The Philosopher King

[Geo]

. . .reviews the last 10 years of viddy history, and finds --surprise!-- it has gotten better largely thru his own efforts at harrying the Red and the Green from pillar to post.

http://hardocp.com/article.html?art=ODYy

Still doesn't get it on synthetics, and doesn't want to. Or, at the very least, on balance does not find the value outweighs the danger.

What worried me the most was the explicit giving up on objective standards for measuring IQ. . .while at the same time offering a paean to improving IQ. This makes seat-of-the-pants king, and that is an invitation to chaos.

Props to Agarath at EB for pointing this one out to me.

 

[chavvdarrr]

. . .reviews the last 10 years of viddy history, and finds --surprise!-- it has gotten better largely thru his own efforts at harrying the Red and the Green from pillar to post.

http://hardocp.com/article.html?art=ODYy

Still doesn't get it on synthetics, and doesn't want to. Or, at the very least, on balance does not find the value outweighs the danger.

Do you think synthetic tests are more important?

What worried me the most was the explicit giving up on objective standards for measuring IQ. . .while at the same time offering a paean to improving IQ. This makes seat-of-the-pants king, and that is an invitation to chaos.

Can you point at the "objective, supported by all interested" standart for measuring IQ ?

All in all it seems as a correct reflection of reality. Sad but true ©
If one prefers to close his eyes its competely different story
The truth is - all sites measur3 performance in 5-6 titles.
Doom3 - who is still playing D3 ?!
HL2 - same question is almost valid too
Riddick.. add 2-3 titles. Do we know for sure that game written on , say, HL2 engine no mods bar different textures and shaders will perform as well on green&red hardware?
What will happen if an unknown game suddenly becomes block buster? Who wants to argue that then (and only then!) we'll see "magic" drivers improving speed and quality in that game?

 

[Geo]

Do you think synthetic tests are more important?

More important? Than what? Why is that a consideration? Surely the correct question is are they important or unimportant. I think they are important.

Can you point at the "objective, supported by all interested" standard for measuring IQ ?

It seems to me there's a difference between saying "we don't have one that everyone agrees on" and saying "we can't have one, so let's just throw up our hands and say to hell with it."

 

[swaaye]

I thought Anandtech did pretty well with their X1800 coverage. They hit on a lot of games, like EQ2 and Guild Wars (TR did GW too) and many others. I've been thinking how stupid it has been for sites to ignore EQ2 considering the player numbers and how demanding it is.

I haven't been playing any FPS games since I beat Republic Commando early last spring. HL2 and Doom3 are over a year old now. So seeing reviews with those titles on state of the art cards definitely gets old. Though I suppose they are still a challenge for cards. Problem is that IHVs will see it and naturally start optimizing for these titles. As said in [H]'s article. It's not even necessarily evil. I don't mind them optimizing for popular games. But it can become trouble obviously.

I like seeing sites picking some new titles. I guess it finally dawned on the powers at HardOCP lol. Not everybody is a A.D.D.'ed 16 yr old FPS-only gamer!

 

[FrgMstr]

I like seeing sites picking some new titles. I guess it finally dawned on the powers at HardOCP lol. Not everybody is a A.D.D.'ed 16 yr old FPS-only gamer!

December 2003 - Halo / Max Payne / Tomb Raider / Need for Speed / Flight Sim / COD / UT2K3 / XIII

Even further back you will find GTA:Vice City / Splinter Cell / etc....

We started including more games of varied genres when the game graphics themselves presented a challenge to the video cards.

As for our demographics, they have never catered to less than 18 years of age in any real percentage.

 

[digitalwanderer]

As for our demographics, they have never catered to more than 16 years of age in any real percentage.

Fixed!

 

[Jimmers]

I think you all give [H] too hard of a time. For simple "how do I get this stuff working" questions, the forums there are great. I've even had a few questions that I got answered there faster than here.

Sure, there's always the "j00 noo|3, ge7 4MDz for teh game><ors" posts, but that's not to say it doesn't happen here also.

 

[swaaye]

Fixed!

LOL man!

But seriously, no I don't have a problem with them. I think my post was more of a response to the previous poster. I don't go to [H] a lot these days but they don't seem to be doing anything overly wrong. None of the major sites are too bad IMO really.

Sorry if I seemed to be coming down on HardOCP. I think they are great for the community. They like to challenge the things that seem a little too convenient, and the bullshitters out there too. We need [H]. Maybe they are a bit too vocal sometimes, but hey, it's fun to read!

 

[FrgMstr]

Of a sampled 6200 HardOCP readers.

0-13 - 0.3%
14-17 - 5.2%
18-24 - 41.0%
25-34 - 36.2%
35-44 - 10.8%
45-54 - 4.4%
55-64 - 1.1%
65-74 - 0.2%
74+ - 0.7%

 

[AlphaWolf]

Of a sampled 6200 HardOCP readers.

0-13 - 0.3%
14-17 - 5.2%
18-24 - 41.0%
25-34 - 36.2%
35-44 - 10.8%
45-54 - 4.4%
55-64 - 1.1%
65-74 - 0.2%
74+ - 0.7%

It's the 74+ crowd dragging you down, crotchety bastards.

 

[Sunday]

From mine point of view, testing the brand new arhitecture with the 1+ year old games, and making cemented conclusions is silly, at least to say. Game devs didn’t had a clue five years back when that started developing 1+ year old titles what will new architecture look like. And with this approach, stubbornly ignoring 3DMarks, one can’t give you a reasonable grade of the investment justification. Hell, If am so much in playing those old games, I’ll definitely won’t buy spanking new card, ‘cos those games are working just fine on 1+ year old cards. Evaluating GPU, and evaluating game experience in the bunch of old titles just doesn’t make any sense with the new cards!

 

[FrgMstr]

From mine point of view, testing the brand new arhitecture with the 1+ year old games, and making cemented conclusions is silly, at least to say. Game devs didn’t had a clue five years back when that started developing 1+ year old titles what will new architecture look like. And with this approach, stubbornly ignoring 3DMarks, one can’t give you a reasonable grade of the investment justification. Hell, If am so much in playing those old games, I’ll definitely won’t buy spanking new card, ‘cos those games are working just fine on 1+ year old cards. Evaluating GPU, and evaluating game experience in the bunch of old titles just doesn’t make any sense with the new cards!

I fully agree with you for the most part. We look at monthly game sales figures and make those figures weigh in on our decisions about what games we use for evals. This week, with the new games out, some based on older engines, we are making some changes. DOOM 3 and Splinter Cell are dropped. FEAR, Quake 4, and Serious Sam II will be added and in our next eval...the X1800XT.