Futuremark & NVIDIA Statement

I would want to see one court or jury which would understand the words plane clipping, vertex shader. Damn it would have been funny, that trial would have lasted years.

Strange that now when Nvidia and Futuremark is laid down their weapons rabid community remains. Its like ppl have watched bad boxing match and arent happy @ the results.

JUST LET IT GO(.)

There will be new 3dmarks and new Nvidias such is the way of time. Destruction of the past is needed for the creation of the future.

amen...

 

Hehehehe, You noticed that too? ESPN said, "Sosa basically cheated by using a cork bat"... So why can't we say, "nVidia cheated by using programming cheats" ? ?

If ESPN can get away with the word cheat on Sosa, why not use it in the business world?

 

Neeyik,

Mildewing wrote: "These questions are mainly for the person who wrote the PDF but any response is welcomed."

You replied: "My own personal answers to your questions Mildewing...

"1.) I would agree with the whole paragraph if the word game had been substituted with the word benchmark. Is this a misprint?"
No, it's not a misprint. "

http://discuss.futuremark.com/forum...r=2290893&page=&view=&sb=&o=&vc=1#Post2290893

Now you say you don't know who wrote it. How could you have been so adamant that is wasn't a typo 10days ago when that post was made then? You spoke from an air of authority like you knew it all because you were the author.

Sorry you got spamed, but I didn't do that & you can bet in the future your 'answers' will be taken as opinion only.

Kids graduation tonite, cya!

 

Because Sosa is employed by a league that abides by a set of rules.

There is no rule, contract, or law that says NVIDIA must make a product that plays by the rules set by Futuremark. They didn't endorse the benchmark, they weren't engaged with Futuremark, and they weren't the ones running the benchmarks. They even explicitely stated they did not recommend using that tool.

It doesn't make it any less sleazy, but you can't legally hold NVIDIA to any sort of rules of a 'game' that they explicitly stated they did not want to play.

 

i think Nvidia is at least legally guilty of deceptive publicity no matter if there is or there isn't an agreement with FutureMark; because they tried to make buyers believe Nvidia cards are better than what they really are, through malicious use of 3DMark2003.

EDIT tried now to use a more objective wording

 

Who wants to start a class action lawsuit against Nvidia?









*chirp*

 

Lord knows this is a subject I've pontificated on with vigor in the last few days...(I think you are right, btw, and that quitting the program, then making publicly disparaging statements about the FM software, and then cheating the benchmark in order to gain a competitive market position with its products might well and truly fit the definition of malice from nVidia--because there's nothing nVidia's done that cannot be interpreted as an attempt to damage FutureMark directly. I also wonder if this might shape up to something worthy of SEC investigation in terms of nVidia attempting to obstruct competition--anti-competitive trade practices, and so on. Anyway...)

But through this whole thing I have moved from a position of not caring about 3D Mark at all (the way I feel about most benchmarks) to one of an appreciation of what they are trying to do with 3DMark 03, to one of supporting them in their efforts to avoid being squelched and controlled by the carniverous maw of an insatiable nVidia corporation. I genuinely feel for these guys and if I criticize them it is only with an eye toward their ultimate good. I would genuinely like to see them succeed! But attempting to appease the beast is nothing short of self destructive for them, I feel.

However unlikely it seems, I would like to see them reverse their reversal and return to their original audit report language with the word "cheat" intact. They could issue a "candid" press release something like this that I think would get them by:

After lengthy conversations with the nVidia corporation, and lengthy internal debate within our company, and deep consultation with our software program partners, we have made the final decision to restore our original audit report entirely in all respects. Throughout these events we have asked the nVidia corporation to supply us with sound reasons why what they've done relative to the 320 version of our benchmark should not be labeled a "cheat."

nVidia's first response was that our findings were related to a driver bug--which nVidia has yet to document and explain to us. nVidia's second response was that we were "deliberately trying to make their products look bad" (we did find it of interest that nVidia deems us able to make its products look good), and we asked for their reasoning as to why they believed we were targeting them, and they again failed to provide us with information we could credit (we explained to nVidia that it should be self-evident the issues raised in the audit report were not raised because nVidia quit our program, and we asked them to provide information on the facts we raised rather than to speculate on our motives for raising them. We can, after all, do nothing apart from asking them to look at the audit report and respond directly to it.) The last reason nVidia has provided us, as is well known, was that what they did was not a "cheat" but rather an "application optimization."

Speaking candidly about our company, we were divided on whether this might be a valid reason for the nVidia corporation to have done and said the things it has relative to 3DMark 03 and our company over the past few months. Some of us believed it was, some of us did not. Regrettably, we decided to change the language of our second press release on this issue to reflect that although the facts relative to what nVidia did as presented in the audit report were not in question, and nVidia has yet to credibly answer them, possibly our characterization of them as "cheats" might be debatable. And that is why we changed this language to "application optimization".

We believe we made a mistake when we did that. We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused to our program partners and we appreciate their participation and backing in our program and we would like to publicly tell them how much they are valued. We also find it regrettable that due to the nature of these issues it may have seemed that we were putting the demands of the nVidia corporation, which is no longer among our program partners by voluntary choice, ahead of them. We regret this appearance very much and would like to state for the record that this was never the case. We have learned some valuable lessons throughout these events.

We at FutureMark have worked exceedingly hard to produce the very best impartial D3d benchmark we can make, for the purpose of allowing consumers to test their 3D hardware for performance, functionality, and image quality, and we are very proud of 3D Mark 03. It is the culmination of at least 18 months of hard work and study, and the vigorous efforts of many of our software partners including, ironically, the nVidia Corporation, which was a member in good standing in our program throughout most of the 3DMark 03 development cycle, until slightly more than two months prior to our shipping 3DMark 03 when nVidia voluntarily sundered its professional relationship with us. Although we are very proud of our efforts we recognize that perfection is forever elusive and so we pledge to continue in the traditions we have established as we strive to make 3D Mark the best 3D benchmark in the world--and the most fair and impartial. To that end we will regularly update versions of our software which contain minor changes the effect of which is to make benchmark recognition by hardware vendors impossible. In this way we believe we can solve the kind of unfortunate events that have transpired recently with certain hardware vendors whose drivers were coded to recognize our benchmark and invoke special-case rendering when our software was being run. We have released version 330 of 3D Mark 03 as the first step in this campaign.

This is our last word on the subject and our audit .pdf is available on our website for any interested parties to purvey. We take full responsibility for our mistakes of judgment in these matters and ask only that our partners, and the public, understand that these were complex events that we unfortunately could have handled a bit better than we did in our second series of press releases. This is our final word on the subject of our audit report.


I'd love to see something like this...I think there's time to redeem themselves. Let's all hope they've not entered into some sort of legal agreement with nVidia that would restrict their freedom to do something like this.

Edit: typos

 

The 330 patch still has the word "cheat" in it, by the way. Heh.

 

I think both would have a sound base.

 

"Hofbrau, don't have the time to argue every point from your rather long post but I'll just say this."

Thats a general concession.

"It is MUCH HARDER to cheat in a game then in a benchmark."

Not if the "cheat" involves application detection schemes present in the device driver code that create falsely inflated performance results within the detected application.

Can you explain how it is magically harder for a device driver to detect a 3D game rathern than it is to detect another 3D application?

Are there digital dwarves involved in this magically harder supposed process?

"In a game, anyone can create a new time, whereas for a benchmark only beta members have access to the free camera and other specialized tools."

That has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that device drivers can detect ANY application/application type and change their functionality forthwith and thus the resultant output - nothing to do with it at all. That is precisely how this cheat-"optimization" works/worked.

Get it yet?

There is nothing to prevent device drivers from detecting a certain game or type of game running (or sequence of calls/operations/data) and then modifying the resultant output in some way or another. That is precisely how this cheat "optimization" worked.

Furthermore, its just babbled nonsense with no point made whatsoever relevant to anything.

"For a game, you can create custom demos, whereas, for benchmarks, customization is rarely available to the average reviewer."

And how exactly does that change the issue of application/app type/function sequence detection in the device drivers? It doesnt.

"That's what makes games a superior form of benchmarking."

Well, thats your irrational illogical silly subjective opinion as to what makes a game a superior form of benchmarking - but it doesnt change the fact that application/app type/data type/function call sequence detection code in the device drivers can do such detection and modify the output for ANY type of 3D application (or 2D application, if the graphics chipset vendor cared)

Game applications dont have a "mystical" methodology of bypassing the device drivers and accessing the 3D hardware directly while avoiding detection of their operations.

Get it?

As long as the device drivers are operating, and sit between the 3D application and the 3D hardware itself in a Hardware Abstraction Layer (HAL) that all applications must use in order to ouput their 3D graphics, they (the device drivers) can potentially detect specific applications (or operation types/sequences/data sequences) and modify their resultant output, assuming the device driver vendor adds such code into the drivers.

"While not impossible, introducing a clipping plane in a game is much easier to detect, thus deterring companies like nvidia."

The essential argument you (or whatever other guest) presented before was that the mere fact that a benchmark COULD be "cheated" indicated its uselessness as a benchmark. Since you are now acknowledging that a game could be "cheated" in a similar fashion to produce similar false results, i must bring to your attention a concept called "intellectual consistency", or, at the very least, argumentative consistency.

Im going to ask this once, and i expect a salient logical rational answer:

How is it any "harder" (more difficult) for 3D chipset device drivers to detect a specific 3D game application or 3D game type or 3D rendering sequence type within a game(s), than it is to do those thing for other types of 3D applications, including benchmarking-intended ones?

Remember, no matter what, the 3D chipset's device drivers are always sitting between the 3D application and the 3D hardware via abstraction layers and APIs.

The 3D benchmarking application is running on the host Windows system, using the respective D3D APIs and interfaces that process through the HAL provided 3D chipset device drivers. The 3D game application is running on the host Windows system, using the respective D3D APIs and interfaces that process through the HAL provided by the 3D chipset device drivers.

What is the difference? Please feel free to tell me.

"And please, don't compare Windows with 3DMark."

In what regard? Windows can also be used a hardware performance benchmark (relative to other OS software, such as Linux, Unix, FreeBSD, etc etc).

"That is a fallacious argument."

Well, lets assume that somehow Windows was compared to 3DMark. Where is the "argument" there exactly..eh?

"Windows is not a benchmark last time I checked."

Sure it is. Any/all software can be used as a hardware benchmark. It doesnt mean its specifically intended for its primary/singular purpose as a benchmark, but it can be and is used to benchmark hardware all the time to determine the relative performance difference of different pieces of hardware. That applies to any software by the way.

Just because a given software application can be used as a benchmark, doesnt mean it is a particularly useful benchmark or a particularly accurate benchmark (im not suggesting or implying that Windows is non-useful or inaccurate as a benchmark)

I dont think you quite understand what a benchmark IS, so i'll help you (straight from Merriam Websters Online Dictionary):

"2 a : a point of reference from which measurements may be made b : something that serves as a standard by which others may be measured or judged c : a standardized problem or test that serves as a basis for evaluation or comparison (as of computer system performance)"

Still confused?

"I would not expect nvidia to detect every single game, like they can do with 3DMark."

I dont expect them to provide detection routines for every single game either (that would be a waste of the relative coding time and purposes). They could do this, it makes no logical sense though.

I would however expect them to provide detection routines for games perceived as popular, or perceived as popular for benchmarking (just as they did with 3DMark), and thus falsely inflate the performance within those specific games.

Remember, this doesnt mean they cant do it for every 3D application out there, just that it makes no logical sense to do so, as it would defeat the purpose of the detection routines - to falsely inflate the resultant performance within a popularly used benchmarking application to create the perception that their hardware runs faster than another vendors, or faster than their own hardware actually is (even if equal to or slower than another vendors).

"They do not have unlimted resources in their cheating department."

Thats correct, so they are going to pick and choose which applications they are going to provide detection schemas for in their device drivers. Which is exactly what they did with 3DMark - since 3DMark is perceived as being popularly used to measure relative hardware performance, they added a detection and cheat "optimization" scheme just for it in the device driver code.

So of course, they are going to pick applications that are popularly used for benchmarking (like say, 3DMark).

Get it?

"As your average computer user, I am a proponent of using a variety games in reviews rather then a benchmark that may or may not have any merit."

Games are benchmarks when used to measure relative hardware performance. You still dont get it. When you use a game application to compare the relative performance of different hardware to each other, the game then becomes a benchmark.

Get it?

Regardless, it IS smart to use a VARIETY of APPLICATIONS (doesnt matter what "genre" of software the application is) serving as benchmarks to measure the relative performance of different hardware (3D graphics chipsets or otherwise).

"Right now, as it stands, OEM's are simply looking at 3DMark to determine the performance of a 3D GPU."

You mean, the graphics co-processor? Are sound chipsets referred to as APUs or SPUs? Are modem chipsets referred to as CPUs (oh, wait, thats taken). Are network interface cards referred to as NPUs?

"GPU"... isnt that some of the nVidia marketing silliness upon introduction of the original GeForce chipset?

Get the point?

Regardless, do you have any evidence that OEMs (in general, as your statement requires and implies) are singularly and only using 3DMark to determine relative performance of 3D geapics chipsets?

And furthermore, who cares (besides the card/chipset vendors) if OEMs are only using 3DMark, when its the end users that actually use the 3D chipsets?

"That much has been stated by Terry from ATI."

Does "Terry from ATI" represent all OEMs that purchase or resell 3D graphics chipsets? I didnt realize he/she did/does.

"That is simply wrong and makes it much easier for companies to cheat with clever driver "optimizations"."

Nothing prevents a 3D chipset vendor from adding a cheat "optimization" into their drivers for a game commonly used as a benchmark - nothing at all. Its equally as easy to add such a application detection cheat "optimization" in the device drivers, for any/all 3D applications, regardless of the applications intended genre-usage type.

"Some of us call these cheats."

Most rational fair minded honest people would call them "cheats". Those that dont....well...

"If you really want a canned score, you can have a benchmarking suite that contains various popular or not so popular games."

As soon as you state the names of the game in the "suite" any/all vendors can add specific cheat optimization schemes in their device drivers for those stated games.

These "game benchmarking suites" would either have to consist of at least several hundred games, to thus make the "appeal" of adding device driver application detection code non-extant and highly improbable..

.. or...

...randomize the games used in the " benchmark suite", say, every week or two weeks, thus making it difficult to constantly change the application detection code and "cheat optimization" within the device drivers, which would also need to be released every week or two...

"Even that would be better then the monstrosity that is become of 3DMark."

Odd, and ironic.

I remember people stating the same exact type of dumbass sentiment about Quake 3 Arena being used as a benchmark a few years ago back during the "high heat" phase of competition between 3dfx and nVidia. Almost all of the "complainers" were 3dfx hardware advocates or "fan boys" as they are sometimes called in such parts, who whined about the game using OpenGL primarily for 3D API output, and the specific nVidia OpenGL extensions in usage by the game, etc etc.

Mind you, OpenGL performance on 3dfx hardware was always going to be inherently inferior due to its nature as being a Glide wrapper in 3dfx's driver implementation, but the hardened 3dfx advocates refused to concede that fact, or its ramifications (like, inferior relative OpenGL performance in OpenGL applications, not to mention odd visual artifacts at times).

And of course, there was similar sentiment about using Unreal Tournament as a benchmark back then as well, coming from the nVidia advocates, who complained about UT because it used 3dfx's Glide as its primary preferred 3D output API.

Mind you, nVidia had no Glide API support provided in their reference drivers, so of course, UT had to be used in an alternate 3D API output mode (such as D3D), which was utterly inferior to the games Glide output support (im in no way making a general statement about Glide being superior to Direct3D, merely that the specific game, UT, had a game engine that was utterly optimized for Glide output, and provided utterly inferior Direct3D and OpenGL output support).

You see where this goes?

Any time an application becomes popular as a benchmark, the vendors (and their advocates) who's hardware doesnt do well on the benchmark, are going to whine complain and argue (almost always with no merit in their argument(s)) about the appropriateness of using "Application X" as the benchmarking-standard-de-jour, and will insist that "some other Application Y or, as-yet-undetermined Application Z" be used instead..

The only real monstrosity created is the level to which both users, advocates, loyalists and apologists (of different vendors) will deny objective rational fair reality and engage in every intellectually and principally dishonest shenanigan they can to buy time and avoid the negative repercussions of a general perception that their hardware might indeed be inferior (for now, in the current extant product cycle, whenever "now" is).

"I can say with no hesitation whatsoever, that I as a consumer DO NOT need any benchmarking "standard"."

Son? When you use games to test relative performance, the games are thus benchmarks. Understand? The nanosecond you use that game to determine relative performance of different 3D hardware, the game becomes a benchmark.

"I need performance on current games."

Thats all well and good, and im sure all newer 3D graphics hardware is going to provide increased performance in games over all older 3D graphics hardware as a general rule.

However, if you want to measure relative performance between two different pieces of hardware, then you need a benchmark. And when you use a 3D game to test the relative performance of different 3D graphics hardware, the game you use instantly becomes a benchmark, by definition, and logical common sense.

"Lastly, my statement that it is easier to cheat in benchmarks, stands."

Well, yes, its easy to cheat benchmarks (which is any application used to test relative performance, including games), glad you are agreeing with me. Didnt we cover that?

Or are you still stupidly differentiating between applications intended as benchmarks primarly, and applications intended as entertainment primarly?

My guess is the latter.

So, ill ask this again:

Do you have any evidence to demonstrate that is is more difficult to code a 3D chipset WDM device driver to detect the current operation of a 3D game, as opposed to the current operation of another 3D application, and thus modify its resultant 3D output, especially considering that all 3D applications are being processed through the HAL (Hardware Abstraction Layer) via OS and the device drivers themselves?

Any evidence or reasoning other than you saying (repeatedly) "but its EASIER for benchmarks" or "but its harder for games"....?

Are 3D games somehow magically less detectable (by device drivers) when they are in operation than other types of 3D applications?

Take your time, dont rush your answer(s)...

Cogitate,
Hofbrau

 

Advance apologies for nitpicking a point I'm beginning to not care about:

I'd think 3DM03's License Agreement has some wording that makes cheating illegal, no? And Nvidia obviously did want to play, judging by their explicit "optimizing."

 

Unless my name appears with an item from Futuremark, then anything I say about it is likely to be my opinion anyway. That thread title said "any response is welcome" so I gave it; with the clear label that they were my own answers. Besides, with that first question you've done the standard Internet thing of "selective quoting":

"1.) I would agree with the whole paragraph if the word game had been substituted with the word benchmark. Is this a misprint?
No, it's not a misprint. You've under-quoted the text which begins with the question of "Aren’t These Cheats Just Optimizations That Also Benefit General Game Play Performance?". The paragraph then goes on to point out that the cheats effect the IQ of the 3DMark03 tests; NVIDIA are claiming that these are optimisations but who are they to decide that the end user should suffer IQ degradation for more performance? The people who decide how good a game should look are the game developers and the end user."

To me it was obvious that it wasn't a misprint, as the text was addressing the "game play" question. Bit of a leap to suddenly decide that I was co-author of a very important document from that one single sentence when I'm not even an employee of Futuremark, for heaven's sake. I do work for them but I don't work for them, if you catch my drift .

 

"Does anyone else see the irony of NVIDIA with the 3dfx from years ago?"

Somewhat, but not exactly as you present it.

"3dfx pushed performance at the expense of image quality and said 32-bit color wasn't needed."

Thats not true. 3dfx pushed performance and image quality relative to the current avilable games market. You are referring to the Voodoo3 series, and its 22/16-bit capability.

If you ever played a game using the V3's 22/16 bit dithering setting enabled compared to the same game using a TNT2's 16-bit (or some other supposedly 32-bit card of that product cycle and era) setting, you would be far more impressed by the visual quality of the V3's 22/16 than by the TNT2s 16.

In fact, many subjective comparisans considered the V3's 22/16 image quality output superior to the TNT2s 32-bit output within the same game, and considering the increased frame rate, its easy to see why the V3 was a superior card for its time, especially considering its Glide support, which was a requirement since many/most games were either Glide-only, or Glide-optimized back in 1998/1999/early 2000, which is the era of the V3

Voodoo4/5 had 32/16 bit capability, and that of course was relevant to its game market - 32-bit games had become more plentiful by mid-2000, and the V4/5 was there for it

"They also wanted everyone to program in Glide for their cards."

No doubt about that. Its called a locked-in competitive advantage. Just as Microsoft wanted (and wants) everyone to program in Direct3D, or for the Xbox, or Win32, Etc etc.

Any time a vendor can create market pressure that creates more demand for their products and increases their market position and leverage, they will do so. Thats a simple obvious aspect of business and capitalism, and is a "Good Thing".

Its not as if Glide was a generally inferior (or generally superior) API relative to Direct3D or OpenGL at the time, it was just that is was THEIR API, and the more developers that coded games using it, the more it secured their place and the market, and advanced their position in the market.

Trust me, if you ever played a game that was Glide-optimized or Glide only, you were happy to have the Glide API support of a 3dfx product and its device drivers. If you didnt have Glide driver support, then you either ran such games in Software Renderer mode (yummy, why do i have a 3D accelerator again?), or a really cruddy implementation of Direct3D (often from DirectX5, sometimes DirectX6). And remember, there were lots of these games out there, most of them in fact, back in that era.

"Nvidia on the other handed stressed how well their cards ran in DX and 32-bit color performance."

Well, if you ddidnt have Glide API support in your device drivers (which really was an important issue back then), its probably a good idea to not mention the lack of Glide API support, and to mention how good your DirectX API support is, as well as the high end capabilities of your card that the competition lacks, even if the feature was little used at the time or during the product cycle of the card, or added little real value to the general consumer experience. Welcome to marketing.

"Today we have NVIDIA in the same position as 3dfx was, with their Cg language and programming for their cards and lower image quality while ATI is killing them in standard DX/OpenGL programming and shader performance."

Well, considering that nVidias "Cg" and MS's DX "HLSL" are the same identical fish with the exception of name branding and API compiling portability (HLSL is DirectX only, Cg is DX and OGL), the comparison isnt really the same at all.

Of course, this might only support some people's claims of an "Unholy Alliance" between Microsoft and nVidia as "partners in crime" (meant for each other, im sure, in their telling of the fable).

Not to mention that ATI has their own shader development suite, co-developed with 3DLabs (just as MS and nVidia co-developed HLSL/Cg) - named "RenderMonkey", which has plugins for DirectX's HLSL and OpenGL 2.0's GLslang.

The comparison just doesnt hold up here...

"Maybe when they bought out 3dfx the employees secretly took over the company Lets hope Nvidia will see and correct their mistakes before it gets much worse."

Stranger yet similar things have actually happened. Look at what happened since AOL essentially bought Time Warner and merged with it - the AOL's execs are pretty much gone with the essential exception of Steve Case, and the Time Warner folks are in charge of the show and pretty much running AOL Time Warner, and are even contemplating a spin off of AOL (irony).

Regardless, im not sure how you change a corporate culture in any short period of time, short of killing the corporate itself, or severely diminishing its size. In other words, this type of behavior will continue as long as their basic corporate situation doesnt change drastically as a whole in a negative manner.

nVidia simply being called liars and cheaters isnt anywhere near enough to effect any real changes insofar as the behavior displayed here goes, so while its principled and correct to call them what they are for what they have actually done and are doing in an objective fair realistic manner, do not in the least bit have the expectation that such things will go away any time soon or without drastic reductions in their revenue stream and industry influence preceding them first.

As long as they are dealing with the devil (which is Microsoft, of course, in the parable) its highly unlikely anything will change due to the authority and guaranteed revenue they get from their strategic relationship with MS, with all its limitations and downsides.

See, the real historical lesson to be applied here does indeed involve 3dfx, but not in the way that most people would see it.

So, what happened to 3dfx when Microsoft decided to develop Direct3D and add serious 3D graphical API support to DirectX, and approached 3dfx to create a strategic partnership?

Well, 3dfx told MS to go fuck themselves, essentially, and then set about in a pretty well known pogrom to downplay the development of Direct3D and its capabilities both in terms of speed, image quality, simplicity/complexity, etc etc, and even went so far as to "de-optimize" their Direct3D support in their drivers in an attempt to convince the industry how inferior D3D was to Glide. When MS was able to demonstrate this "de-optimization" of D3D in 3dfx's Voodoo drivers, well, lets just say, it was all over then, the writing was on the wall.

NOW do you see the irony and the parallels? i certainly do.

And then of course, nVidia acquired most of 3dfx's assets, including engineering staff, etc etc.

Perhaps 3dfx's D3D driver "de-optimization" team, which cut its teeth with driver tweaks desdigned to discredit MS's and its nascent D3D API, was then assigned new "Black Ops", which include, among other things, "optimizing" driver support for specific benchmark apps (including games), and this failed, would attempt to discredit the benchmark app itself, and its developer, through any means possible.

But of course, thats just pure speculation - we all know that nVidia doesnt code driver cheats designed to falsely increase benchmark scores for their hardware, so none of the rest of it could be true either.

At least nVidia was smart enough to know when to team up with the Great Devil of Microsoft - notice it was they that bought up 3dfx, and not the other way around, as probably would have been the case, had 3dfx joined in a strategic relationship with MS so many years ago.

Had 3dfx done so, they would very likely be the ones with a major say in the developmental direction of Direct3D, they would very likely be the ones with their graphics chipset inside the Xbox, they would be the ones with a high level shader language incorporated into Direct3D, they would be the ones producing motherboard chipsets, they would be making and selling all sorts of multimedia cards for PCs, and they would be the ones tweaking their drivers to cheat benchmark apps when their hardware wasnt quite up to snuff in terms of performance, relative to the competitions.

But, alas, we'll never know - 3dfx tried to piss into the Microsoft hurricane (using, ironically, driver cheats to do-optimize D3D), and, well, we know the rest.


Cogitate,
Hofbrau

 

Neeyik,

leap > you're given credit for writing the "Help" file > leap > the pdf uses almost identical wording (you were plagerized! ) > leap > that post & the definitiveness of the answer.

Yep I did leap. I apologize too. I drew conclusions based on a pattern I'd seen & statements I mistook for what they truly were. I assure you it won't happen again. (No sarcasm, I truly mean it)

Any "personal opinion" on the 'statement'?

My apologies again,

Edit: my awful spelling lately.

 

For those interested & knowledgable in reading the Law, here's an Appellate Court Case out of California. (For those not: take some aspirin first )

"Trade Libel Claims Must Clear High Legal Hurdle to Succeed

Gray Cary Ware & Freidenrich LLP
By Guylyn Cummins

The Fourth District Court of Appeal, Division One, in San Diego, California, reversed a libel verdict in excess of $1,500,000 in Melaleuca v. Clark, clarifying important constitutional protections in trade libel claims. Critically, the court required a plaintiff to prove by clear and convincing evidence that the defendant knew his or her statements about a product were false, or entertained serious doubts as to whether they were true, in order to recover for trade libel.

Dr. Hulda R. Clark, Ph.D., an independent research scientist, developed technology . a syncrometer. which she believes is capable of detecting the presence of carcinogenic chemicals, such as benzene, in trace amounts in certain products. Clark is the author of two books that advocate avoidance of such products for health reasons.

In her books, Clark stated that she had found benzene in Melaleuca products, a company that sells a line of personal hygiene, cosmetic, household cleaning, over-the-counter pharmaceutical, nutrition and pet care products. Melaleuca retained an independent laboratory to conduct tests of its products using conventional gas chromography and mass spectroscopy, which found no benzene.

Melaleuca then sued Clark for trade libel and other economic interference claims. At trial, Melaleuca asked the court to prevent Clark from attempting to establish the truth of her statements by relying on her syncrometer. Melaleuca''s expert testified at trial that there was no accepted scientific basis for the syncrometer testing advocated by Clark in her books.

The trial court ruled that Clark''s syncrometer testing was not an accepted scientific procedure to be admissible and held she could not use it to establish the existence of benzene in Melaleuca products. The trial court did permit Clark to present evidence that she used the syncrometer in order to establish her state of mind at the time she published the books.

The jury found Clark''s statements were false and that, while she did not know they were false, she nonetheless published them in reckless disregard of their falsity. The jury awarded $6,000 in special damages and $178,000 in presumed damages on the defamation claims. With respect to the economic interference claims, the jury found Melaleuca suffered an additional $366,000 in compensatory damages. The jury also awarded $1,000,000 in punitive damages.

Following the entry of judgment on the jury''s verdict, the trial court granted Melaleuca a permanent injunction against Clark, preventing her from publishing her statements about Melaleuca products. Clark appealed.

The Appellate Court''s Scientific Analysis

The appellate court, like the trial court, determined Clark''s statements involved matters of public concern and that Melaleuca had the burden of establishing that Clark''s statements were false. While noting the sparseness of legal authority with respect to using experts in defamation actions to establish truth or falsity, the court first held that, in appropriate circumstances, a plaintiff may rely on expert testimony to establish the falsity of statements.
In cases where one of the underlying disputes is over the chemical or biological make-up of a particular material, the court reasoned there is no inherent impediment to the use of expert testimony to establish the falsity of factual statements. Likewise, a defamation Trade Libel Claims defendant may find it helpful or necessary to present expert testimony as to the truth of the allegedly defamatory statements.

Having determined the propriety of using expert testimony, the court then turned to whether Clark''s testimony passed scrutiny to be admissible. Under the law, when an expert offers testimony which is based upon the application of a new scientific technique, the party offering the expert''s testimony must demonstrate the technique is sufficiently established to have gained general acceptance in the relevant field.

The court found no reason that litigants in defamation actions should be able to avoid these legal constraints, as they have an interest in preventing the use of purely experimental techniques to persuade the trier of fact on the issue of truth or falsity. Moreover, the court reasoned that a defamation defendant has other important defenses even where it has relied on unproven scientific techniques.

Because Clark offered no evidence to show her syncrometer testing had been accepted in any field of chemistry (indeed, she was quite candid about its novelty), she could not show the syncrometer testing passed legal requirements for admissibility. Accordingly, the court ruled, there was no error in preventing Clark from using syncrometer testing as a means of proving the truth of her statements.

The Appellate Court''s Constitutional Malice Analysis

With respect to constitutional malice, the appellate court first noted that the law governing defamation and injurious falsehood is essentially liberal and designed to assure the free flow of information in our society. The principal means by which the flow of information is protected is the requirement that a defamation or injurious falsehood plaintiff prove a defendant spoke with some degree of culpability.

California, like 33 other states, permits defamation liability so long as it is consistent with the requirements of the United States Constitution. In cases involving the reputation of a private figure, California permits recovery for damage to reputation on the basis of negligence.

Importantly, where a defendant''s statements do not impugn the reputation of a plaintiff . either individual or corporate . there is considerably less justification for permitting liability to be imposed on the basis of negligence alone. Accordingly, where the unique interest that individuals and business organizations have in their reputation is not implicated, the court held the public''s interest in avoiding self-censorship requires that the highest standard of culpability be applied.

In the context of allegedly false statements about the contents or quality of a product, the court ruled a plaintiff must demonstrate the highest degree of culpability, i.e., the defendant''s actual knowledge of falsity or actual serious doubts as to the truth of his or her statements. This standard, the court found, was based on the distinction at common law that has always given the owner or marketer of a product very limited rights against the publisher of statements that disparage the product (see Restatement (2d) Torts, ' 623A and ' 626). The public has always had a well-recognized interest in knowing about the quality and content of consumer goods.

The common law distinction was further buttressed by the constitutional preference for the free exchange of ideas established in New York Times v. Sullivan (1964) 376 U.S. 254. In the New York Times decision, the Supreme Court borrowed the common law standard that a speaker disparaging a product must know his or her statements are false or act in reckless disregard of their truth or falsity. After the New York Times decision, the Clark court reasoned, the First Amendment will not permit liability to be imposed for injurious falsehood absent a showing of constitutional malice.

Clark''s statements were made in the context of books espousing her scientific theories and advocating the adoption of what she believes are healthy nutritional practices and the avoidance of substances she believes cause serious illnesses. Because her statements reflected merely upon the quality of the products Melaleuca sold, the court found there was no disparagement of the company''s reputation and thus Melaleuca''s claim was simply one of trade libel. Accordingly, the judgment of Melaleuca could not be affirmed absent a finding that Clark acted with constitutional malice.

California''s BAJI 7.04.1 Instruction on Constitutional Malice Invalidated

Using California Form BAJI 7.04.1 on constitutional malice, the trial court had instructed the jury that they could find Clark acted with constitutional malice if she "must have had" serious doubts about the truth of her statements concerning Melaleuca''s products. Because the jury had found Clark did not know her statements were false, the appellate court agreed with Clark''s argument that the instruction was confusing because it suggested to the jury that so long as a reasonable person in Clark''s position would have had serious doubts about the truthfulness of her statements, Clark acted with constitutional malice.

The Clark court held, as the law is clear that a finding of constitutional malice is a subjective standard, objective recklessness or doubt cannot survive constitutional scrutiny. In this regard, the court noted that the United States Supreme Court has repeatedly eschewed liability based on what a speaker "must have realized." The appellate court stated that such reasoning may be adequate when an alleged libel purports to be an eyewitness or some other direct account of events that speak for themselves; however, such deductive analysis is inadequate when the libel is based on choices the defendant has made in describing what others have written or said or, as in this case, drawn conclusions from extensive or complex research.

Because the instruction allowed the jury to draw the inference as to what Clark "must have believed," the verdict could not stand. In assessing the prejudice from the erroneous instruction, the court noted the record could support a belief that Clark was as concerned and sincere about her findings as any of history''s scientific iconoclasts. Further, the jury had found she did not know her statements were false. In light of these circumstances, the court had little doubt that Clark would have obtained a more favorable verdict had the jury been properly instructed." [emphasis added for Russ]

http://library.lp.findlaw.com/artic...Law_Business Tort/filename/injurytortlaw_2_63

Hmmm, 8)

 

Doesn't exactly sound like the cheapest action to be on the receiving end of, though, does it?

 

You are so upset, I understand, but it's your weakness. Take it easy, WaltC, it's their business.

If you have strong feelings, let your money and suggestions to friends vote for your opinion.

 

Sorry, Just me.

That decision doesn't make the connection you're trying to make.

That decision you reference changes remove the objectivity from the defendant's state of mind (to determine whether 'malice' was involved). In order for the libel claim to prevail based on malice, you have to prove that the libeler knew it was wrong, or had actual serious doubts that it was truthful.

I find it strange that they removed the "should have known", and I wonder if this decision has not been overturned. This decision makes it easy for a company to libel another company with impunity--all you have to do is not check your facts.

 

Heh...I'm not losing any sleep over this, by any means...*chuckle* I just hate to see small, struggling companies get bounced around like this. I can't see that they've done anything to deserve it, except maybe sticking their foot in their mouths as they did with the "cheat" retraction press release.

 

I would never suggest anyone suing anyone else on the basis of libel--it's almost impossible to prove because the bar is so high. Courts necessarily see a conflict between the Constitutional right of free speech and libelous statements, which is why you must prove not only that false statements were made, but that they were made knowingly and with the express purpose of inflicting financial damage on the plaintiff, and the plaintiff must be able to prove financial damages associated directly with the libelous statements. It's very hard to win a libel suit...but it does happen, rarely.

In other words if the defendant can show how an error was made which led him to make a statement based on faulty information, you have no libel suit at all. The plaintiff has to prove that no error was made and that the negative statements were deliberately made. Almost impossible to prove. If the bar for libel wasn't so high our courts would probably be filled with nothing but libel suits... Such is the nature of free speech.