If you can't see it, it's not cheating.

[K.I.L.E.R]

Sorry for bringing this up but I would like to know how many people believe in that comment.

So if I am in an Olympic game and I take drugs, I have escaped the drug tests undetected but since I am not caught taking drugs it isn't considered cheating.

Can anyone see a flaw with that?

 

[Evildeus]

I think the difference is:
When you enter the olympic games, there's a rule saying: you shouldn't take "list of drugs", whereas there's no rules to say, you should render this game as it is supposed to. Then everyone think what they want

 

[K.I.L.E.R]

I think the difference is:
When you enter the olympic games, there's a rule saying: you shouldn't take "list of drugs", whereas there's no rules to say, you should render this game as it is supposed to. Then everyone think what they want

Sorry, I should point out that I am talking about synthetic benchmarks.

Synthetic benchmarks are ment to be run without optimisations or modifications to compare system components and/or the entire system up against other systems.

 

[Doomtrooper]

Let me guess the one vote for true is none other than Mr. One liner himself...Kyle

 

[K.I.L.E.R]

Let me guess the one vote for true is none other than Mr. One liner himself...Kyle

2 votes now. Must have been Kyle using someone elses PC.

 

[martrox]

Any guesses who else voted it true? Could it be someone who thinks ATI smoking something hallucinogenic?

 

[Exxtreme]

My opinion:

"optimizing" for games -> good for the customer
"optimizing" for benchmarks -> cheating

 

[jvd]

I dunno to me its just like Fat.... when i eat icecream can i see the fat ? No.... but it goes strait to my gut....

So the end result is bad. If they cheat on benchmarks . I can't see it . But in the end i get screwed. And its not by a hot girl so that is bad too .

 

[K.I.L.E.R]

My opinion:

"optimizing" for games without changing the original output -> good for the customer
"optimizing" for benchmarks -> cheating

 

[Freak'n Big Panda]

omg 3 ppl voted true! I wonder who they were.... anyway I totaly agree with killer.

My opinion:

"optimizing" for games without changing the original output -> good for the customer
"optimizing" for benchmarks -> cheating

 

[martrox]

Ok, for all those voting yes, please answer the following questions:

It's not cheating IF I can't see:

1) My significant other having sex with other people
2) The management of my workplace skimming profits off the top
3) The management of my investments buying Enron stock - from themselves!
4) Adding 30 lbs of lead ballast to the leading contender in a horserace.
5) Removing half the sparkplugs from Micheal Schumacker's Ferrari
6) Dating a transvestite
7) Voting against Dubba in Florida......

 

[mat]

My opinion:

"optimizing" for games without changing the original output -> good for the customer
"optimizing" for benchmarks -> cheating

make that

optimizing without changing the original output -> good for the customer
optimizing with changing the original output-> cheating

and i'll agree.

Just think of the C Compiler optimizations. are those cheats? no, the just make youe app faster. If the Graphics driver can do this, than i'm happy as long as the Software does what the Programmer specified

 

[nyt]

optimizing without changing the original output -> good for the customer
optimizing with changing the original output-> cheating

and i'll agree.

The big issue with this reasonning is that you assume that all outputs are equal to the default rasterizer, which is not the case due to FP nature. Moreover, you have to consider the output not only in terms of image quality but also frame rate, or the result will be different as well. If fps weren't important, you wouldn't have so many benchmarks around, perf/quality settings in the drivers, etc.
The original poll doesn't specify context, it should have a third choice :'depends'
Me thinks, it's time specs include a performance index for critical parts of the API. The FX5200 should not be DX9 compliant if all you get is a slideshow using DX9 features. But if you can have it run below DX9 specs with an acceptable output quality actually close to a true DX9 compliant adapter, would you still can this cheating?

 

[K.I.L.E.R]

...
optimizing with changing the original output-> cheating
...

In a synthetic benchmark only general D3D/GL optimisations are acceptable.
If 3dmark was made by me I would be even more pissed what Ati and nVIDIA have done to MY software. Ati removed the optimisations in 3dmark03 (even though they never changed the output) because they knew it was WRONG!

If it wasn't wrong then they would not have removed them.

FM built the software to run one way for all cards. Inserting clip planes on a fixed camera position IS changing the way the software is run because if FCP were meant to be used, FM would have implemented it.

In games, as long as you don't change the IQ it's acceptable.

 

[digitalwanderer]

I still can't fathom the kind of mind it would take to not see the inherent problems with the whole "If you can't see it, it's not cheating." attitude.

My example: If I'm an ostrich and I stick my head into the sand....

 

[Hanners]

I still can't fathom the kind of mind it would take to not see the inherent problems with the whole "If you can't see it, it's not cheating." attitude.

My example: If I'm an ostrich and I stick my head into the sand....

Well, I guess when it comes to rendering something on screen, what you see is the most important (only important?) part of the end-user experience.

The rules change substantially once you start talking synthetic benchmarks though, which is why I voted false. Had the question been 'in games', I would be inclined to vote 'true'.

 

[nelg]

4) Adding 30 lbs of lead ballast to the leading contender in a horserace.

Where would you put it.

 

[martrox]

4) Adding 30 lbs of lead ballast to the leading contender in a horserace.

Where would you put it.

Maybe that should have been ON the racehorse......

 

[Evildeus]

Synthetic benchmarks are ment to be run without optimisations or modifications to compare system components and/or the entire system up against other systems.

Well, all depends on the benchmarker not on the benchmark. If you want to be on the ORB of FM, sure you shouldn't, but if you want to be compare on, let say, [H] reviews, optimisation is accepted, and what is not seen is considered ok, then it's not cheating.

It's like some rules on the NBA and on the french basketball chanpionship are not equal, and what is considered cheating in one place is not in another place.

It's the reviewer who put the rules on what is cheating or not. Like i could make an international chanpionship saying that all drugs are accepted, so there's no more cheating in taking some .

 

[martrox]

Geez, ED, talk about your circle logic......
The bottom line is that there is a right and a wrong here, and what nVidia has and is doing is wrong, period. The ones that they are really cheating are their customers. And, by the way, you might check out the review at XBT, because, even though they are slanted to nVidia, they had this to say:

It's clear that the GeForce FX 5900 Ultra can't be called a single 3D king (the difference between the 5900 and 5900 Ultra is demonstrated above, so you can estimate whether the 5900 Ultra is able to outscore even the 128MB version of the RADEON 9800 PRO). We admit that we were wrong giving the crown to the new NVIDIA product because of the deceitful 3DMark scores.

So, I guess we are still waiting to see just who is smoking something hallucinogenic?