No more FX reviews.

I enjoy the fact that nVidia only did what it had to do... yet when we, the consumer, do what we have to do - complain like mad about false advertising and attempts to rip us off - we're told to stop picking on poor defenceless nVidia.

Time to wake up.
 
I'm just a plain & simple PC user so, for me, after reading the mini-novels contained in this thread & considering the points of view they expressed I have to say the whole thing boils down to:

Is what nVidia appears to be doing right?

Is it excusable?

I say no. :(

I'll be eagerly anticipating the eight paragraph posts arguing over the correct definition of right. :?
 
About reviews, how can anybody write this in a review?

Conclusion
The GeForce FX 5900 Ultra is a definite player in the high-and 3D market, and ASUS has a serious challenger with their V9950 Ultra. Performance is top-notch, the slimline cooling hardware is a welcome change, and ASUS quality continues to be a selling point. If you're looking to be on the bleeding edge of 3D game performance and don't mind the sticker price, then the ASUS V9950 Ultra is one tough card to beat.

No, it's not a review of a few months old.
Code:
ASUS V9950 Ultra (GeForce FX 5900 Ultra) Review
By Vince Freeman :  September 18, 2003

Link
 
RussSchultz said:
Demalion, for all of your high-falutin verbal pontificating, you seem to miss the plain english reading of a simple statement.

It is amazing what you can do when your discussion is predicated on ignoring the words that someoen said until after your case is "proven".

Please read Nelg's post for the basic sentence construction of Gkar1's post. He's cut out all the extraneous words and left the simple structure there for you to read.

:LOL: "Extraneous words"!

You propose that he said "they had the opportunity to produce a competitive card, but instead they chose to design a bad card in order to deceive the public", and then proceed to point out that this statement is ridiculous.

Of course all the words besides "they had the opportunity to" and "but instead chose" are "extraneous", because ignoring them is your entire basis for argument! :oops:

Pay closer attention to nelg's post, and consider that it wasn't proposed that the other words were extraneous, but that a new phrasing of the highlighted words is required to preclude your ridiculous antics and astounding posturing in reply to them.

Its pretty cut and dry (beyond doing word replacement like Nelg is);

Sure, when you deem every significant and distinguishing detail of the statement as "extraneous" so you can freely interpose your own replacements! :oops:

its literal meaning is in your face like the humidity in Houston: nvidia, by concious choice, passed on making good technology and instead chose a path of deceit.

Your arguments continue to be based on omitting the actual words that were said! My goodness, you do know how to impress me, and I don't mean in a good way, and the adolescent phrasing just puts it over the top. :-?

Perhaps you need a little bit of grammar tutoring?

I can only be amazed at what appears to be a full on fit of unadulterated ego.

The use of this word, instead, suggests that the first portion (before the comma, mind you) of this sentence was one possibility of a bifurcated decision. The other option being the portion of the sentence after the comma.

Indeed. However, the detail you continue to ignore is that what proposed "instead" was "a path of greed and deceit", and what it was proposed in place of was "taking an opportunity", not "choosing to try to make a good part". Saying they failed and then chose is what "instead" establishes, not that they "chose to purposefully fail". 3rd time's a charm? (Or is it more?)

Again, holding them accountable for their choice is not unreasonable, nor the same as accusing them of choosing to design bad hardware in order to deceive (unless, of course, you have the "unique" idea of focusing exclusively on "instead" and "chose" and avoiding discussion of anything else that might have been inconveniently stated besides that while you construct your argument).

By all means, quote me the meaning of the word "instead" based on the premise that any other words that lend specific meaning to the statement made have no relevance :oops:. This would explain why the meaning of words is such anathema to you.

That the second portion of the sentence used the word chose suggests that there was, umm...a choice made. We can only assume the choice was between the two options identified by the grammer, punctuation, and the useage of the word instead.

Sure, if you ignore inconvenient bits like what was stated was what they had the opportunity to do, and what followed was a proposition of what they chose to do that failed to achieve that opportunity. If you ignore the phrasing of what the opportunity was, and what they chose, little details like your proposition not making sense are indeed hidden. :oops: No one can dispute that ignoring the rest of the sentence allows you to make all sorts of characterizations, but it seems rather easy to point out that by the act of ignoring the rest of the sentence and any discussion of them those characterizations might just be completely worthless.

Given that we have two possibilities, and a choice made between them, has led me to believe that Gkar1 is asserting that NVIDIA had before them: "the opportunity to drive the industry forward by leaps and bounds" and " the path of greed and deceit" and purposefully selected one of them as their plan of action,

Seems to bear some semblence of sense.

and purposefully rejected one of them as their plan of action.

Your characterization of "purposeful rejection" is that they "chose to make a bad product so they could deceive people". I understand the gist of your thinking: what was said was "purposeful rejection" by your "logic" wrt "instead", and what you characterized was "purposeful rejection"...so of course what you characterized is a perfectly valid representation, and no one can dispute that. :oops: It just continues to amaze me with it's illogic, is all.

How much mileage do you expect to get out of ignoring even your own words when inconvenient? "Saying they purposefully CHOSE to engineer a bad product is not one of them. Saying that they did it so that they could decieve the world is even more ludicrous." Amazing!

And to defend this characterization, you only had to first maintain that the words actually stated were irrelevant, construct your argument and prove it while depending on the absence of those words, and then apply your "proven" argument to a re-arrangment of select parts of the original words fit into your characterization.

Ack.

...

You can, as I've mentioned, establish that this is what gkar said and attack it after demonstrating this in a way that makes sense. If it is important to you to do this by stroking your ego and "throwing my words in my face" in such a distorted and ridiculous manner, I point out that appearing ridiculous to others might naturally follow. I recommend sticking more strictly to direct logic instead of a poor imitiation of it made secondary to a desire to posture, or maybe even directly asking gkar1, which would leave your interaction with me disagreeing with you limited to only the initial criticism on your commentary that you've already decided to ignore.

You can, of course, as one alternative, maintain that there is no difference in "logically" and "grammatically" discussing someone's words without the highlighted extra steps above (which might bear some relation to fairly representing someone else's statements and validly addressing them) compared to doing it with such a set of actions, by the simple expedient of ignoring that those highlighted extra steps were ever mentionedt. You've done it several times already, just in this thread. It might, however, cause me say "bad things about you" that people might have valid reason to agree with.

So, where again am I deviating from the "standard of adherence to what people actually say"?

See above.

Face it, Demalion. You thought in my second response I was being aggressive toward you, when in actuallity I was addressing GraphicViolence.

Hmm? Actually, I was addressing a lack of logic in the statements you made, as the reply would indicate when read (deja vu).

You struck back, and are now faced with either admitting that you're wrong (quelle horreur!), or overpowering me with your verbal onslaught hoping nobody actually reads what you write.

Eh? Please quote something of mine that I'm hoping people won't read? I don't mean "quote" like you "quote" gkar, either. :oops:

And people say I like to argue?

All my laughter is bitter, and my amazement fills me with no enjoyment. We've covered my lack of enjoyment of discussions with you already in the past. I think the proposal was specifically directed at you because there doesn't seem to be any other rational basis for your statements, but that is, as already established, my opinion.

You're right about a few things, though. Your repetitive assertations that I ignore you should be a clue as to what. You're onto me, I won't deny.

Since your ignoring me and others is what I propose is a principle mechanism of your failing to make sense so often, I'm surprised that you agree with me so readily.
 
Wee, not only am I incompatible with English, I'm irrational, non-sensical, and irrational.

God know how I get along in life, much less order coffee from Starbucks.

I can't quote you like I quote Gkar (in its entirety) because you write so God damn much.

I didn't leave any words out of his statements (go back, and check again. No, really, I didn't. Check one more time. There we go. See it? :idea: I knew you could).

If you notice, you're inserting words to bolster your claims. There was no "failed and then chose" in his statements. Without that, the useage of "instead", as in substutition, coupled with "chose" its a clear indication that there was an intended co-location of the choices; an either-or proposition, one precluding the other. There was no indication that there was any qualification, or extenuating circumstances on either of the choices, just that one was made. You could possibly argue that the "opportunity" clause came first in the sentence, and that was enough to connote its time being passed before the choice being forced to be made, but beyond that you're essentially SOL. And I think that argument also bunk because you're having to insert outside knowledge into the sentence for it to mean that.

It seems quite clear to me he was attempting to demonize NVIDIA as having been presented with good, but eschewing it for evil.

How you can defend such inane statements is what's beyond illogical, irrational, and non-sensical.
 
hjs said:
About reviews, how can anybody write this in a review?

Conclusion
The GeForce FX 5900 Ultra is a definite player in the high-and 3D market, and ASUS has a serious challenger with their V9950 Ultra. Performance is top-notch, the slimline cooling hardware is a welcome change, and ASUS quality continues to be a selling point. If you're looking to be on the bleeding edge of 3D game performance and don't mind the sticker price, then the ASUS V9950 Ultra is one tough card to beat.
Well, considering they didn't test any DX9 games, nor did they test anything newer than UT2003 (which is already a year old), nor did they test any non-standard benchmarks or use any custom demos, this conclusion isn't too surprising.

These kinds of tests just don't tell you anything useful about a graphics card anymore. Except maybe that it can render 3 invisible frames of Quake 3 in between screen refreshes on my monitor. :rolleyes:
 
Russ, demalion... please discuss whatever it is you're currently discussing somewhere else because it's wasting space.
 
RussSchultz said:
It seems quite clear to me he was attempting to demonize NVIDIA as having been presented with good, but eschewing it for evil.
or, perhaps, he simply didnt analyze his statement enough, and you read it in a way that he didnt intend, and got the wrong impression, which lead to you on your high horse, insulting people?
And before you go "what insults!!" - I'll tell you, the way you talk down to people is an insult enough.
 
RussSchultz said:
Wee, not only am I incompatible with English, I'm irrational, non-sensical, and irrational.

God know how I get along in life, much less order coffee from Starbucks.

If ordering coffee in Starbucks resulted in challenges to things you've invested your ego into, I daresay you would encounteer similar difficulty.

If you typically engage in behavior where you ignore what people say due to it challenging an investment of ego where you could ignore or avoid consequences as you do with me, it seems likely you'd have the same difficulty. Or perhaps it is just my ability to demonstrate your error so effectively that has locked you into considering discussion a defense of ego, and you'd have to encounteer the same to exhibit the behavior elsewhere.

None of these things seems relevant to the use you put them of maintaining that my pointing out your error is invalidated by you living or being able to order coffee at Starbucks.

I can't quote you like I quote Gkar (in its entirety) because you write so God damn much.

You didn't quote gkar "in its entirety", which is why I said "quote" to refer to what you did do and asked you not to do that to me (thanks). Nor did I ask you to quote me in entirety, but to come up with an example of statements of mine that demonstrated what I was afraid for people to actually read. If being asked to not pick parts of my sentence and re-arranging them without being accountable to having that relate to my statements as originally stated is inconvenient for the asked demonstration, perhaps that is a problem with the assertion you proposed.

Here is a quote of gkar "in its entirety": "Its extremely funny to me that they had the opportunity to drive the industry forward by leaps and bounds, but instead chose the path of greed and deceit. I guess i put too much faith in the goodness of the human spirit." Where did you discuss this quote in your post? What I see you doing is making up characterizations and discussing them instead.

FYI, the quote you referred to with all the "extraneous words" lined out doesn't count. :oops:

I didn't leave any words out of his statements

Except when you were discussing his statements, of course, and dictating most of it "extraneous". :oops: Not that anything, except pretending my discussion didn't exist, stopped you from providing an answer to this, if you had one, the first time I provided provided this discussion.

(go back, and check again. No, really, I didn't. Check one more time. There we go. See it? :idea: I knew you could).

:oops:

If you notice, you're inserting words to bolster your claims.

Yes, I already told you that I understand that to you that anything you regard as "logical analysis" and "grammar analysis" are all the same, whether they depend on ignoring words to establish their cases, or not.

There was no "failed and then chose" in his statements.

Nor did I say there was.

Without that, the useage of "instead", as in substutition, coupled with "chose" its a clear indication that there was an intended co-location of the choices; an either-or proposition, one precluding the other.

Of course, just ignore the discussion that covers this exactly, and repeat your own explanation instead. :-?

There was no indication that there was any qualification, or extenuating circumstances on either of the choices, just that one was made.

Hmm? What part of my statement depends on "extenuating circumstance" or "qualifications"? It depended on pointing out that the choice was what was stated to have occurred instead, and taking the opportunity was what it was proposed to have taken the place of. Saying they chose greed and deceit instead of "taking the opportunity to lead" does not logically or grammatically equate to stating "choosing to not lead in order to deceive", and this is all my commentary "depends on". Failing to address such commentary does not make it disappear, or disprove it.
Assigning them "failure" is a characterization that fits that observation used to illustrate the difference with a characterization that does not (yours).

Hey, but you "can't quote me", so these words never existed. :oops:

You could possibly argue that the "opportunity" clause came first in the sentence, and that was enough to connote its time being passed before the choice being forced to be made,

That's not the only way to demonstrate the issues with your characterization, which (deja vu) you'd know if you'd treated my commentary as other than something you had to disagree with at all costs.

but beyond that you're essentially SOL.

You seem to depend on telling me the way things are, and ignoring any discussion of why things might be otherwise seems to be your requirement. You just finished agreeing with this, didn't you? Was this post intended as an exercise in further validating this description of your behavior?

And I think that argument also bunk because you're having to insert outside knowledge into the sentence for it to mean that.

Of course, the actual chronological relationship of their success in achieving technology leadership and what they did with the NV3x is "outside knowledge" that has no bearing on his statements. :oops:

Russ: :rolleyes: You seem to be working hard for this emote.

It seems quite clear to me he was attempting to demonize NVIDIA as having been presented with good, but eschewing it for evil.

This isn't news, nor the reasons as to why I disagree with the reasons you've given.

How you can defend such inane statements is what's beyond illogical, irrational, and non-sensical.

Such a statement is exactly what I specifically said I wasn't defending, but don't let that get in the way of your name calling. :-?
 
GraphixViolence said:
RussSchultz said:
Would you be more pleased if they simply closed up shop at the first hint of trouble with a sign on their door: "We were pwned by ATI"?

You attribute too much malice to a company which has no feelings. The only instict a company has is self preservation.

Russ, we all know why they did it. If your going to lie you need to pick and chose when to lie. Nvidia has really leveled up on the lies, much greater than anything I can remember. ATI had really crappy cards in the past. They did not stoop to the levels of Nvidia.

The only thing I can think of would equal Nvidia is the amount of lies that were told in the OJ Simpson case.

Nvidia has lost all credibility as a company. Maybe they are just horrible liars. I think they have just reached into the bag of lies too many times.

All products have some spin to them. Some are 80% product 20% spin. When it comes to the FX line Nvidia is like 80% spin/lies and 20% product..
 
Reverend said:
Russ, demalion... please discuss whatever it is you're currently discussing somewhere else because it's wasting space.

While certainly not appealing to be equated to Russ's side of the discussion and told I'm wasting space due to your annoyance, I will seek to respond to further fallacies put forth only once.
 
RussSchultz said:
...It seems quite clear to me he was attempting to demonize NVIDIA as having been presented with good, but eschewing it for evil.
...

Why should that matter? It's nVidia's problem, isn't it? Like it or not some people will equate nVidia's misrepresentation and obfuscation all year long as something akin to "evil." Arguments about what to call it are just semantics. Few applaud it no matter what you call it.

As far as people "demonizing" the company is concerned, the simple truth is that no one could out do the way in which nVidia has made itself a pariah in the industry this year. nVidia PR statements are now considered factually worthless and void of credibility. That's not his fault--it's nVidia's.
 
mczak said:
hjs said:
About reviews, how can anybody write this in a review?
Link
First review I've ever seen which states NV35 has better AA quality than R3x0... :!:
And of course, if you actually compare the shots, the reverse should be plainly obvious. ATI's method produces far less stair-stepping along the wing edges. This isn't news to anyone here, of course.

A truly stunning review when considering the scope of its incompetence, the AA judgment was just icing on the feces cake. I'm getting an itchy register-finger to hob onto Sharky's webboard and demand to know the brand of scotch that was consumed during that review.
 
RussSchultz said:
Wee, not only am I incompatible with English, I'm irrational, non-sensical, and irrational.

OH, COME ON RUSS! (Sure you love to argue, but damn!)

Without going to sematics or joining the rather delightful grammatic lessons the point is a simple one:

* nVIDIA AS A COMPANY HAS BECOME MARKETING DRIVEN, NOT ENGINEERING DRIVEN

At the time this decision was made it certainly has seemed like a rational one. Nvidia has clearly been the most competent marketer in the field and focusing on your core competence is typically a good choise. As a long term startegy this has not been a sustainable one.

This change took place somewhere after GF2 and lead to a row of consious marketing driven decisions within Nvidia's product development. First really clear signals of this became apparent when GF4 MX was released. Essentially Nvidia rebranded GF2 to GF4 and thus introduced a very low quality product and with a high end brand (GF4) which sold like hotcakes. All informed parties (developers, techie consumers) disliked this product, but your average joe simply aimed for GF4 brand.
Given how succesfull this approach was they've executed on the same 'low quality products with a high end brand' approach again with GFFX product line.

Unfortunately given that the real focus of the company has been in marketing for quite a long time, they're now starting to suffer from this. Given how much ATI has pulled ahead nVidia's engineering seems to be in a meltdown. At the same time they've alienated parties like Microsoft with their CG approach and products like GF4 MX which make DX look like a lousy API and now it's truly hard to believe that somehow they'd be able to recapture the original engineering focus. Personally I can't see any indications that NV40 would somehow break this trend. It might be a step to the right direction but make no mistake; the real focus at Nvidia is in marketing.

To add to the actual point:

* nVIDIA HAS MADE CLEAR AND CONCIOUS DECISIONS WHICH HAVE LED THEM TO THE CURRENT MESS THAT THEY'RE IN

Interpreting nvidia's actions over the last year or so it is clear that somewhere along the line they started to belive their own marketing. They actually shifted their strategy to relect a monopolistic approach. CG is a good example of this. TWIMTBP is another good example of this. Programmable CPU's one more example (they're a great thing you're the true standard). The strong arming of web reviewers is yet another.
I'm sure that in the environment their management made this decision this seemed like a rational gamble. Early August last year Nvidia was truly the 'platform of choice' for gamers. It was a good and a bold opportunity that Nvidia decided to go for to 'finally seal their dominance' once.

Then last August in a rather surprising move ATI came up with a product that was very, very competitive. Not only that but at the same time nvidia completely fumbled the ball with NV30 which turned out to be a 'well documented mistake' (Remeber when they first told us about the product? How cooling is perceived as a 'badge of honor' among gamers? Seriously that really, really spells true desperation).
As conclusion, because Nvidia didn't pay attention to engineering and ATI succeeded exceptionally well in a manner of few months Nvidia's monopositic strategy was totally out of place.

Now the management had effectively only two strategic choices;

* Continue executing the monopolistic strategy with everything you got. Fight against the current any way possible. Deny everything and keep acting like a monopoly, while hoping to god that your engineering team will come up with a savior prouduct to get you out of this mess (first NV35, now NV40).

or

* Change company strategy. Withdraw from a monopolistic approach. Focus on generating as much good will about the positive aspects of your products (driver supports, gaming platform, developer goodwill etc.). Do what ever you can to maximize your sales, but without sacrificing your brand, image and relations to community, developers, hardware reviewers etc.

Early this year Nvidia still had an amazing level of goodwill among all the constituents and the latter choice was a real one. We'll never know, but possibly they could have executed very well with that strategy also.

* THE MANAGEMENT MADE A CLEAR DECISION TO CONTINUE THE MONOPOLISTIC STRATEGY IN A SITUATION WHERE NVIDIA DID NOT HAVE PRODUCTS TO BACK UP THIS STRATEGY

This has lead to the unfortunate events where practically each month since the beginning of this year nvidia has kept spinning more and more lies to buy one more month before people catch up. (remeber the early denials of only 100k units of NV30's and the sudden turnaround with funny videos). When the public started to catch up with this they've then increased the efforts and stepped over every borders with substantial contempt for both business etchis and the intelligence of related constituents (yes this is still partially effective with people like Lars Weinard who apparently has eyes closed, fingers in his ears and is going na-na-naaa trying and wanting to belive the stuff nvidia tells him).

But back to the so called point: Given that this decision has most likely been done at an executive level (Jensen) there's practically now change of management owning up and taking responsibility of their bad decision. It's truly sad that there's must be a lot of good people within Nvidia who are just as upset with their strategy as the hardware community.

Personally I don't think they'll change their strategy. It will be lies, denial and bad-mouthing all the way up to NV40. NV40 will be hyped as the savior 4-6 months before it actually makes it to the retail. The current events must have caused some level of chaos withing the already disorganized engineering department which was just starting to get over the mergers before this mess began. Reverting back from a monopolistic strategy would probably mean architecture changes (from programmable practically propriatary API direction to one that functions well with existing standards) and implementing these take time.

Summing it all up:

* NVIDIA DIDN'T CHOOSE TO MAKE BAD PRODUCTS. THEY CHOSE TO EXECUTE ON A MARKETING DRIVEN MONOPOLISTIC STRATEGY ALREADY FEW YEARS AGO. THIS HAS BEEN A CONCIOUS DECISION BY NVIDIA MANAGEMENT AND WAS PROBABLY WELL JUSTIFIED AT THE TIME BUT NOW THIS STRATEGY IS FAILING OR HAS FAILED ALREADY.

It is not realistic to expect that anything would actually change within Nvidia. They could just as well changed their strategy and this would have allowed them to avoid the pitfalls that they've falled in during this year, but they decided not to, probably because egos were involved.

Get it Russ?

- Tom
 
1st Russ did not say they are not pursing a marketing driven strategy now.

2nd Nvidia has become the McDonalds of graphics cards, market an inferior product to the clueless (kids in McD's case) and make tons, and tons of money, the problem is it that eventually it comes back to bite you, and no matter how much money you throw at convincing people that McD's has salads and other good stuff now, they still remember... hungry
 
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