NVIDIA -- How to regain your trust

Reverend

Banned
This post is supposed to be light-hearted in manner, so don't get too serious :)

I have said a few times that the trust is lost since the NVIDIA-3DMark03 cheating issue.

If NVIDIA were to issue a statement like :

"What we did is not right wrt 3DMark03. We are sorry if this means that all benchmarks -- game or synthetic -- conducted on NVIDIA boards/drivers are never to be trusted due to the implications involved as a result of this issue. In our effort to provide the best software running on our hardware, sometimes decisions are made that ultimately proves to be the incorrect ones. We like to believe our hardware and its supporting drivers are among the best available. We hope this 3DMark03 incidence do not lead the public to believe otherwise."

... would it be acceptable to you guys, and for you guys to "forgive and forget"?

Completely hypothetical NVIDIA statement by me, of course. Jenson had admitted NV30 was a "mistake" -- admitting another mistake is not impossible :)
 
Well, I don't know if I'll ever forget about this, but I think nVidia needs to make a statement about this. The longer they keep their mouths shut and don't say anything, the more it's gonna hurt. This is not just gonna go away like they seem to hope. They also need to think about what they're gonna say because saying it's just a bug will not cut it. What kind of bug has ever given a 24% performance boost? Doesn't sound like an accident to me.

BTW, this is my first post here, so, hello everybody! :D
 
If they would do this and IF they would then allow independant websites to conduct benchmarks using non cheating drivers and publicly accept the results, THEN I could accept them at their word..... for the moment. Trust, though, would have to be earned through time tested honesty.....
 
What that would do is give me some reason to believe there is a limit to their actions that is atleast some small degree short of being hit over the head with the idea that they might be financially penalized for them...presuming that being hit over the head with that idea isn't what prompts them to make the statement.

That would still leave me with the observation that honesty is only their absolute last resort, and that their established policy is to conduct coordinated smear campaigns before resorting to it.


It might reduce my amazement, though.
 
The best way for Nvidia to regain my trust is for them to produce hardware and software drivers that is on par or superior to that of their competitors at the same price bracket. ie: DX9 support, single-slot card, better looking AA, faster and better looking AF, no image quality artifacts.

Unfortunately, I don't expect Nvidia to approach this until the Fall/Winter season.
 
BRiT said:
The best way for Nvidia to regain my trust is for them to produce hardware and software drivers that is on par or superior to that of their competitors at the same price bracket. ie: DX9 support, single-slot card, better looking AA, faster and better looking AF, no image quality artifacts.

Unfortunately, I don't expect Nvidia to approach this until the Fall/Winter season.

I'll 2nd that.
 
K.I.L.E.R. said:
BRiT said:
The best way for Nvidia to regain my trust is for them to produce hardware and software drivers that is on par or superior to that of their competitors at the same price bracket. ie: DX9 support, single-slot card, better looking AA, faster and better looking AF, no image quality artifacts.

Unfortunately, I don't expect Nvidia to approach this until the Fall/Winter season.

I'll 2nd that.

BRiT and K.I.L.E.R.-

No offense, but IMO opinions like yours are exactly the reason Nvidia cheats. The "winner take all" attitude held by so many people who follow 3d hardware distorts the industry. I mean, look at what you said: the only thing that will make you regain your trust in Nvidia's honesty is when they get back the technology lead? Huh??

This makes no sense whatsoever, but AFAICT the vast majority of forum posters (not necessarily the B3D forums, but in general) agree to conflate their views of a company's honesty and integrity with its engineering prowess and market success. All this does is make it impossible (as a business matter) for Nvidia to do anything but lead a quixotic campaign of disinformation to try to actively dispute the fact that their high-end cards have fallen behind ATI's in the last product cycle.

By claiming specs and features for their hardware that don't actually exist (not to mention claiming to have launched hardware which doesn't exist), demonizing 3dMark, cheating profligately, and ridiculously accusing FM of rigging the test against them, Nvidia has obviously lost the support of their more informed former-fanboys. But if they had done the ethical thing and told the truth about their specs and launch delays, had continued to support 3dMark even when by its measure that they lost to ATI on both absolute and price/performance bases, then they would have seen all their fanboys abandon them just as viciously. At least this way, they still keep the dumb and gullible. (And hey, the money of the dumb and gullible is worth just as much as the money of us smarties.)

That's the problem: 3d is always seen about who's #1 right now, even though it's surely has the fastest product generation turnover of any sector of the electronics hardware industry. Nvidia still has awesome engineers and scientists, and clearly holds the potential to regain the performance crown with NV40 and keep it for who knows how long. They just had a spate of bad luck, where several tough decisions ended up having gone the wrong way and proceeded to bite them in the ass.

[Namely:
1) devoting too much focus and R&D to XBox/nForce
2) choosing to design CineFX (particularly NV30-34's version) around the idea of having three data types in the fragment shader pipeline and offering a trade-off of performance for precision--which was not necessarily a bad idea in itself, but turned out disasterously when DX9 and ARB_fragment_program instead went with ATI's all-FP24 model
3) designing NV30 for low-k .13u before TSMC screwed the transition up royally]


But as they work through the down-period caused inevitably by the fallout from all that bad luck (plus ATI executing brilliantly on R300), Nvidia clearly sees their best strategy being to pretend none of this ever happened. Because otherwise they have no talking points to sell their fanboys on. When it was ATI who couldn't keep up at the high end, they could at least point to legitimate advantages which made their cards worthwhile for some: lower prices, better 2d image quality, or the option of AIW. As Nvidia's reputation has always been about performance, they have nothing else to stand on. The only talking points Nvidia can hand out now are "they're wrong"; "it's not true"; "they're out to get us"; "they did the same thing--hey, everybody does it!" (Not to mention "hey, remember when their drivers used to be buggy? Yeah...me too. I'm just sayin', ya' know...'hey remember'. Yeah.")

Unfortunately, this drivel works to string enough people along that they still managed to sell totally outclassed GF4 products for ages at high margins. Of course they lose more and more people all the time, but with an, um, interesting story to tell at the mainstream with the 5200, a decent upper-midrange product coming online in the 5600, and some benchmark victories from the vaporware 5900, they're already in an infinitely better position than they were a few months back.

Their lying and disinformation has meant that they've lost a lot fewer fans over the months of having a black hole at the top of their product lineup than if they'd come clean at every opportunity. Does this mean it's paid off for them? Not yet. After all, if the opinion-makers in the community (that's us in the forum, of course, but much more so the webmasters) refuse to forgive Nvidia for the shit they've pulled then it can end up hurting them much more in the long run.

But if the reaction instead is that once Nvidia gets another stellar product out there, and maybe improves the sample positions for their AA modes, all is forgiven, that will prove lying and cheating was the smart thing to do along.
 
Dave, I could go into a massive brawl with you about how pointy headed your post is, so I am just going to say it:

The end result counts.

I am not interested in who is number 1 in the industry. I am interested in who is number 1 for me. That doesn't mean I will take a video card that gives me 500fps than my current 1 which does 300fps or 490fps with better IQ.

You should NEVER trust a company.
How can you forgive a company for it doing what it sets out to do? NVIDIA are in it to make money, and so are Ati. Anyone who thinks different is a fool.

Cheating, bribery, blackmail and murder can also be part of making money. Do you remember the Enron scandal? I wasn't surprised for a second. I expect all business to be like that, even worse.

IMO Dave: You have found out that businesses all cheat a bit too late.

Did you really think Ati or NV give a rats ass about you? If the majority do dislike them for cheating, do you think they will stop?
Do you think peoples opinions matter to them about cheating? They will cheat any way they can, instead they will try and be more discrete about it. Ati and NV along with the many other corporations will never stop cheating wheather you like it or not.
 
K.I.L.E.R.-

There's a difference between arguing on behalf of an IHV in forums and choosing to buy their product when you're in the market for a new video card. The question was not "when will Nvidia have the best product again" BRiT: "not until they have the best product again!" K.I.L.E.R.: "I agree!". It was when will Nvidia regain your trust. "When they have the best product again" is a nonsense answer.

The fact is, few of us are in the market for a new card at any given time, and none of us posts here simply out of a desire to figure out which card to get. We post here because we're interested in the 3d industry and feel we have a stake in how it develops.

All companies most assuredly do not cheat*, because most companies believe that, in their position, the benefits of cheating are likely outweighed by the product of the chance that they will get caught and the consequences if they do. Nvidia has gambled that that inequality works the other way in the 3d industry. Attitudes like the one BRiT expressed (and you seconded) demonstrate that they probably made the right bet. Which is sad.

Does this mean I won't buy an Nvidia card if, say, 6 months from now I were in the market and their product really was the best for me? Not necessarily. But I certainly won't trust that the card is what they say or performs like initial benchmarks suggest unless I am damn convinced by in-depth independent investigations and much better anti-cheating safeguards than exist now. Even if I did buy the card, I won't trust their PR for a long time.

*I've followed various parts of the computer industry pretty closely for a number of years, and I've certainly seen that most companies in the industry (which is a particularly grueling one) will stoop to distortion and severe spinning of the facts once they find their industry position in trouble. But Nvidia's actions of the past 6 months or so are truly breathtaking: certainly in terms of the brazenness with which they have gone about cheating, lying, and attacking FM; but perhaps even more so in terms of the number of people who defend them and continue to believe every word they say.
 
There's a difference between arguing on behalf of an IHV in forums and choosing to buy their product when you're in the market for a new video card. The question was not "when will Nvidia have the best product again" BRiT: "not until they have the best product again!" K.I.L.E.R.: "I agree!". It was when will Nvidia regain your trust. "When they have the best product again" is a nonsense answer.

Ahh yes, sorry. I read it all wrong.

Well, if a company (which are all businesses/comapnies/corporations) doesn't have my trust in the first place then they don't have any trust to earn back.

I never trusted Ati or nVIDIA in the first place, they never will have my trust. They are out to get my money, I know that. Why should I trust anyone who is out there to get my money?
 
K.I.L.E.R said:
Ahh yes, sorry. I read it all wrong.

No problem; it happens. :)

Well, if a company (which are all businesses/comapnies/corporations) doesn't have my trust in the first place then they don't have any trust to earn back.

I never trusted Ati or nVIDIA in the first place, they never will have my trust. They are out to get my money, I know that. Why should I trust anyone who is out there to get my money?

:oops: You're a paranoid one, aren't you?

To answer the question, though: you should trust someone who is out to get your money if they would make more money in the long run by being trustworthy than not. If a company is caught cheating/lying, they may lose more customers than they gained through the cheat/lie in the first place.

As I said, recent events are making me question if this feedback mechanism really works in the consumer 3d industry, as so many seem so willing to be spinned. But in most industries it does work, to varying degrees.
 
What can they do to win my trust?

1) Keep making good products. With some better AA. Not that OGx4 crap since GF3.

2) Shut up. Their PR is out of controll. They need to nip it in the bud. Dont ever talk about others products. Also stop the build of of upcoming products. Are you ready? 30 Tnl Titles by xmas?

3) Work on game optimizations only. It would have been better to loose at 3dmark scores and yet have strong game perfromance. Not saying the do/dont. But I am saying they put too much time in one.
 
What can they do to win my trust?

I'm easy: money. Lots of money. Euro's please, since the dollar's in the dumper.
 
Alright, let me try to clearify my thoughts on this issue, as I feel my thoughts/viewpoint are nearly diametricly opposite to why Nvidia cheats.

What I should have said is I won't trust them regardless of what they say, as I don't feel Nvidia will be honest until they are truely/genuinely competative.

By competitive I mean: on actual gameplay or independent benchmarks from a trusted source, user experience and opinions on gameplay, screenshots for image quality of actual gameplay, user experience and opinions on image quality during actual gameplay*. It's been a long time since I believed that what timedemo benchmarks show actually reflect real gameplay experience.

*IE: situations where timedemo only optimizations are impossible to perform {static clipping-planes, z-buffer clears, manual detection shader replacement, etc...}.

I will not trust them until the following occurs:

A) Image Quality on par or better than competition
B) DX9 support
C) single-slot card
D) cost competative

Until they can offer A, B, C and D, I have no reason to even listen to what they say to determine if it's true or not, as they do not offer a product I'm interested in.

Nvidia is the one with the mentality of "Winner take all". So much so that they'll go to the point of cheating until they're the winner. I feel that until they're the clear winner without cheating, they'll keep cheating.

I hope that clarifies my view. If not let me know what points I'm not presenting well enough.
 
What did it take for people to regain their trust in ATi when they were nailed cheating in 3DWinBench? It never changed my level of trust in them, which is low to beging with as a company anyway. It irritated me that they spent time creating custom code to drop frames in a synthetic bench when they had so many games horribly broken at the time with their RagePro, but it didn't change my level of trust at all. I didn't trust them to deliver me solid drivers then and that issue didn't change. Right now, I don't have any big driver issues with the nV board I'm running so really I'm not all that interested in the entire 3DM2K3 debacle.

My level of trust in any company is based on what actually impacts me. Did I get what I was expecting to with my money? If the answer is yes, then as a company that lands my "trust". If I had a single bug that was giving me problems playing a game using nV's drivers and this happened I'd be pretty pissed off and my trust would accordingly drop.

Speaking of PR departments, it is their job to overhype anything and everything they can. Look at marketshare for simple evidence that not only is nV's PR department not likely to be in trouble, but more likely to get a bonus then anything. nV has been screwing up in the eyes of the tech enthusiast crowd for close to a year now, and their marketshare has increased. Product delays, shipping issues, failed to hit specs and they increase their marketshare. They also have the entire 'The Way It's Meant To Be Played' campaign which is very effective. Anyone who believes a PR department on anything they say at face value is quite frankly a moron. Their reason for existing is to overhype the products they handle. If a product was so incredible it sold itself, there would be no need for PR :)
 
BenSkywalker said:
WhatRight now, I don't have any big driver issues with the nV board I'm running so really I'm not all that interested in the entire 3DM2K3 debacle.

On the other hand, I have MAJOR trust issues when it comes to Nvidia FX series shader performance.

My level of trust in any company is based on what actually impacts me. Did I get what I was expecting to with my money?

So, what happens if due to all the "lies, damn lies", you have no idea what you should expect to get with your money? That's what's at issue here.

I have a much better idea about shader performance on R-300. Based on what I've seen of NV3X, all I can say is "it's about half of R-300...unless nVidia decides the shader app is worth 'optimizing' for, and in that case, it's probably on par performance wise, but visual quality could be anywhere from comparable, to significantly worse."

How I define "trust" in a company is similar to your definition. However, it's not only getting what you expect that's important....it's having a high degree of confidence in what you expect to get before you get it.

We can't even really conclude what kind of effective architecture NV30/35 is, and nVidia isn't being forthcoming. Performance boosts of 100% based on app detection and shader swapping, clip planes, etc.

I have very little trust for nVidia at the moment.

What could they do to regain my trust? Simple. Be honest and forthcoming. (See ATI's statement to FM cheat). No one is saying you can't "market" your products. But nVidia's marketing causes me to have little confidence to be able to ascertain what I'd get for my money...so nVidia doesn't get my trust, or my money for that matter.
 
Here's a thought, How about websites not ass kissing hardware companies. It's so far and few to have an honest review now-a-days. It wasn't that long ago when we had honest reviews. If the card or hardware was bad they said it. Now it seems it's all business and the truth gets clouded. I'm very subjective. I would like to see all Fan sites gone. Hehe.

What would get my trust back in nVidia? Nothing... I don't follow what they say much. I buy what will work best with my software. I can careless about the glitz and glamor and all the big words the PR people use. I would like to see some software to utilize the hardware. I don't know if this statement is true or not these days, but have we seen any game that tapped the power of the GeForce 3? I remember hearing about that a couple of times that no game has utilized every feature of a video card because the technology moves to fast.

Do we need video cards to go in the way of consoles? 1 to 3 years for each card technology?
 
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