Full ATI DR Presentation ( slides )

[jjayb]

IMHO you should have released all 16 slides to begin with. It just seems shady to release only the one slide out of context when you had the other 15 slides available to begin with.

Kind of reminds me of something from high school journalism class. The Headline:

Principal Caught Stealing....



second base in faculty vs. student baseball game

 

[fallguy]

Do people not know how to rotate anymore?

 

[digitalwanderer]

Do people not know how to rotate anymore?

Z
o
.

 

[Vince]

Nevermind

 

[bloodbob]

UTTAR thanks for posting this it puts both dw/elitebastard and ati into a full perspective

 

[WaltC]

IMHO you should have released all 16 slides to begin with. It just seems shady to release only the one slide out of context when you had the other 15 slides available to begin with.

Good point, of course, and should be an object lesson as to how rumor and gossip is handled when it is distributed. It's either so incomplete that understanding it in context is impossible, or it's unsupportable speculation masquerading as "insider info," or it's entirely true. Unfortunately, because it is rumor, it's not possible to immediately distinguish the proper category into which the rumor should fall. IMO, it's safer, then, to just disreguard it until it can be verified appropriately.

 

[cthellis42]

Good point, of course, and should be an object lesson as to how rumor and gossip is handled when it is distributed. It's either so incomplete that understanding it in context is impossible, or it's unsupportable speculation masquerading as "insider info," or it's entirely true. Unfortunately, because it is rumor, it's not possible to immediately distinguish the proper category into which the rumor should fall. IMO, it's safer, then, to just disreguard it until it can be verified appropriately.

Since I don't have the larger frameworks of your comment, nor appropriate verification from official sources, I'm afraid I must disregard this.

 

[gkar1]

Like I said it is no big deal the big deal is that people are trashing others and saying they are worthless scum becuse of it... that is just silly

Agreed. The type of BS I've seen did contribute quite a bit in my final decision to leak the other 16 slides, even though I had thought for a while it might have been better not to.


Uttar

I place you right there with the initial leaker as one of those persons seeking attention.
You:"Hey!! look at me i magnanimously decide to release the rest of the slides to stop the controversy. Aren't i swell?"

The public:

 

[Arun]

Like I said it is no big deal the big deal is that people are trashing others and saying they are worthless scum becuse of it... that is just silly

Agreed. The type of BS I've seen did contribute quite a bit in my final decision to leak the other 16 slides, even though I had thought for a while it might have been better not to.


Uttar

I place you right there with the initial leaker as one of those persons seeking attention.
You:"Hey!! look at me i magnanimously decide to release the rest of the slides to stop the controversy. Aren;t i swell?"

The public:

Think what you want. But I couldn't care less about it.
Considering both GPU:RW and NFI are RIP, and I'm not too interested in this stuff anymore, I hardly see why I'd want attention...

Okay, next time, I'll ask Fudo to leak them for me :? *sigh*


Uttar

 

[AJ]

Think what you want. But I couldn't care less about it.
Considering both GPU:RW and NFI are RIP, and I'm not too interested in this stuff anymore, I hardly see why I'd want attention...

Okay, next time, I'll ask Fudo to leak them for me :? *sigh*

Uttar

Uttar,

Took me a while, but I finally got around reading the presentation. (been a bit busy "shifting gears" and all that ) Before making any comments I'd love to know how this presentation was used within ATI? i.e. is this solely for internal purposes, or has this been covered with external parties like developers or retail? Also, I've seen speculation that some Nvidia personnel might have been involved in leaking this out? Any truth to that?

Sorry, if these topics have been beaten to death already as I'm a bit late into the discussion, but I'd really appreciate a short sum up of events until now.

Cheers,

AJ

 

[PaulS]

I agree that all the slides should have been released at once, but i hardly think it warrants all the hate that's flying around in the forums. If you've lost all respect for Uttar over this, i doubt you had much to begin with.

Personally, i'm thankful the whole thing came to light - regardless of how it got here.

 

[Arun]

AJ: I'm not entirely sure what this presentation was used for, but I do know where in ATI it came from. My source's exact words:

Take a look at this presentation from ATI's dev rel.

As for whether NVIDIA personnel got any implication to this... Well, trust me, that topic has been beaten to death, on the other hand Ask some people if you want to know all the dirty details. Not that anyone but me know them all... But what I can say is: This presentation was indeed given to me by someone at NVIDIA. I was not, at any time, in any obligation to leak it.

As for a short sum of events...

1. I get them from someone at NVIDIA, 30 minutes before the ATI interview. I can guarantee this was a pure coincidence, I could have gotten them earlier/after if I had replied to some e-mails faster/slower.

2. Dig shows some interest. I give him 2 slides by e-mail, with the authorization to leak them on EB, and saying I'd like to have some credit for it and that it's taken partly out of context. Both the credit and the context notes are ignored ( probably he was just distracted, let's not get paranoid )

3. Hints of NV PR giving them to me come to Dig's attention. He says he regrets posting them and begins giving hints on forum of certain NV personnel ( also giving names ) giving them to the "intermediary".

4. NV PR contacts me, panicks a lot, forces me to do damage control like crazy.

5. One other NV source of mine, AKA my "primary source", after knowing the full story, insists I should not follow the original source's advice to let the issue rest, and he suggests me to leak it all. After a few days and quite a few discussions with the original source, leaking is authorized with minimal restrictions.

I'm really not shocked the info came from an NV source, it's business. The RV350 benchies I leaked 1 month before official reviews were given to me by someone at NV too, and I know that ATI canned the R400 after looking at the NV40 specs ( to be more accurate, they realized the R400 was way ahead technology-wise, and that with all the risks of not being on time for the R400, it was more reasonable to can it ( and rename it R500 ), using a R3xx-based core, the R420, to compete with the NV40 ).


There you go!


Uttar

 

[andypski]

5. One other NV source of mine, AKA my "primary source", after knowing the full story, insists I should not follow the original source's advice to let the issue rest, and he suggests me to leak it all. After a few days and quite a few discussions with the original source, leaking is authorized with minimal restrictions.

It seems very back-assward to me that NVIDIA personnel should be in any way 'authorising' leaks of ATI confidential information, but maybe that's just me.

 

[Arun]

5. One other NV source of mine, AKA my "primary source", after knowing the full story, insists I should not follow the original source's advice to let the issue rest, and he suggests me to leak it all. After a few days and quite a few discussions with the original source, leaking is authorized with minimal restrictions.

It seems very back-assward to me that NVIDIA personnel should be in any way 'authorising' leaks of ATI confidential information, but maybe that's just me.

That's the way the world turns I guess More seriously though...

Well, I gave some security promises to my original source, as is rather usual in the rumor business. So if he thought the leak of the whole thing could do anything negative to him ( make people inside NV suspect him of the leak and potentially getting fired, or the public suspecting him, or whatever ) , I find it rather normal to get his authorization before doing things.

Of course, my other source didn't quite agree the guy had a stand with his arguments, and him being very sensitive about misinformation, he persuaded me to annoy the original source till I had his green flag


Uttar

 

[3dilettante]

Security must be rather compromised at ATI if Nvidia regularly gets its hands on internal data before ATI's partners do.

As for ATI's delaying the R400 after learning the easily matched specs of NV40: curse Nvidia's oft-delayed hardware design pipeline, because of them I won't see R400 for who knows how many product refresh cycles.

 

[Dave Baumann]

( to be more accurate, they realized the R400 was way ahead technology-wise, and that with all the risks of not being on time for the R400, it was more reasonable to can it ( and rename it R500 ), using a R3xx-based core, the R420, to compete with the NV40 ).

Its more to do with the slated release of DX10 (which still wasn't clear in early '03) and the fact that by March ATI were already well entrenched in development of the XBox2 part.

 

[Arun]

( to be more accurate, they realized the R400 was way ahead technology-wise, and that with all the risks of not being on time for the R400, it was more reasonable to can it ( and rename it R500 ), using a R3xx-based core, the R420, to compete with the NV40 ).

Its more to do with the slated release of DX10 (which still wasn't clear in early '03) and the fact that by March ATI were already well entrenched in development of the XBox2 part.

True. But my point is they cancelled it after knowing they could compete anyway with a R420-like product. If the NV40 would have been capable of real miracles, it's doubtful they'd have acted that way. Which way they would have acted, though, we'll never know


Uttar

 

[AJ]

AJ: I'm not entirely sure what this presentation was used for, but I do know where in ATI it came from. My source's exact words:

Take a look at this presentation from ATI's dev rel.

Uttar

Thanks for a good wrap-up. In this case I guess I'm a bit more interested on how this kind of leaks happen than the actual material itself.

I still find it amazing that so much classified information makes its way to the forums, but this explains it somewhat.

In general I'm torn between the curiosity and the ethics here. Yes, it's certainly interesting to stay aware of everything that goes on in the industry, but I'm not really quite comfortable with the competitive companies disseminating internal classified information from their rivals. That just doesn't seem quite right...

Cheers,

AJ