Final Doom3 benches at HardOCP

Hey it's all good to me, I was just looking for honest opinions and you were very forthcoming and I appreciate the time and trouble.

I like getting different viewpoints, it gives me a better perspective.

 

alot of developers have mentioned that nvidia does have better devrel support. ATi is getting better but its going to take them time. Even for smaller developers nvidia seems to take them much more seriously then ATi. Remember when Crytek and Codecreatures code cult were small? ATi doesn't take no names to conferences, only big hitters (and even then they don't have many they do)

 

I've heard just the opposite for small-time devs. I've read posts on various forums about people getting no reponse from NVidia dev relations, but always from ATI. My own experience is limited to ATI, but every email I sent to them got a reply.

 

Just curios - would you happen to be the CitizenC from gamespy & co. ?

 

Well I think nV is a bit more choosy then ATi the developer has to show them something that is promising, and shows potential to a finished product. Many small time dev's don't get to the first phase of developing and that is what nV is looking for even to become a part of the dev rel program. ATi isn't as strict when it comes to that. Hopefully ATi's new dev rel program will help the developement community. More heads to turn questions too better for everyone.

 

I think the difference is simply in the effort spent approaching developers and basically saying "Let's see what we can do to help you." That's what I think "The Way it's Meant to be Played" and "Get into the Game" really mean. They mean that both IHVs are approaching developers and offering help and advice in games' development. Judging by the number of TWIMTBP titles, NVidia's been doing a better job, so far. However, it is rather reassuring to see that ATI is making similar efforts.

What really helps the small-time developer, though, is simply responses to questions through dev relations. As I said, I only have such experience with ATI, but so far I have not had anything to complain about from them.

 

Why not do some investigative journalism with Nvidia then? Why didn't you do a hard indepth piece on NV's architecture and how important writing a good compiler for it was? Why didn't you do any real investigation on dynamic branching instead of towing the ATI line on it?

I mean, all I did was send email to NVidia employee email addresses contained in their public PDF papers, and I got responses, sometimes deeply technical. I had no problem obtaining detailed info on dynamic branching, depth buffers, et al by just asking.


The pattern I see is that when ATI tech is criticized, either you're fed info, or you fire off an email/PM to ATI for a response, and then immediately commence with a defense in the forums. On the other hand, if someone says something negative about NVidia's shaders, or ultrashadow, etc do you go out and get Nvidia's take on the matter? Do you go to their engineerss? At best, I see you go to NVidia's PR mouthpieces for the answer, like Kirk, whereas with ATI, you're communicating with the actual people who are building the product. Maybe you are going to Nvidia engineers, but the end result is, I don't see the info. 3DCenter is an example of investigative journalism. It simply isn't the case that all NVidia info is public, and I've learned far more from 3DCenter than CineFX documentation.

Why don't you ask Sweeney about his decision to include stencil shadow volumes and per-object 16x shadow buffers, vs shadow buffering the whole screen?

If Nvidia does really poorly on the HL2 benchmark, are you gonna fire off an email to their compiler engineers, and when they respond "yes, big improvements are coming for HL2" are you gonna keep dropping hints in threads saying "Why till the Nvidia compiler rewrite! <wink wink>"?


To me, it comes down to the fact that you seem to actively inquired, and then uncritically pass on information from ATI in the forums, but I do not see the same level of enthusiasm or activity with respect to NVidia. And you can't claim that NVidia isn't responding to your inqueries, because I don't even run a website and I was able to get a response. Maybe they sense a bias too? Try sending anonymous questions.

 

Because they’ve already done it, and us and every other site have usually already talked about it.

Because they had already done it, and every site, including us, had talked about it (its in one of the (p)reviews)

We’d already talked about it in the NVIDA preview (as I linked to before), and until recently I wasn’t aware of any apps that made use of it. There was no “ATI†line to be towed, as you believe, because ATI didn’t have a line until I told them about it!

Because that’s who they allow you to go to. I’ve picked up cards from various people that I meet at NVIDIA’s events and ask them various questions and I get very bland, non-committal responses quite often. They even said at one point I could go to one dev el guy for any tech info I needed and IIRC the last mail I sent was forwarded back to PR to answer.

Who would these people be then? What confidence do I have in them?

I believe I have asked Sweeny his comment on global lighting/shadowing schemes and, although he was half asleep, I have a reply on a wav file on my PDA – hopefully I’ll be able to decode some soon.

And 3DCenter is also an example cited where they aren’t getting as good information from ATI - do you constantly criticise them for that? Instead of bitching about it all the time perhaps you should be thankful that there are sites with good contacts with both vendors that can bring lots of information between them - we don't, afterall, live in a website vacuum and we absorb correct and relevant info for other sites as well. You may be surprised to learn that there is, actually, some level of co-operation between various sites.

 

Very few people talk to nV's engineers straight up. Its a matter if importance, and time. Even in the Dev rel program members don't talk to the engineers directly. ATi's engineers on the other hand I guess have alot more time on thier hands because I don't see anywhere the number of demos or tech documents or journals on thier dev rel pages as nV does.

Doesn't it surprise you that nV has over 200 documents and source code on new (was new) or recent upcoming programming techinques, and ATi doesn't even have 50?

Source code for developers isn't that important but the documentation and the math behind the scenes is. That really helps out in the long run for quick and fast feature adding and optimization, let it be a real time app or a visualization program.

 

It's disappointing to see you make cheap, snarky pot-shots like that DC.

 

It's disapponting to see these attacks at Dave in the first place.
I'm not saying his untouchable or something, but I don't think all this flak he's getting has been earned.
Maybe if we all returned to talking about D3 instead of this devrel discussion...?

 

This is why an ignore user feature would greatly benefit these boards. Once people stop seeing these ludicrous posts, they'll stop trying to reason with the posters behind them, and we'll stop seeing three-page digressions like the current one.

ondaedg, good points. Just keep in mind that while B3D remains a public forum, anyone is free to register and spout off. There'll always remain a price for this freedom, but B3D's forums are good enough to still make slogging through the mud for the nuggets worthwhile. All we can ask for is that the B3D crew sets a good example, and I think they do. What their forum members do is another matter, and there's no easy way to sort them out, so we'll just have to deal.

 

And I thank you for dealing with me. 8)

 

I got you all figured out digi - you seem to be a true master of preemptive strike when it comes to apology...

 

It is most probably because you don't run a website that you get responses from the NV engineers.

NVIDIA has internally warned (almost) all of their engineers to either be extra careful when responding to personal emails sent to them by representatives of media outlets, or to forward such emails to NV PR, who will then either advise that particular engineer to "Go ahead, you can say what you want to that media outlet's rep" or NV PR staff will send an "Please direct all questions to NV PR, do not email our engineers directly" to that media outlet rep.

I used to trade emails with Kirk, for example, and then he emailed me saying that he can't do that anymore because NV has a new policy whereby he can't talk to media outlet reps without going through NV PR. This was sometime after the GF3 launch. Now, when I send emails to Kirk, he either don't reply, or he forwards them to Brian Burke, who will tell me "Don't email Kirk, let us know what you want and we'll get the info to you".

NV may be particularly careful when it comes to B3D reps (for whatever reasons... maybe they think we're biased against them or they think we are technical enough to analyze their emails to us or whatever). Particularly, I assume, when it's me or Dave.

ATI guys (engineers, HODs, PR) are at the moment a bit like 3dfx guys back then. They don't seem to mind talking to media outlet reps (or at least to B3D guys).

Instead of asking why NV isn't as "friendly" to B3D as ATI, ask ATI why they are more friendly to B3D guys than NV are.

I would like this to topic direction to stop here, Ray. If you want to continue discussions about how B3D guys should be doing their jobs, or why you think B3D guys are biased against NV, or how you think we can better our relationship with NV, send me or Dave PMs or post a topic about this in "Site Feedback".

 

Yes, believe what you will... can't change that. Nor can I change the favoritism towards ATi here. I don't mind it, though I am not the only one who notices it... so does that mean I am wrong? lmao

If I recall correctly, I left NVnews forum on my own. Muya deleted my last post because of the reason I said I was leaving. Digi, you asked to be banned... or something to that effect. Anyone can go read it over at NVnews. Why you would want that, I don't know... but I thought it was funny.

Mr. Reynolds, to bad anyone just can't search the Nvnews forums without being a member. It would be really interesting to see the things you defended while arguing with me have turned out now. Ya, I was right on more than one occasion. Does that make me better than you, hell no. I don't really care, I just put what I feel and give a perspective on how I veiw things. I am not alone in the way I veiw items or the opinions I share.

If a dev or IHV veiws my opinion here and considers it to be on the lowest end of the totempole, no problem, it is still my opinion and it is still the same way I approach a hardware purchase. Do I favor nVidia, sorta... I favor their support more than the company. Am I baised, yes... of my money.

First videocard I ever purchased was nVidia. This was over a 3Df/x card. Next card was a Voodoo 3 3500. Everything after that voodoo 3 had been ATi until this 5200 Ultra. Last drivers I like from ATi were the Catalyst 3.4's. After those drivers, the catalyst program seem to go down the tubes. Before Cat 3.4's, I believed ATi was on the path for great success. After them, well... I consider them in a world of shit only thinking about lining their pockets with money from repackaged tech.

So if you find that unfair, tell me how it isn't. 8)

 

Pete you are welcome to ignore all ludicrous posts and forego any attempts to reason with the posters behind them.

Yep, that's pretty much it. Some others in this thread have tried to bring bias and fanboyism etc into it but it's much simpler than that. I just don't think (in my short time here) that I've ever seen you provide any 'inside info' in support of anything Nvidia has done. That and the fact that wherever there is some criticism of ATI you are always there with some little tidbit to mitigate the situation.

 

No you weren't Malfunction, John handed you your ass over there everytime too. 8)

You have a very bad or selectively adjusted memory, you're gonna have to go hunt down some proof before I'll buy what you're selling.

 

No Malfunction you were banned because you were rude, invoked flame wars, and started fights with members.

http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/member.php?u=10095

http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=25638