OMG HARDOCP REVIEW OF UT2003 AND FILTERING

[Blackwind]

According to Tim Sweeney, Epic doesn't care when it comes to vendor specific issues (i.e. trilinear optimizations) or benchmarking, only driver bugs. Ideally, he would like to see this stuff handled by the API so there is no room for stuff like this, but that's not possible at this time.

http://www.beyond3d.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=7006&sid=6ffd4ff9dd7639d71d4243da9a419825
It's the highlighted text halfway through Reverend's post.

While this may very well be Tim Sweeney's statement regarding the topic I do not believe Epic does not care. Their relationship with Nvidia both now and the future illustrate they in fact, very much do care.

 

[Oblivious]

LOL. Ok, do people here live their life through conjecture? Try having actually read the facts. Kyle and Brent BOTH made it very clear they were not happy with the findings of Nvidia apparently cheating in 3DMark. Never. This was not a question. They made that clear through out discussions within the forums. In fact, many of the very people here who were banned can attest to that. But this apparently wasnt good enough. If they did not cry to the heavens from the front page everyday for a week. They were lacking "journalistic integrity." That is THEIR decision to make. Not yours or mine. Simple.
.

Hang on, you are rewriting history here. Kyle never came out and said he was unhappy with Nvidia for cheating on benchmarks. Quite the opposite, [H] took the position that because 3DMark 2003 could be cheated, that the benchmark was now unreliable.

Actually, from what I remember [H]'s official stance is that 3D Mark is unreliable. Kyle believes that as well but commented in his forum that cheating is bad too and that he was disappointed in nVidia. I don't have a link but I remember reading that somewhere. Maybe Blackwind knows since he's a regular there.

 

[Blackwind]

Hang on, you are rewriting history here. Kyle never came out and said he was unhappy with Nvidia for cheating on benchmarks. Quite the opposite, [H] took the position that because 3DMark 2003 could be cheated, that the benchmark was now unreliable.

This is despite the fact that the same reasons given for dumping 3DMark2003 applied equally to 3DMark 2001 (which both Nvidia and [H] supported avidly). Instead, Kyle championed in-game benchmarks and timedemos, even though these are also suceptable to the same kind of cheats, and (going by Kyle's logic) should also have been abandoned for being unreliable.

Quite simply Kyle's position has flipped-flopped around, with unfathomable and tortured logic to try and justify the double standards that he appears to be applying, aways to Nvidia's benefit.

You are incorrect. I would suggest you go and actually read the post regarding this very topic. Again, the statement of 3DMark not being reliable was made well before cheating was an issue. months in fact. Whether this was parroting or not is very much open for debate. You are correct in the fact that Kyle (and Brent) suggested in-game benchmarks and timedemos. I believe "championed" is beyond what was done. Custom timedemos and benchmarks were brought up AND the issues with these being suspect as well and open for attack. What you fail to mention is page after page of discussion of future tools and their requirements. Selective hearing does not make a person attentive.

 

[Oblivious]

According to Tim Sweeney, Epic doesn't care when it comes to vendor specific issues (i.e. trilinear optimizations) or benchmarking, only driver bugs. Ideally, he would like to see this stuff handled by the API so there is no room for stuff like this, but that's not possible at this time.

http://www.beyond3d.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=7006&sid=6ffd4ff9dd7639d71d4243da9a419825
It's the highlighted text halfway through Reverend's post.

While this may very well be Tim Sweeney's statement regarding the topic I do not believe Epic does not care. Their relationship with Nvidia both now and the future illustrate they in fact, very much do care.

No one else at Epic has come out to say "This is bad" or anything along those lines and Tim's comments are the only ones we have at the moment. Whatever your belief may be and how ever true it may be, it is only conjecture at this point and you are in effect putting words into the developer's mouth.

 

[digitalwanderer]

Ever consider the simple fact they are being treated different because they ARE different?

No, how are they different? One is cheating and trying to perpetrate a fraud while the other isn't as much right now is all I can tell different.

 

[Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.]

You are incorrect. I would suggest you go and actually read the post regarding this very topic. Again, the statement of 3DMark not being reliable was made well before cheating was an issue. months in fact. Whether this was parroting or not is very much open for debate. You are correct in the fact that Kyle (and Brent) suggested in-game benchmarks and timedemos. I believe "championed" is beyond what was done. Custom timedemos and benchmarks were brought up AND the issues with these being suspect as well and open for attack. What you fail to mention is page after page of discussion of future tools and their requirements. Selective hearing does not make a person attentive.

I'm going by what they posted in their articles and editorual, not their justification and flopping positions that they posted on forums. Saying they are "disappointed" in a forum, but writing editorials and reviews in support of those very things that make them "disappointed" is nonsensical at best.

And while you may make jibes about "selective hearing", you should bear in mind that you seem to be suffering from the same problem.

 

[Blackwind]

No one else at Epic has come out to say "This is bad" or anything along those lines and Tim's comments are the only ones we have at the moment. Whatever your belief may be and how ever true it may be, it is only conjecture at this point and you are in effect putting words into the developer's mouth.

There is nothing conjecture regarding Epic's present relationship with Nvidia. I choose to listen to what the developers have to say and take it with the EXACT same grain of salt anything delivered by ATI or Nvidia. I am NOT in "effect putting words" in anyone's mouth and take offense to anyone stating otherwise. I do not do this nor will I ever.

 

[Heathen]

Kyle and Brent BOTH made it very clear they were not happy with the findings of Nvidia apparently cheating in 3DMark. Never. This was not a question. They made that clear through out discussions within the forums

Links?

If they've actually come out and said "It's wrong" that's fine but I'm still curious why this was never mentioned on the main part of the site. All they (Kyle to be precise) seemed to do was launch unwarranted attacks against Extremetech and Beyond 3D.

Personally I think 3dMark (all variants) is good for one thing, showing off my graphics card.

Ok we can agree on UT2K3, still curious why Kyle never mentioned it earlier though.

 

[Blackwind]

I'm going by what they posted in their articles and editorual, not their justification and flopping positions that they posted on forums. Saying they are "disappointed" in a forum, but writing editorials and reviews in support of those very things that make them "disappointed" is nonsensical at best.

And while you may make jibes about "selective hearing", you should bear in mind that you seem to be suffering from the same problem.

You can take it as a "jibe" if you like but I stand firmly on the very nature of your accusations. You are not in possession of the facts and you continue to behave as though you are. They did not simply state they were "disappointed" and again you presume to attempt to give direction on HOW they should address your desires. At the very least I would think it a requirement to be a member of the very forum you chose to snipe at and give your ideal methods to. Brent, who is also a member here can be directly approached on the very topic I'm sure. I believe he would be just as open to suggestions from here as there.

 

[Blackwind]

Links?

If they've actually come out and said "It's wrong" that's fine but I'm still curious why this was never mentioned on the main part of the site. All they (Kyle to be precise) seemed to do was launch unwarranted attacks against Extremetech and Beyond 3D.

Personally I think 3dMark (all variants) is good for one thing, showing off my graphics card.

Ok we can agree on UT2K3, still curious why Kyle never mentioned it earlier though.

I have a better suggestion. How about straight from one of the "horses mouths?" Ask Brent. The reason given for not posting on the front page is and I am paraphrasing at this point due to time contraints, "we don't want to be a part of the fiasco."

Threads I am aware of and have read and followed.

http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=629987&perpage=15&pagenumber=1

 

[digitalwanderer]

The reason given for not posting on the front page is and I am paraphrasing at this point due to time contraints, "we don't want to be a part of the fiasco."

That just rings so hollow to me. How is bringing to light something a major IHV is doing wrong being part of "the fiasco"?

The fiasco to me are all the sites that are ignoring the issue or glossing over it, THAT is a fiasco!

 

[Brent]

Links?

If they've actually come out and said "It's wrong" that's fine but I'm still curious why this was never mentioned on the main part of the site. All they (Kyle to be precise) seemed to do was launch unwarranted attacks against Extremetech and Beyond 3D.

Personally I think 3dMark (all variants) is good for one thing, showing off my graphics card.

Ok we can agree on UT2K3, still curious why Kyle never mentioned it earlier though.

I have a better suggestion. How about straight from one of the "horses mouths?" Ask Brent. The reason given for not posting on the front page is and I am paraphrasing at this point due to time contraints, "we don't want to be a part of the fiasco."

huh

i never said that

 

[Brandon]

As a regular reader I would really prefer you to do a similar article to the one detailing the Quack hack. It would be both consistant and give this issue, of nVidia's silent driver tweaks, some much needed public airing. Something pretty much all the major sites have been largely skirting around doing.

Could you consider it, please?

It's not that we're skirting around it, it's just a case of bad timing. Had I known about the issues with UT2K3 filtering they would have gone up in the UT2K3 performance article. Next, I got another case of the same with the release of CAT 3.6, as I had the numbers for the CAT 3.5 driver report done and was getting ready to post it when 3.6 came out.

The biggest issue though is the backlog of articles we need to get out, multiple GeForce FX reviews, AIW 9800, we just posted the Sapphire, and not to mention quite a few mobos we haven't posted. So I'd essentially like to kill 2 birds with one stone by dedicating a section of the ASUS review to this issue and then linking to that whenever it may be necessary (assuming NVIDIA doesn't release another Det driver that resolves this first). That's the plan for now anyway.

 

[Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.]

You can take it as a "jibe" if you like but I stand firmly on the very nature of your accusations. You are not in possession of the facts and you continue to behave as though you are. They did not simply state they were "disappointed" and again you presume to attempt to give direction on HOW they should address your desires. At the very least I would think it a requirement to be a member of the very forum you chose to snipe at and give your ideal methods to. Brent, who is also a member here can be directly approached on the very topic I'm sure. I believe he would be just as open to suggestions from here as there.

So educate me with a link or two. Or you can continue to dodge the salient points. Your choice.

 

[WaltC]

LOL. Ok, do people here live their life through conjecture? Try having actually read the facts. Kyle and Brent BOTH made it very clear they were not happy with the findings of Nvidia apparently cheating in 3DMark. Never. This was not a question. They made that clear through out discussions within the forums. In fact, many of the very people here who were banned can attest to that. But this apparently wasnt good enough. If they did not cry to the heavens from the front page everyday for a week. They were lacking "journalistic integrity." That is THEIR decision to make. Not yours or mine. Simple.

Right, just as it is "our" decision to disagree. Please provide me with a link in which Kyle states (it can either be in a forum or on his site pages) that nVidia cheated in 3DMk03 and in which he states that nVidia should stop cheating. If he ever made such comments I never saw them and as such they would have to be well hidden... Instead, all I saw was vitriol expressed at the people who exposed the cheats, and a continuous exhortation for people to stop using benchmarks. I don't recall seeing him once directly address nVidia's culpability for the 3DMk03 scandal. Hopefully, you do realize the responsibility is 100% nVidia's. The sentiment seems to be it would nice to see [H] own up to this fact publicly and stop lamely shooting the messengers and disparaging benchmarks in general.

It is common practice for those to judge to have all the facts presented them. In this case no one here is fit to judge IF you have not in fact, read what you believe/do not believe to be the case.

The only problem you've got here BW is that so few (if any) here agree with *your* judgements. This thread is riddled with quotes of all kinds from the [H] forums and from the [H] front page which you excuse, overlook, and ignore. Why is it that you therefore think you are a better judge of these matters?

The irony is that was the very reason I first came here to read B3D. This board was being accused of lacking journalistic integrity and being soley a fanperson site. I came and read for myself. I did not necessarily find that to be completely true so continued to read here.

What is "ironic"? *chuckle* You know, I would have thought Kyle would have realized that telling people in his forums not to read B3d was rather like pulling out a red flag in front of bull.... The best way to get people to do something is to tell them not to do it.

You can check, and I think you'll find that not even once has any B3d moderator suggested that people "stay away" from the [H] forums. Indeed, moderators from B3d actually took part in the [H] forums, attempted to initiate dialogue and discussion, and got banned and insulted for their trouble--the information provided stripped from the [H] forums.

Now, that's ironic considering the fact that frgmstr has not been banned from B3d, and has been invited on numerous occasions to *explain* and *discuss* his opinions in open B3d forums. He has consistently declined to do so from the start. Apparently, he is very uncomfortable being in a position of defending his remarks among people who either disagree with them or else do not understand them--whether in the [H] or the B3d forums it doesn't seem to make a difference.

You're right I misread that. What occurred with ATI and Quake 3 appears to have been an error or bug. I do not see a correlation between the two how ever.

Exactly right--there is no correlation. One is past history, long resolved, the other is current and ongoing. The two situations deal with different software, hardware, different drivers and are different issues separated in time literally by years. Yet, this did not stop Kyle from referring to the 3dMk03 scandal as "Quack2", did it? "Quack" involved ATi, not nVidia, and Quake3, not 3DMK03. Since you are right that there is no correlation between the two, why do you suppose he did that? Could it have been his way of stating that what ATi did years ago justifies what nVidia is doing now? Just food for thought.

 

[Blackwind]

Links?

If they've actually come out and said "It's wrong" that's fine but I'm still curious why this was never mentioned on the main part of the site. All they (Kyle to be precise) seemed to do was launch unwarranted attacks against Extremetech and Beyond 3D.

Personally I think 3dMark (all variants) is good for one thing, showing off my graphics card.

Ok we can agree on UT2K3, still curious why Kyle never mentioned it earlier though.

I have a better suggestion. How about straight from one of the "horses mouths?" Ask Brent. The reason given for not posting on the front page is and I am paraphrasing at this point due to time contraints, "we don't want to be a part of the fiasco."

huh

i never said that

Hehe. I did not say YOU said that. For clarification, I was paraphrasing this below from Kyle. What I am suggesting is they ask you directly why it was not posted on the front page and what your opinion is on it. A friend sent me the link who is following this thread. I just didnt have time to go find it myself. Sorry.


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Originally posted by Lenor
1. What I think most of us would *like* you to do is stand up and say Enough! to the video card companies.

2. To put it simply, we cannot let the marketing departments of 3D companies "change the rules" of benchmarking every time they start to fall behind their competitors.
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Kyle's response -

1. I think at this point, saying anything will really mean nothing. I think actions are is needed to make an impact. I think that by the end of the year, we will have more tools for properly evaluating video cards than we have ever had before. We will be putting our foot down instead of saying we are going to do it.

2. Absolutely, but whether you like it or not, the hardware companies are going to be gaining more and more control over the content.

 

[Blackwind]

So educate me with a link or two. Or you can continue to dodge the salient points. Your choice.

Already provided. I would suggest in the future rather then accusing to actually go get the facts first.

 

[Blackwind]

Right, just as it is "our" decision to disagree. Please provide me with a link in which Kyle states (it can either be in a forum or on his site pages) that nVidia cheated in 3DMk03 and in which he states that nVidia should stop cheating. If he ever made such comments I never saw them and as such they would have to be well hidden... Instead, all I saw was vitriol expressed at the people who exposed the cheats, and a continuous exhortation for people to stop using benchmarks. I don't recall seeing him once directly address nVidia's culpability for the 3DMk03 scandal. Hopefully, you do realize the responsibility is 100% nVidia's. The sentiment seems to be it would nice to see [H] own up to this fact publicly and stop lamely shooting the messengers and disparaging benchmarks in general.

I already provided to what I believe is the most precise thread on the topic.

The only problem you've got here BW is that so few (if any) here agree with *your* judgements. This thread is riddled with quotes of all kinds from the [H] forums and from the [H] front page which you excuse, overlook, and ignore. Why is it that you therefore think you are a better judge of these matters?

Probably because I actually READ the site? I'm also not picking and choosing posts and skewing them. I am asking absolutely no one here to agree with me. None. I am asking that the facts be presents accurately. I am a reader of both these sites and would do the very same there at [H].

What is "ironic"? *chuckle* You know, I would have thought Kyle would have realized that telling people in his forums not to read B3d was rather like pulling out a red flag in front of bull.... The best way to get people to do something is to tell them not to do it.

Kyle did not state this. It was a forum member.

Could it have been his way of stating that what ATi did years ago justifies what nVidia is doing now? Just food for thought.

I'm really not sure what the reasoning was behind that comment and to be honest I do not recall readind it either.

 

[Doomtrooper]

That just rings so hollow to me. How is bringing to light something a major IHV is doing wrong being part of "the fiasco"?

The fiasco to me are all the sites that are ignoring the issue or glossing over it, THAT is a fiasco!

Exactly, the fiasco is knowing about it and not telling their readers the truth. Then lie about their findings, or at least contradict that peformance AF is 'ok' now when they went to great lengths here to say it wasn't:

http://www.hardocp.com/article.html?art=NDQ0LDI=

 

[Oblivious]

No one else at Epic has come out to say "This is bad" or anything along those lines and Tim's comments are the only ones we have at the moment. Whatever your belief may be and how ever true it may be, it is only conjecture at this point and you are in effect putting words into the developer's mouth.

There is nothing conjecture regarding Epic's present relationship with Nvidia. I choose to listen to what the developers have to say and take it with the EXACT same grain of salt anything delivered by ATI or Nvidia. I am NOT in "effect putting words" in anyone's mouth and take offense to anyone stating otherwise. I do not do this nor will I ever.

My apologies if I offended you, that was not the intent of my comment. I was merely trying to point out that you wish to stick to the facts regarding [H] and that the people here should not jump to conclusions or read between the lines. By saying something that you believe (which may be true) and declaring it the truth despite what the developer said is little better than accusing others here of not knowing the whole story behind [H] when they base their opinions on the articles published and not on their forum postings. Afterall, aren't the articles the official stance of Kyle and Co.?

Also, just because two companies work together and have a relationship does not mean they have a good relationship. For example, Microsoft and nVidia are not on the best of terms yet they continue to work together since the market demands it.


I'm only suggesting you remain consistant with your stance about "possession of facts". We possess that comment from Mr. Sweeney and we know that nVidia and Epic have a relationship. What the full nature of that relationship ship is we do not know, nor do we know if it's good, bad, or if it just is.