Kyle lays it on the line

How is beyond3d's relationship with Nvidia Dave?

edit:
I am glad to hear it I have been worried that perhaps it was being negatively effected, or otherwise not as good as in the past.

(no need to add new post)

 

AFAIK, fine. I had a lengthy conversation with them last week on a number of things and am arranging to meet with their head of Dev Rel soon as he's moved away from the States to head up Dev Rel in Europe.

 

Er, I'll assume you made a mistake and posted your message here instead of in the relevant thread at the HardForums.

Or that you didn't make a mistake and that you, and others, got the message in my above sentence.

 

posting this here just in case he nukes or edits my post, his qoute is below mine.


So essentially you refuse to take a real stance on this issue? And by the first paragraph you have given a corporate justification to the plain and simple fact Nvidia has ine the past and currently uses unethical optimizations in order to bring up numbers in benchmarks whihc in turn spawns greater sales whihc in turn helps their stock holders. They optimized and took away control for the users in benchmarks and popular games widely used by reviewers to test video cards. But you have yet to take a stance you state below we should let the vendors know what we think is acceptable and what we do not yet as yourself having a good relationship with Nvidia and a lot of readers your voice may stand above others in helping stop these types of thing from happening again yet you simply don't seem willing to actually state what you think.

Yes or No with all the recent findings about what Nvidia has been doing in it's drivers which has had the sole purpose of bumping up it's numbers in benchmarks and time demo's do you think that it was wrong for Nvidia to do that?

Don't you think this is also mis leading it's customers into buying a vidoe card that perfomed much better than it really did?

Kyle's qoute

"I think the IHV has the right to handle these optimizations as they see fit. We sometimes seem to forget that we are dealing with public companies that have a fiduciary duty to their stockholders. That is their number one responsibility in reality, whether we like it or not.

To answer your question as to whether or not it is a good practice... I think to answer that one way or another would be to paint with a very wide brush and the answer simply would be "wrong" either way it was answered. We are going to continue to see game specific optimizations. I think we are going to see some that are great and enhance performance sufficiently. Then again I am sure we will see some implementations of it that just plain suck.

Overall, I think moving towards this is a good thing. We just need to let the IHVs know what we consider acceptable and what we do not."


__________________

 

At this point, the only reaction I can muster for this whole "issue" is, "Meh."

 

[Turns to ATI driver engineers]

Wayhey lads - if it pumps up our stock price it's ok with Kyle. Drop every second triangle and turn off texturing. Render at half the requested screen res whenever a benchmark is detected. We're about to produce the largest single increase in benchmark scores in the recorded history of graphics.

[end sarcasm]

Arrrgh.

 

They also have a responsibilty to their stockholders not to do anything which might lead them to lose money (say through a class-action lawsuit from cheated customers) or to break the law by deliberately cheating customers.

Nvidia is lucky that once again the law is well behind the technology market. Can you imagine a car manufacturer that lies about the performance of it's products getting away with it? Heck no, they'd be fined millions of dollars and probably be made to recompense their victims.

 

...and once again people here miss the entire point. For someone who is "despised" Kyle sure gets plenty of coverage here.

 

I agree that I'm sick of all the Kyle bashing myself, but you're painting with a rather large brush with that statement. Did Dave miss the point, or Andypski?

 

Yeah, that's right, everyone here has missed the point I think we get the point just fine.

Kyle gets coverage because he is so spectacularly, publicly, desperately *wrong*. He's like a man claiming the moon is made of green cheese because his "opinion" is just as valid as everyone elses. Having an opinion doesn't change the facts.

 

No, I'd say Dave brought up valid points. Blasting Kyle with a flame thrower 24/7 over here is "beyond "maniacal. I would completely disagree that the relationship growing beyond what is presently in existence between ATI and [H] is [H]'s job. ATI is the business with a product, not the other way around.

 

You aren't suggesting that ATi need sites like H do you?

Hardware review sites are ten a penny and the people the buyers that actually matter (the manufacturers) generally don't bother looking at them, they do the testing themselves.

 

No, I am not.

 

Hmm. I thought ATI was complaining that since NVIDIA wasn't doing full tri-linear that they shouldn't be compared to their card which was using full tri-linear? Is that correct?

I myself wouldn't had mind [H] comparing NVIDIA's quazi-tri-linear with ATI's full tri-linear, but only as long [H] stated in review next to the numbers that NVIDIA's drivers didn't allow that comparison because they were special-casing for that application and that although the IQ was not as good as full tri-linear some people may not be able tell the difference while playing the game. That's the kind of statement I would like Kyle to add to his review. Remember, a lot of people may not read the "UT2003 Texture Filtering" article and they could possibly be mislead by reading the review "as is". To me this is ATI biggest complaint.

Tommy McClain

 

Didn’t ATI in fact call their AF adaptive from the very start? So yes some could argue that ATI should have given the consumer the choice but in no way was it a cheat. No one was mislead.

If nVidia openly stated what they did and applied it to all games I think the majority would have accepted what they did as an optimization. The fact is the consumer was mislead. [H] participated in this deception. At the very least Kyle should have noted the drivers were not performing pure trilinear filtering and nVidia should openly state it.

Kyle’s response sounds like an acknowledgment of a conflict of interest. Regardless of the relationship with a particular vendor, the same rules must apply if one is to claim journalistic integrity.

I’ll give him credit that he acknowledged his statements about ET were not appropriate. No one is required to grovel. But, as someone already said, he should have posted it where he slandered ET.

 

Generally speaking it seems to me that the responsibility for a relationship growing must lie with both parties by definition. If either party is not interested in growing the relationship then it will not grow.

ATI is a business with a product. [H] is also a business with a product - that product being their reviews. ATI relies on journalists to review their products and the journalists rely on ATI to provide them with hardware to review. It's a two way street.

Reading Kyle's post he obviously currently feels that nVidia are more responsive to him than ATI - I can't comment on why this should be the case as it is not my department.

 

I was just going to sit this one out watching it play out on the sidelines, but this bit bugs me.

Now is it just me or is it just a bit insulting to be told it's just too complex for us simpletons to understand?

Why doesn't he just take a bit of time and explain it to us with little words so we'll all just stop pestering him about it? It really is the whole crux of the problem and the whole reason he's getting slammed all over.

I just don't get what the "complexities" of the situation truly are, it seems so damned black & white to me....I really wish he would explain how he sees it so we could understand.

Ok, I'm done. I would have posted it over there but I couldn't either.

 

I would have posted there had I been able to register... Whats your Point and whats the problem? I am not alone in my disdain for his "Opinions"

as far as that goes, [H] may not post here, but I'd bet dollars to donuts he lurks and reads the threads, so He'll see my post. If he has a rebuttal, I'm sure he's capable of defending himself. even if by PM.

 

so, what is the entire point, in your opinion?
Because i dont think i'm missing it - maybe you could clarify?
Instead of blasting us all the time?
And what does "despising" someone have to do with coverage?
He's pretty influential - so of course we discuss what he says. What, should we ignore those we disagree with?

 

Yes, what is the point of all these threads about Kyle?