[engall]

Ops,Nvidia did it again. New drivers Dets 44.67 optimized for 3dmark03 patch 3.30.FX made much better scores again.
Why does Futuremark still keep silence?
3dmark03 now is meaningless, isnt it?

[DeathKnight]

All I care is that my 9500 Pro with a 1.46GHz T-Bird gets 3353 3DMarks in it.

[rwolf]

I don't think futuremark is meaningless. I think Nvidia benchmarks are meaningless. If you think that the same think isn't happening in quake, ut2003, or other benchmarks you have your head in the sand.

[Chalnoth]

Improvement of benchmark scores does not mean there wasn't a legitimate and beneficial optimization.

[StealthHawk]

Originally Posted by Chalnoth

Improvement of benchmark scores does not mean there wasn't a legitimate and beneficial optimization.

And it just happened to bring scores to the same level as when NVIDIA was cheating? Talk about coincidences. Considering that in 44.65 we know NVIDIA is altering the shader code I don't see how they are getting similar scores without altering it in 44.67

[FUDie]

Originally Posted by Chalnoth

Improvement of benchmark scores does not mean there wasn't a legitimate and beneficial optimization.

Except that you can see obvious image quality problems (texture compression, fake trilinear, etc.)

Please stop being an NVIDIA apologist, Chalnoth.

-FUDie

[Entropy]

Accepting this continued behaviour is quite damaging to FutureMark.
They lost a lot of public goodwill and interest already in nVidias initial attack against their product. They then proceed to alienate the substantial group who still saw value in the benchmark with their continued acceptance of nVidia and their shenanigans, making the benchmark useless for comparisons between IHVs, and generally reducing the value of their data base.

They are progressively loosing public interest in their products, and as they loose public interest, some of their revenue streams will eventually dry out.

IMHO, being passive and hoping that things will blow over just isn't an option at this point. The downward spiral is firmly in place, now it's simply a question of pace.

While it might be damaging to their short term financials, taking steps to ensure that their benchmark products can produce useful data might give the company some kind of long term viability. That way, they produce something that is actually interesting or even useful to some parties. It also provides a handle to turn the continued loss of public interest around.
Going down the other path, where they only produce benchmarketing material, is a dead end route when the public no longer cares about the numbers that are produced. Then they are useless even to the companies that have an interest in paying for benchmarketing to promote their wares.

Entropy

[Dave Baumann]

As of Monday NVIDIA rejoined the Beta program. As of Monday one of the most stand up guys I know left Futuremark.

[Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.]

Originally Posted by DaveBaumann

As of Monday NVIDIA rejoined the Beta program. As of Monday one of the most stand up guys I know left Futuremark.

So it's official - Futuremark sold out to Nvidia.
Nvidia couldn't be top of the test fairly, so they cheated, then threatened the company with court, and now have given a load of cash to Futuremark to keep quiet about the cheating. All for this "useless" benchmark.

What have the other 3DMark members got to say about this? Will B3D withdraw from membership of Futuremark? Will ATI introduce blatent cheats now that Futuremark have sanctioned such behaviour?

What are Nvidia apologist sites like [H] going to say now that Nvidia endorses 3Dmark, and even quotes their (cheating) results during their financial conferences? Will they start using 3Dmark results under pressure from Nvidia, now their masters tell them the test isn't "useless", even when the rest of us know it's more broken than ever?

[Fred]

Dave, if you have an accusation to make, just say it. Instead of making veiled inferences about Nvidia and FutureMarks integrity.

Why don't you interview this guy, and ask him the reasons why he left. At least thats proffessional.

[Proteus]

Originally Posted by DaveBaumann

As of Monday NVIDIA rejoined the Beta program. As of Monday one of the most stand up guys I know left Futuremark.

If that implies what I think it means.. I don't forsee myself buying Nvidia again, regardless of card quality and technology.

[Dave Baumann]

Fred, there was no accusations there, that was just two statements that I found out to be the case yesterday. However, it doesn't take a mind reader to to fathom that they are inevitably linked - take a look back at some of the posts by Rev over the history of this issue.

I'm expecting a call from Futuremark on Monday to find out some more details. As for an interview it wouldn't do much good because he'll inevitably still be bound by his NDA's - we already know far more about the situation than we can ever talk about publically.

[Grall]

Originally Posted by Fred

Dave, if you have an accusation to make, just say it. Instead of making veiled inferences about Nvidia and FutureMarks integrity.

Agreed.

If you got something to say, just say it. If there's a connection, say so outright! If the two are unrelated, why even mention them together in the same post?

*G*

[Entropy]

Originally Posted by Fred

Why don't you interview this guy, and ask him the reasons why he left. At least thats proffessional.

Oh, come on.
How on earth can you suggest that "this guy" is at liberty to discuss the internals of Futuremark, never mind that it is hardly in his best interests to do so no matter what?

It has been bleeding obvious that there has been internal conflicts regarding how the situation with nVidia should be handled. Not surprising. Nor is it surprising that there might be individuals who feel that Futuremark may now be a less attractive place to spend their professional futures than, say, a year ago.

Dave is a human being, not only a representative of B3D. It is obvious that it was Dave-the-human who spoke above, about a guy he would seem to respect a lot.

Entropy

Edit: Dave beat me to it. There is nothing that says that everything he posts here must be checked and accepted by the legal and PR departments of various companies. Live with it.

[StealthHawk]

Originally Posted by Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.

So it's official - Futuremark sold out to Nvidia.
Nvidia couldn't be top of the test fairly, so they cheated, then threatened the company with court, and now have given a load of cash to Futuremark to keep quiet about the cheating. All for this "useless" benchmark.

What have the other 3DMark members got to say about this? Will B3D withdraw from membership of Futuremark? Will ATI introduce blatent cheats now that Futuremark have sanctioned such behaviour?

What are Nvidia apologist sites like [H] going to say now that Nvidia endorses 3Dmark, and even quotes their (cheating) results during their financial conferences? Will they start using 3Dmark results under pressure from Nvidia, now their masters tell them the test isn't "useless", even when the rest of us know it's more broken than ever?

Since when did Futuremark sanction cheating? I'd say they are turning a blind eye to it. I haven't yet seen them say "yes, NVIDIA's optimizations are acceptable." In fact, we've heard the opposite. That cheating or optimization, they are still invalid.

The question is, once NVIDIA launches some new official drivers which bring the scores back up, will Futuremark do anything or stay silent? I'm betting at this point that they will just keep quiet.

[SvP]

Originally Posted by Grall

If you got something to say, just say it. If there's a connection, say so outright! If the two are unrelated, why even mention them together in the same post?

Why are you so upset?

[engall]

I wanna know where is auditor now!

[Bjorn]

The question is, once NVIDIA launches some new official drivers which bring the scores back up, will Futuremark do anything or stay silent? I'm betting at this point that they will just keep quiet.

Unless of course Nvidia manages to get the scores back up without cheating. Something that doesn't seem very likely at this moment though. But i reserve my judgement until the next official drivers comes out. Maybe the're the drivers that B3D are testing now ?

[Harlequin]

AJ is the one who has left futuremark.

[incurable]

Originally Posted by Chalnoth

Improvement of benchmark scores does not mean there wasn't a legitimate and beneficial optimization.

While this is true in general, can you look at the facts of this whole nVidia/3DMark03-thing and still believe valid optimizations to be the cause for the recent re-alignment of 3DMark-scores?

Originally Posted by DaveBaumann

As of Monday NVIDIA rejoined the Beta program. As of Monday one of the most stand up guys I know left Futuremark.

Very interesting info, thanks for sharing, Dave!

Originally Posted by Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.

What have the other 3DMark members got to say about this? Will B3D withdraw from membership of Futuremark? Will ATI introduce blatent cheats now that Futuremark have sanctioned such behaviour?

Good questions, very good questions.

Originally Posted by StealthHawk

Since when did Futuremark sanction cheating? I'd say they are turning a blind eye to it. I haven't yet seen them say "yes, NVIDIA's optimizations are acceptable." In fact, we've heard the opposite. That cheating or optimization, they are still invalid.

The question is, once NVIDIA launches some new official drivers which bring the scores back up, will Futuremark do anything or stay silent? I'm betting at this point that they will just keep quiet.

I don't see much of difference between sanctioning the suspect increases and just keeping quite about it while allowing scores to be entered into the ORB using suspect drivers.

cu

incurable

[Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.]

Originally Posted by StealthHawk

Since when did Futuremark sanction cheating? I'd say they are turning a blind eye to it. I haven't yet seen them say "yes, NVIDIA's optimizations are acceptable." In fact, we've heard the opposite. That cheating or optimization, they are still invalid.

If you know it's happening and you keep quiet about it, then you are sanctioning it. Don't forget, Futuremark are in the position of policing the validity of 3Dmark scores. They have an obligation to keep the scores "clean"

Originally Posted by StealthHawk

The question is, once NVIDIA launches some new official drivers which bring the scores back up, will Futuremark do anything or stay silent? I'm betting at this point that they will just keep quiet.

Just after the 330 patch came out, Nvidia launched new drivers that seemed to put the cheats back in. Performance went up to pre-330 cheat levels. Neither FM or Nvidia made any comment about this. Given it would have been in FM and Nvidia's best interest to put out a statement saying "all cheats have been removed and the GFFX really does bench this well" (especially given all the furore over Nvidia's initial cheating), I can only surmise that the cheating is still happening, but that FM have been induced (either by lawyers or money) to keep quiet about it. Thus in my opinion, FM are sanctioning these cheats, and are complicit in the deceit of both Futuremark's and Nvidia's customers.

[Entropy]

Originally Posted by Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.

Just after the 330 patch came out, Nvidia launched new drivers that seemed to put the cheats back in. Performance went up to pre-330 cheat levels. Neither FM or Nvidia made any comment about this. Given it would have been in FM and Nvidia's best interest to put out a statement saying "all cheats have been removed and the GFFX really does bench this well" (especially given all the furore over Nvidia's initial cheating), I can only surmise that the cheating is still happening, but that FM have been induced (either by lawyers or money) to keep quiet about it. Thus in my opinion, FM are sanctioning these cheats, and are complicit in the deceit of both Futuremark's and Nvidia's customers.

True words.
I quoted them because they deserved to be read again.

While Futuremark could have weathered the nVidia storm and come out in as strong as before, they have now managed to alienate just about everyone. Even their own people, apparently. It is one thing to see yourself as part of the foremost benchmarking outfit in the business, a driving force for PC and graphics development as well as equipment sales. It's quite another to look in the mirror every morning and see someone who helps egg the kids on to spend their money buying kit from corporations out to decieve them, a deception you're an accomplice to. I'd predict that Futuremark will loose other good people in the relatively close future.

But IMHO too much attention in this affair has been focussed on Futuremark because nVidia tactics became obvious in their high profile benchmark. Those tactics aren't limited to 3DMark, and it is interesting to follow how the industry (manufacturers/vendors/media/consumers) react and deal with that.

And I wonder just how much nVidia has lost by sticking to their deceptive tactics, and will loose in the future. While there are blind fans, most people take a dim view of being consistently misled and aren't necessarily eager to support it financially. Or are they? If this had been about cars, and a manufacturer had been found to consistently lie about the information on engine power, safety equipment et cetera, they would be deservedly dead in the market. nVidia obviously sells huge volumes to the preconfigured part of the market, but what about the part where consumers make active choices? If anyone has solid retail sales data, it would be very interesting to see it.

Entropy

[Reverend]

Originally Posted by Fred

Dave, if you have an accusation to make, just say it. Instead of making veiled inferences about Nvidia and FutureMarks integrity.

Dave is giving you a "scoop". Scoops invariably never tells the whole story. If you do not prefer to have such scoops, don't comment or if you do, try to respect the publicly recognized host of your public forum participation. I do not like the inference about dave's charactyer you're making here.

Why don't you interview this guy, and ask him the reasons why he left. At least thats proffessional.

I gave you guys the reason he left a long time ago. Look for my post about this, I don't have the time to search for you. I didn't name him for very obvious reasons but someone here already mentioned his initials. He didn't agree with the route taken by Futuremark about the whole NV/FM fiasco.... and he doesn't agree with it now according to the latest agreements (not public yet, or may never be) between NV and FM. Interviewing him would be like interviewing Scott Sellers about why he never wanted to joined NVIDIA -- Scott could be sued for revealing his true feelings and thoughts... so what's the point?

We, as a beta member, means we cannot disclose non-public information. Asking us to do so would mean possibly paying legal fees and fines. Would you be willing to foot such possible bills?

Beyond3D will be watching how things turn out at FM. We will have no hesitation in leaving the beta program if we feel that the way things are going at FM doesn't agree with our own principles. We don't know all the details at this point. When we do, we can decide what to do but we not be able to reveal it due to NDAs. We may still be tied to NDAs for a certain period if we decide to leave the beta program, so anything we may have to say about why we may be leaving the beta program will have to come upon NDA expiry. This should not infer that we have already decided what we're going to do based on what we know because, as mentioned, we don't have all the details (FM has not emailed us)... I'm only saying all of this because I'm annoyed by the apparent fact that you don't seem to know what it means to be a FM beta member and all the legal tie-ins this means.

[Ailuros]

While this is true in general, can you look at the facts of this whole nVidia/3DMark03-thing and still believe valid optimizations to be the cause for the recent re-alignment of 3DMark-scores?

Clipping planes are like Partisans. They randomly appear in your driver code, when you expect them the least

[WaltC]

Originally Posted by engall

Ops,Nvidia did it again. New drivers Dets 44.67 optimized for 3dmark03 patch 3.30.FX made much better scores again.
Why does Futuremark still keep silence?
3dmark03 now is meaningless, isnt it?

44.03 is the latest official nVidia Detonator package officially released by the company from www.nvidia.com . Everything else is either leaked or an OEM driver (which may use different, and misleading, numbering schemes.)

I think all that FM can reasonably be asked to do is to issue a recompile patch along the lines of 330 every time nVidia officially releases a driver package. I think FM is entirely right to ignore all other "releases."

I saw a blurb somewhere yesterday which stated nVidia would officially release a new Detonator set on Monday, Aug 11. Have no idea whether it's true, of course. But if it is then that's when FM should do another patch. If and when nVidia releases another official Det package, if FM at that time (within a few days) refuses to issue another recompile patch then I'll agree with you.