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- Thread starter Reverend
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geo said:
I think Excel is more brain bound than anything. Meaning, it slows down only when we just can't take it anymore and go for a coffee. Which is exactly the situation i'm in now.
Bye!
Why are you seeming to harangue Dave (and by extension B3D) about how he conducts his site?Reverend said:
Reverend said:
Anthony, why did you use games in your reviews over the years of running your Pulpit site and B3D?
Misguided passions of youth? Peer pressure?John Reynolds said:
Joe DeFuria
Legend
Why does someone who claims (repeatedly, over the course of years now) to be "bored" with 3D...at the same time displays a keen interest with how a 3D site conducts its business?
Wrong word to use DW. Been away for quite a while, saw that Dave has become increasingly technical in his articles and this thread is nothing more than asking whether it is worth his time to do all those games benchmark. I've noticed that Dave's focus has really become much more, er, focussed on technology and when I read all his recent reviews I rarely see the same kind of info offered in his technical sections in games benchmarks.digitalwanderer said:Why are you seeming to harangue Dave (and by extension B3D) about how he conducts his site?
Ok, the question is not unworthy of being asked. I could care less who did the asking, but it is an interesting question.
Does anyone know what benchmarking tools ati/nv/... use to predict the potential of their cards as they are designing them? Do they look at say the popular engines out there and design around them? Do they look at where the api's are heading and design around that? Analysize current deficiencies and improve on that? Combinations of above and those not mentioned? Should those who review their products also use the same methods?
anyways,
epic
Does anyone know what benchmarking tools ati/nv/... use to predict the potential of their cards as they are designing them? Do they look at say the popular engines out there and design around them? Do they look at where the api's are heading and design around that? Analysize current deficiencies and improve on that? Combinations of above and those not mentioned? Should those who review their products also use the same methods?
anyways,
epic
That's probably because Dave's and my interest in 3D are quite different. Put it this way -- Dave would probably rather work for an IHV while I would prefer an ISV.John Reynolds said:
Cool down everyone, I wasn't being nasty with this thread, just genuinely interested if Dave can or would want to significantly change things at B3D while considering turning off a big readership that provides revenue to him. If Dave goes strictly technology-focussed and eschews the use of games for benchmarks, I am sure he'd be very, very good at it. I just have the feeling that all those games benchmarks really are stuff he feels he needs to do for reasons that have little to do with his main interest.
Sorry, many a time I post things whithout providing the real reason and just ask a simple question. I'll try to avoid that hereon.
I also have posted stuff many times that I meant as light-hearted/a joke without providing a smiley. It's just the way I am and apologies for making the mistake that this community understands me very well.
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Joe DeFuria
Legend
Reverend said:
Why don't you ask Dave, and the readership, exactly what you are thinking then?
Why makes games "not eligble" in your mind to be involved in a technology focused site? Isn't this technology designed to first and foremost run gaming apps? I don't see how you can meaningfully separate the two....
I didn't say games are "not eligible" (your words).Joe DeFuria said:
(What I basically said was that) I detect an increased focus on 3D hardware and technology by Dave, to the point where I think benchmarking games for a review by Dave has become "filler" material, something he really doesn't like doing. A prime example of this would be Dave's coverage of the R520. He went tech first, games benchmark later (he basically said "You can get benchmark fugures at other sites").
I mean, what if Dave never comes up with the promised benchmark article? Yes, I have read his R520 tech article, and no, I don't think I will complain if he never comes up with that benchmark article.
I don't want to sound like I'm a know-it-all but if you'll read most (all?) of games benchmarking sections in Dave's reviews, whatever "explanations" by him for performance characteristics for a certain video card really aren't all that hard to figure out yourself after you have read his tech coverage of a new "next-gen" product that his review card is based on. Like I said, "filler" stuff.
Obviously, that makes his first-coverage of a new "next gen" product all the more important, especially in terms of whatever new technologies that product may have. The R520's memory arrangements is worth studying, for instance, and it may be worth even more studying when certain, and specific, SM3.0 features are used (and maybe even in conjunction with the ubiquitous AA and/or filtering).
Or are you saying that you don't really care if Dave likes/hates games benchmarking, or if he'd rather do what I have intimated, just so long as he keeps churning out games benchmarking, and as comprehensive as possible, in every single article/review because, well, that's what you want and what you expect of this site?
Dave may not be my friend, and that's fine. I'm not really saying I care about him by making a suggestion that saves him time, time probably better spent elsewhere for him (!). I'm just saying if my suggestion may turn B3D into a site that I know a number of us may love. Not the gamers perhaps, but maybe all those that really aren't interestd in games all that much but are interested in 3D technology. It is my opinion that Dave is in this category. I know he is knowledgeable about 3D technology to make such a site work well for the purpose.
I wonder what the arjan de lumens, MfAs, Fenneys, SAs think of this.... I wonder how much attention they pay to Dave's games benchmarks in video card reviews after reading his tech coverage. That's what I'm saying, targetting a particular audience and if that's what Dave would like to do, as opposed to what he needs to do.
Dang, I read all of the above and realized I sound like I'm Dave's friend.
Reverend it doesn't matter if dave posts benchmarks or not . I can get simple benchmarks from other sites. The articles the site staff write however are very in depth and yet easy to understand. They are the best on the web .
However that doesn't mean that benchmarks aren't needed as they can tell alot about how the designs work in the real world , not only in theory .
I would personaly like to see some of the smarter members on this site create some exclusive tests that while synthetic allow us to see changes between hardware .
3dmark is nice and so is shadermark and all the others are good but they are to missunderstood becasue everyone trys to get a higher score and i don't see teh use in most of them (esp 3dmark because some questionable additions and some things they shouldn't have left out )
However that doesn't mean that benchmarks aren't needed as they can tell alot about how the designs work in the real world , not only in theory .
I would personaly like to see some of the smarter members on this site create some exclusive tests that while synthetic allow us to see changes between hardware .
3dmark is nice and so is shadermark and all the others are good but they are to missunderstood becasue everyone trys to get a higher score and i don't see teh use in most of them (esp 3dmark because some questionable additions and some things they shouldn't have left out )
That's the thing. Dave can't write programs and is dependent on others for this. And we are all dependent on Dave's incredible (and I mean it) insight and investigative mind to come up with really interesting-eye-opening stuff. And he needs to do is to ask (and the forumcommunity here is incredible... and loyal, for good reasons). Although he has not been afraid or shy to do so, all this games benchmarking time by him really can be put to better use. Not to possible allow other to raise or hype up any possible controversy but to simply discover. That's what he's good at. That's what woke up the 3D, gaming and games-making industry a number of times. His discovery of NV's filtering trickery in the past and his scientific investigations/proofs that totally embarrassed NV in NV's put-down of 3DM03 during the GFFX time, are examples. These are frame-up stuff by Dave. His regular video card reviews are not.jvd said:
Joe DeFuria
Legend
Reverend said:
You can't fully explore an architecture...which includes both theory itself, and the TESTING of those theories, without running "stuff" on it. As this hardware's primary purpose is to run games, it's going to be quite necessary to actually run games to extract interesting information.
Then the R520 analysis would be incomplete.
I would. You need scientifically controlled benchmarks to at least confirm any assertions made in the tech analysis. Otherwise we may as well just wax poetic on the forms about the tech stuff.
Like I said, required for at least validation...at at "unexpected" benchmark results prompt further questions / analysis.
I'm saying that whether or not Dave likes running a myriad of game benchmarks, they are in fact necessary for a complete review of the technology. I'm pretty sure Dave recognizes this since he continues to do them.
You seem to be under the impression that the only people who care about "game benchmarks" are gamers. Incorrect. A "game" is just another application that stresses the hardware.
That's not entirely true. I think most of us are smart enough to realize that if you meant only to ask Dave this, you would have emailed him personally. By putting it here in the public forum you must have expected something more, or at least different, from a personal reply. I think it's a good thing you posted it here because it's an interesting question for others than Dave Baumann to consider.Reverend said:
Personally, I find Beyond 3D reviews mostly useless when it comes to buying a card for gaming. I mean this in terms of assessing performance of a product without having it for personal testing and trying to gauge its relative performance to the alternatives. The fact that Beyond 3D does not do comparative reviews makes it very difficult to do this, so this is what happens in my case:
1. I read the Beyond 3D papers on the technology as well as some analysis on where those technologies may take us.
2. I read other sites (several to get a nice overview and an "average of the situation") for the actual game performance numbers.
3. I then read the Beyond 3D articles and/or forum discussions to get the little details that may explain a certain situation.
So, I very much agree with you, Reverend, that what Dave does best is the technical write-up. Any site can run the benchmarks and put up the numbers, but what Dave and B3D offers is insight to how those numbers happen. Let's call it an Arstechnica of 3D hardware, if you will and the forum is something of a realworldtech.com of GPUs.
So, it's an excellent question even if Dave doesn't respond in here because it wouldn't matter to me if all the game benchmarks were thrown out. In fact, if I could recommend something it would be that B3D doesn't use a benchmarking template (same games, same resolutions for all cards), but instead pick and choose those games that demonstrate features of the hardware being reviewed. This, of course, would be with extensive commentary and analysis of the results to demonstrate how and why certain hardware acts the way it does.
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