and act.
I DO NOT want him and the [H] to turn into another Tom Pabst/Tom’s Hardware site ;) .
Brent
brent_anderson
12-Aug-2003, 18:22
<snip>....Code of ethics aside, I still go to his site, but I take a salt shaker with me now. :lol:
Same here....
Brent
Unless proven wrong, I'll take this article at face value and believe that Kyle realized what was wrong with Nvidia.
....
That's the way I take it, and I do applaud him for finally figuring out some pretty obvious things...but when I say "applause" I mean it in the sense of applauding a slow ten-year-old who's had four years of lessons but has only just managed to learn how to read his first complete paragraph...;)
My own take is that what really served as a bucket of cold water and brought him out of his trance was the revelation that nVidia's rejoining the FutureMark beta program. I think the allusions to the failure to fix UT2K3's trilinear was actually only a subtext to his real issue here--realizing that despite what nVidia's been assuring him of privately the company has its own agenda which does not include consultation with [H] (or getting clearance from [H].) It reminds me of the old saw about the husband being the last to know that his wife's been cheating with everybody in town...;) He's discovered that nVidia's not actually "listening to him" at all. That was the proverbial straw.
Nevertheless it is refreshing to hear him make forthright commentary on these issues at last. Whatever the reason he woke up, I'm glad he did. Better late than never. I don't see the need for further apology--admitting he's been set up as a dupe until now is apology enough for me.
Well DELL is selling more and more PCs using the 3DMark benchmark. They're also marketing Dimension PCs towards gamers too. You'd think that using marketing material based on tainted data would make DELL a little squeemish (could be false advertising? :?: ).
I certainly think this is costing Dell money... but perhaps not enough to be worried about.
Update:
Just took a stroll through the Dell support forums... no chatter about Kyle's editorial there.
Companies can refer to 3dMk all they like--whatever trips their triggers. But that doesn't mean people are buying hardware based on 3dMk results...
I know I never have--that's never been an issue for me regarding these issues. Whether I'm buying systems or 3d cards, 3dMk doesn't figure. I find it diversionary, but that's about it. I am frankly puzzled by the importance some companies give the 3dMk benchmark results. After all, it is but one bench out of hundreds and does not exist in a vacuum.
brent_anderson
12-Aug-2003, 18:37
<snip>..... I don't see the need for further apology--admitting he's been set up as a dupe until now is apology enough for me.
Only if he stays "enlightened" and does not stray off the path again ;) ,and even then it will take time* to earn the trust back.......
"Fool me one time, shame on you, fool me two times, shame on me"
Brent
*of course a little groveling would make that a really short amount of time, (hey, I also have an ego, stroke it baby! ;) )
trilobyte
12-Aug-2003, 18:38
I'm glad that Kyle finally got out of his Nvidia comma and came back to reality
But what pisses me off is there's no apology from HIM. For months, he endlessly defended Nvidia, bad mouthing critics, bad mouthing those writing articles that took issue with Nvidia, bad mouthing his fans in forums.
And now, he writes with no apology with how duped he was. He's using this article to make himself out to be this "computer enthusiast leader" of sorts -- he never states how WRONG he was and how WRONG he was to criticize his own readers. Instead, the tone of his article suggest that he was behind the community all along! GAH
He should walk around with a huge sign saying "HYPOCRITE"...but at least he sees that Nvidia isn't what it's all that's cracked up to be.
Oblivious
12-Aug-2003, 18:40
My own take is that what really served as a bucket of cold water and brought him out of his trance was the revelation that nVidia's rejoining the FutureMark beta program. I think the allusions to the failure to fix UT2K3's trilinear was actually only a subtext to his real issue here--realizing that despite what nVidia's been assuring him of privately the company has its own agenda which does not include consultation with
I think you're underestimating the way the UT2K3 issue has played out for Kyle. He took a lot of heat for that editorial about filtering and his biggest defense was that nVidia would allow the user to select full trilinear in the next Dets. Now that they are upon us, any user can go out and see that this is not the case. This makes Kyle look naive, foolish and uninformed to his community at [H] and it makes everyone who took the opposite stance look good (at his expense).
digitalwanderer
12-Aug-2003, 18:51
Unless proven wrong, I'll take this article at face value and believe that Kyle realized what was wrong with Nvidia.
....
That's the way I take it, and I do applaud him for finally figuring out some pretty obvious things...but when I say "applause" I mean it in the sense of applauding a slow ten-year-old who's had four years of lessons but has only just managed to learn how to read his first complete paragraph...;)
:lol:
I'm enjoying this morning WAY too much.... :lol:
digitalwanderer
12-Aug-2003, 18:54
This makes Kyle look naive, foolish and uninformed to his community at [H] and it makes everyone who took the opposite stance look good (at his expense).
Ain't a nice, fresh dose of reality neat! :lol:
(Sorry, sorry..I'll stop.)
TMorgan
12-Aug-2003, 19:05
I'm glad that Kyle finally got out of his Nvidia comma and came back to reality
But what pisses me off is there's no apology from HIM. For months, he endlessly defended Nvidia, bad mouthing critics, bad mouthing those writing articles that took issue with Nvidia, bad mouthing his fans in forums.
And now, he writes with no apology with how duped he was. He's using this article to make himself out to be this "computer enthusiast leader" of sorts -- he never states how WRONG he was and how WRONG he was to criticize his own readers. Instead, the tone of his article suggest that he was behind the community all along! GAH
He should walk around with a huge sign saying "HYPOCRITE"...but at least he sees that Nvidia isn't what it's all that's cracked up to be.
That's absolutely true. He started bashing 'synthetic benchmarks' because nvidia told him that they're doing a 'disfavor to community' (sadly disfavor to GFFX is more true as synthetic stuff has been the only thing that shows 2.0 PS speeds so far). He should come through all the way and admit that it was silly to blame the tools instead of the company that deliberately went out of their way to cheat with those tools.
To me it seems more like a play than a genuine thing (altough I'm sure nvidia is not delighted either way). Nvidia will remove the trilinear thing, Kyle will be the hero of the day for [/sarcasm on] 'forcing nvidia to play clean' [/sarcasm off] and they'll be buddies again.
(sorry if my comments about Kyle seem somewhat biased against him, but he's done this kind of stunts so many times that I think that's not unjustified)
- Tom
All the witty conspiracy stories aside that some on B3D love getting into, the editorial serves it's purpose by bringing forward the issue of Nvidia and cheating to a mainstream hardware site. Better late then never. For that I say bravo to Kyle.
But do please continue the Kyle is on Nvidia's payroll conspiracy theories. They are entertaining.
Its all a plot to get hits. Im sure the next PR report Nvidia sends out will be eaten up by everybody at H and once again everybody will think 3dmark is the one at fault here, not nvidia.
I wouldnt trust any of his editorials until atleast 2 weeks afterwards when you see what else happens
Its funny how everybody on the forum is treating this report as gospel like a bunch of blind lemmings
I don't think Kyle owes anyone an apology except maybe a few webmasters. Kyle was being attacked from every direction imaginable from all of us. He had a difference of opinion and we forced it out of him by making allegations and attacking his charactor. It's almost like we expected more out of him but we allowed other mainstream hardware sites to remain silent in a way to sweep Nvidia's actions under a rug.
I believe for Kyle to come this far into the game and then do a total 180 on the subject took alot of balls. Some people though just seem to be out for blood and will continually attack him even though today he has given most of us what we wanted all along. It just took longer than we had planned.
demalion
12-Aug-2003, 19:53
All the witty conspiracy stories aside that some on B3D love getting into, the editorial serves it's purpose by bringing forward the issue of Nvidia and cheating to a mainstream hardware site. Better late then never.
And better on-time than late. Does your catch phrase seem to add weight to these statements to you?
Maybe there is a problem with being late, and people having a problem with Kyle might have reason. Does your condescension do anything to address that?
For that I say bravo to Kyle.
OK, and some people have higher standards.
Myself, I think this is a positive step, but not making things worse anymore isn't enough for a "bravo" out of me. This in no way invalidates that your standards for positive progress can be what you want them to be, but the condemnation of others for having higher expectations seems a pretty nonsensical addition.
But do please continue the Kyle is on Nvidia's payroll conspiracy theories. They are entertaining.
I do believe your representation of "everyone else's" viewpoints as a universal is simplistic and insulting. Why do you feel your praise of Kyle can't stand without it?
I know that other theories besides the "payroll" and "conspiracy" theories are being presented, and that some of them have pretty extensive support that has been shared. Maybe you could continue that discussion somewhere else instead of insulting and baiting in this thread?
I have a feeling we're all being setup for another big PR move by nVidia... nVidia will probably make an official statement about Kyles editorial and attempt to "apologize" to the community, then Kyle will say something like "oh nVidia apologized. All is well now. Go back to buying their cards (but make sure you use the links on my page to do so! Subscribe to these magazines while you're at it!). Oh, and btw, 3Dmark03 rocks! Use it everywhere!". Then, through some crazy wormhole of reality, nVidia will once again be great, the past will be forgotten (except the Quack issue) and everything will be seen in shades of green. Horray for nVidia!
it all stinks of a big plan...
digitalwanderer
12-Aug-2003, 20:06
I have a feeling we're all being setup for another big PR move by nVidia... nVidia will probably make an official statement about Kyles editorial and attempt to "apologize" to the community, then Kyle will say something like "oh nVidia apologized. All is well now. Go back to buying their cards (but make sure you use the links on my page to do so! Subscribe to these magazines while you're at it!). Oh, and btw, 3Dmark03 rocks! Use it everywhere!". Then, through some crazy wormhole of reality, nVidia will once again be great, the past will be forgotten (except the Quack issue) and everything will be seen in shades of green. Horray for nVidia!
it all stinks of a big plan...
"CLANG!", says the hammer as it meets the nail just perfectly.
I think you're underestimating the way the UT2K3 issue has played out for Kyle. He took a lot of heat for that editorial about filtering and his biggest defense was that nVidia would allow the user to select full trilinear in the next Dets. Now that they are upon us, any user can go out and see that this is not the case. This makes Kyle look naive, foolish and uninformed to his community at [H] and it makes everyone who took the opposite stance look good (at his expense).
I can see your point, but don't you think it's odd that someone would do a (14 pages was it?) multi-page article on "Trilinear Filtering in UT2K3", complete with a host of screen shots, simply on what you knew was a driver anomaly which you were told was going to be fixed in a couple of weeks? I mean, it seems like an awful lot of attention for a condition you've been told wouldn't even be relevant in a couple of weeks...
Rather, I'd suspect that if at the time you were assured this was a temporary condition you might might do a few screen shots and simply say: "Yes, it's not trilinear filtering but nVidia has assured me that owners of nVidia products will get full trilinear operability with the game in the next upcoming driver release." Also, if I made such a statement I would directly attribute it to the person at nVidia who had provided me with this information.
But from what I saw of the article it appeared as little more than a long-winded attempt to apologize for the absence of trilinear, as [H] went to great pains to demonstrate how it looked through many selective screen shots which they said subjectively looked fine to them and so the absence of trilinear wasn't really that big a deal. They further bashed people who used the game engine's native color-coded display option to reveal filtering levels by calling them "anal" something or others (please excuse me if I've confused frgmstr's forum ramblings whith the article itself.)
So why would you do all of this to defend a practice you had "been told" was only temporary? Just doesn't make sense to me...Why defend it at all, if you believe it's only temporary? What would be the point?
That's why I think what happened is that [H] defended nVidia first, and then "called on" nVidia to reinstate the option in the game for those "anal" types that had to have it. He was amazed to discover that, contrary to his belief, nobody at nVidia was listening to him, when he called on nVidia but they didn't respond and when they reentered the 3dmk03 program despite his opinions of the benchmark...;) I hope frgmstr realizes that the idea at nVidia was to get him to listen to them, and if pretending to listen to him was the price they had to pay, then so be it...
demalion
12-Aug-2003, 20:08
Well, there you go Dean, a viewpoint I disagree with, stated strongly but without baiting.
I understand where you are coming from, and I understand quite clearly the idea of "if you don't recognize someone for doing right, you work towards encouraging them to do wrong".
In that vein, I'm just going to continue my practice: discuss Kyle's past shortcoming only when they are directly relevant to something newly significant. For instance, I don't think the "nVidia PR plan" is an unreasonable theory, but it isn't the only one I see as being supported strongly by Kyle's behavior: therefore, I'm not going to spend time putting it forward.
In actuality, the continued attack on Futuremark for the (lack) of reasons Kyle has provided seems a continued and significant problem to me, but others speak on that already and I can just point to past discussion if that topic comes up, instead of continuing to comment on it. This is primarily due to the factor of Futuremark's shortcomings in communicating with consumers, and whether they can/will avoid continuing them.
But as far as reviews on [H], I think the editorial is an important step that means that each [H] review from now on won't be a new opportunity to discuss Kyle's shortcomings, both personal and as present in the standards he sets for his site based on them.
I think that will result in a reprieve from some of the continued and emphatic derision for Kyle, and I think that absence is his suitable reward for the editorial. Do you propose anything else was earned?
MasterBaiter
12-Aug-2003, 20:09
Oh yeah, I can see Nvidia's next PR blitz...
Kyle Bennet - The way it's meant to be played! :twisted:
Oblivious
12-Aug-2003, 20:26
That's why I think what happened is that [H] defended nVidia first, and then "called on" nVidia to reinstate the option in the game for those "anal" types that had to have it. He was amazed to discover that, contrary to his belief, nobody at nVidia was listening to him, when he called on nVidia but they didn't respond and when they reentered the 3dmk03 program despite his opinions of the benchmark...;) I hope frgmstr realizes that the idea at nVidia was to get him to listen to them, and if pretending to listen to him was the price they had to pay, then so be it...
That's certainly a possibility as well although I'd be surprised if Kyle ever thought he had that much influence over nVidia. Either way, nVidia left Kyle out to dry on this issue.
Doomtrooper
12-Aug-2003, 20:29
And why would they not, Kyle runs a Webpage..we all know how important the benchmarks are today. Most print magazines show a few benchmarks like UT 2003 and 3Dmark.
If Nvidia is forced to used full trilinear they will lose that Benchmark, and sales...and believe it or not Nvidia is not going to 'lose' money to please Kyle :D
I don't think Kyle owes anyone an apology except maybe a few webmasters.
So then you believe that what [H] started spewing back last December until today was all directed at "a few web masters" and nobody else? If you can demonstrate that you'd have a point.
Kyle was being attacked from every direction imaginable from all of us. He had a difference of opinion and we forced it out of him by making allegations and attacking his charactor. It's almost like we expected more out of him but we allowed other mainstream hardware sites to remain silent in a way to sweep Nvidia's actions under a rug.
Heh...;) You make it sound as if "all of us" personally attacked frgmstr without the slightest provocation. What about the websites he attacked without provocation--simply because they disagreed with his "opinions"? What about the people who frgmstr attacked because of their "difference of opinion"?
But all of that's beside the point, IMO. Frgmstr's *opinion* was attacked because he had no opinion--at least, no opinions on these issues that he could back up either intellectually or through the attribution of third parties. He admitted such today, in my view.
I believe for Kyle to come this far into the game and then do a total 180 on the subject took alot of balls. Some people though just seem to be out for blood and will continually attack him even though today he has given most of us what we wanted all along. It just took longer than we had planned.
I didn't "want" anything from frgmstr. I'm glad he finally had an epiphany and has at last reached an understanding--for his sake, I'm glad. Doesn't much affect me, though, as I had no similar problems with these issues from the start. To me, this is a lot of sentimental claptrap. Frgmstr often makes references to himself as a "journalist"--OK, fine. Perhaps now he'll start *acting* like a journalist and learn the value of attribution, and learn that stopping one's ears and closing one's mind does not a journalist make.
...
That's certainly a possibility as well although I'd be surprised if Kyle ever thought he had that much influence over nVidia. Either way, nVidia left Kyle out to dry on this issue.
Heh...;) Believe me, this is not my invention...
There's a thread around here somewhere, and at present I'm too lazy to look it up, but it's a reprint of a frgmstr statement quoted verbatim from within his forums, in which he flatly states ..."nVidia listens to us..." [Quote, Unquote]
I felt sorry for him when I read that because I knew he actually believed it.
Oblivious
12-Aug-2003, 20:50
There's a thread around here somewhere, and at present I'm too lazy to look it up, but it's a reprint of a frgmstr statement quoted verbatim from within his forums, in which he flatly states ..."nVidia listens to us..." [Quote, Unquote]
I felt sorry for him when I read that because I knew he actually believed it.
I remember the thread you're referring to. Being friendly is one thing but thinking he'd be able to singlehandedly affect company policy is quite another. I think Kyle was simply stating there was an exchange of trust and respect in the relationship, not power or influence (at least not the levels you're insinuating). Of course, it's all a facade on nVidia's part but he didn't know that at the time.
Cliched analogy I know, but Kyle writing that editorial must have felt a little like Neville Chamberlain did making his speech on September 1, 1939.
And the perspective of course is that we are only talking about videocards, not world changing events, bruised egos aside.
I remember the thread you're referring to. Being friendly is one thing but thinking he'd be able to singlehandedly affect company policiy is quite another. I think Kyle was simply stating there was an exchange of trust and respect in the relationship, not power or influence (at least not the levels you're insinuating). Of course, it's all a facade on nVidia's part but he didn't know that at the time.
We aren't that far apart. I don't think frgmstr thought he was running the company--I just mean that he thought he was listened to enough to have some influence with them--that they valued his "insight" so to speak and would be inclined to heed it at certain times. I think this is what they wanted him to believe so that when they passed on certain "information" they wanted him to publish he would be more inclined to do so as he had an idea he was "a part of the process."
And the perspective of course is that we are only talking about videocards, not world changing events, bruised egos aside.
Heh...;) Another analogy might be that one man's WMD is another man's 3d card...;)
Oblivious
12-Aug-2003, 21:15
We aren't that far apart. I don't think frgmstr thought he was running the company--I just mean that he thought he was listened to enough to have some influence with them--that they valued his "insight" so to speak and would be inclined to heed it at certain times. I think this is what they wanted him to believe so that when they passed on certain "information" they wanted him to publish he would be more inclined to do so as he had an idea he was "a part of the process."
You're quite right that we aren't that far apart but I feel the small difference in our interpretations of his comments are important ones. I certainly appreciate your opinion on the matter and it is a possibility, I just don't see it being very likely. I guess this is one of those times when I will have to respectfully disagree with your conclusion although I do understand where you're coming from.
Joe DeFuria
12-Aug-2003, 21:43
Well, I haven't read ALL the comments in this thread, and I only got to read the snippints from the article posted here. (I won't visit [h]).
Based on that, it appears the following happened:
1) nVidia didn't do what Kyle told his readers they would: deliver a driver with fixed trilinear in UT.
2) Kyle goes on nVidia rant.
No real conspiracy theories from me. It's just predictable Kyle Ego IMO...nothing more, nothing less. nVidia made Kyle look bad, so Kyle will try and make nVidia look bad.
Anyone not remember how Kyle treated Matrox after not sending him a Parhelia? Same ol'...same 'ol.
McElvis
12-Aug-2003, 21:58
Anyone not remember how Kyle treated Matrox after not sending him a Parhelia? Same ol'...same 'ol.
Ha, funny you should mention that...
article]As far as the actual hardware goes, the Radeon R3XX series still remains the most impressive VPU introduction in recent memory as it truly revolutionized the way we play games and continues to do so. On the other end of the scale we have the GeForceFX 5800 series that without a doubt turned into the biggest joke in our community since Matrox brought us the Parhelia
Joe DeFuria
12-Aug-2003, 22:13
Ha, funny you should mention that...
article]As far as the actual hardware goes, the Radeon R3XX series still remains the most impressive VPU introduction in recent memory as it truly revolutionized the way we play games and continues to do so. On the other end of the scale we have the GeForceFX 5800 series that without a doubt turned into the biggest joke in our community since Matrox brought us the Parhelia
Lol... :D
My issue with kyle is similar to my issues with Tom Pabst a few years ago. It's not that he's a fanboi of any particular vendor...he's too much of a fanboi of himself.
I also read that Kyle seems to be taking it pretty hard that nVidia re-joined the Futuremark beta program....again, the problem is not that nVidia is dissing Kyle...it's that Kyle actually believed that nVidia wouldn't do such a thing.
And while Kyle is well within his rights to blast nVidia for doing such things...he never turns inward to himself and asks why...why when everyone else who he's banned, mocked, chastized, etc for telling him this exactly was bound to happen....why he wouldn't listen?
Cliched analogy I know, but Kyle writing that editorial must have felt a little like Neville Chamberlain did making his speech on September 1, 1939.
Good to see that history isn't lost on some of us.
5150 Joker
12-Aug-2003, 23:02
Ok, first, nowhere did I say what Kyle will do from here on out....that's up to Kyle. Joker, you need to read exactly what I said.
Sorry I wasn't posting it as a rebuttal to anything you said but more of a rhetorical question. :)
There is no reason to carry a grudge here....
I don't hold a grudge but I refuse to trust him until he can at least learn to put aside his ego and actually listen to what others have to say--and perhaps learn not to be strung along so easy by an IHV (if that was even the case) next time. Maybe I'm asking too much?
-long diatribe-
What are you talking about? All these stories of Kyle being paid off by Nvidia in doing this ARE conspiracy stories, NOT fact until proven otherwise. If you have a valid point to make, please do it without twisting my words.
Fred da Roza
13-Aug-2003, 00:52
All the witty conspiracy stories aside that some on B3D love getting into, the editorial serves it's purpose by bringing forward the issue of Nvidia and cheating to a mainstream hardware site. Better late then never. For that I say bravo to Kyle.
But do please continue the Kyle is on Nvidia's payroll conspiracy theories. They are entertaining.
I have to admit Kyle’s article is quite the editorial, succinct, uncompromising and without any delay so soon after the release of the promised drivers.
Timing is important. If this editorial was published 3 to 4 months ago it probably would have stigmatized the NV3x product line. At this late stage of its life cycle, it probably will have very little impact on nVidia bottom line, especially considering the impending release of NV40. I truly hope this editorial reflects the opinion of the author. If so I won’t have to wonder what information [H] is withholding every time I read a [H] nVidia product review. I’ll hold my accolades for Kyle until the next round.
digitalwanderer
13-Aug-2003, 01:08
Wouldn't it be funny if nVidia re-enabled trilinear on the drivers before they released 'em tomorrow just to spite Kyle.... :lol:
True, this is not the end all be all of this story. From past experience, I know that Kyle can be very stubborn and this not the first time he has gone on a banning spree either. Some may recall the the P4 HT benchmark fiasco, where once again stubbornness won over common sense. Don't see this as that much different really.
Everyone has some bias, but when that bias gets in the way of truth, that's when the problem arises, as was in this case. So no, I don't think Kyle is conspiring with Nvidia, just that he can be too narrow minded on certain issues.
Windfire
13-Aug-2003, 01:18
The Editorial was refreshing to be honest.
However, I think what HardOCP really needs is some apologizing themselves. What a perfect opportunity to say that HardOCP unfortunately let their eagerness to cuddle up with Nvidia influence and taint their accuracy as well. They started down the slippery slope and soon found themselves sliding far further than they expected.
I would then like to have Kyle outline the goals and procedures that will be implemented to try to prevent this kind of incident from happening again.
Why should I suddenly look at HardOCP any differently? I have seen no evidence that a true change is going to take place. I see no outlines on what they plan to do differently. All I see is mud on HardOCP’s face and a finger pointing at Nvidia (with 4 other pointing back at themselves).
I would then like to have Kyle outline the goals and procedures that will be implemented to try to prevent this kind of incident from happening again.
Your joking right?.......just how serious do you take this stuff...?
Why should I suddenly look at HardOCP any differently? I have seen no evidence that a true change is going to take place. I see no outlines on what they plan to do differently. All I see is mud on HardOCP’s face and a finger pointing at Nvidia (with 4 other pointing back at themselves).You speak as though [H] is your girlfriend, and she has been caught cheating....outline goals and procedures?....lol, this is getting too funny. [H] isnt going to do anything like that for you, if they've traumatized you as much as you make it sound, just tell 'em to fuck off, and be done with them. I think I've grown numb to the whole matter.....
Wouldn't it be funny if nVidia re-enabled trilinear on the drivers before they released 'em tomorrow just to spite Kyle.... :lol:
Oh that would just make you orgasmic wouldnt it :roll:
digitalwanderer
13-Aug-2003, 02:14
Wouldn't it be funny if nVidia re-enabled trilinear on the drivers before they released 'em tomorrow just to spite Kyle.... :lol:
Oh that would just make you orgasmic wouldnt it :roll:
We may just get lucky and find out... ;)
Ewww........ I cant waite :roll:
Oh what a tangled web you weave when you practice to decieve. :roll:
tamattack
13-Aug-2003, 05:19
Is this a case of "he's damned if he does and damned if he doesn't"?
While I don't doubt that his motivations may not be as altruistic as his wording would indicate, I see little reason to rag on Kyle for this editorial. Cut the guy a little bit of slack and let's wait and see how this all plays out.
(Ragging on him for banning Dave, well, that's legitimate... but outside the scope of this topic). :wink:
demalion
13-Aug-2003, 06:14
-long diatribe-
What are you talking about? All these stories of Kyle being paid off by Nvidia in doing this ARE conspiracy stories, NOT fact until proven otherwise.
Well, since you asked.
Addressing this comment of yours:
Both the theories that he was and was not being "paid off" are "not facts" (or, as more accurately phrased, "not proven", as far as info commonly available, to my knowledge)...your opinion contrary to the "conspiracy" theories is not "proven" at all, and seems actually contra-indicated by observation.
The idea of "innocent until proven guilty" you are introducing is a principle of fairness in making absolute statements, not one of whether something is reasonably indicated or not. Our legal system is based on "reasonable doubt", that is supposed to start from an absolute of innocence...whom we trust does not, as other people quite commonly have selfish motives that cost us to benefit themselves. Facts are quite reasonably indicative that Kyle is on "the nVidia payroll" (though I'd disagree with those who say that is the only reasonable indication), and also non-indicative of him not being on such a "payroll".
Your opinion that it is an invalid (or perhaps unfair, and you misspoke above?) conclusion is not a fact. Only some people's opinion on fairness (including mine, because of my care with what I label as "proven"), and the absence of some facts for this particular issue, supports that stance, not the facts concerning his actions and words that have been presented. What you are presenting as a complete absence of facts with regard to a "conspiracy theory" is really just your deciding where to draw the line on what facts to dismiss as inconclusive for your decision regarding trusting him without having to defend why your "trust criteria" evaluation makes more sense than anyone else's.
If you want to discuss the facts observed about Kyle's behavior and whether it is fair to for people to conclude as they have for their own working opinion/trust of Kyle based on existing facts and observations, then I suggest that you introduce facts that work to counter them when doing so instead of confusing "not ironclad and absolutely proven" with "not reasonably indicated". My own theory is decidedly not related to "payroll", but I don't have facts to propose it over that one...maybe you can share some I don't know about?
Rewording some of the last post:
Not all of the people who are not saying "bravo" to Kyle are simply proposing such a "payroll conspiracy theory", and it is seems useful to use names instead of "some B3D posters" when proposing your viewpoint in disagreement, since quite a few B3D posters seem to make statements that disagree with your viewpoint.
If you have a valid point to make, please do it without twisting my words.
If you have a useful reply to my observation that people who you might be condemning might simply have higher standards to apply to Kyle than you do when you do say "bravo", and that "late is not better than on-time" and might still be a problem in Kyle's behavior, why did I have to reply again to receive it? If you don't think these comments of mine are relevant to your intent, protesting that you didn't notice my saying it was not a useful reply to work towards indicating why.
What in God's good name are you talking about? Read my post again and try to understand it and not over analyze it this time. It's not that hard. Don't try to make things more difficult then they are. It's just a website and I'm not going to waste my time trying to explain a very simple post about Kyle of all people.
You just like to drown people out with your histrionics.
If you have conclusive proof that Kyle is on Nvidia's payroll, bring it forward, otherwise please clam down. Innocent until proven guilty and all that. Conjecture and your personal feelings, or even Kyle's own bias is NOT proof of anything other then that Kyle is biased. Saying that Kyle's editorial is linked with Nvidia's PR campaign is obviously a conspiracy story, until we seem some hard evidence.
digitalwanderer
13-Aug-2003, 07:43
If you have conclusive proof that Kyle is on Nvidia's payroll, bring it forward, otherwise please clam down. Innocent until proven guilty and all that. Conjecture and your personal feelings, or even Kyle's own bias is NOT proof of anything other then that Kyle is biased.
I don't think anyone has accused Kyle of accepting payment from nVidia or being on their payroll in this thread. The payment I think most are refering to is all the ego stroking nVidia gave to Kyle and some favoratism for reviews and inside info and such.
I really don't think anyone here seriously thinks that Kyle is taking cash under the table from nVidia. :roll:
I don't think anyone has accused Kyle of accepting payment from nVidia or being on their payroll in this thread. The payment I think most are refering to is all the ego stroking nVidia gave to Kyle and some favoratism for reviews and inside info and such.
I really don't think anyone here seriously thinks that Kyle is taking cash under the table from nVidia. :roll:
Actually that's exactly what some people have accused Kyle of on this very thread. But beyond just the question of money, it's the question of Kyle being permanently allied with Nvidia, which from all indications seems false. He may have erroneously defended Nvidia's position on more then one occasion due to his "friendly" relations and ego, but that does not mean he is permanently tied in with Nvidia's marketing department and is completely to oblivious to the truth as some are suggesting. If anything, this editorial proves that Kyle is capable of blaming Nvidia for what they did. But the future will tell us even more.
it all stinks of a big plan...
"CLANG!", says the hammer as it meets the nail just perfectly.
Yaya, I'll second that comment.
Some people seem to believe that since he came out with this article 11 months late that this totally wipes the slate clean. Wrong! He has been in conjunction with Nvidia on this whole soap opera decieving consumers and is trying to save face. For those that don't know the full story, they applaud him as a hero which is exactly what he was aming for. For those in the know, it is a differnet story. Isn't BFG associated with Nvidia. I'm not going to suggest anything but he sure does have a "strong" relationship with that company since day 1.
There is no slate to wipe clean. We all know Kyle's biases. That he can look beyond that for once and say the truth, is a good sign. That's what my "bravo" was meant for, not to portray Kyle as a champion of the people.
I don't know, I guess I'm just not looking hard enough for a conspiracy theory here. :?
Entropy
13-Aug-2003, 09:26
I don't know, I guess I'm just not looking hard enough for a conspiracy theory here. :?
I find your continous harping on "conspiracies" irritating. Since it is only possible to observe the results, not the causes, people try to use their knowledge of the world and people in it to fathom the reasons why Kyle acted so strangely. A lot (most?) fields of science work exactly the same way when trying to analyze something unobserveable.
Since the other explanation essentially seems to be that "Kyle is stupid and easily misled due to egomaniacal tendencies", I'm not sure that a "money" explanation is necessarily less likely, nor less flattering.
Entropy
Edit:
From what I've seen of Kyles writing over time, I'd say:
Growing egomaniac tendencies - Yes
Posturing as representing the "common enthusiast" - Yes
Stupid - No
Which is why I find it difficult to fully buy into any theory for his behaviour that presupposes that the guy is incapable of understanding the issues involved.
Also, for the record, I think it is good that he speaks out against the actions of nVidia, regardless of what his reasons for doing so may be, as their actions IMHO have to be condemned by the reviewing community.
Its funny how everybody on the forum is treating this report as gospel like a bunch of blind lemmings
Distrubing isn't it that this is the "informed" community, yet also seems to be the most gullible. Kyle bashes nVidia once, and suddenly he's reliable.
What a load of crap. You earn trust and respect, you don't buy it with an editorial saying what we wanted him to say. We wanted him to say it months ago, it's far too late now, and frankly, of little use considering that the nv35 is already out in the field, and has been for some time.
It's nice to see [H] attack nVidia for valid reasons, but that doesn't make Kyle in the slighest bit better. He's doing this because it suits him, and when it suits him to be biased again, he will.
I don't care for a thing that man posts until he is posting facts for facts sake, not to sate his latest mood.
Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.
13-Aug-2003, 11:08
Its funny how everybody on the forum is treating this report as gospel like a bunch of blind lemmings
Distrubing isn't it that this is the "informed" community, yet also seems to be the most gullible. Kyle bashes nVidia once, and suddenly he's reliable.
.
I think a lot of people want to be seen to be encouraging Kyle in the right direction. Like a little child, Kyle needs careful encouragement to keep him doing the right thing, otherwise he'll get a scowl on his little face and go back to his bad old ways. Bad Kyle, bad Kyle!
There's also those that want to be seen to be very reasonable, to rise above it all. They feel that what they say carries more weight if it is said in a calm, reasonable fashion, rather than a mad rant. They are probably right.
There are however, a lot of us here who need to see more than just one sulky webpage generated by Kyle's bruised ego. Like you, I belive that trust and forgiveness should be earned, and that one qualified and conditional webpage from Kyle does not make up for all the damage he has done in the past year. Until I can see a true change in the man's attitudes, rather than this self-serving public sulk, I have no reason to treat his actions differently than the opinions I have from all his previous support of Nvidia. Just because Kyle's ego is bruised and is now posting bias in the other direction, that does not mean he has suddenly become more technically informed or objective.
In case u miss it,here is comment from tweaktown:
"I read Kyle Bennett’s latest editorial blasting on nVidia and their various benchmark optimizations at HardOCP last night and at the end of it I was left wondering what the actual point of it was. What was he trying to achieve? Does he have another reason for being annoyed at nVidia? Why did he let his personal opinion publicly judge a multi million dollar company in a negative manor? These are the questions which left me in a daze.
What Kyle neglects to acknowledge, whether intentionally or not, is that nVidia are a huge company which on the outside may appear to act on every word us enthusiasts say (at least Kyle Bennett thinks this and hopes this), but deep down will and should do whatever it takes to improve the bottom line for their share holders – just like any real business with any real business sense. Sure, nVidia may have made a few bad judgments over the past 8 or so months with benchmark optimizations but it is nothing which ATi (and I dare say many other companies) have not delved into in the past to help their bottom lines as well, which again Kyle neglects to acknowledge. This is the real world, companies are out to make as much money as possible – it’s not the sugar coated enthusiast world which Kyle makes it out to be!
Kyle had no right to publicly degrade nVidia to the extent he did in his latest editorial. Kyle must get off his high horse which he has been riding for the past few years and get down to the facts instead of trying to make himself out as an American saviour for the PC enthusiast or whatever he thinks he wants to be - it’s truly pathetic and futile. Everyone is entitled to their public opinion; some people just need to learn how to control it and realize when enough is enough."
Its funny how everybody on the forum is treating this report as gospel like a bunch of blind lemmings
Distrubing isn't it that this is the "informed" community, yet also seems to be the most gullible. Kyle bashes nVidia once, and suddenly he's reliable.
.
I think a lot of people want to be seen to be encouraging Kyle in the right direction. Like a little child, Kyle needs careful encouragement to keep him doing the right thing, otherwise he'll get a scowl on his little face and go back to his bad old ways. Bad Kyle, bad Kyle!
There's also those that want to be seen to be very reasonable, to rise above it all. They feel that what they say carries more weight if it is said in a calm, reasonable fashion, rather than a mad rant. They are probably right.
There are however, a lot of us here who need to see more than just one sulky webpage generated by Kyle's bruised ego. Like you, I belive that trust and forgiveness should be earned, and that one qualified and conditional webpage from Kyle does not make up for all the damage he has done in the past year. Until I can see a true change in the man's attitudes, rather than this self-serving public sulk, I have no reason to treat his actions differently than the opinions I have from all his previous support of Nvidia. Just because Kyle's ego is bruised and is now posting bias in the other direction, that does not mean he has suddenly become more technically informed or objective.
I find it even more disturbing that you guys are so intent on bashing Kyle for making a stand on the issue and at least making a difference for the people out there who actually play games on the PC (yes, there are people who actually do that *gasp!*) At least there are people like Dave Baumann, Reverend, and Sharkfood, that voice their thoughts loud enough on webpages to be heard by companies like ATI and NVIDIA. Whilst the rest of you are bashing Kyle without restraint, just remember, there are people out there who do want the best for their games, and are at least making a difference in the process.
Right now NVIDIA are sweating due to this editorial. When NVIDIA had us all in a conference call due to the whole 3DMark03 cheating issue, I, along with others, told them what gamers want and don't want, and optimizations in synthetic benchmarks aren't what we want, and taking away control of image quality in our games is not what we want, and so on. We're voicing our opinion, and whether NVIDIA hears us or not is up to them, but they're at least hearing our voices. Bashing people within the community for making a stand to get these companies to realize what we want is hardly something I'd call a bright idea.
Joe DeFuria
13-Aug-2003, 14:04
I find it even more disturbing that you guys are so intent on bashing Kyle for making a stand on the issue and at least making a difference for the people out there who actually play games on the PC (yes, there are people who actually do that *gasp!*)
I personally find Kyle disturbing....because it is obvious to me that Kyle only stands for himself, not for gamers. Note that whatever is good for Kyle's site, and Kyle's personal success, is not necessarily good for gamers.
And when he does finally voice "a negative opinion" on nVidia, and this DOES happen to coincide with what's good for gamers, that doesn't change my opinion of him, nor does that mean he earns my respect. Why? Because I know that the next IHV that caters to Kyle, will get good press from Kyle. Regardless of how good or bad that IHVs practices or products are for gamers. And I know that the next IHV that ignores or "does Kyle wrong, will get negative press. Regardless of how good or bad that IHV's practices and products are.
Right now NVIDIA are sweating due to this editorial.
I'm not sure about that. Might be mildly annoyed.
Bashing people within the community for making a stand to get these companies to realize what we want is hardly something I'd call a bright idea.
But what if one person within the community is making a stand for himself, and not the community?
Matt, I agree with you for the most part.
Just one thing: A lot of people are not bashing Kyle for this editorial he's written now, but for what he's done in the near past. The editorial is good for us all, and most of us are probably very glad that Kyle has done that. But that doesn't let us forget that Kyle has banned Dave, what was quite a joke, don't you agree?
swanlee
13-Aug-2003, 14:16
Kyle has brought evey bit of this on himself. He waited months to write an article like this on Nvidia when he knew months before anyone else what was going on. He playcated users of his site for months basically doing Nvidia's damage control for them and now that he apparently has had a personal falling out does he say what eveyone here had known and thought.
All of this from the Nvidia Damage control to this editoral has been because of him and his ego. He is unable to actively inform his readers if it does not benefit him in some way. now that his perosnal ties with nvidia seem to be cut it's his own ego that is striking back at them. He protected them when it served him well and now lashes out in anger over being used. If he had any integrity he would have reported on the facts when he knew them regardless of how it benefited him personally.
This is why he is bashed and this is why his latest editorial is just another example of kyle's self serving need. I agree with everything he said in the article, the problem is it was months to late and he wrote for purely self serving reasons.
Its funny how everybody on the forum is treating this report as gospel like a bunch of blind lemmings
Distrubing isn't it that this is the "informed" community, yet also seems to be the most gullible. Kyle bashes nVidia once, and suddenly he's reliable.
.
I think a lot of people want to be seen to be encouraging Kyle in the right direction. Like a little child, Kyle needs careful encouragement to keep him doing the right thing, otherwise he'll get a scowl on his little face and go back to his bad old ways. Bad Kyle, bad Kyle!
There's also those that want to be seen to be very reasonable, to rise above it all. They feel that what they say carries more weight if it is said in a calm, reasonable fashion, rather than a mad rant. They are probably right.
There are however, a lot of us here who need to see more than just one sulky webpage generated by Kyle's bruised ego. Like you, I belive that trust and forgiveness should be earned, and that one qualified and conditional webpage from Kyle does not make up for all the damage he has done in the past year. Until I can see a true change in the man's attitudes, rather than this self-serving public sulk, I have no reason to treat his actions differently than the opinions I have from all his previous support of Nvidia. Just because Kyle's ego is bruised and is now posting bias in the other direction, that does not mean he has suddenly become more technically informed or objective.
I find it even more disturbing that you guys are so intent on bashing Kyle for making a stand on the issue and at least making a difference for the people out there who actually play games on the PC (yes, there are people who actually do that *gasp!*) At least there are people like Dave Baumann, Reverend, and Sharkfood, that voice their thoughts loud enough on webpages to be heard by companies like ATI and NVIDIA. Whilst the rest of you are bashing Kyle without restraint, just remember, there are people out there who do want the best for their games, and are at least making a difference in the process.
Right now NVIDIA are sweating due to this editorial. When NVIDIA had us all in a conference call due to the whole 3DMark03 cheating issue, I, along with others, told them what gamers want and don't want, and optimizations in synthetic benchmarks aren't what we want, and taking away control of image quality in our games is not what we want, and so on. We're voicing our opinion, and whether NVIDIA hears us or not is up to them, but they're at least hearing our voices. Bashing people within the community for making a stand to get these companies to realize what we want is hardly something I'd call a bright idea.
Matt,
No disrespect but I dont think Kyle and co have of late been voicing the opinion of the so called community. In fact they have unfortunately disregarded the opinions of most and at times blatantly sugar coated one particular IHVs short comings!
Thankfully now an editorial has been posted tying to change tact but as one post said, it will take many more editorials and reviews to regain the communities trust and respect.
I'd also point out that journalistic integrity is only just being addressed with the readers and general community alike demanding that the reviewers deliver the goods and produce a well written, informative hopefully not too biased, truthful account/experience of the card in question. It wasn't long ago that the reivews simply consisted of a few popular bench marks and often mis configured and IHV biased driver settings.
As for making progress and steering the IHVs, unfortunately until I start to see some clear cut hard hitting statements from all of the sites instead of the wishy washy sitting on the fence PR bull I'm not buying it! ATI and Nvidia currently enjoy using websites as their PR extensions!
Only when a reviewer goes out and purchases one of these cards with his hard earned cash will we really begin to see the truth come out. Lets see the reviewer not care about IQ reduction having just splashed out on a $500 card! At the moment the review sites are so wrapped up in getting samples they'll often soften a hard review in order to keep on good terms with an IHV. I wonder just how grey or deep this goes?
I find it even more disturbing that you guys are so intent on bashing Kyle for making a stand on the issue and at least making a difference for the people out there who actually play games on the PC (yes, there are people who actually do that *gasp!*) At least there are people like Dave Baumann, Reverend, and Sharkfood, that voice their thoughts loud enough on webpages to be heard by companies like ATI and NVIDIA. Whilst the rest of you are bashing Kyle without restraint, just remember, there are people out there who do want the best for their games, and are at least making a difference in the process.
Matt,
no one here is bashing Kyle for standing up. They are bashing him for not standing up sooner. He started banning users on his forums when they said the same thing that his artical said. Why ban those users (even Dave when Dave had a verry polite and informative response) then and now stand up for the same thing that those ban users said? Why tell us in forums that he knows nV has been doing this for the last 3 months and still let reviews out where this is not mentioned? Is it fair to let his readers read reviews where he knows the results are skewed and not inform his reads? Does that do a dis-service to his readers? Why also tell us that there is nothing he can do about it then, and now come out with this article? Kyle had his chance on a number times were these issues were brought to light. Instead of standing up then or supporting the community he goes on a banning spree and resorts to name calling Dave and Rev. He made his bed, he now has to lie in it.
Right now NVIDIA are sweating due to this editorial.
Its about dam time the do. NV has told us on a number of ocasions that they dont optimize for 3d benchmarks. And they have been cuaght lying to us again and again. Yes I know all companies do optimize but please when asked why not tell the truth? Why say that to us? Dont they respect us enough to be honest?
dream caster
13-Aug-2003, 14:26
The editorial, was it because of all these threads, open and closed?
Matt, I agree with you for the most part.
Just one thing: A lot of people are not bashing Kyle for this editorial he's written now, but for what he's done in the near past. The editorial is good for us all, and most of us are probably very glad that Kyle has done that. But that doesn't let us forget that Kyle has banned Dave, what was quite a joke, don't you agree?
I don't care about the past, I live for the present and the future. I don't live in the past. What Kyle does in the past doesn't mean anything as to what he does now or in the future. This isn't entirely about Kyle, but about gaming and the companies that brings us products for PC gaming. That's the way I'm looking at it.
Joe:
I'm not asking anyone to change their opinion on Kyle, or to like him or hate him, all I'm doing is pointing out that what he wrote isn't necessarily bash-worthy. It amuses me to see people clamoring about the article and then say "What does it say? I'm not going there because I don't want to get HardOCP a hit and attention." (Primarily seen at Rage3D forums) Sure, Kyle loves controversy, the site thrives on it, and I think most people here thrives on it as well, but it's the end results that me and most other gamers are interested in, not Kyle. I don't intend on marrying the guy. :P
jb:
Sooner according to your views? I didn't realize there was a timetable to stand up and voice an opinion. I better start making schedules. :) I don't agree with the banning thing that HardOCP went through, and I certainly would never ban anyone like Dave, ever. In fact, in the 4 years I've been with 3DGPU, I've only had to ban 2 people, and both were warned repeatedly. No, Kyle isn't perfect, and there are things I don't agree with that he does, and I certainly don't like his sidekick, Steve, but as I said, this isn't about Kyle, it's about what NVIDIA is doing and how it is affecting gamers and reviewers. Whether or not he is timely with the opinion is a moot point, if you ask me.
I just think it's important to look at this in the light it was painted in, rather than the person behind it. A lot of people think Kyle knows the behind-the-scenes of what goes on at NVIDIA, but I know better than that. He doesn't harbor evil secrets anymore than I do. NVIDIA tells us what they want us to hear, and then we digest it and have to figure out on our own whether or not what they fed is us tasty or nasty. NVIDIA got us all together in a conference call, asked us our opinions, gave their thoughts on the whole matter, and Kyle found out they aren't acting out on their promises, to which we're finding that out too. Not to mention the whole Futuremark thing is just downright ugly. NVIDIA wanted us to forget about Futuremark and not use their products, now they've rejoined them and now I'm wondering whether they're going to call us again and ask us to forgive Futuremark. It'll be really amusing if they do.
In any case, me and Brian have put together an article outlining our benchmarking policies and our thoughts on the matter as well, because I think it's important we get that across to everyone. When it is up, I don't want people to judge the article by the person writing it, but by what the intent is and the goals are.
Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.
13-Aug-2003, 14:53
Bashing people within the community for making a stand to get these companies to realize what we want is hardly something I'd call a bright idea.
What, like the stand Kyle has been making for the last six months? :roll:
Kyle is switching sides at the last minute because he feels personally affronted that Nvidia is no longer "listening to him". Like someone on the losing side of a war, Kyle is switching to the winning side before Nvidia take him down with them. Is is something we should pat him on the head for, after all the damage he has done, all the things he has said in support of Nvidia? :roll:
Joe DeFuria
13-Aug-2003, 14:54
Joe:
I'm not asking anyone to change their opinion on Kyle, or to like him or hate him, all I'm doing is pointing out that what he wrote isn't necessarily bash-worthy.
As I originally wrote in this thread, what he wrote is just another example in a long string of exaples, of his Ego.
It amuses me to see people clamoring about the article and then say "What does it say? I'm not going there because I don't want to get HardOCP a hit and attention." (Primarily seen at Rage3D forums)
Heh...it's here too. I won't go to the site. ;)
Sure, Kyle loves controversy, the site thrives on it, and I think most people here thrives on it as well, but it's the end results that me and most other gamers are interested in, not Kyle. I don't intend on marrying the guy. :P
I understand that point of view...but my opinion that his self-serving attitude is just pushed too far, such that it becomes a disservice to the community he claims to be in support of.
I expect web masters, like IHV PR, to act in their own best interests to an extent of course. But there is a point where I feel it is taken too far, such that it actually does harm.
Coincientally, I view nVidia PR in that vien, as well as Kyle's approach to his web-site. If I patronize either, then that's just validating their approach...so I don't do it.
"What Kyle does in the past doesn't mean anything as to what he does now or in the future."
It does for ther poor smuck who read his review last month saved up and splashed out!
"NVIDIA tells us what they want us to hear, and then we digest it and have to figure out on our own whether or not what they fed is us tasty or nasty."
How do you do that? Wouldn't it be better if you posted the source and let your readers determine if it's nasty or tasty? This idea that you alone can decipher the good from the bad is a tad worrying and places a great deal of responsibilty on your shoulders. Are you going to refund your readers when you ultimately get one wrong?
"In any case, me and Brian have put together an article outlining our benchmarking policies and our thoughts on the matter as well, because I think it's important we get that across to everyone. "
I look forward to that and hope other sites do the same in fact I'd like to see the sites produce just what they base their opinions on.
Until then the whole web site graphics card reviews still come across as a bunch of teenagers managing a site from their bedroom without any realisation of the responsiblity they have. Mind you, I will add that their are FEW notable exceptions!
Doomtrooper
13-Aug-2003, 15:00
Kyle is switching sides at the last minute because he feels personally affronted that Nvidia is no longer "listening to him".
Very true :D
"NVIDIA tells us what they want us to hear, and then we digest it and have to figure out on our own whether or not what they fed is us tasty or nasty."
How do you do that? Wouldn't it be better if you posted the source and let your readers determine if it's nasty or tasty? This idea that you alone can decipher the good from the bad is a tad worrying and places a great deal of responsibilty on your shoulders. Are you going to refund your readers when you ultimately get one wrong?
It would be better, but unfortunately, for us to get information from NVIDIA, we have to sign a NDA and only release the information when they tell us to. For example, NVIDIA was supposed to release new drivers yesterday, to which we had access to for over a week. These drivers have release notes detailing the changes and additions to the drivers. We can't release the information until NVIDIA has made it official, nor can we reveal whether or not the filtering issue in UT2003 has been fixed like they promised it would be, at least until the embargo has lifted. Once the embargo does lift, we do give everything to the public, and they tell us whether or not they like it, we add our own flavor to the brew, then pass it on to NVIDIA. That's what we do, anyways.
"NVIDIA tells us what they want us to hear, and then we digest it and have to figure out on our own whether or not what they fed is us tasty or nasty."
How do you do that? Wouldn't it be better if you posted the source and let your readers determine if it's nasty or tasty? This idea that you alone can decipher the good from the bad is a tad worrying and places a great deal of responsibilty on your shoulders. Are you going to refund your readers when you ultimately get one wrong?
It would be better, but unfortunately, for us to get information from NVIDIA, we have to sign a NDA and only release the information when they tell us to. For example, NVIDIA was supposed to release new drivers yesterday, to which we had access to for over a week. These drivers have release notes detailing the changes and additions to the drivers. We can't release the information until NVIDIA has made it official, nor can we reveal whether or not the filtering issue in UT2003 has been fixed like they promised it would be, at least until the embargo has lifted. Once the embargo does lift, we do give everything to the public, and they tell us whether or not they like it, we add our own flavor to the brew, then pass it on to NVIDIA. That's what we do, anyways.
Yes true, NDAs are really going to catch you out. But it does beg the question why review the card on drivers that are not currently availble to the public? Again, if the reviewer had purchased the card he'd have the drivers on the CD or download site not some hotline in to Nvidias PR or development department. I appreciate it's exciting to have internal connections with the relavent IHVs (we have them too) but at the end of the day as reviewer isn't it your responsiblity to portray the card in the light of a would be buyer? Many hardware review sites especially involving camera/astronomical ones actually insist on purchasing an off the shelf unit to ensure they report on a unit that the customer will end up with. Not only would card reviewers then gain the experience of picking the card up, is it easily available, was it faulty (as some inevitably are) etc but they can then associate the price. The price is currently being completely overlooked as until it hits the reviewers pockets he's never likely to include it in his reviews stance and ultimately be able to offer a true feelings review!
Anyway, I guess things can only get better!
"NVIDIA tells us what they want us to hear, and then we digest it and have to figure out on our own whether or not what they fed is us tasty or nasty."
How do you do that? Wouldn't it be better if you posted the source and let your readers determine if it's nasty or tasty? This idea that you alone can decipher the good from the bad is a tad worrying and places a great deal of responsibilty on your shoulders. Are you going to refund your readers when you ultimately get one wrong?
It would be better, but unfortunately, for us to get information from NVIDIA, we have to sign a NDA and only release the information when they tell us to. For example, NVIDIA was supposed to release new drivers yesterday, to which we had access to for over a week. These drivers have release notes detailing the changes and additions to the drivers. We can't release the information until NVIDIA has made it official, nor can we reveal whether or not the filtering issue in UT2003 has been fixed like they promised it would be, at least until the embargo has lifted. Once the embargo does lift, we do give everything to the public, and they tell us whether or not they like it, we add our own flavor to the brew, then pass it on to NVIDIA. That's what we do, anyways.
Yes true, NDAs are really going to catch you out. But it does beg the question why review the card on drivers that are not currently availble to the public? Again, if the reviewer had purchased the card he'd have the drivers on the CD or download site not some hotline in to Nvidias PR or development department. I appreciate it's exciting to have internal connections with the relavent IHVs (we have them too) but at the end of the day as reviewer isn't it your responsiblity to portray the card in the light of a would be buyer? Many hardware review sites especially involving camera/astronomical ones actually insist on purchasing an off the shelf unit to ensure they report on a unit that the customer will end up with. Not only would card reviewers then gain the experience of picking the card up, is it easily available, was it faulty (as some inevitably are) etc but they can then associate the price. The price is currently being completely overlooked as until it hits the reviewers pockets he's never likely to include it in his reviews stance and ultimately be able to offer a true feelings review!
Anyway, I guess things can only get better!
NVIDIA told us these drivers would be available yesterday. Of course it hasn't been posted, due to either a) waiting for WHQL certification from Microsoft or b) fixing the "bug" causing filtering issues in UT2003 due to the HardOCP editorial causing a storm. FWIW, I'm reviewing a BFG 5600 Ultra on the 44.03 drivers, and may redo the benchmarks if the 45.23 drivers are released, but otherwise I make it a point not to use drivers that won't be available to the public in reviews.
As for the price of a product, I don't think that can ever be reviewed properly. We can give our opinion on bang for the buck ratio, but your wallet may be thinner or fatter compared to mine, so it's a relatively subjective thing to include in reviews. What may be expensive to me, may be cheap to you.
I find your continous harping on "conspiracies" irritating. Since it is only possible to observe the results, not the causes, people try to use their knowledge of the world and people in it to fathom the reasons why Kyle acted so strangely. A lot (most?) fields of science work exactly the same way when trying to analyze something unobserveable.
I don't care what is more or less flattering for Kyle. That's not the point. Everyone who can objectively observe the results and who has read hardocp.com for a number of years, including all there video card reviews would never come to the conclusion that Kyle is monetarily tied with Nvidia. And I would hardly try compare this with any field of science.
digitalwanderer
13-Aug-2003, 16:37
Everyone who can objectively observe the results and who has read hardocp.com for a number of years, including all there video card reviews would never come to the conclusion that Kyle is monetarily tied with Nvidia. And I would hardly try compare this with any field of science.
I have absolutely NO clue how you could possibly make this statement, truly. It just boggles me. :shock:
I have absolutely NO clue how you could possibly make this statement, truly. It just boggles me. :shock:
Have you read any video card reviews from hardocp from the last two years?
...
I don't know, I guess I'm just not looking hard enough for a conspiracy theory here. :?
Could be...;) You're assuming no conspiracy exists because you haven't seen concrete evidence of one. However, you yourself can provide no concrete evidence that such a conspiracy does not exist.
The evidence is circumstantial, but plentiful, and may accordingly be interpreted in a variety of ways--none of which is "more valid" than the other. IE, it is no more ridiculous to assert a conspiracy than it is to assert the absence of one in this case, based on the evidence, most of which is taken directly from frgmstr quotes from a variety of sources over a lengthy span of time.
So what you might want to say is: "Based on the evidence presented as I interpret it, I see no basis for concluding that a conspiracy exists. Yet, since I cannot prove that premise, I must also conclude that arguments which infer a conspiracy cannot be dismissed."
There is also the problem of defining "conspiracy" among individuals, many of whom understand the word differently. To some the word evokes images of assassins and dark doings; to others the word can mean something much simpler and less complex.
Basically, throwing off on the stated opinions of others by reducing those opinions to "conspiracy theories" is the weakest possible defense of your own argument, simply because you are as incapable of proving the absence of such "conspiracies" as they are of proving them.
My own opinion is that frgmstr has been an amiable, malleable dupe in these affairs because of personal relationships at nVidia which he has unprofessionally allowed to color his perspectives. Some might see that as an active conspiracy, some would not. I don't think putting a label on it is as important as understanding it. Frgmstr isn't being evaluated on the strength of theoretical financial renumeration which cannot be proven one way or the other. Rather, he's evaluated on the the strength of the words he's written on these issues over the past several months. Simple as that.
digitalwanderer
13-Aug-2003, 16:44
I have absolutely NO clue how you could possibly make this statement, truly. It just boggles me. :shock:
Have you read any video card reviews from hardocp from the last two years?
Yes, every one of them.
Everyone can have an opinion on Kyle. It doesn't matter, but without proof positive, he is innocent until proven guilty. So, everything else will remain a conspiracy story. When you accuse someone of something like getting paid by Nvidia to deliberately mislead the public, it is you who has to provide proof of guilt. Though I realize that's not how it always works on the internet.
Yes, every one of them. Please tell me how you came to the conclusion that Kyle was paid by Nvidia? Was it because he actually recommended ATI products over the past year and posted many times on the front page on why he personally uses ATI products?
digitalwanderer
13-Aug-2003, 16:56
Please tell me how you came to the conclusion that Kyle was paid by Nvidia?
First show me where I came to that conclusion that Kyle was paid by nVidia. I'm sort of tired of having people keep putting words in my mouth. :(
Doomtrooper
13-Aug-2003, 16:59
Kyle IS paid by Nvidia, maybe not directly but their AIB partners, VisionTek was a huge sponsor of [H] at one time...BFG, MSI etc... Advertising dollars is big business to high traffic sites, and they make good money doing it.
That is why people must realize that at the end of the day, the high traffic sites are busniness's too, and they get their products from their advertisers, and factor that in to the conclusion some of these sites come too.
Kyle states he never recieved $$ ever from Nvidia but who is to say their was some shares involved, hardware incentives. He then states he has recieved money from ATI, but ATI also still makes their own cards unlike Nvidia.
Everyone who can objectively observe the results and who has read hardocp.com for a number of years, including all there video card reviews would never come to the conclusion that Kyle is monetarily tied with Nvidia. And I would hardly try compare this with any field of science.
I have absolutely NO clue how you could possibly make this statement, truly. It just boggles me. :shock:
If you don't want people to put words in your mouth next time, learn to clarify your posts, rather then posting ambiguous sarcastic remarks.
What else am I supposed to conclude from your post above? I'm not psychic here.
Everyone can have an opinion on Kyle. It doesn't matter, but without proof positive, he is innocent until proven guilty. So, everything else will remain a conspiracy story. When you accuse someone of something like getting paid by Nvidia to deliberately mislead the public, it is you who has to provide proof of guilt. Though I realize that's not how it always works on the internet.
Hmmmm....since frgmstr is not in state or Federal court answering to criminal charges, the concept of "innocent until proven guilty" obviously isn't applicable. It's not wise to confuse public literary criticism with the justice system. They are two entirely different things, just as different as are the civil justice system and the criminal justice system (which is why O.J. Simpson was acquitted in criminal court but convicted in civil court, for instance, and the concept of double jeopardy did not apply.)
The problem with your argument is that since you cannot prove the absence of payment it is not logical for you to conclude categorically that such payment has not been made. It is as illogical for you to make such a conclusion as it is for someone to assert such payments in the absence of proof that they have been made. Rather, as I said above, since it is impossible in this case to prove financial motivation, or to prove its absence, the discussion is necessarily steered toward what is available, which are the words frgmstr himself has written publicly. The issue is one of partiality and/or bias--whether money changes hands or not is irrelevant, in my view. Some paper magazines receive money from advertisers--some skew their reporting because of it, some do not. The presence or absence of money does not prove partiality or impartiality in and of itself, hence a discussion about money is not germane to the topic--which, again, is partiality.
Well in that case I accuse Dave of being paid off by ATI. I have no proof, but it's my gut feeling based on Dave's words. :roll:
For those that don't get it, the above is sarcasm.
digitalwanderer
13-Aug-2003, 17:13
Everyone who can objectively observe the results and who has read hardocp.com for a number of years, including all there video card reviews would never come to the conclusion that Kyle is monetarily tied with Nvidia. And I would hardly try compare this with any field of science.
I have absolutely NO clue how you could possibly make this statement, truly. It just boggles me. :shock:
If you don't want people to put words in your mouth next time, learn to clarify your posts, rather then posting ambiguous sarcastic remarks.
What else am I supposed to conclude from your post above? I'm not psychic here.
Kyle IS monetarily tied to nVidia, DoomTrooper explained it very nicely, and has been for quite some time. It's been over the top for the last 6 months though, how else do you explain his almost-trilinear justificationomercial he did for UT2k3 for nVidia?
Using doomtroopers definition, every single website which uses advertising is monetarily tied to some manufacturer and should not be trusted.
Everyone who can objectively observe the results and who has read hardocp.com for a number of years, including all there video card reviews would never come to the conclusion that Kyle is monetarily tied with Nvidia. And I would hardly try compare this with any field of science.
I have absolutely NO clue how you could possibly make this statement, truly. It just boggles me. :shock:
If you don't want people to put words in your mouth next time, learn to clarify your posts, rather then posting ambiguous sarcastic remarks.
What else am I supposed to conclude from your post above? I'm not psychic here.
Kyle IS monetarily tied to nVidia, DoomTrooper explained it very nicely, and has been for quite some time. It's been over the top for the last 6 months though, how else do you explain his almost-trilinear justificationomercial he did for UT2k3 for nVidia?
Visiontek, BFG, & MSI do not equal NVIDIA. Monetarily tied? How can money be tied to anything? So if the money came from Point A and came from Point B and Point B got it from Point C, then that must mean the money is tied to A, B, and C? You guys come up with some really silly stuff to go along with your agendas. :shock:
Well in that case I accuse Dave of being paid off by ATI. I have no proof, but it's my gut feeling based on Dave's words. :roll:
OK, but why say this even teasingly? Is there an opinion of Dave's that he has failed to ground in empirically demonstrable fact? That is precisely what has been wrong with frgmstr's opinions of the last several months--they have not been grounded in demonstrable fact. Hence the criticisms abound. Indeed, his latest statement simply proves how ungrounded in fact his previous opinions actually were, does it not?
In Dave's case the criticisms are nearly non-existent. It is one thing to state an opinion which seems partial to a product but is well-grounded in fact--quite another to present biased opinions for which very little, if any, proof is provided to support such opinions.
Actually, there is nothing wrong with saying "I like product X better than product Y," provided you have solid justification for your point of view. However, if you fail to provide solid justification for your point of view then you may rightly be accused of bias. That's the root of this entire issue, IMO.
Doomtrooper
13-Aug-2003, 17:34
Ahhh yes they do, give me a break. Nvidia does not manufacture cards and their products are produced by AIBs. Try to fool some of the less informed people out there Matt.
BFG is partly owned by Nvidia with the Visiontek split, and if money comes from there it comes from Nvidia.
Simply put, their is Nvidia powered GPU's on those cards, which are bought from Nvidia by the AIBs. If the AIBs fail, so does Nvidia. :roll:
You guys come up with some really silly stuff to go along with your agendas
Coming from someone famous for editorials that border on laughable, I wouldn' talk much :lol:
Walt, it's upto you to prove that Dave is not paid of by ATI because I see him as one of ATI's strongest supporters in the hardware community and he has a special relationship with them bla bla...
I don't really believe that, but if I wore a tin-foil hat, I could run with this very silly logic.
Doomtrooper
13-Aug-2003, 17:49
Dave didn't have strong relations with ATI a year ago, a few people helped out. Me being one of them, but I take no credit for the sucess and relationship that has grown between ATI and B3D. That was all done after a few emails I made.
ATI saw what we all see, Dave Baumann and the crew are knowlegable, honest people...always have been since the original B3D days where they got accused for 3DFX bias.
Dave prefers the superior hardware presently, you would be a fool to say otherwise...
Walt, it's upto you to prove that Dave is not paid of by ATI because I see him as one of ATI's strongest supporters in the hardware community and he has a special relationship with them bla bla...
I don't really believe that, but if I wore a tin-foil hat, I could run with this very silly logic.
So you think it's "silly" to prove your points. I'm amazed that you could read my post above and not understand its extremely simple logic.
Frankly, I could care less where Dave's, Kyle's, or your paycheck comes from. None of you is running for office and so you aren't required to submit public financials. What I care about is bias. If you prove your points with demonstrable, repeatable data that validates the information you provide--whether one product turns out better than another because of that data is entirely beside the point. There is a difference between products of all types in the marketplace, from TV's to dishwashers to automobiles to 3d cards. Differences do exist. Am I to fault a hardware reviewer because he discovers those differences, reveals them to me, and proves the validity of his assertions? Hardly. Rather, I will thank him for doing so. The criticism lodged against frgmstr in recent months comes from the fact that he has been very strong on assertions and very weak on proving them valid. This lead many to believe his assertions were therefore invalid--something frgmstr's recent statement proves beyond doubt. That's 180-degrees out from Dave, IMO.
jb:
Sooner according to your views? I didn't realize there was a timetable to stand up and voice an opinion. I better start making schedules. :) ... Whether or not he is timely with the opinion is a moot point, if you ask me.
Matt,
thanks for the reply. However Kyle him self stated in his forms that he knew of this trilinear filtering issue months before the Beyond 3D Police broke the story (his exact words). However in that time 4 or more hardware reviews that had ATI and NV cards compaired side by side we done by HardOCP in this time frame. It was not unit ATI complianed that they did that tri-linear artical and then made it more public. Question is if you KNOW PRIOR that there is an issue, then shouldn't you make that known in your review? But no he sitting on it till now. Thats what I ment by sooner. He should have hade a little side note or something as soon as he knew it was different but he did not. Thus we have faulty review information that has been made public that he knew about. Thats not helping the community. He then blew off all regaurds to nV cheating in 3dmark. Even accused ET of doing the article in revenge because ET did not get to do a Doom3 test. He said in his forums who cares its a worthless benchmark. But now he cares? What he did the other day was a good thing. But too little too late. If you really want to get the point accross stop posting UT2k3 scores in reviews. Say public unitl NV gives up proper Trilinear we will not post review scores. I am sure if HardOCP, FS and a few others did that you would have your fix with in days not months :)
So you think it's "silly" to prove your points. I'm amazed that you could read my post above and not understand its extremely simple logic.
LOL, that's EXACTLY what I'm asking of people who accuse Kyle of being monetarily rewarded for his opinions to do, but they have failed to do so. And everyone has biases, it's just that some people (like Dave) do not let it get in the way of reporting the truth.
digitalwanderer
13-Aug-2003, 18:07
it's upto you to prove that Dave is not paid of by ATI because I see him as one of ATI's strongest supporters in the hardware community and he has a special relationship with them bla bla...
Uhm, no Dave isn't....I am! Dave is just better respected since he's all educated and not a flaming lunatic all the time. ;)
Frankly, I could care less where Dave's, Kyle's, or your paycheck comes from. None of you is running for office and so you aren't required to submit public financials. What I care about is bias. If you prove your points with demonstrable, repeatable data that validates the information you provide--whether one product turns out better than another because of that data is entirely beside the point. There is a difference between products of all types in the marketplace, from TV's to dishwashers to automobiles to 3d cards. Differences do exist. Am I to fault a hardware reviewer because he discovers those differences, reveals them to me, and proves the validity of his assertions? Hardly. Rather, I will thank him for doing so. The criticism lodged against frgmstr in recent months comes from the fact that he has been very strong on assertions and very weak on proving them valid. This lead many to believe his assertions were therefore invalid--something frgmstr's recent statement proves beyond doubt. That's 180-degrees out from Dave, IMO.
Once again WaltC puts it in perspective and says it eloquently. I'm in total agreement with him.
The money issue isn't as important as the hypocrisy issue. ;)
EDITED BITS: "better" for "betterered", I have no clue what me fingers were thinking.
digitalwanderer
13-Aug-2003, 18:09
LOL, that's EXACTLY what I'm asking of people who accuse Kyle of being monetarily rewarded for his opinions to do, but they have failed to do so. And everyone has biases, it's just that some people (like Dave) do not let it get in the way of reporting the truth.
Swell, but there isn't anyone here really pushing the "Kyle is a paid shill" agenda right now, we're just talking about his glaring hypocrisy and rampant egoism. :)
LOL, that's EXACTLY what I'm asking of people who accuse Kyle of being monetarily rewarded for his opinions to do, but they have failed to do so. And everyone has biases, it's just that some people (like Dave) do not let it get in the way of reporting the truth.
But my point is that you can't make a case for Dave's being "paid off" because Dave doesn't make assertions he fails to prove; it's much easier for people to make such a connection in frgmstr's case because of the many assertions he's made over the last months which he doesn't even attempt to prove (let alone fails to prove after attempting to do so.)
You see the difference? If Dave was as lax and unconcerned about proving his opinions as frgmstr has been then you'd have a point--but since that's not the case at all, I can't see how you do.
I think whether we agree that the likelyhood of frgmstr being "paid off" in actuality is high or low, it's obvious that frgmstr has done far more to cause people to leap to that conclusion than anybody else that I'm currently aware of who purports to do hardware reviews. By making the kinds of declarative statements he's made over the past months without attemtping to prove them it is frgmstr himself who is ultimately the chief architect of such sentiments--even if you or I individually find them unlikely.
Entropy
13-Aug-2003, 18:29
The motivations of Kyle are really less interesting speculation material than trying to figure out what will happen next on the nVidia driver futzing front.
Will other large websites (Anand, Toms) start to actually inform their readers?
Will hell freeze over, and nVidia stop their practises and revoke the driver encryption decision?
What will antagonising parts of the enthusiast community cost nVidia, and do we have any means to actually gauge the cost/benefit of their methods?
Entropy
Doomtrooper
13-Aug-2003, 18:38
People need to realize that these websites are companies, especially Anand and the other big 2. The webmasters make good money doing it, they don't do it for the goodness of their heart :lol:
Entropy
13-Aug-2003, 18:55
People need to realize that these websites are companies, especially Anand and the other big 2. The webmasters make good money doing it, they don't do it for the goodness of their heart :lol:
People don't just go to one site though.
Wouldn't continued silence look very odd from sites that purport to protect the interests of their readers? On the other hand, how would they justify their sidestepping the issue for as long as they have?
For instance. This whole affair with all its ramification is excellent stuff for anyone wishing for some lost innocense among the hardware web-surfers, so you should be happy DT. :)
Entropy
Will other large websites (Anand, Toms) start to actually inform their readers?
Is that seriously an issue for you? Honestly, if everybody was doing the job of B3d there'd be little need for B3d, would there?...;) I think that it's the difference in the quality and kind of coverage that distinguishes B3d from sites like Anand's and Toms. Different strokes for different folks, and so forth. Some people read Consumer Reports to get advice on an upcoming auto purchase while some people read Car & Driver and wouldn't be caught dead reading CR. Etc. Different sites serve different audiences with differing budgets, needs and desires. I think things should stay the way they are, because a nice thing about reading sites which approach their material from differing perspectives is that the reader can get a wider range of opinion. Like is true with any other product type, it's ultimately a consumer's personal experience which lets him separate the wheat from the chaff when reading a variety of website opinion generated from differing points of view. It's nice to have the variety. I mean, I guess that's what I think even though I rarely visit Anand anymore and haven't visited Tom's in recent memory...;) Perhaps I've just outgrown them.
Will hell freeze over, and nVidia stop their practises and revoke the driver encryption decision?
That's a great question which I hope is asked of nVidia by someone--although candidly I'm afraid we'll get a stock "we do this to better provide our customers with stable drivers" answer in response. nVidia's doing it because they don't want a 3rd-party interfering with their driver agendas, which they would like to completely control.
What will antagonising parts of the enthusiast community cost nVidia, and do we have any means to actually gauge the cost/benefit of their methods?
Entropy
It will cost them nothing less than their former position of the #1 graphics supplier. Presumably, they will eventually see this and understand that "it's not nice to fool the enthusiast community"....;)
Doomtrooper
13-Aug-2003, 19:07
People need to realize that these websites are companies, especially Anand and the other big 2. The webmasters make good money doing it, they don't do it for the goodness of their heart :lol:
People don't just go to one site though.
Wouldn't continued silence look very odd from sites that purport to protect the interests of their readers? On the other hand, how would they justify their sidestepping the issue for as long as they have?
For instance. This whole affair with all its ramification is excellent stuff for anyone wishing for some lost innocense among the hardware web-surfers, so you should be happy DT. :)
Entropy
I am happy, in the last year the entire internet has been made aware...aware of the bias, aware of poor journalism, aware of the state of the industry. I don't like Anand much anymore, never really did for video card reviews. Their motherboard articles are OK etc..Tomshardware is blatantly biased with a Nvidia fan site webmaster doing video card reviews then stating great one liners like "X-box doesn't support PS 1.4, so why should developers support it".
[H] started coming around last year, doing better reviews until I saw the Nvidia connection there, then review quality dropped off significantly including IQ...the editors must have RMA'd their eyes.
Beyond3D has been my favorite site for years, and in the Dave Barron days did not post much as I didn't even know what FSAA was back then.
This site educates and doesn't pull punches, something the others could learn alot from.
Entropy
13-Aug-2003, 19:27
Will other large websites (Anand, Toms) start to actually inform their readers?
Is that seriously an issue for you?
Well, yes actually.
I have a long standing interest in benchmarking generally, and if you look at hardware reviews of computer systems, video cards, hard drives and whatnot, they are dominated by - benchmarks. It could be claimed that benchmarks are used in the industry both for product evaluation and to drive percieved need.
Cheating at benchmarks strikes at the heart of what drives much of the hardware scene. Not only does cheating at benchmarks remove the sole means for informed comparative shopping a consumer can realistically do, it is also an insidious way to have other hands do your deceptions for you, websites and magazines in this case. (Intel has successfully played that game through BAPCo, although that was by putting out a benchmark tailored for their product.) Even now, it may be that nVidia, if we could tally the final scores, have benefitted from their practise. And it would be too bad if systematically decieving their customers and using perfectly well meaning reviewers to endorse and recommend their products based on such false data actually paid off for nVidia. If that was allowed to happen, particularly now that the cat is out of the bag, it would be very depressing and a very sad testament to the state of reporting on the internet.
All IMHO.
Entropy
Well, yes actually.
I have a long standing interest in benchmarking generally, and if you look at hardware reviews of computer systems, video cards, hard drives and whatnot, they are dominated by - benchmarks. It could be claimed that benchmarks are used in the industry both for product evaluation and to drive percieved need.
Cheating at benchmarks strikes at the heart of what drives much of the hardware scene. Not only does cheating at benchmarks remove the sole means for informed comparative shopping a consumer can realistically do, it is also an insidious way to have other hands do your deceptions for you, websites and magazines in this case. (Intel has successfully played that game through BAPCo, although that was by putting out a benchmark tailored for their product.) Even now, it may be that nVidia, if we could tally the final scores, have benefitted from their practise. And it would be too bad if systematically decieving their customers and using perfectly well meaning reviewers to endorse and recommend their products based on such false data actually paid off for nVidia. If that was allowed to happen, particularly now that the cat is out of the bag, it would be very depressing and a very sad testament to the state of reporting on the internet.
All IMHO.
Entropy
Excellent points all. Putting it that way I tend to agree with you. Thanks for reminding me of some basics I just don't think about much anymore which I should be thinking about.
digitalwanderer
13-Aug-2003, 19:44
Will other large websites (Anand, Toms) start to actually inform their readers?
Is that seriously an issue for you?
Well, yes actually.
I have a long standing interest in benchmarking generally, and if you look at hardware reviews of computer systems, video cards, hard drives and whatnot, they are dominated by - benchmarks. It could be claimed that benchmarks are used in the industry both for product evaluation and to drive percieved need.
Cheating at benchmarks strikes at the heart of what drives much of the hardware scene. Not only does cheating at benchmarks remove the sole means for informed comparative shopping a consumer can realistically do, it is also an insidious way to have other hands do your deceptions for you, websites and magazines in this case. (Intel has successfully played that game through BAPCo, although that was by putting out a benchmark tailored for their product.) Even now, it may be that nVidia, if we could tally the final scores, have benefitted from their practise. And it would be too bad if systematically decieving their customers and using perfectly well meaning reviewers to endorse and recommend their products based on such false data actually paid off for nVidia. If that was allowed to happen, particularly now that the cat is out of the bag, it would be very depressing and a very sad testament to the state of reporting on the internet.
All IMHO.
Entropy
That's one of the things I do give Kyle credit for, he took what I feel is the right stand and he did it on his frontpage for the world to see.
Kudos Kyle, good one.
Now Anand, THG, and others don't have the excuse to hide behind that "no one really knows, much less cares!". I bash [H] a lot, but I do respect it's sheer size and the size of the audience it reaches.
That's what makes this a really good thing the more I think about it. It's raising the level of awarness of the problem, which is about the best any of us can hope to do about it.
Dave Baumann
13-Aug-2003, 19:45
What will antagonising parts of the enthusiast community cost nVidia, and do we have any means to actually gauge the cost/benefit of their methods
Well, could this be indicative of the costs already:
http://www.beyond3d.com/news/images/20030813_firstday.jpg
Thats a graph of our monthly stats, and the highlighted points are the first day hits of the 256MB Radeon and 5900 Ultra articles. Granted both of these were fairly late, but I had expected the Radeon not to be busy at all, since it was basically the same as the normal Radeon - the FX review also had more pages and a greater number of first day referral links (even Kyle linked to this, which he hasn't done to any of our articles for the past 3 months prior).
I was expecting the 5900 review to be much busier than it is, it was previously unheard of that an NVIDIA article would be this lethargic. I don't know if this is reflected with other sites as well, but if it is perhaps they are beginning to see that ATI articles now get as much, if not more, interest as NVIDIA at the moment - its in webmasters best interests to treat them with an even hand.
I also think that NVIDIA are realising that they have lost some of the mindshare recently because they are very forthcoming with us at the moment, and I presume other publications as well.
Joe DeFuria
13-Aug-2003, 19:51
I also think that NVIDIA are realising that they have lost some of the mindshare recently because they are very forthcoming with us at the moment, and I presume other publications as well.
Good news!
digitalwanderer
13-Aug-2003, 19:55
Neato! Thanks for that bit-o-insite Dave, it's very cool! :)
That's one of the things I do give Kyle credit for, he took what I feel is the right stand and he did it on his frontpage for the world to see.
Kudos Kyle, good one.
Now Anand, THG, and others don't have the excuse to hide behind that "no one really knows, much less cares!". I bash [H] a lot, but I do respect it's sheer size and the size of the audience it reaches.
That's what makes this a really good thing the more I think about it. It's raising the level of awarness of the problem, which is about the best any of us can hope to do about it.
Exactly what I have been trying to say throughout this thread. I'm not asking anyone to go marry Kyle, but to keep their thoughts and feelings on Kyle's financial dealings with Nvidia to somewhat logical levels.
Walt, I do agree with your latest post, but still believe that rampant speculation about Kyle should be kept to a minimum. AFAIK, his is the only major hardware website that has written an editorial about Nvidia's cheating. So, I guess it's a good sign. Unlike Anand and Tom who don't even post on there own forums or explain there positions, at least Kyle is somewhat accessible.
Doomtrooper
13-Aug-2003, 19:58
If the article was written when it should have been, like about 6 months ago then maybe 'these optimizations' wouldn't be here today, two product launches after they were 1st discovered :lol:
Dave Baumann
13-Aug-2003, 20:04
AFAIK, his is the only major hardware website that has written an editorial about Nvidia's cheating.
* Cough (http://www.beyond3d.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=7361) *
Doomtrooper
13-Aug-2003, 20:06
I was going to post that :lol:
Beyond3D must not be considered 'major' to some :P
John Reynolds
13-Aug-2003, 20:11
AFAIK, his is the only major hardware website that has written an editorial about Nvidia's cheating.
* Cough (http://www.beyond3d.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=7361) *
But does a news post on a message board count as an editorial?
Dave Baumann
13-Aug-2003, 20:12
Its on the front page John, pretty much where we post our editorials.
http://www.beyond3d.com/index.php#news7361
FYI "news" forum = to frontpage (they are one and the same)
digitalwanderer
13-Aug-2003, 20:12
AFAIK, his is the only major hardware website that has written an editorial about Nvidia's cheating.
* Cough (http://www.beyond3d.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=7361) *
But does a news post on a message board count as an editorial?
That's a fair point, why hasn't it made it to the front page?
Heck, even Kyle put something up about it on his front page already.... ;)
EDITED BITS: Doh! Never mind...I only went to the story from the link in the forum and assumed it was a forum post too. (I ain't a real big front page person... ;) )
Yes, sorry about that. I have not visited the front page for a while. :)
But, the timing is somewhat strangely close the the [H] article, isn't it? ;)
digitalwanderer
13-Aug-2003, 20:16
Yes, sorry about that. I have visited the front page for a while. :)
But, the timing is somewhat strangely close the the [H] article, isn't it? ;)
I do believe you meant to say "Isn't [H] article's timing rather strangely close to B3D's article"....Dave was first.
Well yes, wrong choice of words.
John Reynolds
13-Aug-2003, 20:26
Its on the front page John, pretty much where we post our editorials.
http://www.beyond3d.com/index.php#news7361
FYI "news" forum = to frontpage (they are one and the same)
LOL I know, but the only place the text resides is as a post on the message board. And the words just aren't as official with .php?t=####&start=### in the url instead of htm.
Dave Baumann
13-Aug-2003, 20:35
eh?
http://www.beyond3d.com/index.php#news7361
John Reynolds
13-Aug-2003, 20:37
eh?
http://www.beyond3d.com/index.php#news7361
Dave, I'm being facetious.
Damn, why must the cross I bear is to be misunderstood? Why, God, why??? :shock:
Dave Baumann
13-Aug-2003, 20:39
Ah - humor bypass due to lack of sleep!! :)
Ah - humor bypass due to lack of sleep!! :) You spelled humour wrong. :lol:
Dave Baumann
13-Aug-2003, 20:48
meh. see above.
;)
digitalwanderer
13-Aug-2003, 20:54
meh. see above.
;)
You need some coffee STAT then, I wanna know about what surprises are in these new drivers and I don't think I can allow you to sleep until you figure it all out for us and tell us. ;) :lol:
Besides, sleep causes cancer...everyone knows that. :roll:
...
Walt, I do agree with your latest post, but still believe that rampant speculation about Kyle should be kept to a minimum. AFAIK, his is the only major hardware website that has written an editorial about Nvidia's cheating. So, I guess it's a good sign. Unlike Anand and Tom who don't even post on there own forums or explain there positions, at least Kyle is somewhat accessible.
I know what you mean but it's hard to get around the fact that frgmstr's his own worst enemy in creating situations which invite rampant speculation, IMO...;) He can truthfully be said to be, if not the author, then the instigator of that speculation.
I find the notion that frgmstr might be considered "first" to state the obvious regarding this situation to be somewhat comical, actually...;) If anything, [H] is the very, very last to smell the coffee and board the train. As to Anand and Tom, recall that both sites have been entirely consistent in saying nothing about the situation (as it is no doubt too technical to be understood by the respective webmasters there) and so them saying nothing at the moment is only consistent with the nothing they've said since the start. [H], however, has had plenty to say from the start and only this week has arrived at the obvious conclusions. "First"...? Please...;)
Of course, B3d was one of the sites to originally break the 3dMk story, and ran it on the front page as I recall with screenshots and other assorted, irrefutable proofs in a multi-page article. Then there's the UT2K3 trilinear expose (which [H] evidently has only understood as of Kyle's last statement this week.) If anyone was "first" in opening this can of worms it would be ET, followed closely by B3d (and I think one other site I can't recall at the moment.) That was months ago.
Regarding "editorials" in general... Other than its placement on the front page, what is the difference between such a statement there and the same one in a forum? The main one I can think of is that in a forum people can respond to it and discuss it publicly, whereas such dialogue isn't possible when a topic is restricted to the editorial page only. Otherwise, I see no difference, especially when a forum discussion is linked on the front page (as the link suffices without need for putting the body of the text in the same place.)
I think before thinking [H] is "first" you might want to consider all of the other editorials [H] has published in the last several months, which this latest editorial directly contradicts. When you do that, it's easy to see [H] is absolutely dead last, right?
Again, I think it's great the Kyle finally gets it, and it's refreshing that he gets it, and I'm glad for him. But I got it a long time ago through the efforts of sites like B3d and ET, who themselves got it long before [H.]
Edit: typos
StealthHawk
14-Aug-2003, 02:38
At least Tom's mentioned the 3dmark03 issues. http://www17.tomshardware.com/column/20030624/index.html
I haven't seen anything regarding the multiple scandals from Anandtech.
At least Tom's mentioned the 3dmark03 issues. http://www17.tomshardware.com/column/20030624/index.html
Mention? yes
Admit? No
He will never admit that what Nvidia was doing is wrong and/or the "bugs" are nothing more than accusations
Fred da Roza
14-Aug-2003, 04:12
At least Tom's mentioned the 3dmark03 issues. http://www17.tomshardware.com/column/20030624/index.html
Mention? yes
Admit? No
He will never admit that what Nvidia was doing is wrong and/or the "bugs" are nothing more than accusations
He may never state that nVidia is cheating but he didn't use the nVidia's Quack info to expose ATI, parrot nVidia's PR department, question everyone else’s motives or defend nVidia's recent antics. Personally I don't see him practicing a double standard.
Edit
Like WaltC said :wink:
StealthHawk
14-Aug-2003, 06:19
At least Tom's mentioned the 3dmark03 issues. http://www17.tomshardware.com/column/20030624/index.html
Mention? yes
Admit? No
He will never admit that what Nvidia was doing is wrong and/or the "bugs" are nothing more than accusations
Better than nothing- that's all I'm saying. Up till now Kyle has never said anything about 3dmark03 and NVIDIA except that "3dmark03 is useless." Not to mention the fact that Anand has mentioned nothing on any of the issues either.
MasterBaiter
14-Aug-2003, 08:07
Hmmm... silence speaks volumes. Sometimes websites don't want to get involved because it might jeopardize their relationship with a company... Don't know if that's true in this case, but I wouldn't be surpised to hear that Nvidia asked Anand and Tom's to not cover this.
I remember hearing murmerings about the 3DMark fiasco a few days before (I think it was either MuFu or Uttar) it hit the fan. If I remember correctly Beyond3D didn't want to break the story, but rather follow up on it. Good move IMO considering the flak that ExtremeTech took. B3D just reinforced what was being said by them.
Hmmm... silence speaks volumes. Sometimes websites don't want to get involved because it might jeopardize their relationship with a company... Don't know if that's true in this case, but I wouldn't be surpised to hear that Nvidia asked Anand and Tom's to not cover this.
This is exactly what I'd be very worried about. When sites start to pull punches because they fear their relationships may suffer I'd have to question what are those sites goals? Are they trying to keep potential customers informed or are they leaning towards looking after their own interests? I appreciate it's probably a delicate balance with most but I'm sure sites that can post the truth irrespective of outcome and IHV wishes based on solid testing, data and results will see a large increase in hits thus opening genuine marketing opportunities. At the moment and I've said it a dozen times sites are so wrapped up in thinking they're in the loop and hoping for a little scrap of information or card sample they're selling themselves and thier readers woefully short. Its silly to think any IHV turning over 100s of millions a year will listen to a so called web master :roll: Alas most of these webmasters now suffer from a mild case of ego mania and actually think they can direct the path of the IHVs? I only hope they wake up and smell the coffee soon and post some hard hitting, accurate and unbiased reviews. Then the customers can make educated purchase decisions and thus ultimately guide the IHVs into what THEY want! The web sites should be nothing more than a portal to the information required to help make that purchase!
my 2 pennies!
CorwinB
14-Aug-2003, 10:33
There seems to be a common misconception that the vast majority of the public wants objective and informed advice. The truth is, sadly, that people really wanting objective advice are in a minority. Most people (and not only extremely vocal fanboys) only want validation of their consumer choices, and will select their "information" (ie merchandising) sources accordingly.
Of course (doublethought at work), those people want to believe they are objective, which is why they will prefer sources that somewhat hide their bias.[/i]
There seems to be a common misconception that the vast majority of the public wants objective and informed advice. The truth is, sadly, that people really wanting objective advice are in a minority. Most people (and not only extremely vocal fanboys) only want validation of their consumer choices, and will select their "information" (ie merchandising) sources accordingly.
Of course (doublethought at work), those people want to believe they are objective, which is why they will prefer sources that somewhat hide their bias.[/i]
I'm not sure I agree that the majority only want to be assured they purchased the correct card. At some point we'll all find ourselves looking for a new one and then I'd like to turn to the reviews or previews of the cards. I certainly acknowledge having purchased that card you'll often try to side with the reviews that praise your purchase decision but as I said, at some point you'll need a review in order to make an educated purchase decision. It's at that time I'd expect to be able to get a general concenous of a cards performance, pros and cons etc.
Does anyone have actual figures of what volume of the market the online community represents? I have a feeling that it's being overestimated, and that whatever is published on the web has a much smaller impact on sales that what we'd want to believe. Proof being NVidia considers all the 'issues' a non-event, and the FX5200 sells extremely well.
digitalwanderer
14-Aug-2003, 15:27
Does anyone have actual figures of what volume of the market the online community represents? I have a feeling that it's being overestimated, and that whatever is published on the web has a much smaller impact on sales that what we'd want to believe. Proof being NVidia considers all the 'issues' a non-event, and the FX5200 sells extremely well.
I disagree and I think the actual size of the community doesn't represent it's influence.
The people who go to websites to talk about their gear are at one of the extreme ends of the newb/geek scale, and as such people at the other end of that scale tend to ask them for advice on PCs.
I think there really is a trickle-down effect, or a "and they tell two friends, and so on, and so on" type of effect going.
The boards hold the truth, we KNOW that....it's just finding it and sorting it from the BS that is the tricky bit.
I don't know if nVidia ignoring us is really the best proof that the community doesn't matter nor do I think the sales figures for the POS 5200 do. Look at ATi who has been listening and responding to the community and compare their numbers with nVidia over the last few months to see what I mean.
It's damned hard to fight the truth with BS, no matter how much money the BS has to back it up. nVidia is kind of proving that.
I really think this is a case where someone should tell nV, "It's the internet stupid!"; because they just don't seem to get it. They think they can put out info and we'll just swallow it since they said it, but those days are long past since we have alternate venues for much more accurate and un-biased info.
Does anyone have actual figures of what volume of the market the online community represents? I have a feeling that it's being overestimated, and that whatever is published on the web has a much smaller impact on sales that what we'd want to believe. Proof being NVidia considers all the 'issues' a non-event, and the FX5200 sells extremely well.
I should let others in here really but without trying to take over the thread, I touched on this in antoher thread. Only when ALL sites start publishing their findings in a united voice will the IHVs start to listen. Until then they're simply being used as PR exstensions! Although I'd expect final remarks of a cards performance to differ somewhat dependant on site, certain issues would be mauled (unethical optimisations for example).
Unfortunately even that debacle didn't even make all hardware sites headlines :(
digitalwanderer
14-Aug-2003, 15:45
Unfortunately even that debacle didn't even make all hardware sites headlines :(
Yet. It should read, "Unfortunately even that debacle didn't even make all hardware sites headlines yet."
This has been going on for how long now, at least 5-6 months? And it wasn't until just recently that any major sites besides B3D ran with it on their front page? (Oh, and ExtremeTech too...can't forget them.)
It's gonna take time to spread the word, but on the brightside the longer sites go without mentioning it now the worse they're going to look.
I really do owe Kyle & [H] thanks for that, it ups the stakes on remaining quiet considerably for the other big hardware sites out there.
This isn't something sites can stay neutral on, though a lot are trying. You can remain silent, but that in turn is a silent endorsement of nVidia's current policies and practices...which people are starting to realize.
Give it time, keep the pressure up on all fronts, and it'll have a happy ending....it's just a matter of when. :)
EDITED BITS: "they're" for "their"
I should let others in here really but without trying to take over the thread, I touched on this in antoher thread. Only when ALL sites start publishing their findings in a united voice will the IHVs start to listen. Until then they're simply being used as PR exstensions! Although I'd expect final remarks of a cards performance to differ somewhat dependant on site, certain issues would be mauled (unethical optimisations for example).
Unfortunately even that debacle didn't even make all hardware sites headlines :(
Some websites are often used as PR extensions, just like their paper magazine counterparts are often used that way. But, how do you propose to force a website to print something it does not want to print?
Improper/biased/technically sloppy hardware reviews have occurred with regularity since the dawn of computerdom...;) They are nothing new at all. IMO, the only way for all websites to "speak with a common voice" is for all of them to be run and published by the same people.
If you feel a website is running an improper/biased/sloppy show, email them and let them know. Make a statement on their forums and engage them in dialogue on the subject. And if nothing changes, simply quit visiting the site and stop worrying over everything they miss. Instead, frequent the sites you trust for the information they dispense.
It's that way in paper magazines--not everybody likes the same mags and so people pick and choose among them. The important thing to realize is that if we don't run a particular site there's nothing we can do to change their minds about what stories they cover and what stories they ignore, apart from telling them what we think. If a site isn't your cup of tea--move on. Otherwise you may find yourself engaged in a discussion with a telephone pole...;)
IE, you have a far better chance of changing your own behavior than you do someone else's. Do not needlessly agonize about that which is beyond your power to control.
Heh...;) I've run into that situation before and can tell you that in some website forums arguing with a telephone pole is more productive than arguing with some website prinicpals. My posts might as well have been written in hieroglyphics for all the good they did. I solved it by leaving the forums. You may find that when it comes to some web sites this is simply your best course.
Damn, why must the cross I bear is to be misunderstood? Why, God, why??? :shock:Maybe because you mangle your grammar. ;) :D
Does anyone have actual figures of what volume of the market the online community represents? I have a feeling that it's being overestimated, and that whatever is published on the web has a much smaller impact on sales that what we'd want to believe. Proof being NVidia considers all the 'issues' a non-event, and the FX5200 sells extremely well.
Last statisics I looked at contained estimates of 10 million to 30 million people online at any given time in the US, 24-hours a day. World wide I'd say the figures are much higher. Every major coporation has its own website, and the number of small, localized companies who have geographically contained websites is staggering. Some of the major network news broadcasters would give their eye-teeth to get a fraction of that number to tune into their news shows nightly. I think the the mistake these days is made by people underestimating the influence and economic clout of the "online community." But no major corporation that I'm aware of has missed it--which is why they have their own websites....;)
BTW, a low-end product like the 5200 is being touted by nVidia at the moment because it's the only thing since nV2x that nVidia has been able to ship in quantity since last year, and this shouldn't be forgotten. But the fact is that of the 10M-15M people who worldwide constitute the "active 3D gaming community" (people who buy more than 1-2 games a year), a product like the 5200 isn't even in the running--just as is true for ATi's lower-end 9000-series products. In the "active gaming market" it's 5600/9600 products and up that count. And nVidia's had a pretty poor record there for most of the last year.
In the "active gaming market" it's 5600/9600 products and up that count. And nVidia's had a pretty poor record there for most of the last year.
Walt,
From where I'm at, the market is still flooded with GeForce4's. From the lan parties I've attended in Ca., and Ok., the GeForce4 is by far the most popular and widely used video card. So even though the FX cards havent been readilly avaliable for the gamers market until recently, I think Nvidia's previous line up has helped to keep them afloat....I dunno.....
Unfortunately even that debacle didn't even make all hardware sites headlines :(
Yet. It should read, "Unfortunately even that debacle didn't even make all hardware sites headlines yet."
Well yes I see your point but 5 - 6 months of biased and sloppy reviews has let a particular IHV off the hook. Although it's easy to start bashing NVidia I'd expect just the same treatment for ATI. When as a community do we say enough is enough? It's being going on since I can remember, looking at benches showing the V3 and TNT running UT. The V3 trounced the TNT using glide but every review showed the V3 using D3D or OpenGL? Then the reviewer would go on to say the TNT in glorious 32 bit colour was superb? Well a friend opted to get the TNT to test 32 bit colour in UT and was unfortunately greated with sub teen framerates whilst I could play happily in 22 bit colour double if not triple framerates using the API the game had been written for. From that moment on I realised that the review sites are somewhat biased but I did think by now we'd have some baseline ethics and review policies? Apologies for digressing but the whole web review site thing does wind me up at times. Its so obviously a group of people getting excited at receiving a sample card that their objectivity goes out the window! As a general publication I believe the reviewers should be accountable for their publishing to both the IHVs and readers a like. Unfortunately it's obvious that some sites are looking out for numero uno and will quite happily keep stum or lean towards their current favourite IHV?
And WaltC, yes you're right but I still think that when review sites start to syncronously unite we'll start to see IHVs realise they are only going to be able to use them as PR extensions with a good product!
Micron, Yes you're right which is why I think ATI should have been more aggressive with the 9700PRO and drop it right into GF4 ti 4400 territory. Only a 9700Pro and above will see these guys upgrade and until it drops to $200 that wont be any time soon :( As such ATI will still need to make massive inroads on teh Nvidia users but as Nvidia has the time to play catch up it may never happen.
Micron, Yes you're right which is why I think ATI should have been more aggressive with the 9700PRO and drop it right into GF4 ti 4400 territory. Only a 9700Pro and above will see these guys upgrade and until it drops to $200 that wont be any time soon :( As such ATI will still need to make massive inroads on teh Nvidia users but as Nvidia has the time to play catch up it may never happen.
Lets hope it doesnt :wink:
digitalwanderer
14-Aug-2003, 19:16
As such ATI will still need to make massive inroads on teh Nvidia users but as Nvidia has the time to play catch up it may never happen.
Have you been to nVnews lately and asked around which is the best card for gaming? You won't find a whole lot of people recomending nVidia 'cept for a few SERIOUSLY fanboy types.
ATi has made inroads. nVidia is only dominating the low-end cards right now, for gaming it's ATi all the way as far as most enthusiasts go.
It's a mindset thing, remember about 5-6 years ago when the situation was reversed and ATi dominated the OEM/low-end and nVidia swept the middle-to-high end? THAT is what got nVidia into it's current position today as such a big name, the same way it's working out that ATi is taking that spot now.
One is rising, one is falling; nVidia hasn't caught up to anyone yet. I can't believe a single thing they say, so until they can put out a competative card they're just spinning their wheels. :)
One is rising, one is falling;
In the world of technology forums.....you are right. Make no mistake about general public purchases though. Nvidia is still the name they go for....
As such ATI will still need to make massive inroads on teh Nvidia users but as Nvidia has the time to play catch up it may never happen.
Have you been to nVnews lately and asked around which is the best card for gaming? You won't find a whole lot of people recomending nVidia 'cept for a few SERIOUSLY <bleep> types.
ATi has made inroads. nVidia is only dominating the low-end cards right now, for gaming it's ATi all the way as far as most enthusiasts go.
It's a mindset thing, remember about 5-6 years ago when the situation was reversed and ATi dominated the OEM/low-end and nVidia swept the middle-to-high end? THAT is what got nVidia into it's current position today as such a big name, the same way it's working out that ATi is taking that spot now.
One is rising, one is falling; nVidia hasn't caught up to anyone yet. I can't believe a single thing they say, so until they can put out a competative card they're just spinning their wheels. :)
The problem is by the time those GF4 guys and gals upgrade Nvidia will be right back on track. As I've said before, ATI could have been much more aggressive and tried to get the 9700PRO into the mainstream section. I dont believe they'd be too many GF4 owners who wouldn't upgrade to a 9700 in a flash if the price is right. At the moment though I dont believe the 9600 Pro offers enough and as the 5600 Ultra has a similiar performance the choice isn't as clear as it could have been whilst the R300 was dominating. Whats more I think the next RV360 and NV? will be extremely close again and when that happens those existing Nvidia users will have very little reason to risk the change in IHV supplier :(
Perhaps ATI just didn't realise how much thy had advanced over their competitors with the R300 core and thus came up with this more mild mannored and watered down approach?
One is rising, one is falling; nVidia hasn't caught up to anyone yet. I can't believe a single thing they say, so until they can put out a competative card they're just spinning their wheels. :)
I would say "one benefits from the other's mistake", but there's no real sign that it's a long term trend. Next gen parts will tell us who's the boss (helped by some 3dm03 scores :twisted: )
digitalwanderer
14-Aug-2003, 20:39
The problem is by the time those GF4 guys and gals upgrade Nvidia will be right back on track. As I've said before, ATI could have been much more aggressive and tried to get the 9700PRO into the mainstream section. I dont believe they'd be too many GF4 owners who wouldn't upgrade to a 9700 in a flash if the price is right. At the moment though I dont believe the 9600 Pro offers enough and as the 5600 Ultra has a similiar performance the choice isn't as clear as it could have been whilst the R300 was dominating. Whats more I think the next RV360 and NV? will be extremely close again and when that happens those existing Nvidia users will have very little reason to risk the change in IHV supplier :(
I respectfully disagree. You make some very valid points, but I feel that the enthusiast who is enough into hardware to get a GF4 non-MX is gonna do just a tiny bit of research before plunking down a rather serious chunk of change for their video card.
I think that will be where/when ATi "wins". I think the next generation of products ATi has already got a BIG lead in credibility where as not many people will believe anything that nVidia says anymore without proof. (Read that as I don't think any paper launches by nVidia are going to be getting anyone very excited until they actually produce & show the working silicon. If ATi does a paper launch people will tend to believe them since they have a track record of backing up what they say. )
But again, that's just my feelings/theory/hunches and I could very well be wrong. There's also going to be a lot of things changing between then and now, 3dm2k3 is the first that comes to mind along with the UT2k3 almost-trilinear issue.
It's still a pretty murky future that is wide open for different possiblilities, I'm gonna have a lot of fun watching how it all goes. :)
[I respectfully disagree. You make some very valid points, but I feel that the enthusiast who is enough into hardware to get a GF4 non-MX is gonna do just a tiny bit of research before plunking down a rather serious chunk of change for their video card.
Serious chunk of change?
Ti4200 = $80 dollars in store, not just online.
ATi doesnt have anything worth installing for that price, nothing even close.
Radeon 9100's are still around $100-150 bucks in stores, and you already agree'd with me @NV News that they suck compared to the Ti4200 :wink:
digitalwanderer
14-Aug-2003, 22:21
[I respectfully disagree. You make some very valid points, but I feel that the enthusiast who is enough into hardware to get a GF4 non-MX is gonna do just a tiny bit of research before plunking down a rather serious chunk of change for their video card.
Serious chunk of change?
Ti4200 = $80 dollars in store, not just online.
ATi doesnt have anything worth installing for that price, nothing even close.
Radeon 9100's are still around $100-150 bucks in stores, and you already agree'd with me @NV News that they suck compared to the Ti4200 :wink:
I think we're misunderstanding each other a bit. I was talking about people deciding to buy either the R420 or NV40, which will probably cost a bit more than that. ;)
Hmmm,
I'm talking about the general buying public. They still go for the Nvidia name.
You still have alot of work to do John :wink:
digitalwanderer
14-Aug-2003, 22:50
Hmmm,
I'm talking about the general buying public. They still go for the Nvidia name.
Now there is where we're just going to have to agree to disagree and time will prove one of us right and the other wrong, or else surprise us both. :)
No no!
Time will change the statement I made silly, I'm talking about right now!
digitalwanderer
14-Aug-2003, 23:12
If you're talking about now, well I still choose to disagree with you. :)
If you're talking about now, well I still choose to disagree with you. :)
Your in the U.S., been to Comp USA or Fry's lately?....Best Buy?
digitalwanderer
14-Aug-2003, 23:57
If you're talking about now, well I still choose to disagree with you. :)
Your in the U.S., been to Comp USA or Fry's lately?....Best Buy?
Eeew, no! I pretty much exclusively shop at either NewEgg or Pricewatch. ;)
I get too damned pissed at the prices/lack-o-knowledge at me local brick and mortars, it's kind of pathetic.
Serious chunk of change?
Ti4200 = $80 dollars in store, not just online.
ATi doesnt have anything worth installing for that price, nothing even close.
Radeon 9100's are still around $100-150 bucks in stores, and you already agree'd with me @NV News that they suck compared to the Ti4200 :wink:
Maybe the 9700 prices will also eventually go down a lot more? I don't know how prohibitive the cost is for ATI to charge less then $200 for a 9700. Many casual gamers do make there purchases in Best Buy, CompUSA.
Walt,
From where I'm at, the market is still flooded with GeForce4's. From the lan parties I've attended in Ca., and Ok., the GeForce4 is by far the most popular and widely used video card. So even though the FX cards havent been readilly avaliable for the gamers market until recently, I think Nvidia's previous line up has helped to keep them afloat....I dunno.....
I wouldn't doubt that a bit, Micron...;) I was referring here to people buying so-called DX9 gaming cards. I suspect the 5200/R9000's aren't in much demand and it's the 5600/9600 + level cards that are moving for them. I'm sure nVidia has sold quite a few nv2x over the past year--nv2x has been pretty much all they've had to sell in quantity, after all.
Fred da Roza
15-Aug-2003, 03:44
Maybe the 9700 prices will also eventually go down a lot more? I don't know how prohibitive the cost is for ATI to charge less then $200 for a 9700. Many casual gamers do make there purchases in Best Buy, CompUSA.
Won't happen. Why would ATI have to sell a 9700 for so much less than nVidia sells a NV30/35. Anyways the 9600 is no slouch. If anything eventually goes down it will be the 9600. I expect 9700 to disappear just as soon as R360 appears.
9700 is already starting to disappear, so that's not going to be a factor for ATI but it did have a good run so I can't really complain. But ATI really doesn't have anything to compete in the price range of the Ti4200 and that's where they can gain the most market share in the shortest amount of time.
9700 is already starting to disappear, so that's not going to be a factor for ATI but it did have a good run so I can't really complain. But ATI really doesn't have anything to compete in the price range of the Ti4200 and that's where they can gain the most market share in the shortest amount of time.
I agree and until they can drop a fire bomb into the 4200s/4400s territory Nvidia will continue to dominate the section. The 9600Pro is no doubt a good card but the 5600Ultra is very close. Ask yourself this, you've stuck with Nvidia for a whilte now, you're GF3/GF4 has served you well for the last year. You begin to wonder about your next upgrade. Both ATI and Nvidia have very similiar cards. Don't you think that you'd stick with the tried and tested formula? Same drivers, same known attributes of the card etc? I think this is ATIs problem and as such they need to drop a biggun right into the mainstream market. What ever it is it'll need the performance of the 9700 but with a midrange price point! Until then and while the benches are close I dont see many Nvidia users jumping ship? Not to mention I still dont think a 9600PRO offers enough to a gamer over either a GF3 or GF4!
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