Ops,"I" did it again. Why does Futuremark still ke

[swanlee]

"Derek Perez has been being very nice to me in e-mails and is talking like he is aware that there is a very real problem with nVidia and the enthusiast community and that it is actually starting to affect/hurt nVidia and they want to try and do something to fix it. "


Here is a real simple thing they can do. STOP LYING AND CHEATING !!!.
Seems simple enough but Nvidia does not see that do they? If they want to patch things up with the community they need to let the hardware speak for itself, and stop the cheating stop the lying stop the little dirver tricks left and right. Even if the hardware is not as good as ATI they have done themselves a bigger diservice by all this crap. I think if the FX line was put out without all these cheats and didn't perform as well as ATI it would be a lot better than the corner they have painted themsevles in now.

Now even if Nvidia does produce some great hardware they have tainted the benchmark portion of this industry so much no one will ever trust them again, and now people have to scramble to try and find a set of tools that will show us what is really going on when benchmarking hardware.

Nvidia has shot thesemvles in the foot and prevented themselves from ever making an honest comeback by killing off 3dmark and cheating in every possible way.

I honestly hope that Nvidia does not get away with it and I hope they do go under and are held up as an example of what happens when companies stray to far the simple idea of putting out the best product possible. I hope they go down in flames and another 3rd party steps up to the plate to guive ATI some good legit competition.

 

[WaltC]

...

Derek Perez has been being very nice to me in e-mails and is talking like he is aware that there is a very real problem with nVidia and the enthusiast community and that it is actually starting to affect/hurt nVidia and they want to try and do something to fix it.

Finding something to do to fix it and still staying within nVidia's corporate policies is a REAL biatch so far...I don't think they're going to be able to do it without some major corporate policy re-shaping.

But hey, that's what over-paid private consultants are for...right?

The only thing I can get out of this, dig, is that Perez is telling you he'd like to come clean but that he's being overruled by higher-ups in the company (with references to such inane cop-outs as "nVidia's corporate policies," etc.)

The thing is Perez could do much of what he's telling you he'd "like" to do by way of a press release he could write himself in which nVidia relates that it understands what it has done to create its currently poor reputation among enthusiasts, and what it is going to do to correct those internal deficiencies within the company, and to map out some specific things the company is doing for the benefit of its enthusiast customer base, which it presumably is interested in serving.

So the fact is that if nVidia was really concerned, it's so simple, and so easy, for them to do something about it. This has been true for months. That of course necessarily involves taking responsibility for what you've done and telling the truth and publicly announcing a different course for the future. Very simple, uncomplicated concepts.

Look at what ATi did at the onset of the 3dMk scandal. The company immediately admitted to a shader reordering optimization, explained it thoroughly (to my satisfaction, at least), and pledged to discontinue the practice in its drivers even though the company did not agree that it had cheated since the instruction reordering it did had no impact on the benchmark workload (which they demonstrated mathematically.) Despite Perez's intimate revelation to you of his innermost feelings on this subject, he has failed to address the issue in this easy, simple, effective manner in public, and that's the problem. It's no longer a problem for ATi because of the comparatively wise choice ATi made in talking candidly about this issue at the start. ATi did not blame nebulous "bugs", or chant that "FutureMark is out to get us," etc., or hire bottom-feeding lawyers to "speak" to FM.

Basically, you have to be very careful in entertaining what is being told to you in private when it conflicts with what a company is doing and saying *in public* about issues of this sort. Example:

Let's take frgmstr's PowerPoint slides which were leaked to him a couple of weeks ago from unidentified sources within nVidia, and which frgmstr, believing himself the recipient of some sort of "insider" information he alone was privy to, dutifully published along with very evasive editorial implication that those slides constituted that nVidia was taking internal corrective steps to stop cheating benchmarks. All of this was done without nVidia or frgmstr ever *directly* addressing nVidia's culpability for anything.

Now, let's suppose that what Perez has evidently told *you* about his hands being tied by "corporate policy," which has supposedly prevented him from doing the right thing, and his pining to you about his innermost yearning to do the right thing contrary to that policy--let's suppose for a moment that those statements are absolutely true. 100% true.

OK, then when frgmstr published the "unauthorized, against-corporate-policy-for-public-release" information contained in the Power Point slides, which presumably came from Perez's office--why was Perez not immediately fired for having violated corporate policy by the unauthorized leak of this information?.... *chuckle*

Well, if Perez, or somebody else in nVidia PR, simply manufactured those slides using PowerPoint and made frgmstr think he was receiving "smuggled" corporate info...*chuckle*...it's not beyond the realm of possibility that those people not only retained their jobs, but got raises and promotions as well...

My response to individuals within companies who want to tell me something in "private" which completely contradicts what those same people are saying in public, to the public, is that I don't believe their "secret" remarks. Rather, I am somewhat insulted and incensed because it seems they want to use me to spread rumors they themselves have no intention of spreading.

 

[digitalwanderer]

Thanks you two, I appreciate both your inputs on it and forwarded both your posts to DP in a new e-mail. I look forward to seeing what he replies, it should tell me which way he's playing it (or me ) at least.

 

[CapsLock]

But instead of cheating in 3DM as Fred suggested, I think they should just abandon it and stand with fair benchmarks (if they can find them). Bad on FM, though of course they might have always been scr@#ed anyway, 3DMark is a battlefield and it was bound to get ugly at some point.

Caps

Unfortunately ATI can't stop anyone from using 3DMark as they see fit. So even if ATI disassociates themselves from it, that won't stop review sites from using it.

I'm not an expert by any means, but I would think that if application detection can insert special code. than why not an application blocker. I would think it would be supremely easy to do (in my ignorant opinion). If you can't test with the latest new drivers, people will be unable to truly test at all, thus stopping 3dmark from being on the map whatsoever.

Quitch said:

"More importantly, it won't stop OEM's from using it."

There are other effective means of determining performance. (Popular games especially, rightmark, etc.) If Ati doesn't officially support 3DMark, they can suggest other ways. Reviewers can still do reviews and it will very soon not be missed. What the bleep is the point of allowing your card to be measured by a benchmark which is biased to the competition?
That's taking it a little too politely if you ask me, not to mention the harm it does to your bottom line and reputation.

Caps

 

[Fred da Roza]

My response to individuals within companies who want to tell me something in "private" which completely contradicts what those same people are saying in public, to the public, is that I don't believe their "secret" remarks. Rather, I am somewhat insulted and incensed because it seems they want to use me to spread rumors they themselves have no intention of spreading.

I completely agree. As if this insider information was not intentionally leaked. Give me a break.

If they really want to regain the trust of their customers just release drivers without cheats that aren't encrypted. It's really that simple.

 

[digitalwanderer]

My response to individuals within companies who want to tell me something in "private" which completely contradicts what those same people are saying in public, to the public, is that I don't believe their "secret" remarks. Rather, I am somewhat insulted and incensed because it seems they want to use me to spread rumors they themselves have no intention of spreading.

I completely agree. As if this insider information was not intentionally leaked. Give me a break.

If they really want to regain the trust of their customers just release drivers without cheats that aren't encrypted. It's really that simple.

I like that attitude, I think I'll adopt it if'n y'all don't mind.

 

[Wolf]

Perez is an idiot. I can't believe you would trust any word out of that mans mouth. His hands are tied is bs. I believe he is almost soley responsible for spewing the lies and deceit from Nvidia for years and he knows it. I wouldn't trust him for one second.

 

[Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.]

Anyone who wants to change a company but not change a company's internal policies either (a) has no power to change anything, or (b) has no intention of changing anything.

The behaviour of a company is governed by it's policies, and those policies are set by the management. Nvidia cheats on benchmarks because the the company ethos sets the policy that this is an "okay" thing to do.

Digi, if Perez says he wants to fix things, but he can't/won't change the policies (and the attitude/ethos behind those policies), then he's just spinning you along. There is no intention or posibility of changing things if they won't change their policies and attitudes, because that is where the very root of the problem lies, and that is where it needs to be fixed. Anything else is just the window dressing of patching the symptoms here and there. Perez doesn't want to stop Nvidia from cheating and lying, he just want a way to make the community stop hating Nvidia for it.

Like a person who says "I'm sorry you feel that way", it's not an apology. It contains the word "sorry" but it still makes things your fault, and it refers to the other party wishing you wouldn't feel upset at something, rather than any kind of remorse for that same behaviour.

Don't forget that Nvidia is now a marketing-led company. That means anything goes if it gets sales. If that means cheating on 3DMark, then that's okay. If it means lying to DigitalWanderer in the hope of creating another Kyle-type spokesman, then that's okay too.

Until Nvidia actually do and say something, instead of all these rumours, driver leaks and misleading comments by proxy of lapdog websites, it's all just empty words in my opinion.

 

[digitalwanderer]

Hmmm....so y'all trying to tell me to make sure I don't exactly take everything DP says at face value?



EDITED BITS: Ooops, I forgot to say "Thank you" also. I do appreciate all the advice and everybody keeping me grounded in reality and all instead of listening to empty words. Words won't work for me either, at least not ones in private. That's one of my points in my discussions with him that is sort of a sticking point of mine too. Sorry I'm being so silly & sarcastic, it's just been a looooong weekend that ain't quite over yet and me kids got me a BIT stressed out. Only 13 days to go.

 

[swanlee]

I say DW leach off him get every bit of info you can on this situation then turn around and expose them. Do kind of like an Anti Kyle and reverse the roles or something. would be nice if one of their lame exploits back fired on them.

 

[Dave Baumann]

Personally, I wuld say that its difficult to get a true large scale change in policy without a substancial management overhaul.

 

[digitalwanderer]

I say DW leach off him get every bit of info you can on this situation then turm around and expose them. Do kind of like an Anti Kyle and reverse the roles or something. would be nice if one of their lame exploits back fired on them.

Nah, I can't break a private cofidence. It wouldn't be right.

I will talk to him though.

 

[Dave Baumann]

NVIDIA Joins Futuremark Beta Program

 

[just me]

Posted @ FutureMark:

Beyond3D usually have very interesting hardware reviews, but as far as rumours go, you should never believe them 100%. Forums are forums, people may say what they want, and that means seldom all 100% facts. Dave is something like the reponsible editor of B3D, but in the forums, he may write about his opinion on things, or quote rumours he has heard.

If you want the facts, read press releases or official statements of the company it concerns. Forums are for less formal discussion. Anything about Futuremark written in the Beyond3D forums should not be taken as facts. We'll make an announcement when there is something significant to tell about our company.

A good example of rumour and an official announcement, is the talk about Nvidia re-joining the 3DMark development program. There have been widely spread rumours about it for some time already, but the truth is, that during that time only negotiations were ongoing, they had not joined yet. Now the negotiations are completed and we are happy to announce it in a press release:
http://www.futuremark.com/pressroom/pressreleases/?081203

Anything else you might have read in some other forum about Futuremark, is most likely not quite true, not until we have officially confirmed it.

Patric - 3DMark®03 Producer

 

[Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.]

Oh - so Patric says "don't believe everything you read, and by the way IT'S ALL TRUE!!"

 

[incurable]

If you want the facts, read press releases or official statements of the company it concerns. [...]

Patric - 3DMark®03 Producer

Is that a joke or something?

cu

incurable

 

[Reverend]

I think Patric is just concerned that the posted opinions of folks (including Dave, and especially FM's beta members) in public forums may be read as representative of the opinions of personnels at FM. I'm sure many of you trust most of what Dave has to say/post but even Dave will tell you he doesn't know all the details about what he says/posts.

 

[digitalwanderer]

Oh - so Patric says "don't believe everything you read, and by the way IT'S ALL TRUE!!"

LOL~~~

Yeah, that's what I read too.

 

[kemosabe]

So does the staff at B3D expect to be consulted about these new optimization "guidelines" FutureMark is drafting for our collective benefit?

http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,3973,1217342,00.asp

"Our next big thing", indeed.

 

[micron]

Sarkkinen said FutureMark's reputation has not been tarnished by the spat. "I don't feel like that at all," he said, noting that the feedback from both OEMs and hardware review sites has been positive, and that users have contributed a record number of benchmark submissions to the FutureMark database.

:?