IHV Biasses *spin-off*

Dictator

Veteran
I think for a balanced discussion it's important to showcase as much as possible before dismissing any of it off.
That being said, there is a stark difference between a demo like the ones posted, and full implementation into a complex AAA title.

Of which DXR has been successfully bolted-onto two titles so far, with a couple more expected later this year.
I don't know where these compute solutions will go or whether they will surface into anythign more significant, but it's good to keep tabs on what can be done outside the realm of RTX.

But obviously I think it's fair to say that we're not comparing this tech demo and it's performance to the performance of what we see from Nvidia RTX cards and BFV and Metro. I mean, lets face it, metro and bfv without RT is going to draw away tons of available graphics performance already; it's questionable how much performance is left on these cards for RT to be done and thus why I still think hardware accelerated RT is the way to go right now, at least for a generation or two.

At the core of the debate there is performance and there is labour cost. The second usually gets omitted in the discussion. But I am a believer that the second is certainly as big of a driver if not larger than the first.
Balanced discussion, sure - but it seems disingenuous to not consider like for like scenarios, flexibility, or even what is actually happening regarding dynamism and then also post it with some trolly air and flavour text.

I am really not sure what is happening around the discussion concerning real time raytracing on the GPU, is it just because that NV is first-to-market here? Or that it is currently PC only in the current itetration that is illiciting this response? The price of RTX cards? I am currently baffled that something as innocuous as one type of implementation in the form of RTX cards could get such trolly responses on a nice mediated forum like this - let alone among respected PC GPU reviewers and tech channels. It is one thing to say that the price is not to your liking, or you prefer higher framerates or higher resolution without ray traced effects being on, but disinenguously claiming that developers are sabotaging standard implementations to make RTX look better (as has been written in this very thread) or that they "do not try" (as has been written in this very thread) is really beyond the pale.

I am not sure why, but even Gamer Nexus picked this up and is reporting on it in such a manner:

It seems intuitively obvious to the most casual observer that the comparison is a bit naff when you consider what is actually happening on the GPU, but to label it "actually trying" in the video - my goodness.
 
Balanced discussion, sure - but it seems disingenuous to not consider like for like scenarios, flexibility, or even what is actually happening regarding dynamism and then also post it with some trolly air and flavour text.
It's an unfortunate escalation where people's feelings are misplaced, towards/against a vendor and against other posters with whom there's a history because of vendor alliance. This also leads to prejudice against opinions sided with a poster one has a disagreement with. So, someone very neutral like LB can come in and say he doesn't see much impressive in a particular RTX video, which can be subjective and as such he cannot be wrong, and the responses are very negative instead of exploring the whys and wherefores, which then generates frustration from those wanting to unemotionally critique the tech. It's assumed that his lack of excitement for what he's seeing comes from an anti-nVidia stance rather than just being him not being impressed.

There's a thread on this very topic...

It seems intuitively obvious to the most casual observer that the comparison is a bit naff when you consider what is actually happening on the GPU, but to label it "actually trying" in the video - my goodness.
Sadly, we live in a world where people trying to sell products do 'misrepresent' them. You'll often see 'before-and-after' promo shots where not only does the model have the product/service applied, but they have different hair, makeup, backgrounds, and a smiling face etc. When nVidia first showcased RTX, the 'RTX off' examples weren't representative of the best no raytracing could achieve. There's nothing wrong with people pointing that out to balance the marketing slant that, obviously, nVidia's materials are going to have. And there's nothing wrong with ongoing counterpoints, but as ever, these tend towards extremes. Some of the Metro shots really are dire, but that's quite true of lots of games. However, some of the counter-arguments to these worst-case shots aren't terribly useful - instead of presenting clear evidence to to contrary, you get responses like 'have you even played the game?' as if we all have RTX cards and just can't be arsed to play Metro ourselves, or complaints that the negative view is just biased.

And the same goes the other way. It's typical human discussion. By and large people seem to engage in discussion to prove themselves right/the other guy wrong, rather than to explore and learn. See Brexit shambles where there's a really serious situation and the people involved just spend their efforts slagging each other off instead of finding solid answers. eg. I was asking questions earlier. Iroboto, a very fair an reasonable poster just interested in the discussion, interpreted that as me criticising the tech, instead of just asking questions. The perception of posts is very clouded by expectations, emotions, and prejudices, and that escalates into complaints about prejudices instead of people being able to let go of it all and just talk in the faith that contributors opinions aren't coming from a particular agenda.

I am not sure why, but even Gamer Nexus picked this up and is reporting on it in such a manner:
This is a good example of poor discussion. You link to a 27 minute saying how wrong Gamer Nexus is. I start playing the video and it seems a fair and balanced intro. Am I expected to watch the entire 27 minutes to find the bit where they're talking about deliberately undercooked graphics? Not going to happen. ;) Either timecode the video to the relevant bit or mention it in your post.

And this is actually an important point. People are coming at this discussion with different amounts and qualities of evidence. Those of us following RTX from a distance can only from opinions from the data linked because we're not playing the game on RTX. What might be obvious to DavidGraham playing Metro won't be obvious to those of us not, who have to look at screenshots and video clips which depends on what people link to.

At the end of the day, I don't think it'll get any better than this. Actual devs will be discussing the pros and cons of RTX without constantly challenging every expressed opinion as being pro/anti nVidia. I think the only place ordinary, non-technical people manage to structure unprejudiced discussion is in a law court, where strong rules are applied to keep it on the facts. Even supposedly rational people like scientists will get highly polarised around certain topics.
 
This is a good example of poor discussion. You link to a 27 minute saying how wrong Gamer Nexus is. I start playing the video and it seems a fair and balanced intro. Am I expected to watch the entire 27 minutes to find the bit where they're talking about deliberately undercooked graphics? Not going to happen. ;) Either timecode the video to the relevant bit or mention it in your post.
I make mention of what I am decrying right in the sentence I wrote - the implication of "actually trying" in the video title card which I find non-enrichening in the discussion around RT and overly antagonistic. That was what I was referencing.

If you are curious what I might say about the video itself, it is the overselling and underselling that happens at many points (many points) but is perhaps really easy to see at a bit before 20 minute mark.
They are mentioning alternatives to the ray traced image with light probes (which we all know how they function these days on this forum I assume), yet there is no mention of the pros and cons of that technique there and how dynamic objects are placed and sampled in the light probes and how that indrect light actually propagates. There is a specific moment of omitted information regarding how area lights in ray tracing actually work and give proper umbra/penumbra shadows and area light specular - in that scene at that moment. Without explanation the person controlling the camera just spawns a shadow casting spotlight infront of the emmissive geometry to equalise the visual output of the image in comparison to ray tracing. Surely discussing the finer points as to what an area light is, how it is hard to represent in rendering, and what is actually happening in UE4 with ray traced area lights would be germane.
 
Gonna double post because I was editing my post and time ran out!!!

But the content of that video was not my original point - rather my main point was about the antagonistic attitude regarding the current implementation of RT on the GPU and the posturing from enthusiasts and tech journalism on the web surrounding it. I have been following graphics tech for 20 odd years at this point and I have never seen such a loud and frankly immature push back against an implementation like this.
 
For the most part I dont see anything antagonistic against RT. I see people willing to have open technical discussions.

Then I see certain people posting they feel that their views are being attacked. This is their own personal bias coloring their perception of reality.
 
The antagonism I see is no different to any product advertised and then failing to live up to its advertised promises. There was a video on DLSS where the guy stressed two games in 6 months and the result was rubbish - I think before a patch. nVidia sold very expensive GPUs on the promise of features that people are rightly 1) critical of - was it really worth the money, or did you pull the wool over my eyes, and 2) likely to talk about.

It's no different to something like Ouya, sold on promise and then with heavy criticism. RTX hasn't been mindblowingly awesome in the same way the reveal demos were, and DLSS hasn't been a revolutionary advance in efficient rendering. Maybe one day they will, but given the pricing and promotion from nVidia, the push-back is what I'd expect. It compares with push-back against Apple and Samsung and Sony etc. when they make promises they don't deliver on. Sony got plenty of justified flack for PS3, with the shonky promo CGIs followed by games that didn't deliver which people were very rightly going to speak loudly of.
 
There is a bias against hardware accelerated ray tracing from some posters here. That is very clear if you read the discussions across the forums.

It is disingenuous to dismiss
Not just bias, it's outright Frank and clear despise, sometimes it takes the form of fantasizing about compute RT, sometimes the form of saying NVIDIA is scamming us through deceptive marketing (as if we haven't seen RT games in action), sometimes in the of form of downplaying the effect of RT in games .. etc.
 
There is a bias against hardware accelerated ray tracing from some posters here.
And there's bias in favour of hardware accelerated ray tracing from some posters here, treating every open, honest enquiry about the tech as anti-nVidia.

As a result, those in the middle are unable to have a genuine discussion because everyone else is more interested in talking about bias...
 
Not just bias, it's outright Frank and clear despise, sometimes it takes the form of fantasizing about compute RT, sometimes the form of saying NVIDIA is scamming us through deceptive marketing (as if we haven't seen RT games in action), sometimes in the of form of downplaying the effect of RT in games .. etc.
Criticism is not a bad thing, it keeps people and companies sharp and edgy with their feet on the ground,

I like what Nvidia is doing, but in a critical way.
 
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And there's bias in favour of hardware accelerated ray tracing from some posters here, treating every open, honest enquiry about the tech as anti-nVidia.

As a result, those in the middle are unable to have a genuine discussion because everyone else is more interested in talking about bias...
"But the other side is doing it too!"

Anti-nvidia stances are obviously going to be treated as anti-nvidia stances.
 
Anti-nvidia stances are obviously going to be treated as anti-nvidia stances.
How do you tell which opinions are honest and which are prejudiced? How do you know when someone posts, "I think RTX isn't the best way," it's coming from an anti-nVidia position rather than just being a different POV? Or when someone says, "I can't see much difference," what's the giveaway that they're just dumping on nVidia rather than sharing an honest perspective?
 
It's really a
You're clearly a Nvidia marketing puppet yourself in the same league as Pharma.
Are we getting personal? I'm an enthusiast who embraces Nvidia's approach to AI and Graphics and attempt not to criticize Nvidia or AMD.
If you have a problem they do have an ignore feature which is quite useful!

Have you accused anyone of being an AMD marketing puppet? "What! They don't exist in this forum!" That's what I thought ... :rolleyes:
Try looking inside and see the negativity in your postings against Nvidia and tell me your are balanced in your criticisms since you like to criticize so much.
 
How do you tell which opinions are honest and which are prejudiced? How do you know when someone posts, "I think RTX isn't the best way," it's coming from an anti-nVidia position rather than just being a different POV? Or when someone says, "I can't see much difference," what's the giveaway that they're just dumping on nVidia rather than sharing an honest perspective?
Pharma gave a good example. Here are a couple more:

https://forum.beyond3d.com/posts/2060908/
https://forum.beyond3d.com/posts/2060907/

NVIDIA turning on and off their DXR-RTX effects = NVIDIA scamming people.

Now, if you can provide examples of honest opinions/perspectives taken as anti-nvidia stances I'd like to see them.
 
NVIDIA turning on and off their DXR-RTX effects = NVIDIA scamming people.
Why is that prejudice? Because I (and many many others) didn't like an image of "Current Techniques" being a voodoo-era representation of what lighting looks like compared to the messiah of "RTX"? It was marketing bullshit (omg I used colorful language).

I'm not against the RTRT technology in general, I'm against everything other than the technology that Nvidia employs to push their product. The amount of Nvidia tech in my home speaks to that. I'm against blind promotion of everything Nvidia does without questioning.
 
Why is that prejudice? Because I (and many many others) didn't like an image of "Current Techniques" being a voodoo-era representation of what lighting looks like compared to the messiah of "RTX"? It was marketing bullshit (omg I used colorful language).

I'm not against the RTRT technology in general, I'm against everything other than the technology that Nvidia employs to push their product. The amount of Nvidia tech in my home speaks to that. I'm against blind promotion of everything Nvidia does without questioning.
Here's the RTX reveal:


It wasn't "current techniques" but "traditional graphics". He's comparing rasterization to ray tracing. He even says "we are a real time graphics company", "no probes, no light baking". He also mentions how you can use a lot of trickery to improve the rasterized image. So where's the bulshitting? The reality is that currently only ray tracing can achieve the effects he shows there and at that quality and performance. Even NVIDIA's VXGI 2.0 pales in comparison to DXR-RTX.

It's fine to question things but it's very important to get the facts right when you do it.
 
It wasn't "current techniques" but "traditional graphics"

It starts at 37.00 mark.

He even took the audience on a small journey to show how that pure rasterization image can be enhanced through various techniques till reaching the point of full scene Ray Tracing. Then he proceeded to show that disliked comparison

That's why I kept asking what marketing bullshit? The conference obviously had no such thing, but it seems many people are out for NVIDIA’s blood over such trivial moments.

It seems some asshole took that picture out of context and then everyone jumped the gun on this without watching the conference, did anyone here even watch it himself to verify whether he said this or not, and in what context?
This isn’t a trial for Malo, I believe those posts were taken out of context as well, there are much worse examples from other members in that thread, I will refrain from pointing them out specifically, as this is not a personal war discussion. But the posts I am referring to were full of sarcasm and trolling.
 
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It seems some asshole took that picture out of context and then everyone jumped the gun on this without watching the conference, did anyone here even watch it himself to verify whether he said this or not, and in what context?
Come on - those posts were clearly presented with satiric context, just for fun and a laugh. Nobody takes this so serious. I doubt the market leader will take damage.
 
Can you imagine people posting in this forum a leveled amount of "satiric content, fun and laugh" towards the non-market leader?

Not surprised a relatively newcomer like @Dictator noticed the trolling responses in this forum. It's not what people expect to find in a *neutrally moderated* forum.
Balanced discussion, sure - but it seems disingenuous to not consider like for like scenarios, flexibility, or even what is actually happening regarding dynamism and then also post it with some trolly air and flavour text.

I am really not sure what is happening around the discussion concerning real time raytracing on the GPU, is it just because that NV is first-to-market here? Or that it is currently PC only in the current itetration that is illiciting this response? The price of RTX cards?

I am currently baffled that something as innocuous as one type of implementation in the form of RTX cards could get such trolly responses on a nice mediated forum like this, let alone among respected PC GPU reviewers and tech channels.
 
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