View Full Version : More HL2 Propaganda from Anand
http://www.anandtech.com/weblog/index.html?FTBLOGDATE=10%2F01%2F2003
Here are some Half Life 2 numbers for you to look at; they were provided by a reliable source, but I could not verify anything myself so take them with a grain of salt. ATI was running in their DX9 codepath and the mixed mode codepath was used for NVIDIA. No AA/AF was enabled and we're looking at 1024x768 scores:
(See link to get scores.)
If those numbers hold true then things definitely look better than from Half Life 2 day, but we'll reserve judgement until we get the benchmark in house. I just thought you'd like to see what we're seeing, I wouldn't draw any conclusions based on this data yet, just wanted to share :)
So--now Anand is printing speculation based information he admits he cannot verify in any way, shape, or form. What can this possibly represent except that Anand is attempting to spin up nVidia, and plug them? If he really wanted to "reserve judgement" he would have done so and waited until he got the benchmark in house, of course. This is nothing but propaganda, apparently. It's nice that he admits the two products weren't running the same code paths, but that's about all I can say about it. Why on earth would you run numbers you cannot verify?
OK, now I'm hearing rumors that the HL2 source code has been stolen and distributed on the 'net. Either nVidia has a mole in Valve/Vivendi, or...I don't know what.
WHAT'S HAPPENED TO INTEGRITY? DOESN'T ANYONE HAVE IT ANYMORE?
(If this has been posted before, apologies. I checked for a similar thread and only found one based on another Anand tidbit he printed earlier.)
Joe DeFuria
02-Oct-2003, 20:47
http://www.beyond3d.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=8221&start=20
(Recently brought up in the bottom of the thread.)
:wink:
Why on earth would you run numbers you cannot verify?
Because nVidia gave Anand special treatment wrt to NV38 NDA, so Anand gives nVidia a little special treatment in return. :(
There is no reason on earth he should be posting those numbers. He didn't run them. I wonder who is "reliable source" is. Could it be.....oh, I don't know............Nvidia!?! Would they have told him if the graphics were borked?
CorwinB
02-Oct-2003, 21:23
I could not verify anything myself so take them with a grain of salt.
I suppose Anand is expecting us to take those scores with a grain of salt, and a hook, a line and a sinker too ? :roll:
I just thought you'd like to see what we're seeing
Last week, he was hearing. This week, he's seeing. If things keep getting better, then maybe he will actually start testing within a few years.
Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.
02-Oct-2003, 21:25
There is no reason on earth he should be posting those numbers. He didn't run them. I wonder who is "reliable source" is. Could it be.....oh, I don't know............Nvidia!?! Would they have told him if the graphics were borked?
This reminds me of when the first NV30 benches sneaked out, and Nvidia was adamant that the tests were only to be taken at a particular res with no AA/AF. Unsurprisingly, they made the NV30 look much, much better than it was.
Here we go again with unsubstantiated leaks (supplied via a well know Nvidia mouthpiece), with numbers way, *way* above what we are expecting to see, and we are supposed to believe this crap? When the game and the 5950 arrives, we'll see that Nvidia IQ is severely degraded, that no one reaches those numbers, and they'll drop by three-quarters anyway when enabling AA/AF.
RussSchultz
02-Oct-2003, 21:31
OK, now I'm hearing rumors that the HL2 source code has been stolen and distributed on the 'net. Either nVidia has a mole in Valve/Vivendi, or...I don't know what.
Those are some strong and unfounded accusations. Will you blame the next earthquake on NVIDIA, also?
Here we go again with unsubstantiated leaks (supplied via a well know Nvidia mouthpiece), with numbers way, *way* above what we are expecting to see, and we are supposed to believe this crap? When the game and the 5950 arrives, we'll see that Nvidia IQ is severely degraded, that no one reaches those numbers, and they'll drop by three-quarters anyway when enabling AA/AF.
These numbers may be legit, but notice that the NV38 is running the mixed-mode path. The whole point of that path was to raise the performance of the NVIDIA parts so that they would get playable framerates. Also, given that the results are nearly identical in many cases, with different code paths on different hardware, it seems likely that at least some of the results are CPU limited.
"take these with a grain of salt": Why post them then? If you know the results are not verifiable, then you shouldn't post it. What if someone else sends Anand a table of results showing R360 to be 2 or 3 times faster than the NV38 on the DX9 path? Would he post those results too?
This is so ridiculous...
-FUDie
http://www.beyond3d.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=8221&start=20
(Recently brought up in the bottom of the thread.)
:wink:
Why on earth would you run numbers you cannot verify?
Because nVidia gave Anand special treatment wrt to NV38 NDA, so Anand gives nVidia a little special treatment in return. :(
Well, Anand was not the only site who got this offer. But he is (as far as I saw) the only site who did the NV38 testing. We did´nt like the idea for several reasons... so we did´nt include any NV38 numbers and Det 52 in the article.
Lars
OK, now I'm hearing rumors that the HL2 source code has been stolen and distributed on the 'net. Either nVidia has a mole in Valve/Vivendi, or...I don't know what.
Those are some strong and unfounded accusations. Will you blame the next earthquake on NVIDIA, also?
They are not accusations, Russ, they are reasonable suppositions. First of all, we don't know if the HL2 source has actually been stolen--so that needs to be determined first. No, I don't think nVidia will have anything to do with the next earthquake, so that should put your mind at ease (since you have an obvious sensitivity, apparently, to what anyone might possibly be thinking about nVidia at any time...:))
I think it's very reasonable to pose the question as to who might benefit from the benchmark scores Anand regards highly enough to print while admitting at the same time he hasn't a clue as to their validity. There's nothing "newsworthy" about that at all. At best, it's hucksterism, at worst it's fraud. Also, he claims the information comes from a "reliable source" which he finds unreliable enough to refrain from naming.
So, OK, who would have the "credibility" to influence Shimpi to print this stuff, and at the same time hope to see a benefit from this very narrow little slice of a "benchmark" result getting posted publicly? Let's see, there are only two IHV products featured in the "benchmark." I think we can dismiss ATi as having any motivation whatsoever to pose as Shimpi's "reliable source."
Next, what benefit does it do Shimpi's credibility to "share" benchmark scores with his readers while he admits he hasn't the foggiest as to whether they are even legitimate? No system specs--nothing to provide any meaningful info there at all. Why bother to state that your source is "reliable" when the information he provides is incomplete to the point of being meaningless? So, why go out on a limb, with text published under your own name, to publish "scores" you *admit* you cannot verify? In other words--Shimpi is publishing "benchmark" data on his own site that he admits could be worthless. So if you do not know whether it is worthless, why publish it? Is it professional of him to publish something that *might be* true--gee, if only he knew? Well, I guess it's barely possible Shimpi is an amiable dolt, thick between the ears, who is being used and is too stupid to know it? You think that's likely? I don't.
No, what I think is that Shimpi knows exactly who the source is, exactly what the source has to gain from something like this, and is consciously complicit with that source in the disemination of "information"--that out of his own mouth--Shimpi *will not* swear is genuine. Again--if you don't know it's genuine--why publish, especially under your own name?
Why do you think he published it, Russ?
Joe DeFuria
02-Oct-2003, 22:10
Well, Anand was not the only site who got this offer. But he is (as far as I saw) the only site who did the NV38 testing. We did´nt like the idea for several reasons... so we did´nt include any NV38 numbers and Det 52 in the article.
Lars
Can you clarify?
What specific offer are you saying you were handed, yet refused to publish: these same Half-Life2 benchmarks, or an offer to benchmark NV38 / Det 52?
The NV38/Det52 benchmarking. No idea about the HL2 benchmark numbers.
Lars
Joe DeFuria
02-Oct-2003, 23:02
The NV38/Det52 benchmarking. No idea about the HL2 benchmark numbers.
Lars
Well, then that exactly agrees with my suspicions.
1) Anand took nVidia up on it's offer to "pre-benchmark" NV38 to be included in a Radeon 9800 XT review...you didn't.
2) Anand comes up with Half-Life2 benchmarks from "a reliable source"....you didn't.
BTW...kudos to you for refusing to run such benchmarks upon nvidia's offer. I would have thought that running benchmarks on unannounced hardware, using non-released drivers would be a no-brainer *cough* Anand *cough*.
jimbob0i0
02-Oct-2003, 23:14
Well HL2 source WAS stolen... Gabe's confirmed it at halflife2.net ..... was a combination of Outlook exploit, keylogger and remote control client... poor guy
The NV38/Det52 benchmarking. No idea about the HL2 benchmark numbers.
Lars
Well, then that exactly agrees with my suspicions.
1) Anand took nVidia up on it's offer to "pre-benchmark" NV38 to be included in a Radeon 9800 XT review...you didn't.
2) Anand comes up with Half-Life2 benchmarks from "a reliable source"....you didn't.
BTW...kudos to you for refusing to run such benchmarks upon nvidia's offer. I would have thought that running benchmarks on unannounced hardware, using non-released drivers would be a no-brainer *cough* Anand *cough*.
Well, from what I've seen in the last few minutes all over the 'net--it's true, Valve was hacked and the source code was stolen from right under their noses. Here's Gabe Newell's text as reprinted on BLue's News:
Ever have one of those weeks? This has just not been the best couple of days for me or for Valve.
Yes, the source code that has been posted is the HL-2 source code.
Here is what we know:
1) Starting around 9/11 of this year, someone other than me was accessing my email account. This has been determined by looking at traffic on our email server versus my travel schedule.
2) Shortly afterwards my machine started acting weird (right-clicking on executables would crash explorer). I was unable to find a virus or trojan on my machine, I reformatted my hard drive, and reinstalled.
3) For the next week, there appears to have been suspicious activity on my webmail account.
4) Around 9/19 someone made a copy of the HL-2 source tree.
5) At some point, keystroke recorders got installed on several machines at Valve. Our speculation is that these were done via a buffer overflow in Outlook's preview pane. This recorder is apparently a customized version of RemoteAnywhere created to infect Valve (at least it hasn't been seen anywhere else, and isn't detected by normal virus scanning tools).
6) Periodically for the last year we've been the subject of a variety of denial of service attacks targetted at our webservers and at Steam. We don't know if these are related or independent.
Well, this sucks.
What I'd appreciate is the assistance of the community in tracking this down. I have a special email address for people to send information to, helpvalve@valvesoftware.com. If you have information about the denial of service attacks or the infiltration of our network, please send the details. There are some pretty obvious places to start with the posts and records in IRC, so if you can point us in the right direction, that would be great.
We at Valve have always thought of ourselves as being part of a community, and I can't imagine a better group of people to help us take care of these problems than this community.
Gabe
Joe DeFuria
02-Oct-2003, 23:27
It's interesting to note that the first apparent signs of trouble (9/11) was just after both of the following events occurred:
1) Valve promotes ATI hardware with benchmarks
2) Steam exits beta stage and goes live.
I had my reasons. Your "btw" comes rather close to it :wink:
What I meant regarding the HL2 numbers. I did not receive those results. And if they came from NV (what I don´t know) I would see no reason why they would not like to be named as source. NV has an interrest to let the people know that they´re working on HL2 perfomance. So maybe they came from another source!?
Lars
Sabastian
02-Oct-2003, 23:30
This may seem a stupid question to ask but who would be interested in having Valves HL2 source code? Whom would benefit most from having it?
Joe DeFuria
02-Oct-2003, 23:32
I had my reasons. Your "btw" comes rather close to it :wink:
Good to hear!
I would see no reason why they would not like to be named as source.
Other than the obvious: Valve probably forbids ANYONE running and publishing bencharks at this time. Valve has certainly forbid anyone from testing nVidia cards with anything other than the officially available drivers. So certainly, Valve would be even MORE PISSED at nVidia if it was found out that nVidia passed the numbers (using unapproved drivers) to anyone for publication.
So maybe they came from another source!?
Always a possibility...but why?
CorwinB
02-Oct-2003, 23:36
Well, Anand was not the only site who got this offer. But he is (as far as I saw) the only site who did the NV38 testing. We did´nt like the idea for several reasons... so we did´nt include any NV38 numbers and Det 52 in the article.
Lars
The times they are a-changin' quickly it seems...
Just to think that not so long ago THG was "happy to serve" with the Doom3 benchmarketing charade (http://www.tomshardware.com/graphic/20030512/index.html). And even more recently, the Good Dr. himself was kind enough to enlighten us with how a poor IHV is victim from an atrocious conspiracy (http://www.tomshardware.com/graphic/20030930/radeon_9800-07.html). Of course, since we are all morons brainwashed by the ATI PR guys, the Good Dr. absolutely had to resort to the lowest possible analogies (including references to Al Quaida and Saddam Hussein) in order to rise an healthy indignation in our heart. Thank you so much, Good Dr.
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Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.
02-Oct-2003, 23:38
I had my reasons. Your "btw" comes rather close to it :wink:
What I meant regarding the HL2 numbers. I did not receive those results. And if they came from NV (what I don´t know) I would see no reason why they would not like to be named as source. NV has an interrest to let the people know that they´re working on HL2 perfomance. So maybe they came from another source!?
Lars
It's an Nvidia standard operating procedure. When they want to run spoilers or leak out information, they do it silently via a third party so that they can deny anything that has been said or published.
Look at what happened when Nvidia "promised" Kyle at [H] that trilinear would be restored. Kyle told everyone else it would all be fixed in the next driver and was a complete non-issue, and then several weeks later, Nvidia can simply ignore the commitment was publicly made in their name, and reduce IQ even further whilst leaving everyone with the impression it was a bug that was being fixed.
Look at the "bench with Det 50's for speed, but don't talk about them or issue them to customers".
Nvidia love having their "plausable deniability".
CorwinB
02-Oct-2003, 23:43
Look at what happened when Nvidia "promised" Kyle at [H] that trilinear would be restored.
Do you think Anand will throw a spoiled brat's tantrum when true HL2 performance numbers with meaningful IQ settings are published, then ? :)
Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.
02-Oct-2003, 23:53
Do you think Anand will throw a spoiled brat's tantrum when true HL2 performance numbers with meaningful IQ settings are published, then ? :)
I don't think Anand is as emotional as Kyle. Anand knows where the money comes from.
CorwinB
03-Oct-2003, 00:04
For immediate release
Nvidia Corporation is pleased to announce that his yet unannounced market-leading GPU, the GeForceFX5950 has won the coveted "Anand's Weblog top HL2 performer award" (well, it came as close second anyway). And to have an unannounced GPU running unannounced, uncertified and untested drivers win an unannounced benchmark done on an unpublished game by an unknown source and get said benchmarks published by an untesting guy with a weblog, it takes more than talent. It takes dollars.
Our 145 786 544 654 657 105 154 116 573 877 564 657 464 216 546 151 232 446 458 customers can now rest assured that they will get with HL2 the same performance and image quality they have come to expect from our bleeding-edge, feature-full, industry-winning products. In fact, our performance in HL2 is so good that in a bold industry-first move, our new GeForceFX 5950 will ship with an URL pointing to HL2's source code so our customers will get a chance to look at the code of the nice shaders they could enjoy if our Detonator drivers didn't replace them.
Nvidia is a global cheater in the communication age, and our goal is to deface every pixel on the planet.
Sabastian
03-Oct-2003, 00:23
For immediate release
....
:lol:
jimbob0i0
03-Oct-2003, 01:13
This may seem a stupid question to ask but who would be interested in having Valves HL2 source code? Whom would benefit most from having it?
gits like that clan myg0t who like disrupting people's games by hacking servers and making aimbots and such... if they know the source for the servers it is that much easier to created such hacks to ruin multiplayer games.... oh and t0y in the myg0t clan was among the first to be showing this and appears to have been key to the leak... although other screen names such as hammer8 have come up as well (it is thought he distributed it first over an IRC channel in efnet).
The other developers would have no real interest in this unless they wanted to licence - but then they would go through 'official' channels to Valve... and let's face it if any game showed up with a HL2 engine and it hadn't been licenced already... well work it out ;)
However I CAN see some countries who don't respect US copyright having developers use this engine.
Everyone is always so quick to jump on web site's like Anand's and accusing them of nefarious motives. While it is definitely a possibility that he's in league with Nvidia I think it's more likely that he's just trying to generate traffic. That's how he makes money after all.
cthellis42
03-Oct-2003, 05:34
I tend to prefer technical review sites tend to stick with what is actually technical, and not play "press games." We get enough of that crap on TV, thanks. (And radio, and newpaper, and magazines...)
Good lord, how crap must Valve's security policy be if they allow the Outlook preview pane to be enabled? Maybe they'd give me a job and I could teach them a thing or two about securing machines :)
bloodbob
03-Oct-2003, 09:59
gits like that clan myg0t who like disrupting people's games by hacking servers and making aimbots and such... if they know the source for the servers it is that much easier to created such hacks to ruin multiplayer games.... oh and t0y in the myg0t clan was among the first to be showing this and appears to have been key to the leak... although other screen names such as hammer8 have come up as well (it is thought he distributed it first over an IRC channel in efnet).
And if people didn't drive cars there would be less road accidents. Just because you choose to use motor vechicals doens't mean everyone does so please stop.
[qoute]
The other developers would have no real interest in this unless they wanted to licence - but then they would go through 'official' channels to Valve... and let's face it if any game showed up with a HL2 engine and it hadn't been licenced already... well work it out ;)[/quote]
How can they prove they stole the source reverse engineering someones exe violates the DMCA so you can use the DMCA to defend yourself against the DMCA.
Mariner
03-Oct-2003, 11:23
I suppose that another possibility is that the 'reliable' source is somebody from one of the companies who produces NV cards (MSI, Leadtek?) and not from NVidia directly.
These would, undoubtedly, have access to NV38, the unreleased drivers and also HL2 and would also stand to benefit from the FUD.
On the other hand, you could also see NVidia 'suggesting' the release of such information to Anand from one of their card producers. :wink:
jimbob0i0
03-Oct-2003, 12:20
If I may quote DaveBaumann for a moment "WTF???"
Bloodbob how can you equate those? What are you smoking? Is it the same is Tom Pabst?
Please explain your logic... I am having a hard time conceiving how you came about with that one.
Deliberately hacking servers and find exploits for the sole purpose of ruining other peoples games is wrong... to take pleasure in the anguish of others is wrong.... basic morals there.
Oh and if a game game out that had the same apparent physics modelling, same use of graphics techniques etc I'm sure Valve would want to take a look.... and the courts in the use tend to take IP issues fairly seriously... if there was a possible steal I@m sure they would look into it if Valve asked them too...
Not to mention many games of teh same engine have the same 'feel' to them... I can instantly tell if the engine I'm using in a game is Q3, unreal, etc based when it is a widly used engine... don't tell me Valve don't know their engine well enough that they can't tell it being used.
Joe DeFuria
03-Oct-2003, 14:11
These would, undoubtedly, have access to NV38, the unreleased drivers and also HL2 and would also stand to benefit from the FUD.
Why would an AIB partner would have access to HL2?
RussSchultz
03-Oct-2003, 14:58
Why would an AIB partner would have access to HL2?
Because then the conspiracy would line up. ;)
Mariner
03-Oct-2003, 16:05
Why would an AIB partner would have access to HL2?
1. NVidia obviously have access to HL2 for testing/bug checking purposes.
2. AIB vendors which are developing cards using NV chips need to test these for bugs/compatibility.
This would lead me to believe that these AIB vendors would have access to HL2 either direct from Valve themselves or through NVidia. How else could they test their hardware?
No conspiracy implied anywhere there - just seems logical to me. It's not as if MSI, Asus, etc are small, untrustworthy companies.
My original comment about NVidia 'suggesting' the 'leak' to Anand should have had a smiley next to it, in case you thought I was looking for a conspiracy.
digitalwanderer
03-Oct-2003, 16:10
Why would an AIB partner would have access to HL2?
1. NVidia obviously have access to HL2 for testing/bug checking purposes.
2. AIB vendors which are developing cards using NV chips need to test these for bugs/compatibility.
This would lead me to believe that these AIB vendors would have access to HL2 either direct from Valve themselves or through NVidia. How else could they test their hardware?
Yes the IHVs would have access to HL2, but not to the source code of HL2. I'd really think they'd be getting an executable and not the source!
Mariner
03-Oct-2003, 16:21
Hmm. I'm not sure if people are misinterpreting what I've said, here.
I am not saying that I think the recent 'theft' of the HL2 source code is down to NVidia or their AIB vendors.
In fact, I've not said a word about this event.
I was talking about Anand's 'reliable source' for the HL2 benchmarks which he printed in his Weblog possibly being one of NVidia's AIB vendors.
As for the 'Source Source' code :wink: , whoever stole it obviously knew what they were doing. I'd guess that the Valve network manager has been dragged over the coals for this lack of security!
Joe DeFuria
03-Oct-2003, 16:38
2. AIB vendors which are developing cards using NV chips need to test these for bugs/compatibility.
I honestly don't think that AIB vendors test nVidia's hardware / drivers with unreleased games...if they test much at all.
I don't see any reason why, with the exception of AIB partners bundling HL2 with their cards, AIB would have pre-release games.
This would lead me to believe that these AIB vendors would have access to HL2 either direct from Valve themselves or through NVidia. How else could they test their hardware?
With available games and benchmarks.
Benchmarking unreleased cards isn't that evil, the 9800XT might as well be unreleased right now. Anand just showed us that the nv38 can't compete with the 9800XT, thus people wont have to wait on the nv38 to make a decision to buy ATI, I fail to see how this is such a bad thing.
Also I do like to hear things like what he said even if the numbers are from Nvidia, it is just a little more information which will have to be verified somewhere else later. Some people think that the masses are "to dumb to be told things" b/c they will make stupid decisions based on partial knowledge but hey if they are dumb enough then they can pay the price :)
Dave Baumann
04-Oct-2003, 16:09
9800 XT is shipping in Dell PC's right now.
jimbob0i0
04-Oct-2003, 17:05
Benchmarking unreleased cards isn't that evil, the 9800XT might as well be unreleased right now. Anand just showed us that the nv38 can't compete with the 9800XT, thus people wont have to wait on the nv38 to make a decision to buy ATI, I fail to see how this is such a bad thing.
Also I do like to hear things like what he said even if the numbers are from Nvidia, it is just a little more information which will have to be verified somewhere else later. Some people think that the masses are "to dumb to be told things" b/c they will make stupid decisions based on partial knowledge but hey if they are dumb enough then they can pay the price :)
Yes..... but then that just leads to people thinking bad about *our* industry.... unless the 'general public' is educated then they won't know any better.... the likes of AT and [H] might as well go find uninformed peeps in teh street... mug them and take anywhere between $250 and $500 and then give it to NV... it's not Joe Blogg's fault if he didn't know to avoid them now is it?
(A little extreme ... sorry ... but I hope you get my point)
3dilettante
05-Oct-2003, 04:53
I've got to give Anand some kudos for one thing: he definitely knows how to make a spectacle.
With his latest articles and news posts, he has probably gotten a good number of hits. I'm pretty sure even those who discount the reliability of Anandtech had to check out what was going on at least once, if not more just so they could be sure of what they were seeing.
I know I went back a few times to check on what is going on, so I guess it's all the same to AT regardless if I went there to see their appraisal or just to see how badly things were going.
Sharkfood
05-Oct-2003, 23:56
It's of no importance what is found on Anand's site. Anyone that still gifts the site any degree of credibility in the past has hopefully learned their lesson by now.
This is the same kind of thing that was published in Radeon 9700 Pro reviews last year, around August-ish where Anand stated how the NV30 coming out was going to make the choice of buying a 9700 Pro unclear. Anand's site was the #1 site for FUD tactics regarding the NV30 prior to it's release, and did so every time the 9700 Pro was mentioned while also hinted towards "trusted findings" that all turned out to be nonexistent.
It's of no importance what is found on Anand's site. Anyone that still gifts the site any degree of credibility in the past has hopefully learned their lesson by now.
This is the same kind of thing that was published in Radeon 9700 Pro reviews last year, around August-ish where Anand stated how the NV30 coming out was going to make the choice of buying a 9700 Pro unclear. Anand's site was the #1 site for FUD tactics regarding the NV30 prior to it's release, and did so every time the 9700 Pro was mentioned while also hinted towards "trusted findings" that all turned out to be nonexistent.
The odd thing about all this to me was that I thought he hit nV30 precisely on the head--and did an overall competent, professional review of the product nVidia sent him. He was critical when he should have been.
But ever since then none of his reviews has come even close to that level of professionalism. Nowadays he's soft-pedaling everything. The nV30 review was long and complete, and he approached his comparative review by looking at IQ and attempting to draw meaningful conclusions. Now, he's publishing mystery benchmarks from mystery sources he had nothing to do with and admits it--he's publishing "multipart" comparative reviews including upcoming, non-shipping products still under NDA, which are using drivers not yet available to the public--AND he adds insult to injury by publishing frame-rate bar charts in PART ONE, and saving the image quality comparisons for PART TWO, which will be published at some later date YTB. Can we conclude he doesn't understand that without IQ comparisons, frame-rate bar charts are meaningless? I think his nV30 review proves he understands the importance of covering those aspects simultaneously.
If not for the credible job he did with nv30 I'd have to put him in the same category as Pabst and Bennett and say he should stay with motherboard and chipset reviews, since they are his obvious forte. But he proved in that NV30 review that he does understand the basic principles behind authoring a decent 3d-card hardware review.
It's too bad web sites aren't required to list financial arrangements with hardware manufacturers somewhere on their sites. For one thing, sites that are accused of having these kinds of deals but actually don't have them would be served by it, I think. And on the other hand, the information would serve the public interest if it's known a certain site is being paid by an IHV.
Ah, well, it's a caveat emptor economy.
Sharkfood
06-Oct-2003, 05:07
The odd thing about all this to me was that I thought he hit nV30 precisely on the head--and did an overall competent, professional review of the product nVidia sent him. He was critical when he should have been.
Oh, he absolutely HAD to. He had spent the previous 8-10 months blowing so much smoke and causing so many folks to wait that once the NV30 finally DID come out, he had to duck into serious damage control.
It's like touting this ultimate cheeseburger for a burger shop that hasn't even opened up yet.. while people are standing around hungry next to Wendy's. All the while making references and hints that your information is "inside" and you've truly already sampled the goods and they are worth waiting for. Then suddenly, the burger joint opens up and they are selling these soy burgers on stale buns, taste like motor oil and overpriced. The only thing you can do then is point your line of hungry sheep back over to Wendy's.
cthellis42
06-Oct-2003, 12:54
As far as I remember for Anand's 9700 review, he said a lot of "one could expect"s of what NV30 should have, not really making claims. Granted that's still soft-pedalling, but most reviewers do conjecture as well. Who WOULD have expected nVidia to have a 128-bit memory bus when even Matrox had gone to 256? Even if that was the only difference the NV30 had at launch, it likely would have compared a LOT more favorably to the 9700 than it did. (The pipelines, of course, have always been under contention. Hehe... And still are, considering all the guesswork going into what R420/NV40 will show up as.)
CorwinB
06-Oct-2003, 13:32
Well, in this business, there's always something better around the corner. So in my humble opinion, if a famous reviewer says "I can't recommand product XXX because product YYY will soon be there", then it's not a case of saying "something better will be available one day", which is a given, but it's actually endorsing with your own credibility that product YYY will really come soon, and will really be better than product XXX.
If you are not sure of that, then you are spreading FUD and/or are being used for that purpose, and you completely deserve getting creamed for it when product YYY turns out to be a late, overhyped, overheating, overnoisy (???) and underperforming piece of hardware.
cthellis42
06-Oct-2003, 14:36
Also true.
Of course most of the 5800 reviews were both properly critical as well as saying "and since the 9800 is coming just around the corner..." ;)
It was a needless tone-shifting add, but I don't think I noticed it much even at the time (and at the time I was mainly just reading Anand and Tom's for review stuff :shock: :shock: ) as I was too busy being blown away by the 9700 seeing just how MUCH they they lept into 1st by. (Something they had never been able to do before.) Judging by nVidia's usual track record with architecture changes I figured it'd still be pretty close in general--and since it wasn't showing up for months still ANYway...
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