I'm not happy with what they say, but felt I had to share 'em.
You can find them by clicking the link in my sig.
You can find them by clicking the link in my sig.
Leaked ATi internal slides
- Thread starter digitalwanderer
- Start date
I really see no problem with these slides. there is absolutely nothing in them that smacks of the kind of stuff that nVidia has done. They just tell the truth. In fact, the only mention of anything non DX9/ATI was the mention of Cg...... and no one wanted a new "glide".......
Just checking, but is the thing you object to the line "Influence benchmarks in ATIs favor" ?
The other points seem quite reasonable to me. This line though depends on what is meant by influence. If they mean "show how nice things can be on an ATI board, and hence convince people to code to work well on ATI boards" thats one thing. If its "try and get them to code so it works badly on NV cards" its another.
The other points seem quite reasonable to me. This line though depends on what is meant by influence. If they mean "show how nice things can be on an ATI board, and hence convince people to code to work well on ATI boards" thats one thing. If its "try and get them to code so it works badly on NV cards" its another.
Any powerpoint presentation I've seen that has bullets like that, Including the ones on ATI's site, usually have follow up slides with more information to support each bullet. If the first bullet meant anything nefarious, I'm sure whoever leaked this slide would have also leaked the supporting slide that goes with it. As I don't see the supporting slide I'll assume there was nothing incriminating in it.
Yeah try to save face for ATI (evangelism that is what hellbinder does for them )
Of course they want benchmarks to make their products look better than the competition, so does Nvidia the difference is they are saying lets make biased benchmarks, instead of saying "ah screw that lets just cheat after the benchmark is released". And yes by default a benchmark is biased it has to be unless the cards have the same strengths and weaknesses, therefore they (ATI) want them biased in their favor, instead of Nvidias and they have to be biased one way or the other.
p.s. I thought it was funny that evangelism is "education"
)Of course they want benchmarks to make their products look better than the competition, so does Nvidia the difference is they are saying lets make biased benchmarks, instead of saying "ah screw that lets just cheat after the benchmark is released". And yes by default a benchmark is biased it has to be unless the cards have the same strengths and weaknesses, therefore they (ATI) want them biased in their favor, instead of Nvidias and they have to be biased one way or the other.
p.s. I thought it was funny that evangelism is "education"
Hellbinder
Banned
First of all.. Thats not what they are saying...
Secondly I dont call Trying to get people to use common sense product "Evangalism".
No, but on the second slide ATi apparently does HB....I think you're misunderstanding him. (Are you going to yell at me on every single board on the net over this?Hellbinder said:First of all.. Thats not what they are saying...
Secondly I dont call Trying to get people to use common sense product "Evangalism".
)Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.
Legend
Sxotty said:Yeah try to save face for ATI (evangelism that is what hellbinder does for them
Of course they want benchmarks to make their products look better than the competition, so does Nvidia the difference is they are saying lets make biased benchmarks, instead of saying "ah screw that lets just cheat after the benchmark is released". And yes by default a benchmark is biased it has to be unless the cards have the same strengths and weaknesses, therefore they (ATI) want them biased in their favor, instead of Nvidias and they have to be biased one way or the other.
p.s. I thought it was funny that evangelism is "education"
Oh please!
Have you ever been in a marketing powerpoint presentation at any company, anywhere? Each one of those bullet points could have had 5-10 minutes of explanation after it. Without that extra explanation, you don't know what that "influence benchmarks" means. Everybody is reading far too much into it. A single presentation slide without context tells you almost nothing.It could be marketing speak for "making sure we do really well on the benchmark ("influence" = "score")". It could mean that when developers ask them to help optimise their software or talk about their benchmarks, ATI tell them to code things in a a way that benefit ATI's hardware. It could mean that ATI do legitimate general optimisation, like the general purpose PS interpreter they are working on.
I don't like the "Influence benchmarks in ATIs favor" either as they seem to have separated it from the "Ensure compatibility" line.
Benchmarks are made to be neutral and should not contain optimized code for whatever vendor.
Then again, this slide is quite ambiguous and maybe even out of context as there are no explanations.
Assuming its a marketting presentation, then influencing is, indeed, markettings job.Bouncing Zabaglione Bros. said:
Not making the card score well through good design or drivers (that's engineering's job), but guiding the benchmark to test the items that the card does well by default.
xGL said:
Both you and Digitalwanderer are thinking in too concrete terms and misinterpreting "benchmarks" as dedicated benchmarking programs.
The context of this slide is Ati's developer support for games. Those games are of course used as benchmarks in the future. If Ati makes sure that the games run well on Ati's hardware they are effectively influencing benchmarking in their favor. You are imagining far too much if you think this anything else.
Making headlines about this is just typical Digitalwanderer hysteria.
All ATI need to do currently to influence benchmarks is try and persuade the game developers to more shaders which should, in theory, be good for the visual appearance of games. NVidia, conversely is going to want benchmarks to use less standard DX9 shaders and use more specially coded Cg stuff/reduced precision/clip planes (just kidding about the last one ).
As ATI want games to have compatibility with DX9 features, this is also good for the industry as any company with decent DX9 compatible hardware should benefit. Conversely, NVidia will be attempting to get developers to use Cg which benefits themselves only.
The main problem with this presentation item is that people are going to equate it with the NVidia's misbehaviour from the past (remember their Kyro presentation?). In fact, The Inquirer have already published their FUD piece: Inquirer FUD
).As ATI want games to have compatibility with DX9 features, this is also good for the industry as any company with decent DX9 compatible hardware should benefit. Conversely, NVidia will be attempting to get developers to use Cg which benefits themselves only.
The main problem with this presentation item is that people are going to equate it with the NVidia's misbehaviour from the past (remember their Kyro presentation?). In fact, The Inquirer have already published their FUD piece: Inquirer FUD
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