C
cK-Gunslinger
Sleepy said:
Oh please. What exactly are you doing to save lives around the world?
Does trolling random usenet groups somehow get us a step closer to a
cure? If not, go away. "Grow the feck up," indeed.
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Oh please. What exactly are you doing to save lives around the world?
Does trolling random usenet groups somehow get us a step closer to a
cure? If not, go away. "Grow the feck up," indeed.
A
Andrew
theres ppl dying in Iraq still - AIDs epidemic in Africa
and ppl here getting in a tiz about graphics card drivers
- GROW THE FECK UP.
But this isn't alt.put.the.world.to.rights - STFU.
A
Asestar
But this isn't alt.put.the.world.to.rights - STFU.
LMAO!! Well said indeed.
LMAO!! Well said indeed.
J
John Russell
cK-Gunslinger said:With all due respect, that's a stupid comparison. Who is Microsoft
competing against? Who are they cheating? Are they trying to benchmark
WinXP versus Win95 in order to make WinXP look better? Again,
irrelevant comparison.
Agreed that gaming performance is the purpose of hardware, not tests.
But hardware also serves a greater purpose to behave as the user
requests. Would it be acceptable to set your options for a game to
1280x960x32 with 8X AA, but have the hardware say "Bah, we'll just let
him *think* that's what he's running, but I'll just go ahead and lower
the res to 800x600 and run in 16-bit color with no AA, without telling
him"? I don't think so. And *that's* why *some* driver optimizations
are indeed *cheating.* They let you request one thing, but they deliver
another and tell you that's what you asked for.
It's like having a deli that advertises "fresh, made-to-order"
sandwiches, ready in 3 seconds, but really just reaches under the
counter and pulls out a plain ham sandwich that was made 3 days ago, and
tells you that it's what you ordered.
Companies are here to serve consumers. So are their products. Don't
let them shit in a bag and tell you that's what you want. Demand better.
Most people want their hardware to play games fast and look good. Only
hardware junkies insist that the games be displayed as the designer
intended. To most peole this is a total none issue. What is an issue is when
those peole with Nvidia cards (who make up a significant proportion of card
users) find their cards grind to a halt running generic code, or plain look
crap. So they should have bought Radeon but they didn't. Instead I would
expect Nvidia to do whatever they can to get their current cards to run the
games acceptably to their end users, not techno junkies, because that's
what the peole who bought them expect.
P.S. I have a Radeon. If it has problems running particuler games I would
expect ATI to do the same.
PPS so if i was testing performance under microsft compatibility mode then
what microsoft was doing would be cheating? Fraid not! Game specfic
optimisation is not wrong in principal, it's a valid solution. It only
becomes a problem when reviewers and junkies complain about the effects on
tests and their lack of control over it.
J
John Russell
Sleepy said:theres ppl dying in Iraq still - AIDs epidemic in Africa
and ppl here getting in a tiz about graphics card drivers
- GROW THE FECK UP.
Surely someone waring sack cloth and eating bread and water in protest
against the world ills can't be surfing the NET. Couldn't part with the old
PC when the rest of your worldly goods where sold to help the needy.
J
Joachim Trensz
Sleepy said:theres ppl dying in Iraq still - AIDs epidemic in Africa
and ppl here getting in a tiz about graphics card drivers
- GROW THE FECK UP.
Just read another newsgroup if you don't like what we're talking about here.
And if you want to comment in this one, at least read the messages
properly. I wasn't getting in a tiz about anything - I was just giving a
plain and sober report about what the article in question said.
Achim
R
rms
Optimizing for *actual* games is perfectly acceptable, both to ATI as well
as Nvidia.
The *problem* is when you 'optimize' for a *benchmark* in an attempt to
artificially inflate scores.
There is a big difference between the two. The Inquirer should have pointed
this out.
rms
as Nvidia.
The *problem* is when you 'optimize' for a *benchmark* in an attempt to
artificially inflate scores.
There is a big difference between the two. The Inquirer should have pointed
this out.
rms
A
Andrew
Optimizing for *actual* games is perfectly acceptable, both to ATI as well
as Nvidia.
The *problem* is when you 'optimize' for a *benchmark* in an attempt to
artificially inflate scores.
There is a big difference between the two. The Inquirer should have pointed
this out.
But Far Cry is the major game for benchmarks these days, so there
isn't a difference.
J
John Russell
Andrew said:But Far Cry is the major game for benchmarks these days, so there
isn't a difference.
Your right, peole want to know how fast they can play the games. So that
means running them using the drivers gamers will use. Is'nt it great that
ATI and Nvidia are now making games faster rather than boring bechmarks!
R
RipFlex
This just my Opinion as a Gamer that plays a wide variety of games and a
Consumer.
I perfer a Graphics Card not optimizing on specific games, like ATI did fro
Q3 on the 8500 series specifically. The card I bought ran everything fast
ONLY if it was from Q3 Engine, I felt cheated - Q2 ran like 16-30 fps. Had
to trash the 8500 gotten a Geforce4 4600. That was just one example of
course, nVidia did multiple accounts of optimizing games in their drivers...
- I perfer a Graphics card company stick to refining and optimizing based
strictly on the APIs (DX and OGL) and only conduct game specific
optimizations to fixs BUGS/Crashes. -
To optimize a benchmark is plainly criminal... careful Nvidia. Luckily I
ignore Benchmarks for that specific reason, unless the said party created
their own benchmark that wouldn't couldn't be optimized to run faster.
Consumer.
I perfer a Graphics Card not optimizing on specific games, like ATI did fro
Q3 on the 8500 series specifically. The card I bought ran everything fast
ONLY if it was from Q3 Engine, I felt cheated - Q2 ran like 16-30 fps. Had
to trash the 8500 gotten a Geforce4 4600. That was just one example of
course, nVidia did multiple accounts of optimizing games in their drivers...
- I perfer a Graphics card company stick to refining and optimizing based
strictly on the APIs (DX and OGL) and only conduct game specific
optimizations to fixs BUGS/Crashes. -
To optimize a benchmark is plainly criminal... careful Nvidia. Luckily I
ignore Benchmarks for that specific reason, unless the said party created
their own benchmark that wouldn't couldn't be optimized to run faster.
M
magnulus
You got that backwards. ATI did the "Quack" optimization a few years
back, not NVidia.
FWIW, game specific optimizations are not cheats necessarily, if the image
quality is comparable. In many cases the optimizations re-order or replace
code with better code. With the GeForce FX series this is sometimes
critical to re-order the code.
back, not NVidia.
FWIW, game specific optimizations are not cheats necessarily, if the image
quality is comparable. In many cases the optimizations re-order or replace
code with better code. With the GeForce FX series this is sometimes
critical to re-order the code.
M
magnulus
If a videocard company can get a game to run with comparable image
quality, with results that will apply to a wide variety of game situations
within the game (ie, not pre-computed states), that is all that matters.
HOW they did it should not matter at all. "A difference that makes no
difference, is no difference". There is zero reason to get anal about this.
If you want more generalized performance, I suggest reviewers use a wider
variety of benchmarks.
quality, with results that will apply to a wide variety of game situations
within the game (ie, not pre-computed states), that is all that matters.
HOW they did it should not matter at all. "A difference that makes no
difference, is no difference". There is zero reason to get anal about this.
If you want more generalized performance, I suggest reviewers use a wider
variety of benchmarks.
H
Highlandish
In
precisely, it is a good thing if you rename the game file and the game speed
decreases, because you know the game has been optimised for better quality.
but it can be considered a good thing also if the game speed increases and
quality is the same or better too. has anybody checked to see if the game
quality is the same or improves before calling Nvidia cheats?
Andrew said:The point is that NVidia drivers are maybe being written especially to
target certain games to make them look better in benchmarks, as they
got caught doing with Q3 a couple of years back. The drivers are
written to modify their behaviour dependent on the name of the game
being run, and if you change the name of the executable, the drivers
get fooled and don't "cheat".
precisely, it is a good thing if you rename the game file and the game speed
decreases, because you know the game has been optimised for better quality.
but it can be considered a good thing also if the game speed increases and
quality is the same or better too. has anybody checked to see if the game
quality is the same or improves before calling Nvidia cheats?
H
Highlandish
In
the scores for farcry given on this card is aimed at users who have already
played farcry and found their current cards lacking, upon seeing the new
scores for the new card, your supposed to get excited and believe the new
card is for you.
cK-Gunslinger said:Well, that's all good for *end users.* Let them put a check box in
the drivers that says "Make Farcry run better? (y/n)" But for a
reviewer running benchmarks, it is imperative that they know
*exactly* what functionality is enabled/disabled in order to make
valid comparisons.
Like most people, I don't make hardware purchase decisions based on a
*single* game. I don't use Farcry benchmark data to determine how
well a card plays Farcry, but rather as an indicator about how well
the card performs in a typical, retail, DX9-feature-using game. When
you start optimizing for a single title, those performance numbers
don't mean as much anymore. I can't speak for everyone else, but I
plan to use my video card for longer than the 4-5 days I'll be
playing Farcry.
the scores for farcry given on this card is aimed at users who have already
played farcry and found their current cards lacking, upon seeing the new
scores for the new card, your supposed to get excited and believe the new
card is for you.
H
Highlandish
In
why don't you go and live in Iraq and Africa then? catch what ever they got!
Sleepy said:theres ppl dying in Iraq still - AIDs epidemic in Africa
and ppl here getting in a tiz about graphics card drivers
- GROW THE FECK UP.
why don't you go and live in Iraq and Africa then? catch what ever they got!
S
Stoneskin
Sleepy left a note on my windscreen which said:
Even worse - what with all the dying going on in the world there are
still people who get into a tiz about other people they saw getting into
a tiz in a newsgroup far far away...
theres ppl dying in Iraq still - AIDs epidemic in Africa
and ppl here getting in a tiz about graphics card drivers
- GROW THE FECK UP.
Even worse - what with all the dying going on in the world there are
still people who get into a tiz about other people they saw getting into
a tiz in a newsgroup far far away...
S
Stoneskin
cK-Gunslinger left a note on my windscreen which said:
Consider an alternative benchmark with cars. If a Ford had a switch in
the engine management system which didn't affect performance but
increased miles per gallon then why would it be a cheat to have it on?
It's a perfectly valid 'optimization' for comparing the cars.
Therefore you cannot use ANY benchmarking software to predict how a
future game will perform since that future game may also be optimized.
All you will be looking at for unoptimized benchmark data is a raw
performance figure which means nothing in terms of real world
performance.
If ATI cards ran unoptized code better than Nvidia, and you benched
unoptimized code you would conclude that ATI cards are better than
Nvidia's. But if Nvidia could optimize the code better for their cards
the real world performance of the games would be superior on Nvidia
hardware. Which puts us right back at the beginning with the concept
that all benchmarking is pretty worthless unless you are comparing for a
specific game. And as you've said - specifically this 'cheat' is valid
for FC.
In these terms however, I don't see how comparing performance for a
group of apps for future performance of as-yet unreleased apps is
comparing apples to apples.
Benchmarking has always been a rough indicator of performance. Just
because a card gets a great 3D Mark 03 score doesn't mean it's going to
beat another card in any particular game, including unreleased software.
If this 'cheat' doesn't reduce IQ then I think it's an optimization and
is valid. Especially for comparing Far Cry between cards. Benching
other software for performance figures in future software is still just
as unreliable as it's ever been.
Consider benchmarking a car. Say there is a common stretch of road
typically used to determine a car's fuel use (miles per gallon, mpg.)
If a certain manufacturer realized that a strong wind was blowing in a
favorable direction on Tuesdays afternoon at 3:45pm, and this wind would
raise fuel efficiency from 28mpg to 36mpg (yeah, it's a strong wind =P),
so this company *always* performed its tests at this time and reported
that the car gets 36MPG, would this be fair? No. Perhaps if you lived
on this particular stretch of road and had to commute each Tuesady at
3:45, then you might consider it. Otherwise, for all intents and
purposes, the car gets 28mpg, not 36, as they would have you believe.
Consider an alternative benchmark with cars. If a Ford had a switch in
the engine management system which didn't affect performance but
increased miles per gallon then why would it be a cheat to have it on?
It's a perfectly valid 'optimization' for comparing the cars.
Likewise, if all you play is Farcry, then the benchmark is valid, but
you cannot use the Farcry results to extrapolate how any future game
will perform. Therefore, the benchmark data is invalid and the compnay
is *cheating.*
Therefore you cannot use ANY benchmarking software to predict how a
future game will perform since that future game may also be optimized.
All you will be looking at for unoptimized benchmark data is a raw
performance figure which means nothing in terms of real world
performance.
If ATI cards ran unoptized code better than Nvidia, and you benched
unoptimized code you would conclude that ATI cards are better than
Nvidia's. But if Nvidia could optimize the code better for their cards
the real world performance of the games would be superior on Nvidia
hardware. Which puts us right back at the beginning with the concept
that all benchmarking is pretty worthless unless you are comparing for a
specific game. And as you've said - specifically this 'cheat' is valid
for FC.
If they want to enable an optimization for a particular game, then that
should be a *user option* in the drivers. That is, you should be able
to enable/disable the feature with a few mouse clicks. Benchmarking for
comparative purposed should be peformed with all
(quality-reducing/modifying) optimizations off. You have to at least
strive for apples-to-apples comparisons.
That's the way I see it, anyway.
In these terms however, I don't see how comparing performance for a
group of apps for future performance of as-yet unreleased apps is
comparing apples to apples.
Benchmarking has always been a rough indicator of performance. Just
because a card gets a great 3D Mark 03 score doesn't mean it's going to
beat another card in any particular game, including unreleased software.
If this 'cheat' doesn't reduce IQ then I think it's an optimization and
is valid. Especially for comparing Far Cry between cards. Benching
other software for performance figures in future software is still just
as unreliable as it's ever been.
J
John Russell
- I perfer a Graphics card company stick to refining and optimizing based
designed top down to be DX9 compatible. That's why Nvidia has now to spend
so much time tweaking the drivers. Perhaps they should declare the card as
DX8 hardware compatible and have a big button saying "DX9 emulation" which
engages the fix's to get DX9 games working. Those testing the cards would
then have a problem as without the button pressed the card would only
function as DX8, with it pressed they get all the optimisations.But at least
end users would know where they stand and whats' going on.
Some would argue the whole FX family has an bug designed in since it wasn'tstrictly on the APIs (DX and OGL) and only conduct game specific
optimizations to fixs BUGS/Crashes. -
designed top down to be DX9 compatible. That's why Nvidia has now to spend
so much time tweaking the drivers. Perhaps they should declare the card as
DX8 hardware compatible and have a big button saying "DX9 emulation" which
engages the fix's to get DX9 games working. Those testing the cards would
then have a problem as without the button pressed the card would only
function as DX8, with it pressed they get all the optimisations.But at least
end users would know where they stand and whats' going on.
J
John Russell
ZooZee said:
Those declaring Nvida as cheats focus on the viewpoint of those who may be
choosing to buy a new card. But what about those who have already have an FX
card? Wouldn't Nvidia be cheating them not to get games running as well as
possible? No one seriously thinks Nvida is going to declare these cards as
non dx9 cards and offer refunds to those who bought them to play dx9 games?
Remeber that until the Radeon ATI's designs where crap compared to the rest
and they kept going selling second rate cards. Where they cheating those who
bought them or was it a simple case of "buyer beware"?
C
cK-Gunslinger
John said:Those declaring Nvida as cheats focus on the viewpoint of those who may be
choosing to buy a new card. But what about those who have already have an FX
card? Wouldn't Nvidia be cheating them not to get games running as well as
possible?
You know, that's actually a pretty good point. I hadn't quite thought
about that.
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