Have we forgiven Nvidia?

[digitalwanderer]

I'm interested in the underlying motif for these preferences. I know all of us have some degrees of preferences in different products and services. But WHY and why it extended/led to fanboism?

It's the tribal thing, like we see in sports. You have two groups competing, trying to one-up and beat each other, and for whatever reason (ususally to justify a purchase, or the opinion that led to that purchase), people line up to support their "side" and rubbish the other side.

I've really never felt that way; I never try and change the facts to fit my argument, I prefer to change my argument based on facts.

Really, seriously, truly; it's not a fanboy issue, it was a right/wrong issue last generation.

This generation I haven't seen nVidia doing anything like last time really, and there hardware is competitive with ATi's to say the least; but I still don't trust nVidia after how they acted last generation.

 

[Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.]

It's the tribal thing, like we see in sports. You have two groups competing, trying to one-up and beat each other, and for whatever reason (ususally to justify a purchase, or the opinion that led to that purchase), people line up to support their "side" and rubbish the other side.

I've really never felt that way; I never try and change the facts to fit my argument, I prefer to change my argument based on facts.

Really, seriously, truly; it's not a fanboy issue, it was a right/wrong issue last generation.

This generation I haven't seen nVidia doing anything like last time really, and there hardware is competitive with ATi's to say the least; but I still don't trust nVidia after how they acted last generation.

Well of course I wasn't talking about *us* I was talking about those fanboys on the other side.

There are some who can actually argue the merits from a position of logic, and there there are those insidious fanboys who appear to be objective, but are simply just pushing their fandom in a more subtle or technically competent way.

 

[NIB]

Well, you seemed to have learned from your mistakes and that will do you a lot of good in the future and that's a positive

The thing is that i was an nvidiot(to a certain extent) and i wanted to believe. Its like when your team sucks, but then a new player comes in and you want to believe that this new player will be your team's saviour. And then some newspapers say that he sucks, he is too old, he has a bad attitude, etc while others say that he is the best player in the world.

And you dont know how good he will be till the season starts. Sometimes he ends up being the best player in the world, sometimes he just sucks. But you dont know this before the season starts. And sometimes, he might improve after many games. Same thing with the graphic cards.

What on earth might've led you to believe that the feature sets for "DX9" or "OpenGL2.0" would *not* have become important? You certainly didn't get that from reading informed opinion on B3d

Dx9 was something way too far at that point. By the time dx9 and dx9 apps would have come out, 9500 might have been too slow.

Out of interest, how many other companies apart from Nvidia do you boycott and wish never existed?

I know this question wasnt for me, but let me say that i boycott many companies that use mutated products or torture animals and even specific oil companies.

Me? I'll just buy whichever video card happens to offer the best bang for buck at any given time. If that makes me immoral in your eyes then, well, I guess I'll have to put up with that ignominy.

Morality is a human mechanism which help us avoid future mistakes. If for example nvidia cheated once, we categorize it as immoral and we dont buy their products again. This is because they are most likely to cheat again in the future than their competitors(who havent cheated in the past). Some consider this uncivilized and obsessive behaviour which is totally unlogical. A primal mechanism which needs to be dropped in our days as some say. Well, i say lets stay primitive on some things. Sometimes i refuse to put logic over my obsessions. Especially when this obsession can make the world a better place.

But this obsession doesnt cloud my logical and objective opinion. I can accept the superiority of an nvidia card, but i will also state my feelings about nvidia and let my friend/forummers decide on their own. I am not fanATIc, i am just antinvidia .

If an IHV releases a video card that isn't up to scratch and tries to mislead the public then don't buy that particular card. That is the best way of sending a message to them that the public won't tolerate their practises

And what about the ppl that dont know much about graphic cards and get misleaded? Not every1 has the time or the will to sit down and learn everything about everything he buys. If ford makes a car and says that it does 0-60 in 5 secs, then you expect it to do that when you buy it(+-0.something secs). Nvidia says that that their car can do 0-60 in 5 secs and then review sites find out that in order to do that, you need to drop the car off a cliff. Isnt that misleading? And then nvidia blaims the roads that arent suitable for their car.

 

[ET]

If ford makes a car and says that it does 0-60 in 5 secs, then you expect it to do that when you buy it(+-0.something secs).

And if you don't get it, you'll be disappointed. Which will make you check the claim twice next time -- reading reviews, taking a test drive, etc. But if next time the claim is true, then you'd buy it. If Ford makes false claims regularly, you might decide to give them a rain check until there's some clear evidence that they got their act together. That's the way it normally works -- you don't boycott a brand forever after you got bitten once, you're just more careful. After all, what's the incentive for the company to improve their ways, if it can't get buyers back that way? If it's only selling to buyers who were willing to be duped, it might as well continue to cheat them.

 

[Moose]

Nobody does!

LOL!!!! That's brings back some old Monty Python memories....

 

[NIB]

reading reviews, taking a test drive, etc. But if next time the claim is true, then you'd buy it. If Ford makes false claims regularly, you might decide to give them a rain check until there's some clear evidence that they got their act together. That's the way it normally works -- you don't boycott a brand forever after you got bitten once, you're just more careful. After all, what's the incentive for the company to improve their ways, if it can't get buyers back that way? If it's only selling to buyers who were willing to be duped, it might as well continue to cheat them.

Its fraud man. I am telling you that someone robbed me and you are telling me "Learn some karate". I shouldnt have to learn karate, i should be protected by the state and the laws. This isnt the jungle, we have laws which supposingly protect the citizens. And even if i am willing to learn karate and protect myself, other ppl are just gonna get robbed over and over till someone put some order into this capitalistic chaos.

And i am willing to forgive nvidia, if they publicly apologised to all nv3x buyers and if they fire some executives who are responsible for this crap. But their stocks are more important then their customers, so they are sticking to this PR crap and are exploiting millions of people around the globe.

 

[dream caster]

I don't know how can you not feel personally insulted and cheated when someboy (i.e. Nvidia) is trying to deceive you; i have not ever bought an Nvidia card but I do feel they tried to wrong all of us and buying a card from them is a bit I cannot swallow; something stirs inside me against that, when I think about buying an Nvidia card.

 

[ET]

Its fraud man. I am telling you that someone robbed me and you are telling me "Learn some karate".

No, you're telling me "that store charged me more than was on the sticker" and I'm saying "check the receipt next time". You're just exaggerating how much you got hurt.

A lot more people fell for the GeForce4 MX trick than any driver optimisation trick, and I feel that's worse. Then again, ATI did something similar (but to a lesser extent) with the Radeon 9000 vs. 8500, and again with 9600 vs. 9500. Naive buyers always get fucked. It's just that most don't know and don't care. Technically savvy buyers who end up learning they've been naive just hurt more for a smaller cheat.

 

[NIB]

A lot more people fell for the GeForce4 MX trick than any driver optimisation trick, and I feel that's worse. Then again, ATI did something similar (but to a lesser extent) with the Radeon 9000 vs. 8500, and again with 9600 vs. 9500. Naive buyers always get fucked

Except that on these occasions, any visit to a forum or reading of any benchmark would show that these cards suck. But that was not the case with the nv3x cards. On 1 case we are fraud(driver cheating, slander, etc), on the other case we just have marketing crap which can be easily filtered by doing a benchmark.

 

[ET]

Didn't NVIDIA tell you with all honesty that 3DMark 2003 was a flawed benchmark and you shouldn't listen to it? Why then do you complain if they cheated on it?

 

[Sandwich]

A lot more people fell for the GeForce4 MX trick than any driver optimisation trick, and I feel that's worse. Then again, ATI did something similar (but to a lesser extent) with the Radeon 9000 vs. 8500, and again with 9600 vs. 9500. Naive buyers always get fucked

Except that on these occasions, any visit to a forum or reading of any benchmark would show that these cards suck. But that was not the case with the nv3x cards. On 1 case we are fraud(driver cheating, slander, etc), on the other case we just have marketing crap which can be easily filtered by doing a benchmark.

Bah. naming schemes have never made much sense going back to the geforce titanium series.
GF titanium is a GF2pro and a GF3 Ti200 is actually a slow GF3?? or consider the GF2MX200 < GF2mx.
It's been like that ever since.

Naive buyers get fucked anyway because they purchase P4/3.2Ghz gaming PCs, sofar so good...with 9600SEs or FX5200XTs.
There's no hope for the common layman.

 

[pat777]

It's the tribal thing, like we see in sports. You have two groups competing, trying to one-up and beat each other, and for whatever reason (ususally to justify a purchase, or the opinion that led to that purchase), people line up to support their "side" and rubbish the other side.

I've really never felt that way; I never try and change the facts to fit my argument, I prefer to change my argument based on facts.

Really, seriously, truly; it's not a fanboy issue, it was a right/wrong issue last generation.

This generation I haven't seen nVidia doing anything like last time really, and there hardware is competitive with ATi's to say the least; but I still don't trust nVidia after how they acted last generation.

Well of course I wasn't talking about *us* I was talking about those fanboys on the other side.

There are some who can actually argue the merits from a position of logic, and there there are those insidious fanboys who appear to be objective, but are simply just pushing their fandom in a more subtle or technically competent way.

When we evolve, I can't wait to see what type of technology we compete for.

 

[ondaedg]

I suppose the things that made a large number of people get mad at Nvidia last generation could easily be applied to ATI this generation. No double standards here. I don't get mad, I just buy the videocard that plays the games I play smoothly and with great image quality. I can definitely say that I would love to replace my Radeon 9500 (softmodded to 9700) with a 6800 GT. My roommate has a 6800 GT and damn does Doom3 look good on it.

 

[PatrickL]

I suppose the things that made a large number of people get mad at Nvidia last generation could easily be applied to ATI this generation.

Like what ?

 

[martrox]

Some people just can't see the difference between murder and littering.......

 

[trinibwoy]

There are some who can actually argue the merits from a position of logic, and there there are those insidious fanboys who appear to be objective, but are simply just pushing their fandom in a more subtle or technically competent way.

So which group do you belong to ? :|

 

[Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.]

So which group do you belong to ? :|

Why the right group of course! 8)

 

[ondaedg]

I suppose the things that made a large number of people get mad at Nvidia last generation could easily be applied to ATI this generation.

Like what ?

If I recall correctly, Nvidia was chastised last generation for optimizing their filtering techniques sacrificing quality for speed. This generation around, ATI is clearly optimizing their filtering while Nvidia gives you the option to use trilinear filtering or use an optimized trilinear filtering algorithm. I clearly see this as a double-standard.

Furthermore, if you recall several years back when 3dfx use to tell us the consumer, that we didn't need 32 bit depth. Now we have ATI telling us that we don't need SM 3.0.

I am not tryin to be a fanboy here, but from how I see it, fair is fair. Nvidia put out the total package this time around and they should get their props.

As for all you cryin that you don't trust Nvidia... WTF does that mean? How is the word "trust" relevant in any discussion concerning your purchase of a piece of computer hardware? Before you buy a piece of hardware, you do research independent of what any PR machine says. You then make a decision based on your needs and economic factors. When was the last time any of us went to Best Buy and spent 400.00 based on who's PR machine came up with the best BS?

I think alot of us have selective memories about this stuff. Anyone recall the quack3.exe fiasco? No ATI is not perfect. Their own stockholders have sued them once or twice: http://www.legalcasedocs.com/120/246/204.html
What about the Ontario Securities Commission investigating several heads of ATI including their ceo for insider trading? http://www.professionalreferrals.ca/article-255.html And yes I know, the same thing happened with several engineers at Nvidia.
Point is, ATI is no different than Nvidia.

And one more question, if so many of you have this self proclaimed hatred for Nvidia because of "unethical business practices", then why are you typing these posts from a Microsoft Operating System? I guess that would mean you would have to be using a Linux based OS and oh the horror, you would be stuck with Nvidia since they were kind enough to provide good drivers for Linux unlike their perfect counterparts, ATI.
Some of you are saying that you almost got "duped" into buying a 5800/5900 series video card. Did anyone ever chastise ATI for releasing the Rage Fury Maxx with drivers that hardly worked? I guess the only ones who would be mad about that are those who spent all that money
to find out that they were going to be abandoned in a couple of months with a card that worked maybe, half the time?

The way I see it, ATI is no different than Nvidia. Their execs are just as dirty as any company and they have been caught doing the same things Nvidia has done in the past. If it's the PR machines that you hate, then mute them out. Fact is, I plan on replacing this Radeon 9500 softmodded to a 9700 (quite possibly the best card ever for 145.00) with a 6800 GT.
When Nvidia's PR machine starts affecting the quality of the air I breathe or the water I drink, then I will decide that I will not support Nvidia ever.
Until that happens, ATI and Nvidia are no different whether it's PR or questionable filtering techniques/optimizations.

I hate rants...

 

[PatrickL]

Oki i understand. You have a very superficially knowledge on what happened since 9700 pro launch and you just showed it. Please do you a favor and read the archives.
Thanks in advance

 

[digitalwanderer]

Oki i understand. You have a very superficially knowledge on what happened since 9700 pro launch and you just showed it. Please do you a favor and read the archives.
Thanks in advance

You're way too nice, can I vote "NO!!!!" again? :|