Kyle's new thread @[H]

[micron]

Thank you for your logical answer.
I will stop trying to take things too personal.
I understand that things here could start heading in the wrong direction fast, and I dont want that. I am here because B3D is different, and more proffesional then most websites. I think that as long as I stay within that focus, and frame of mind, then your views wont seem too far off base from that of my own. Unfortunately, I had come to these conclusions before you even responded to my post, while I was at the store, away from the computer.
*edit = forgot to apologize, which I do*

 

[Himself]

I wouldn't mind seeing the speculation/he said/she said threads moved to general myself..

 

[demalion]

Hmm...it still seems to me the central issue of many of these threads is quite reflective of the status of 3D technology and hardware. Yes, commentary on Kyle's stance has probably run its course for now, but the nature of his comments and the problems they represent to many are rather closely tied to the future of 3d hardware web reviewing, as is what he expresses his opinions about. I continue to view the notion that such discussions be shuffled off to the General forum as a desire to avoid reading other people offer opinions on things you've already formed opinions about...not everyone already realizes what is wrong with what Kyle has stated, and it is natural that they'd ask here.

I thought steps had already been taken to provide a place for specific coding discussions, and also that steps were taken to split off the more common emotionally charged topics such as IHVs and repetitive topics such as boards and driver discussions? I know I try to place threads accordingly. That something emotionally charged has found its way on topic here is the result of the status of 3D technology and hardware, I think, even if continued discussion might be annoying to some.

The problems being discussed here in this thread, and in other threads that seem to fit the complaints being put forward, are to do with 3D technology in the very way this site does, and this topic in particular is in fact about exactly those things that define this site as different from others. I don't think that is either trivial, or a "General Discussion" topic suited to accompany all the political and social discussions divorced from 3D that occur in that forum.

I also don't think speculation is ill-suited to this forum, nor do I understand a persistence in impatience in that when interesting technical discussion is often spawned by such.

I do think that many objections proposed seem to me to be based on personal annoyance with people rather than the topic of discussions not being related to the Forum, atleast from what I've understood to be said so far. I say respond to the people in particular, since they can make similar comments in any thread and topic, and not make generalizations and thread/forum rules that introduce a forum structure based on reacting to the worst that people are capable of when having discussions.

You can lock redundant threads without at the same time saying the discussion didn't belong in the forum in the first place.


Input offered here in response to the opinions to the contrary already stated, and in no way presuming that I have anything resembling final say.


BTW Rev, I don't even think most of the contents of the Pulpit threads belong in General, it just makes some of the resulting discussion less interesting and receive less participation. I understand that it is an expression of an opinion on this to place them there, but I think that separation is somewhat ill fitting unless you simply don't want involved opinions in response to the 3D Technology related parts. I'm addressing this not to police personal forum selection, , but to highlight what I personally think is an example of the negative impact of such a choice.

 

[Reverend]

As usual, your post makes sense demalion.

BTW Rev, I don't even think most of the contents of the Pulpit threads belong in General, it just makes some of the resulting discussion less interesting and receive less participation. I understand that it is an expression of an opinion on this to place them there, but I think that separation is somewhat ill fitting unless you simply don't want involved opinions in response to the 3D Technology related parts. I'm addressing this not to police personal forum selection, , but to highlight what I personally think is an example of the negative impact of such a choice.

Well, my "Reverend at the Pulpit" posts in General Discussion isn't meant to be for, er, "scrutiny". Heck, I didn't even expect to reply to responses in such threads of mine... but I couldn't resist of course

I wanted a place to say my "piece" and be done with it. I would post such thoughts of mine on the front page actually but Dave doesn't want that (and I agree with him). Kinda like our Developer forums concept. I honestly could care less if a whole lot of people read/don't read my "sermons" (hehe) -- if it turns out a lot of people read it, fine, if not, fine also. I will continue to post such at General, whether it includes 3D Tech-related musings per se (such as further personal thoughts of mine wrt trying to help shape the next 3DMark, as I had done in one of my such "Reverend at The Pulpit" threads there) or not.

 

[demalion]

Thanks for the reply!

 

[Rookie]

Quote from dave:

What statement letter is that?

Dave,I m sure u've got the famous statement from Nvidia:

"Since NVIDIA is not part in the FutureMark beta program (a program which costs of hundreds of thousands of dollars to participate in) we do not get a chance to work with Futuremark on writing the shaders like we would with a real applications developer. We don't know what they did but it looks like they have intentionally tried to create a scenario that makes our products look bad. This is obvious since our relative performance on games like Unreal Tournament 2003 and Doom3 shows that The GeForce FX 5900 is by far the fastest graphics on the market today.

Unlike a game developer, Future Mark has a motive to make their application run poorly on one IHV's hardware becasuse that IHV refuses to pay them hundreds of thousands of dollars per year to be part of their beta program. A real application or game is best served by running as well as possible on all hardware to give the end user the best experience, but 3DMark03 uniquely is not.

If you need some additional 3rd Party support - the following editorial from HardOCP is a perfect response:

http://www.hardocp.com/article.html?art=NDMw"

 

[Doomtrooper]

Quote from dave:

What statement letter is that?

Dave,I m sure u've got the famous statement from Nvidia:

"Since NVIDIA is not part in the FutureMark beta program (a program which costs of hundreds of thousands of dollars to participate in) we do not get a chance to work with Futuremark on writing the shaders like we would with a real applications developer. We don't know what they did but it looks like they have intentionally tried to create a scenario that makes our products look bad. This is obvious since our relative performance on games like Unreal Tournament 2003 and Doom3 shows that The GeForce FX 5900 is by far the fastest graphics on the market today.

Unlike a game developer, Future Mark has a motive to make their application run poorly on one IHV's hardware becasuse that IHV refuses to pay them hundreds of thousands of dollars per year to be part of their beta program. A real application or game is best served by running as well as possible on all hardware to give the end user the best experience, but 3DMark03 uniquely is not.

If you need some additional 3rd Party support - the following editorial from HardOCP is a perfect response:

http://www.hardocp.com/article.html?art=NDMw"

Originally posted by Kyle:

I visited NVIDIA offices last week and we discussed 3DMark03. At that time we had the benchmark for a well over a week and I think NV had it for a day. At that time I had already made my mind up that 3DMark03 did not represent gaming. We KNEW NVIDIA's thoughts had merit when they came to us with their opinions.

Played like a guitar

 

[Joe DeFuria]

Unlike a game developer, Future Mark has a motive to make their application run poorly on one IHV's hardware becasuse that IHV refuses to pay them hundreds of thousands of dollars per year to be part of their beta program....

Um, wrong.

Unlike a game developer, the very nature of FutureMark's business makes FutureMark DEPENDENT on its benchmarking products being fair and unbiased. The moment FutureMark pruposely cripples performance on one IHV's products, that's the same moment that FutureMark's product itself becomes worthless.

On the other hand, you, nVidia, have clear motive to make your product perform "better than it should", on an industry accepted benchmark. Millions of dollars at stake with OEM contracts, and general consumer mindshare.

Now, having said all that, this is the first time I've seen the above quote, suppossedly from nVidia, posted anywhere. Every other nVidia quote I've seen stopped after the first paragrah. Is there a source for the entire statement?

 

[martrox]

A virtuoso performance...... kinda reminds me of Millie Vanelli..

 

[indio]

I feel dirty just reading it.

 

[bloodbob]

Quoting that bloodbob fella's post on rage3d

Location:
Posts: 91
Kyle from hardocp views

http://www.hardforum.com/showthread...threadid=617736

My comments on what he said.

quote:

If you go by what Futuremark is putting forward in their PDF as 100% fact, it can be looked at from two different ways which we have discussed here in length last week. Actually, there is really no new information here from what Extremetech posted, but rather Futuremark backing up ET's statements.



It is clear from this comment that either kyle hasn't read the PDF or knew about the pixel shader replacement before the PDF was released.

The article he is refering was posted here at Extremetech http://www.extremetech.com/article2...,1086857,00.asp

It covers 2 suspect behaviours the first is the static clipping plains and the second is the disabling of clear.

Now what probably the most important thing the futuremark PDF pointed out was the replacing of shaders.

Now how could have kyle missed it either he already knew about the shader replacement and therefore forgot that it actually wasn't or in his total bias he just thought the anything futuremark said was crap and completely ignored it.

 

[indio]

I think Kyle and ALOT of other webs sites should read this . It is definately applicable http://www.ojr.org/ojr/ethics/1049994303.php

 

[WaltC]

I think Kyle and ALOT of other webs sites should read this . It is definately applicable http://www.ojr.org/ojr/ethics/1049994303.php

There is a Supreme Irony to Kyle's "If you can't SEE the cheating it's not cheating but optimization" statement that I find remarkable:

If you take the camera off the track in 3D Mark you can then SEE the cheating when running the Dets--but when you take the camera off the track running the Catalysts, you can't "SEE the cheating."

Therefore, out of his own mouth, Kyle has convicted nVidia of cheating, but simultaneously exonerated ATi of cheating (since according to Kyle they are optimizing, instead.) Yet he is unaware that he has done so, and has reached a conclusion which opposes his own remarks.

Pretty funny stuff...

 

[Typedef Enum]

The problem, as I see it, is that it comes down to basic integrity. At the end of the day, that's what's going to matter.

In the case of Kyle, he was proven many a time that he has absolutely no integrity whatsoever. There have been countless instances in which he would say/do things that others would not (and I'm not talking about good/positive things).

I can pretty much guarantee you that if you could talk to a lot of hardware PR guys, they would probably tell you how much they love the guy because he's so easy to play/manipulate (I think the nVidia->Quack deal comes to mind).

I mean, I have read nVidia's white papers/arguments/quotes from PR people...and then later on, seen Kyle try to argue things online using the _exact_ same logic that were in those BS-filled papers...I know I'm saying nothing new here.

So, I don't know what anybody expects from this guy. I mean, if you were to ask a bunch of webmasters in this arena as to which guy is the lowest...the worst...biggest jerk...biggest puppet...etc. There's absolutely no doubt that the vast majority of them will say Kyle.

 

[Doomtrooper]

So, I don't know what anybody expects from this guy

Admitting he is wrong would be nice, but that would only happen once in a Blue Moon.

 

[Entropy]

So, I don't know what anybody expects from this guy. I mean, if you were to ask a bunch of webmasters in this arena as to which guy is the lowest...the worst...biggest jerk...biggest puppet...etc. There's absolutely no doubt that the vast majority of them will say Kyle.

Hold on a minute!
You mean Tom Pabst is so out of it now that he no longer counts at all?
It's ironic, the parallells you could draw between Kyles recent behaviour on the front page, in editorials, and in forum regulating, and what used to be seen at Toms. (Toms has gotten tons better btw, since Pabst stopped writing. He obviously doesn't damage the site much from his current position, whatever it may be. Bless his egomaniac soul.)

The people who started up these hardware enthusiast sites during the boom are not necessarily the best possible individuals to run them as they have grown.

Entropy

 

[Doomtrooper]

You think Borsti is doing a good job on Video Card reviews

 

[Typedef Enum]

That one editorial that Tom wrote about a year ago or so was just beautiful...

You know, the one where Tom came out and said that nVidia came to him with this whole Quack thing, and Tom refused to do it...

Who would step up to the plate? Who's the one loser on the internet who could be easily manipulated to put such content on their website? Which guy has the least amount of integrity, so on and so forth...

The way that Tom wrote the story was just awesome.

 

[Entropy]

You think Borsti is doing a good job on Video Card reviews

Better than Pabst, for sure.
Borsti isn't too bad in my book, I wouldn't hesitate to rank him a notch over AnandTech these days.

My point was that the opinionated, semi-paranoid and self congratulatory writing that used to be prevalent in tests at Toms, and to an even larger extent editorials where Tom lashed out at other sites, is now largely gone. However, if you've looked at the pages at [H] in recent times you will see a disturbingly similar pattern. Which, again, is quite ironic given past interludes between Tom and Kyle.

Edit: Also, although I have no idea what went on behind the curtains, it really was good for the site that Tom stopped writing, and that they brought in other technical editors. They publish some pretty interesting articles, ranging over a more diverse set of topics than in the old days. So not only style, but also the coverage has improved. If the change was in any way connected to some sort of self-insight on Toms part, he deserves credit for that.

Entropy

 

[WaltC]

The problem, as I see it, is that it comes down to basic integrity. At the end of the day, that's what's going to matter.
....

This is an interesting issue and you might be right in saying it is an issue of integrity.

But there are gobs and gobs of people whose basic understanding of fundamental issues is formed almost completely by the PR material they read. In fact, such people often do not know when they are reading promotional propaganda and when they are reading accurate technical info. The line is always blurred for them, in other words.

In my own history back in '86-'87 with the Amiga boxes from C= I formed my opinions almost completely around a combination of my experience with x86 hardware as a reference and the trade publications which grew up around the Amiga platform, as well as my own hands-on work with Amigas (which I used exclusively from '86-'95 after more or less abandoning x86.) On reflection, much of what I "learned" about the hardware was in fact built around the PR material the Amiga trade mags generated about it. But it did not seem like PR material at the time to me. You couldn't get college professorial-level information on the platform because most college-level work done at the time with any architecture pre-dated the platform by at least 10 years--and the people I knew were forming their information bases from the same sources I was... It was a kind of fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants type of thing and everybody was more or less in the same boat. Looking back I can see that much of what I ascertained as fundamentally "different" actually wasn't--it was just that the Amiga put everything together differently and had a great pre-emptively multitasking OS with a GUI (which worked well but wasn't stable enough for corporate use.) I can see the Amiga picture much clearer today in hindsight--but that was true for everybody at the time. The fact that I understand it better today doesn't diminish my respect for the platform in its day at all, even though I have a much better take on how the platform was marketed by various groups than I did then.

I think it's true that all of us at some point were more influenced by PR than we thought... Some people get beyond that point and some never grow beyond it for a variety of reasons. I want to be generous and think that Kyle's such an easy mark for hardware publicists simply because they've learned how to push his buttons, and he's not aware of it, because what they're feeding him is PR and he thinks it's fundamental knowledge. If so, then in time he may grow out of it. It bothers me that in this case he's confused the victim and the criminal--he thinks, rather irrationally, that "something's wrong" with 3D Mark 03 because nVidia cheated it. It's kind of like the old saw about a girl getting raped because "she deserved it" because she giggled too much and swung her hips.

So is the cause here "integrity" or "ignorance"...? I mean, how could the guy nail the problems with the 5800U so objectively but fail to extend the same critical eye toward nVidia's visible cheating in the 3D Mark benchmark, and add insult to injury by claiming, in essence, that nVidia was forced to cheat it simply because it discovered it could cheat it? His position as he's portrayed it is that nVidia did nothing wrong in cheating it because 3D Mark is "worthless." Such a contrast between his 5800U coverage and this issue!

There is one other possibility: Kyle simply wanted to stir up a controversy which centered around him as opposed to ET, B3D, and FM. (Although linking it to the nVidia D3 demo he featured is certainly a bizarre way to get your foot in the door of an issue in which you weren't originally involved even peripherally...) If that's the case then I'll concede your point about integrity.