Asking Tim Sweeney about NVIDIA and more

This is such a dangerous route for developers to take. Unless you write a corresponding shader for ATI cards, your game is going to look slow and bad. Slow and bad on Nvidia cards because of their substandard hardware, and slow and bad on ATI cards because your shaders are crippled for non-Nvidia cards. Either way, the game will look slow and bad, and that can *will* be carried by the developer.

The only thing I can think of is that developers are coding for DX9, but when it comes to putting in all the extra effort to make NV3x cards look and run reasonably, developers are turning to Nvidia and saying "if you want your card not to be a laughing stock *you* better write all the specialist code our game needs, 'cos we sure as hell ain't going to."

 

don't forget ATI is doing the same thing.
I think the leaked presentation proved it.

 

I'd love to see the logic that reached that conclusion....

 

Haha classic response..
With all these sneaky deals and vendor specific optimizations going on who can you trust? Shaderday anyone? thats the type of thing he's getting at.

I would have left out your puerile commentary Anthony, it certainly wasn't needed and I can only wonder at what prompted it....hmmm

 

The actions the slides hinted at were insightful to say the least, but certain people such as little Joesph here, just cant bring themselves to believe that ATi isn't as squeeky clean as once thought.
But, then PR pops up and saves the day pouting "oh no, its all a misunderstanding" and the ATi types (being told what they wanted to hear) swallow it hook, line and sinker, no surprise's there....
If the IHV tables were turned though, would these very people be singing the same tune? Curious.

 

Did you not mean to say that what was published in the first place was a misrepresentation? Afterall, others that have seen the slides (as confirmed here) know that what was said by PR was the case.

 

No, my words were clear, as was the meaning of "Influence Benchmarks in Nvidia's Favor"....sorry I mean "ATi's".

 

Um,

1) Who ever claimed that ATI was squeaky clean?
2) Care to actually answer the question I asked, rather than play the school-yard bully? It doesn't work around here, you know.

I'll try again:

What in those leaked slides is "proof" that ATI is doing something like:

* Writing shaders under the condidtion that they only be used for ATI hardware, even though they can be used on other hardware?

Really, I'm all ears.

 

Wasn't this a discussion about benchmarks? Is it too far fetched to believe that Sweeny's remarks about "IHV funded benchmarks" and the marketting slide "Influence Benchmarks" are somehow related, and not in a good way?

 

If Epic sticks with NVidia specifics only they will ultimately loose the competition in the long run!

What competition? -> The competition among game developers.

ATI's R3x0 chips lend themselves to heavy DX9 usage. That basically permits excellent visual quality that is far superior to games based on DX8, which CineFX can do best. And that really poses a serious threat to NVidia's vassals.

Pathfinder

 

Hmm... That's certainly one way to look at it.

The other way to look at the situation would go along the following lines:

FACT 1:
There's been an amazing amount of hard evidence that shows that Nvidia has been very involved in dirty tactics all the way since NV30. This is not surprising given how badly GFFX product line has failed.

FACT 2:
There's been very few indications that ATI would be using as dirty tactics as Nvidia is. There's been no evidence so far that would suggest it, except the single slide that appearantly has been leaked by Nvidia's Brian Burke and has been taken out of context.

I'd beg to conclude that instead of mindless fanboyism we're looking at a very rational line of reasoning here. After the Nvidia experiences during this year it would in fact seem highly irrational to assume that ATI would not be playing a more clean game when compared to Nvidia.

- Tom

Ps. If you can't justify any of the claims you've made then you're simply trolling and wasting other people's time.

 

Not that far fetched...though this would mean that Tim is basically telling the world that his own game engine benchmark (UT2003) is not influenced in a good way by nVidia....

 

Perhaps as you have interned at ATI, and have an affinity to them you missed the obvious point, "people like gabe and I"

So he is saying companies who are being paid by IHV's are hard to trust to be unbiased and I think it is very forthcoming, to basically say "I don't know if you should trust me..." But he also included valve/ATI, specifically gabe. But if the games being benchmarked are very popular than it is still useful for the consumers to see benchmarks that show what performance they will get if they buy card X, even if the benchmark were biased.

 

any time you take a slideshow presentation out of context (and rumoured to be leaked by another IHV) anything can look bad.

its so easy to be lured into a certain mode of PR especially when one has been feeding it to others as well.

 

Prove it, apart from the PR wheres the proof ?
None of you have any for either argument, that your willing to publicly share.

How would people here be reacting if this was Nvidia underfire ? Would they just accept the PR and confess that yes, things were most likely out of context? Oh pleeeease....The hypocritical stench is overwhelming !!
The slides would most likely be plastered all over B3d's Frontpage.

 

I'm not the one claiming that the slides prove anything.

Argument for what?

That all depends on exactly what they would be under fire for, and what evidence there is for it.

Again, all depends. Look back to the Kyro document...is there any way to possibly take that out of context?

Oh pleeeease. Take the conspiracy theories elsewhere, particularly wrt B3D's official news stories / articles.

 

I guess you don't really follow B3D then.

 

Oh I do sir David...
Well I used to that was until the Rage 3D mentality set in, even your good self has been tainted by that.

 

Not enough to actually log in though?

What is this "Rage3d" mentality you speak of, BTW? The mentality that identifies NV3x shader architecture as notably inferior to R3xx for games? Or is it the mentality that has had to fight through (and continues to fight through) all of nVidia's tactics for trying to hide this truth? Oddly, that seems to be the mentality for anyone who has a lick of common sense....

 

Ahh the debate never ends with Joe around.
You seem to think the last one to post is the winner
Your a very close minded individual and nothing could ever change the way you perceive things....Good & Bad, ATi & Nvidia you fit in very well here.