Egg on Nvidia's face: 6800U caught cheating?

[Diplo]

And also, there's nothing wrong with optimizing for a game.

So why not optimise for the engine if you are genuinely doing it for the benefit of the customer? Why not tell the whole world that you have done these optimisations, since they are a good thing, right? Why hide it? Why not tell every hardware site how wonderful our drivers are, they even make Q3 run faster! Could it be that those sites would not then use Q3 as a benchmark, as it's no longer indicative of general performance?

Why did ATI cover this up? The answer is obvious - you know it, I know it. You just won't admit it and choose to rationalise it. No amount of (rather patronising) "you weren't around" insinuations will change that.

 

[webmedic]

And you don't call that cheating?!?!?!?!?!?! Lol, it's funny how people are loyal to a video card company that tries to screw them over for money.

Were you actually around at the time of this stuff going on? Or are you just pulling up stories? Like perhaps when two weeks later, a patch was issued that fixed the issue without performance loss?

Yeah...that's an impressive cheat there....

now for the rest of the story.

Joe is right here. I have even talked to Kyle on the phone about it. The only reason kyle did the write up the way he did was because ati denied cheating all along. Which of course didn't make Kyle happy so he felt he had a need to ""expose"" them.

Ati themselves stated that there was some kind of hardware issue and that that had been in the drivers since the radeon 64 or so. It only showed up on the 8500 due to hardware issues which they fixed as fast as they could in the drives (with no performace loss).

So if when they removed the offending code or fixed it, we saw a slow down then yes I would call that a cheat but that was not he case. I was there through this whole thing by the way.

By the same token Kyle also knew about the cheating going on with regards to nvidia and the nv30 but in contrast they did not deny it to Kyle. As a matter of fact he talked to Jen himself who told him flat out that they screwed up with the nv30. Since kyle knew it to be true and they were not denying it Kyle felt no need to expose them.

 

[John Reynolds]

What is your gripe?

Perhaps that it's not the wisest idea to accuse a company of cheating when the only evidence you have of said cheating was derived via a program you obtained directly from a competitor of the accused? I'm just a little silly that way at times.

Is that gonna change the fact that ATi is still doing FP24? Is until ATi begins FP32 and has some issues will it finally be ok to say, "Hmmm... somethings not quite right here?"

Wait, is this NVnews' board? Because your abrupt focus shifts in this thread are strangely mimetic of some of the *attempts* I made to have a logical discussion with you on that board. Oh, now I remember, it's impossible to have a logical discourse with you because you're not interested in the facts or looking at things in a fair or balanced light.

As far as journalistic integrity, wasn't there a huge backlash felt by extremetech last year for jumping the gun and not waiting for responses from both camps? I think so, I remember reading it here I thought...

And was ET proven wrong? And what was NV's response to the initial articles? Was the evidence, gathered via a 3rd party app. disproven? Did the cheating stop? Has ATI recently been caught cheating? And what will I eat for dinner tonight?

 

[Joe DeFuria]

So why not optimise for the engine if you are genuinely doing it for the benefit of the customer?

Because different devs use the engines in different ways, and engines are tweaked and changed for different games. Just look at Quake3 and RTCW. Optimizations for one GAME may or may NOT be applicable (or even make worse) a different game that usese the same engine as a "base".)

Why not tell the whole world that you have done these optimisations, since they are a good thing, right? Why hide it?

Because the benchmarks speak for themselves?

The answer is obvious - you know it, I know it.

Apparently, you don't know it.

 

[whql]

So why not optimise for the engine if you are genuinely doing it for the benefit of the customer? Why not tell the whole world that you have done these optimisations, since they are a good thing, right? Why hide it?

Why not optimise for the engine? The recognition string was in the drivers long since way before 8500 - where there any other Quake 3 engine games around when it was initially used?

Subsequent to this affair what you say is exactly what they did - removed the Quake3.exe recognition and publically stated they have made it an engine wide optimisation (even then, there was still only one or two Q3 based titles).

 

[Unit01]

I wonder if that attitude applies today as well? Well since they aint lying to US we wont mention it -_-
Man that's some shitty attitude. I also remember how [H] discredited futuremark instead blaming it on Nv. Man that's some great journalistic integrity there.
I doubt [H] has changed much since then, but i sure hope they have.

 

[Malfunction]

What is your gripe?

Perhaps that it's not the wisest idea to accuse a company of cheating when the only evidence you have of said cheating was derived via a program you obtained directly from a competitor of the accused? I'm just a little silly that way at times.

Is that gonna change the fact that ATi is still doing FP24? Is until ATi begins FP32 and has some issues will it finally be ok to say, "Hmmm... somethings not quite right here?"

Wait, is this NVnews' board? Because your abrupt focus shifts in this thread are strangely mimetic of some of the *attempts* I made to have a logical discussion with you on that board. Oh, now I remember, it's impossible to have a logical discourse with you because you're not interested in the facts or looking at things in a fair or balanced light.

As far as journalistic integrity, wasn't there a huge backlash felt by extremetech last year for jumping the gun and not waiting for responses from both camps? I think so, I remember reading it here I thought...

And was ET proven wrong? And what was NV's response to the initial articles? Was the evidence, gathered via a 3rd party app. disproven? Did the cheating stop? Has ATI recently been caught cheating? And what will I eat for dinner tonight?

John, lay off the crystal man... your a damn jack rabbit. lmao...

If I am not mistaken, this doesn't have anything to do with the image quality? I saw that mentioned earlier in this thread, it's probly lost now though... lol. Seems as though the image detail is too close to call at this time.

As far as ET, ya... it ended up being proven. However, it made them very unpopular in the way they handled it. Maybe we should all wait for some explainations ya think?!

Maybe give them the same chance that was given to ATi and the 8500. Allow them either explaination, a chance to release the product and fix drivers or hell, both?!

 

[webmedic]

I said my peace about it hanners and accept it or ignore it for all I care. I am not gonna get into this posting style you have at Rage3D and nVnews man. Not everyone agree's with everyone, does that automatically make someone a fanboi?

No but it doesn't make you right either. It has nothing to do with fanbooys those are at rage and nvnews for the most part. It has to do with what is the truth and do you really want to trust ad ihv that has repeated problems with lying to there customers.

Me I would be pissed if I didn't get what I paid for and a company felt the need to cheat to make up for the slack. That is stealing my money and giving me an inferior product for the same ammount of cash.

 

[John Reynolds]

John, lay off the crystal man... your a damn jack rabbit. lmao...

You're talking to someone who's never even taken one hit off a marijuana joint.

If I am not mistaken, this doesn't have anything to do with the image quality? I saw that mentioned earlier in this thread, it's probly lost now though... lol. Seems as though the image detail is too close to call at this time.

So if you can't see it, it's not a cheat, but when you can it is. Perhaps for the individual gamer that's fine, but for a reviewer who often does comparative articles that's not such a great standard to endorse.

As far as ET, ya... it ended up being proven. However, it made them very unpopular in the way they handled it. Maybe we should all wait for some explainations ya think?!

I'm sure the NV f@nboys hated it, just as the ATI f@nboys hated the Quack article.

Maybe give them the same chance that was given to ATi and the 8500. Allow them either explaination, a chance to release the product and fix drivers or hell, both?!

Really? I seem to recall that Kyle never contacted ATI and gave them a chance to address the issue at the time. If he did, he certainly didn't post their replies in his article. Nice way to ignore the fact that all evidence used to accuse them was derived from a competitor's progie, in stark contrast to how ET gathered their data last year (though the NV cheating was initially pointed out by ATI. . .not sure if that's common knowledge or not).

 

[webmedic]

I wonder if that attitude applies today as well? Well since they aint lying to US we wont mention it -_-
Man that's some shitty attitude. I also remember how [H] discredited futuremark instead blaming it on Nv. Man that's some great journalistic integrity there.
I doubt [H] has changed much since then, but i sure hope they have.

Well I'm not sure what all else was involved but I can say Kyle dose not like it when he thinks you are lying to him.

I thought it was interesting also how it was handled and To confirm also about the quack issue it is true nvidia pointed Kyle right to it and gave him all the tools to find it. Also to not interesting that the problem only affected the 8500 when the optimization worked for all ati's cards.

 

[Malfunction]

I said my peace about it hanners and accept it or ignore it for all I care. I am not gonna get into this posting style you have at Rage3D and nVnews man. Not everyone agree's with everyone, does that automatically make someone a fanboi?

No but it doesn't make you right either. It has nothing to do with fanbooys those are at rage and nvnews for the most part. It has to do with what is the truth and do you really want to trust ad ihv that has repeated problems with lying to there customers.

Me I would be pissed if I didn't get what I paid for and a company felt the need to cheat to make up for the slack. That is stealing my money and giving me an inferior product for the same ammount of cash.

One, I don't trust any IHV. Their mind is on my money, now why should I trust someone like that?

Two, I feel ripped off when friends or myself have to uninstall drivers and replace them with older drivers just to play certain games, whether they are old or new ones. So despite a company doing everything right in the benchmarks you all agree with, I disagree whole hearted.

Guess that doesn't make sense to anyone but me though. :?

 

[digitalwanderer]

By the same token Kyle also knew about the cheating going on with regards to nvidia and the nv30 but in contrast they did not deny it to Kyle. As a matter of fact he talked to Jen himself who told him flat out that they screwed up with the nv30. Since kyle knew it to be true and they were not denying it Kyle felt no need to expose them.

Is that also why Kyle tried to defend/deny nVidia's cheating so hard? That makes ZERO sense to me. :|

 

[webmedic]

Really? I seem to recall that Kyle never contacted ATI and gave them a chance to address the issue at the time. If he did, he certainly didn't post their replies in his article. Nice way to ignore the fact that all evidence used to accuse them was derived from a competitor's progie, in stark contrast to how ET gathered their data last year (though the NV cheating was initially pointed out by ATI. . .not sure if that's common knowledge or not).

This I did not discuss with Kyle but he did say that ATI denied it was cheating. My guess whould be through emials and whatnot. From what I remember kyle had been asking them about this for quite some time, maybe a month or so, before he posted the article and the only reason he posted it was he felt he was being lied to. Also remember this is from a phone conversation I had with him which took place right before the launch of the radeon 9600xt and 9800xt.

Also I dont know if dig remembers this but dig I told you the prescot whould have 64bit extensions a long itme ago and everybody told me that was for the next cpu to come out. Who was right? I dont know everything in this industry but I do have a few really good contacts.

 

[digitalwanderer]

As far as ET, ya... it ended up being proven. However, it made them very unpopular in the way they handled it. Maybe we should all wait for some explainations ya think?!

Unpopular with who? I think it helped their site grow quite considerably as well as their reputation.

If we wait for nVidia to "explain", we'd still be waiting.

 

[Atomahawk]

Sigh....no ATI were NOT definitely cheating wrt to Quake3 debacle.

MOST OF YOU ARE probably familiar by now with the controversy surrounding the current drivers for ATI's Radeon 8500 card. It's become quite clear, thanks to this article at the HardOCP, that ATI is "optimizing" for better performance in Quake III Arena?and, most importantly, for the Quake III timedemo benchmarks that hardware review sites like us use to evaluate 3D cards. Kyle Bennett at the HardOCP found that replacing every instance of "quake" with "quack" in the Quake III executable changed the Radeon 8500's performance in the game substantially.

The folks at 3DCenter.de followed Kyle's trail and discovered that, on the Radeon 8500, "Quack 3" produces much better image quality?texture quality in particular?than Quake III. The FiringSquad observed the same behavoir, only they did so in English.

With the publication of these articles, it became a matter of public record that ATI was intentionally sacrificing image quality in Quake III for better benchmark scores. The issue, as far as I was concerned, was settled: ATI was busted.

- http://www.tech-report.com/etc/2001q4/radeon-q3/index.x?pg=1

And you don't call that cheating?!?!?!?!?!?! Lol, it's funny how people are loyal to a video card company that tries to screw them over for money.

This is such old news, it's like digging up your grama after being buried for 3 years, notice the date 2001 and the issue was resolved, try and keep it to lets say 2 years or less please. I can give 10 times more detail on Nvidia's past 12 month record in this same area. But since you seem capable of finding ATI cheats with googles do the same with Nvidia, then come back.

Hey if it happened yesterday with ATI, dam right we would be all over it period. This is not an ATI versus Nvidia thing or fanboy story. This is and always will be what each company do's to influance and promote their cards, and has to be scrutinized by the end user to see if he's paying for a real product or hype.

 

[DW Fan!!!!!]

Malfunction give it up, Ive just read thorugh your past posts and you are seriously Loyal to nvidia and have some kind of grudge against ATI why cant you see when you are wrong, what causes you to feel this much resentment for a company, I could sorta understand if they had ran over your dog or something but you are lambasting them for this quack issue when Nvidia currently hold the title for most underhanded company and it is plain for all to see

 

[digitalwanderer]

Is it just me or is it the same people who keep bringing up Quake3 who also keep saying that the nV30 is an abberition that is ancient history that we should forget about and focus on the present?

 

[webmedic]

By the same token Kyle also knew about the cheating going on with regards to nvidia and the nv30 but in contrast they did not deny it to Kyle. As a matter of fact he talked to Jen himself who told him flat out that they screwed up with the nv30. Since kyle knew it to be true and they were not denying it Kyle felt no need to expose them.

Is that also why Kyle tried to defend/deny nVidia's cheating so hard? That makes ZERO sense to me. :|

No he took them to task and they lied to him. Unlike ATI they told him yup it's broke we'll fix it. Kyle even told me they will never stop "optimizing" and he knew exactly that he was infering cheating. With this though after they kept lying to him and not fixing it kyle got sick of it and spilled the beens on them also. That was way after the rest of us already knew what had happened. Kyle was trying to give them the benifit of the doubt becasue they were telling him ""yes we are cheating we will fix it (Those are my words not kyles)"".

Not trying ot set you off dig I know you remember all this it was when you were talking to Kyle at rage and taking him to task when I had asked him a few questions and he asked to call me. So we got to chat while the board was flaming away.

edit: spelling.

 

[Malfunction]

As far as ET, ya... it ended up being proven. However, it made them very unpopular in the way they handled it. Maybe we should all wait for some explainations ya think?!

Unpopular with who? I think it helped their site grow quite considerably as well as their reputation.

If we wait for nVidia to "explain", we'd still be waiting.

I read on at least three diff forums that said ET should wait for FM and nVidia to respond. I mean, how do you know it isn't a driver error or some other crap? ATi had some (what was thought and later fixed) optimizations with 3DMark03.

I guess nothing is possible regardless of how many pipes you have, they will always perform as well as the NV30 from here on out... lol

Umm.. there ARE three parties involved is there not?

 

[Joe DeFuria]

You're talking to someone who's never even taken one hit off a marijuana joint.

I thought I was the only one?