I think there are several ways for nVidia to address this consistent with their past behavior:
It is only doing the last by itself that I see as having any possibility for my evaluation of "class" (actually, I'd term it "sanity") being manifested.
This last is actually my view of what ATI did with "Quack"....in actuality the reduction in detail was only for specific textures (though the perception of HardOCP's presentation lends itself to think otherwise
), the performance gain was primarily from engine specific (and not just timedemo specific) optimizations that are still in use (but now not applied by executable name), rather than the reduction of detail in that texture.
- Concentrate on an instance of cheating in their competitors.
The most effective tactic that occurs to me would be to bring up Trident and/or SiS, and then implicate their significant competitor (ATI) by mentioning Quack and/or implicating some characteristic of drivers, real or implied (with the recent 3dmark 03 performance increase in the Cat 3.4, it is possible that ATI may have started following nVidia down this road to compete in the "big number" race, so depending on whether that is the case nVidia may have atleast something minor to magnify for distraction and to place the burden of proof on someone else).
The success of this depends on their creativity and what they are able to find for distraction.
- Blame 3Dmark 03.
This seems to be their set course, followed by Kyle Bennet quite in particular in a rather disappointing contrast to his behavior with Quack. It disgusted me that I defended him on Quack to only find out that nVidia indeed aimed him with the program and the specific scenes with the affected textures to represent as universal, and it disgusts me that he displays this inconsistency with an even more dramatic indication right now, and even more dramatic displays in the recent past. Also, the rather personal and prevalent forum editing at the HardForums seems to be focused on placing the validity of points behind such criteria as "flamebait", "trolling", and "linking without providing attribution", and thread closing at the determination of Kyle...seems to lend itself to purging strong disagreement, by placing an onus of time usage and effort, while still leaving avenues for purging open for concepts defined solely by Kyle.
The problem is that Kyle has already established he values his preconceptions and bias (apparently a personal bias, rather than a financial one, the only redeeming factor I know of) over objective presentation, and his final stance will depend on the demands of his self perception and ego in that regard (i.e., he might come out against nVidia, but he'll persist in his own concurrent agenda while doing it).
(I wonder if Kyle will stop by today? I'd enjoy a discussion at length with him once I get back from my doctor's appointment.)
The only direct response to this (i.e., if it is the main factor of success on nVidia's part), with the eagerness of people to be led in what to believe, is to highlight occurrences of this in games, and things like asking about nVidia's penchant for providing timedemos (performance figures for the NV30 launch, trying to provide the demo for the Doom 3 showing, etc).
Since they seem to have atleast HardOCP already applying a double standard between IHVs, this seems like their most successful avenue based on what their past behavior indicates they are willing to do.
- Find another method of performance increase that isn't so damning.
It doesn't have to be hard to figure out, only less visible, and maintain appealing benchmark results.
With the time delay in print magazines, this could easily be enough to FUDify exposure there, which is where the impact would be most damaging. Might not work too well with Ziff Davis publications, but then again there is some financial pressure to apply to encourage that. A journalistic integrity ethic could easily defeat this, depending somewhat on whether they try honey or vinegar for the FUD, but some publications don't have much apparent (what was the name....Steve...something-or-other...?
).
Might also not work too well on the internet, but the integrity ethic for each site depends on relatively few people.
Might easily work for television (I'm thinking Tech TV, for example, might conceivably cover this), since the medium is more ephemeral, and allows more "base covering" with regards to saying "something" about it, but softly. This also depends on personal integrity.
This works out well from their perspective, depending on personal integrity, since, aside from Ziff Davis (and to my knowledge), most big news companies are not directly focused on this market to this level of focus and technical savvy. Really boils down to how they handle them.
- Come clean, or atleast appear to.
This is their most effective tactic in combination with one of the above, if they are willing to do so. Depends on ego, really, since it seems to be me the most obvious way to try and control the spin of the fallout from this. There is a whole bunch of creativity they could apply to leverage atleast superficially doing this with other approaches to deflect the actual brunt of loss of trust.
There is, of course, the possibility that they are "clean" wrt this issue. I just don't think my observation of recent history leaves much room for that.
It is only doing the last by itself that I see as having any possibility for my evaluation of "class" (actually, I'd term it "sanity") being manifested.
This last is actually my view of what ATI did with "Quack"....in actuality the reduction in detail was only for specific textures (though the perception of HardOCP's presentation lends itself to think otherwise
), the performance gain was primarily from engine specific (and not just timedemo specific) optimizations that are still in use (but now not applied by executable name), rather than the reduction of detail in that texture.
). The Inquirer has mentioned the ExtremeTech story.
