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HardOCP reviews are bought and paid for. by Anonymous Coward · 2003-06-29 23:13 · Score: 0 · on GF FX 5900 Ultra vs. ATi Radeon 9800 Pro

HardOCP has a history of this behaviour. The only reason they would even think of accusing FutureMark of shady dealings is because that is how they themselves do business. Apparently, Kyle Bennett believes everyone else is as much of a lying scumbag as he is.

For those of you who don't care to read the link, here's a synopsis:
*HardOCP posts bogus inflated numbers in one of their reviews (with advertising on the same page. BIG coincidence)

*HardOCP readers take notice, and comment in the HardOCP forums.

*Said users are banned for questioning his almighty lordship, Kyle Bennett. Mr. Bennett accuses said users of photoshopping their screenshots of his review; Steve Lynch chimes in with similar accusations. "That picture is fake", he says.

*More mass bannings of long time posters at the [H] forums ensue, as people ask questions about the issue.

*A few days later, Kyle issues this statement:

"After researching this fully for two days, I have been able to pull together 100% factual evidence that a single set of benchmarks in the 3GHz article were changed after publication of the article. The 3DMark benchmark was changed from "17829" to "17329". The fact of the matter is that we did not note this change. It is standard operating procedure that anytime a portion of an article is changed, outside spelling and grammar, it is noted and explained as to why the change was made. This was not done."

*The aforementioned banned users are not reinstated; no mention is made of the mass bannings, and no apology is given.

Re:From the article by Distinguished+Hero · 2003-06-29 12:35 · Score: 2, Informative · on GF FX 5900 Ultra vs. ATi Radeon 9800 Pro

Interesting that in 3DMARK, the FX 5900 ran away with it.

The FX 5900 ran away with nothing.

First, the Radeon won in 3DMark01.

Second, observe the origin as well as the scale of the 3DMark03 graphs: Graph 1, Graph 2
The difference is grossly exaggerated by the graph's peculiar origin (5700 and 3800 instead of 0) and large scale.

Third, 3DMark03 has been rendered an useless benchmark since it is riddled with nVidia "optimizations," which have been deemed illegitimate by Futuremark's own accord. Even the author of the article acknowledges the dubious nature of 3DMark03: 3DMark 03 Build 320 - FX 5900 Ultra - Should we include this? Possibly not, however the FX 5900 wins with WHQL Det Drivers
New nVidia optimizations (read: cheats) such as the Anistropic Filtering "optimization," which was exposed by renaming the 3DMark03 executable. Of additional note is that one of the 3DMark03 benchmarks was done using 8x Anisotropic Filtering, deeming it even more illegitimate than the rest of the 3DMark03 benchmarks in the article.

Fourth, the Radeon delivers consistently better image quality throughout, as was acknowledged by the author of the article: 3D Visual Quality - R9800 Pro hands down.

Another thing to be kept in mind is that the Radeon may very well do much better relative to the FX 5900 in all benchmarks since nVidia may very well optimizing for all major timedemos (3DMark03 style) and the reviewed did not record his own demos. Feel free to google if you find you would like more information.

Other reviews by markhagan · 2003-06-23 01:02 · Score: 4, Informative · on P4 3.2GHz Reviews

Extreme Overclocking: they actually overclocked the engineering sample. ha! kind of a pricy risk if you ask me. More reviews here, here and here.

Link by Anonymous Coward · 2003-06-23 00:56 · Score: 0 · on P4 3.2GHz Reviews

Just for the record, that's from the Tech-report.com review. Forgot to link in my eager to be Mr. funny-fastposter-man.

Quack III: Arena by yerricde · 2003-06-22 19:22 · Score: 1 · on Building A Homemade Chess Supercomputer

What's the best CPU for playing Quake III - Arena? An ASIC with the Quake III program encoded in its logic gates

Which blows up in the hardware maker's face when the player tries to run the duck-hunting mod.

G5 News *has* been pulled from sites by King+Babar · 2003-06-16 07:52 · Score: 2, Informative · on Massive WWDC Rumor Roundup

On the subject of what rumors have been pulled by Apple legal, squiggleslash writes:

Those stories were about the iChat videoconferencing thing though weren't they? (Think Secret didn't change the URL names or titles - one of the URLs was http://www.thinksecret.com/news/videoconf.html)

Actually, stories about G5 Macs have also been pulled from www.macbidouille.com, as has www.macrumors.com and www.osnews.com and tech-report.com. All of these were about 64-bit offerings being shown at WWDC.

Now, whether Apple Legal had these pulled because they were accurate, or merely scurilous but potentially hurting hardware sales, is another question.

Re:this should NOT do it by Anonymous Coward · 2003-06-06 13:20 · Score: 0 · on Massive Unreal 2K3 Mod Contest Launched

Just don't rename it 3DMurk03.exe.

Return it and snipe yerself an S3 4MB from eBay by Anonymous Coward · 2003-06-06 11:48 · Score: 0 · on More 'Application-Specific' Optimizations in NVidia Drivers

Nethack doesn't need that fancy Direct3D or openGL for cool graphics. Check out NetHack text 3D

Screen shot by Anonymous Coward · 2003-06-06 02:35 · Score: 0 · on More 'Application-Specific' Optimizations in NVidia Drivers

This page has the damning evidence:

http://www.tech-report.com/etc/2003q2/3dmurk03/i nd ex.x?pg=6

-AC

Re:Image Quality by ionpro · 2003-06-06 02:15 · Score: 1 · on More 'Application-Specific' Optimizations in NVidia Drivers

Right. So we should congratuate nVidia for producing a card that has worse image quality when not specifically optimized for a application? Doesn't this show that the default optimizations are, in fact, already reducing image quality? For more comparison, I suggest you go to any one of the reviews of R9700 vs. FX5800 and check the image quality comparisons versus the DX9 reference software renderer.

Image Quality by Jade+E.+2 · 2003-06-06 01:49 · Score: 2, Insightful · on More 'Application-Specific' Optimizations in NVidia Drivers

OK, so changing the filtering settings based on executable name is bad, we all agree on that, but has anyone really looked at the screenshots they posted?

I opened the optimized screen and the renamed .exe screen in two tabs and have been scrolling to each corner flipping back and forth between them, and I've got to say I actually think the image quality is higher on the optimized one. If you look at the book in the background, you get a hint of text on it in the optimized version, where it's blank in the renamed one. And the bevels on the edges of the desks are a lot clearer in the optimized one. And there's a really jagged edge on the carpet under the left desk in the renamed one that gets fixed in the optimized one. It's not all good, of course. There are some textures on the left wall that are brighter in the renamed one, but it's hard to tell which one would be better without seeing it in action. (My system gets about 10fps on that test, not really enough.) And finally the optimized one has one thing that looks obviously worse, and that's the cross pieces on the rear window, they're a little strange.

So, anyways, even though it's bad that they change the settings to get higher scores on the benchmark, I'd like to know how to change those settings myself, if it improves performance that much and looks (arguably) no worse, or even better.

Image Quality by Jade+E.+2 · 2003-06-06 01:49 · Score: 2, Insightful · on More 'Application-Specific' Optimizations in NVidia Drivers

OK, so changing the filtering settings based on executable name is bad, we all agree on that, but has anyone really looked at the screenshots they posted?

I opened the optimized screen and the renamed .exe screen in two tabs and have been scrolling to each corner flipping back and forth between them, and I've got to say I actually think the image quality is higher on the optimized one. If you look at the book in the background, you get a hint of text on it in the optimized version, where it's blank in the renamed one. And the bevels on the edges of the desks are a lot clearer in the optimized one. And there's a really jagged edge on the carpet under the left desk in the renamed one that gets fixed in the optimized one. It's not all good, of course. There are some textures on the left wall that are brighter in the renamed one, but it's hard to tell which one would be better without seeing it in action. (My system gets about 10fps on that test, not really enough.) And finally the optimized one has one thing that looks obviously worse, and that's the cross pieces on the rear window, they're a little strange.

So, anyways, even though it's bad that they change the settings to get higher scores on the benchmark, I'd like to know how to change those settings myself, if it improves performance that much and looks (arguably) no worse, or even better.

Re:I Will Just Continue To Buy ATI by DeathPenguin · 2003-06-03 12:53 · Score: 2, Interesting · on More on Futuremark and nVidia

Define "convince." Anand's review shows that the FX5900 is indeed a worthy competitor for the latest ATi offering, and the superior Linux drivers put nVidia over the top for Linux users.

If you're concerned about nVidia's ethics, perhaps you should check out ATi's background.

Re:20% of which speed? by morcheeba · 2003-06-03 03:37 · Score: 2, Informative · on Motorola to Boost 0.13-micron PowerPCs

good news: "The PowerPC 970 implements an Elastic I/O processor interface bus, which operates at a speed of up to 900 MHz and can keep the multiple execution units fed by up 6.4 GBps of data." That matches the latest QDR200 3GHz P4 for thouroughput - if latency is better, then it'll outperform the P4 in usable bus bandwidth.

Re:This is why artificial benchmarks don't matter by mskfisher · 2003-05-23 08:13 · Score: 4, Insightful · on FutureMark Confirms nVidia's Benchmark Cheating

In terms of the clipping planes, you're right.

But the nVidia driver also substituted a shader for one of the water effects, which degraded/modified the image quality.

And past history has shown that companies are willing to sacrifice quality for performance (see ATI's Radeon 8500 drivers and Quake 3 for an example)...
It's almost like this is a cold war, of sorts, between the testers/benchmarkers and the card manufacturers.

Quack by DeathPenguin · 2003-05-23 08:12 · Score: 3, Informative · on FutureMark Confirms nVidia's Benchmark Cheating

Let's not jump on nVidia too harshly for this. Sure, this spectacle seems to have gained a lot more publicity than ATi's own cheating ( link link link ). At least when nVidia cheated in 3DMark, they publically denounced synthetic benchmarks.

Re:Graphics Wars by damiam · 2003-05-23 05:09 · Score: 1 · on ATI vs. NVIDIA: ATI Steals the Show

ATIs comparable card, the Radeon 9000, is completely powerless. The 5200 beats it hands down

Really?

The GeForce FX 5200 isn't as capable a performer as its feature list might suggest, but that doesn't mean cards based on the chip aren't worth picking up. At only $67 online, the GeForce FX 5200 is a few dollars cheaper than the Radeon 9000 Pro. For gamers, the Radeon 9000 Pro offers better and more consistent performance. However, for average consumers and business users, the GeForce FX 5200 offers better multimonitor software, more future-proof feature compatibility, and silent and reliable passive cooling. The GeForce FX 5200 is a great feature-rich card for anyone that's not looking for the best budget gaming option.

The man knows his html... by crapulent · 2003-05-19 11:00 · Score: 3, Informative · on What Website has the Cleanest Site Design?

Come on, the timecube guy is obviously a master at modern UI deign and html layout. :-)

Seriously though, here are some sites whose design I like:

Sweetcode

Mathworld

openrbl.org

perldoc

Paul Borke's website

the Joel On Software forums

the Tech Report (a debatable choice, but the best of its type)

Dmitry's Design Lab

Re:Hmmmm by drzhivago · 2003-05-15 01:15 · Score: 5, Informative · on NVidia Accused of Inflating Benchmarks

Do you remember how a year or so ago ATI released a driver set that reduced image quality in Quake 3 to increase frame rate?

Here is a link about it in case you forgot or didn't know.

It just goes to show that both companies play that game, and neither to good results.

And it is brown! by leuk_he · 2003-05-13 01:11 · Score: 3, Informative · on AMD Athlon XP 3200+ Released

HEXUS reckons a 200MHz front side bus can't hurt. here. There's a picture of a brown semiconductor, also known as the "brains of a computer".

TOM'S HARDWARE has a controversial conclusion about the 3200+ and describes it as a "spineless paper tiger". It thinks the 3200+ is "much too aggressive" and it should be an XP2800+.

SUDHIAN Some crazy looking geek at Sudhian (hi Joel), reckons that AMD is being a little coy with clock speeds while its PR speeds have rocketed skywards.

FIRING SQUAD says AMD's odyssey for the performance crown has been a little more treacherous than Her Indoors, but welcomes the introduction of the 3200+ and the 400MHz bus.

TECH REPORT says there's not much new to report about the 2.2GHz chip apart from the fact that it runs on a 400MHz front side bus. But it reckons that the release is timely. There's a picture of a brown semiconductor which appears to resemble the brains of a computer.

LOST CIRCUITS contrasts the real brown brains of a computer with the hypothetical 3200+ brains of a computer it previewed a month or two ago.

BIT-TECH reckons that AMD's finally released the processor that the 3000+ should have been, denies the site's too pro-Intel, and puts it through its paces. There's a picture of a brown chip which appears to be the brains of a computer.

I stop whoring now, more to be found at amdzone

Re:Not just FSB performance by jsoderba · 2003-05-04 05:49 · Score: 4, Interesting · on Canterwood Motherboards Refined

Actually, the MCH-ICH interconnect appears to be a weakness for the Canterwood. At only 266 MB/s and with more and more high-bandwidth peripherals (SATA, USB 2.0, FireWire, SCSI) this link could become saturated in some IO-intensive applications. Competing chipsets all have wider datapaths.

Re:two words by Anonymous Coward · 2003-04-30 16:39 · Score: 0 · on GeForce FX 5200 Reviewed

MX has all the features. It just comes with crippled sdram instead of ddram and the main chip is clocked slower.

Nope. The GF4 MX is based around the GF2 MX core with some added features (notably antialiasing and faster memory). It's therefore a DirectX 7 part, without pixel and vertex shaders. And all GF4 MXes except the MX 420 have DDR memory. See tech report.

Perhaps you were thinking about the difference between a GeForce 2 MX (most of which did have SDRAM) and a GeForce 2 GTS. But you'd still be wrong because they're also different chips with different features.