Wheee!! [H] has finally managed to piss off FutureMark.

[Leto]

I take everything back I've said before about [H]. This plus Infinium Labs makes me fell much better about [H].

I think people keep forgetting about a very important law called 1st Amendment. Sure it may impact sales for FutureMark but that's what opinions are for.

It's like saying Ford sucks and then Ford asks you nicely to stop with a lawsuit to back it up.

I'm glad I'm not the only @sshole who hates 3DMark.

Why would you "hate" 3DMark. Hate is an emotional adjective which makes your reasoning a little questionable.

 

[vb]

FarCry, HL2 and Doom3 tells us very little about nextgen games.

I take this as "next gen games will be geometry(VS) intensive"

 

[Tim]

FarCry, HL2 and Doom3 tells us very little about nextgen games.

I take this as "next gen games will be geometry(VS) intensive"

3Dmark05 is hardly that geometry intensive, at least it is not vertex shader limeted on current cards.

 

[PaulS]

For once I find myself partially agreeing with Hellbinder. People need to stop rolling out this "THE FIRST AMENDMENT RULES MY FORE FATHERS FOUGHT FOR BLAH BLAH" crap, because they really don't understand what they're talking about. Freedom of speech has limits and boundaries, and a professional journalist needs to be very careful about what he or she says, and (more importantly) how it's said.

I don't know the specifics of what Kyle has said in the past, but I think he's been overly hasty in dismissing this. He could be in trouble.

 

[Leto]

, I find myself not wanting to visit the site less and less.

That wasn't an intentional doublenegative?

 

[digitalwanderer]

, I find myself not wanting to visit the site less and less.

That wasn't an intentional doublenegative?

I don't think it wasn't not...

 

[RickCain]

, I find myself not wanting to visit the site less and less.

That wasn't an intentional doublenegative?

 

[carpediem]

, I find myself not wanting to visit the site less and less.

That wasn't an intentional doublenegative?

What you basicly said, i think, is that you find yourself wanting to visit it more and more. (double negation)

 

[DukenukemX]

FarCry, HL2 and Doom3 tells us very little about nextgen games.

They are the next generation games. In fact HL2 isn't even out yet.

What are you waiting for the new Unreal 3 engine?


From PaulS

For once I find myself partially agreeing with Hellbinder. People need to stop rolling out this "THE FIRST AMENDMENT RULES MY FORE FATHERS FOUGHT FOR BLAH BLAH" crap, because they really don't understand what they're talking about. Freedom of speech has limits and boundaries, and a professional journalist needs to be very careful about what he or she says, and (more importantly) how it's said.

You haven't been to "THE BEST in the UNIVERSE"? .

So why hasn't FutureMark jumped on these guys? http://www.airiox.com/editorials/oct04/futuremark/index.htm

Personally we here in America are entitled to say whatever we want about something as long as the speech isn’t threatening or completely false.

That sounds about right.

Futuremark could have just easily let the statements made by HardOCP pass and this story would have faded just like the rest and both parties would have been better off.

That is also very true.

When someone attacks our neighbors I hope none of us would just sit on out hands and watch as the events unfold. And since we hold ourselves to that standard, we have made an executive decision to no longer include any Futuremark product in our reviews until they apologize to the people and fan base of HardOCP.

Now it's geting good.

 

[Hanners]

FarCry, HL2 and Doom3 tells us very little about nextgen games.

They are the next generation games. In fact HL2 isn't even out yet.

Err, no - Far Cry and Doom 3 are current games. This is why you can buy them right now.

You could argue Half-Life 2 as 'next generation', but it's a case of semantics - Its game engine still primarily caters for first generation DirectX 9 hardware. 3DMark05's focus is second generation DirectX 9 hardware.

 

[digitalwanderer]

Did any of you folks read some of the e-mails that the [H] folks who wrote Tero got back? He basically said he wrote the original e-mails quickly and thinking it was no big deal and he now regretted his rashness.

I'd hunt up the link, but the thread is bloody 26+ pages long already!

I just thought it worth a mention, this really all might just end up a tempest in a teacup.

 

[Socos]

I take everything back I've said before about [H]. This plus Infinium Labs makes me fell much better about [H].

I think people keep forgetting about a very important law called 1st Amendment. Sure it may impact sales for FutureMark but that's what opinions are for.

It's like saying Ford sucks and then Ford asks you nicely to stop with a lawsuit to back it up.

I'm glad I'm not the only @sshole who hates 3DMark.

From WaltC

Now, since [H] seems to know and understand that 3dMk is not actually a game itself, but is instead a "benchmark," why would 3dMk "suck" merely because it "does not tell me anything specifically about the games I play"...?

Why it's too complicated for you?

Directly from http://www.futuremark.com/products/3dmark05/.

The Gamers Benchmark

It's a benchmark for the gamer that is obviously trying to rate a PCs performance in PC gaming.

It's a synthetic benchmark with an engine not meant for gaming but meant to be a gamers benchmark.

The only reason 3DMark was important is because for a long time people didn't have many games that used new DX7, DX8, or DX9 technology. I can remember how long people used Quake 3 to benchmark DX8 and DX9 cards.

3DMark isn't needed anymore because we have FarCry, HL2, and Doom3.

I completely agree that [H] has every reason to not use 3Dmark in their reviews. I somewhat understand why Kyle feels the way he does. The simple fact that 3Dmark gets more attention then the performance of most games is a problem.
Where I disagree is 3Dmark 2003 was pretty spot on in predicting performance in future games on the 9700 and 5800. It said the 9700 would run PS2.0 games good and that the 5800 would suck at them. Too me that is the purpose of a benchmark, to test future features not yet seen in games and for that purpose it does a good job.
Just because IHV's can cheat at it and put in special code for it is not a fault of 3DMark. Its up to people like Kyle to point out that an IHV is lowering IQ or changing it in someway to show their product in a good light.
So is 3dmark a tool you can use to tell how fast your video card will perform in future games. Yes I think so. It has shown this. Is it the only thing you should use to base a purchase on. The answer is an obvious "NO"

Problem is Kyle has picked his side of the fence and nothing is going to change his mind about that. He will shout it till the end of time. And while I agree his opinion is protected by the first amendment and he has every right to say what he wishes. Why beat people over the head with it though???

 

[DukenukemX]

Err, no - Far Cry and Doom 3 are current games. This is why you can buy them right now.

You could argue Half-Life 2 as 'next generation', but it's a case of semantics - Its game engine still primarily caters for first generation DirectX 9 hardware. 3DMark05's focus is second generation DirectX 9 hardware.

So what do you call Quake 4 which will be based on the Doom 3 engine? Nextgen or current?

How does 3DMark05 focus on second generation hardware? Don't tell it's because of the PS2.0b and PS3.0 support.

 

[John Reynolds]

So what do you call Quake 4 which will be based on the Doom 3 engine? Nextgen or current?

How does 3DMark05 focus on second generation hardware? Don't tell it's because of the PS2.0b and PS3.0 support. That's hardly a reason to call it secondgen.

Oh, but a sequel using an engine that relies heavily (if not primarily) on DX7 generation technology is next-gen? Riiiiight.

 

[Hanners]

So what do you call Quake 4 which will be based on the Doom 3 engine? Nextgen or current?

Well, a lot of that depends on if the engine is modified by Raven in any way. If it isn't, then no, it's more about the engine than the title. If the Doom 3 engine gets heavily modified then I guess you could conceivably think of a title that uses it as 'next generation'.

How does 3DMark05 focus on second generation hardware? Don't tell it's because of the PS2.0b and PS3.0 support.

Apart from what you just mentioned, take into account the shader lengths, polygon counts, etc etc used in 3DMark05. Tell me - How many current generation games match those kind of numbers?

 

[Tim]

They are the next generation games. In fact HL2 isn't even out yet.

No they are the current generation of games.

What are you waiting for the new Unreal 3 engine?

Yes among others, it would be pretty damn stupid expecting 3Dmark05, to show a similar performance profile as current games.

 

[Reverend]

Bah, "next generation" anything is what my kid will get to play, not me!!

 

[Doomtrooper]

2 + 2 =

Originally Posted by Kyle:

I visited NVIDIA offices last week and we discussed 3DMark03. At that time we had the benchmark for a well over a week and I think NV had it for a day. At that time I had already made my mind up that 3DMark03 did not represent gaming. We KNEW NVIDIA's thoughts had merit when they came to us with their opinions.

The letter/email that was sent out to review sites, press:

"Since NVIDIA is not part in the FutureMark beta program (a program which costs of hundreds of thousands of dollars to participate in) we do not get a chance to work with Futuremark on writing the shaders like we would with a real applications developer. We don't know what they did but it looks like they have intentionally tried to create a scenario that makes our products look bad. This is obvious since our relative performance on games like Unreal Tournament 2003 and Doom3 shows that The GeForce FX 5900 is by far the fastest graphics on the market today.

Unlike a game developer, Future Mark has a motive to make their application run poorly on one IHV's hardware becasuse that IHV refuses to pay them hundreds of thousands of dollars per year to be part of their beta program. A real application or game is best served by running as well as possible on all hardware to give the end user the best experience, but 3DMark03 uniquely is not.

If you need some additional 3rd Party support - the following editorial from HardOCP is a perfect response:

http://www.hardocp.com/article.html?art=NDMw"

Can you say played like a

Kyle is not qualified to make assumptions about programming as he has no technical background in the graphic field. He could not tell if a IHV is telling him the truth or a lie...like the above example.
3Dmark 03 did expose the truth about graphic card archictecuture last year, until some IHV covered it up with clipping planes.
I am not a Futuremark fan either, but it is silly to watch Kyle cover up the truth, he got played and is afraid to admit it.

 

[Moloch]

damn futuremark for bending over for kyle..

 

[WaltC]

...

Please don't make an idiotic statement saying "Far Cry sucks because it doesn't specifically tell me how my box will run Doom 3," because unlike 3DMark, FarCry will tell you how well FarCry runs on that particular hardware and Doom3 will tell you how well Doom3 runs. What does 3DMark tell you about games?

3dMk is what? Is it a benchmark designed to tell you how every game will run on your system, or is it a "gamer's benchmark" designed to provide you with information as to how your current hardware is likely to perform in software gaming situations which use the latest in API feature support, support that might be months or even a year or more away from actually being implemented in shipping 3d games? Of course, the correct answer is the latter, imo. The API functionality 3dMk supports is both real and current--the implementation of that API feature support in shipping games is likely to be much later in coming, however. Does the fact that a benchmark supports current API functionality that won't be seen in shipping games for months, but will indeed be seen in them eventually because its already in the API, somehow invalidate 3dMK as a benchmark? I cannot see how, and on the contrary, would think it actually buttresses the value of 3dMk as a hardware benchmark particularly well suited for 3d gamers.

Understand that I didn't say, "3dMK sucks because it tells me nothing specifically about how Doom 3 runs on my box," but [H] said it, and I was merely illustrating what a ridiculous, inappropriate statement that is. It's exactly as ridiculous as saying, "Far Cry sucks because it tell me nothing specific as to how my box will run Doom 3."

While Kyle didn't state it in necesarily the best manor, what he was likely meaning was that no one plays 3DMark, it's not a game and it should not play a very large role in determining whether a piece of hardware plays a game well or not.

No benchmark of any type, be it a cpu bench, a hard drive bench, a hard-drive controller bench, a ram bus bench, ad infinitum, wil ever, under any circumstances, tell you how your box will run any specific 3d game. Therefore, if that is a valid reason for tossing out 3dMk, then all other benchmarks are also meaningless and worthless for the same reason.

But it's easy as pi to illustrate what's wrong with that notion, because none of these benchmarks, including 3dMK, is designed for the express purpose of informing the user as to how any specific game will run on his system. Instead, these benchmarks, including 3dMk, are designed to provide other information about the tested hardware which is both general and generic in nature. That, of course, is the difference between a "benchmark" and a "game."

Now with that said, that's not to mean that 3DMark isn't with out it's uses. I for one believe that 3DMark is and will forever be infinitely invaluable to sites like B3D because it gives you a peak into a possible future, and shows hardware strengths/weaknesses that we would otherwise never see. It allows you to in a controlled environment to change settings variable by variable in order to isolate particular behavior and is just an all around excellent tool for that sort of work.

Good observation, which of course undermines everything else you said previously, but duplicity of thought seems to be an abiding characteristic surrounding this topic... Yes, 3dMK is a benchmark, not a game, and should be used and thought of only in that capacity. I'm not aware of FutureMark ever representing it differently.

Let's call a spade a spade, shall we? Prior to nVidia's "War on 3dMk" in late '02 and for most of '03, [H] had little to say about 3dMk that was negative, and as I recall, even used the benchmark regularly in its hardware reviews. Since then, of course, nVidia has mended fences, called off the war, and is happily paying FM all those outrageous fees it complained so bitterly about when in its wartime posture. nVidia has moved on, FM has moved on--but where is [H]? Stuck in the same old rut, that's where... [H] reminds me of the blissfully ignorant general still fighting the war long after it has ended. The thing I'd really love to hear [H] rationalize is why it thinks its opinion on 3dMK is legitimate when the 3d-gpu IHVs like ATi and nVidia consider it worth the price of admission. The fact that both IHVs consider paying the benchmark company for its services a worthwhile endeavor must mean that in some tangible fashion both companies feel the benchmark reflects *something worthwhile* about the nature and capabilities of the 3d-gaming products they make.