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Nvidia Apologizes
BuRzMaLy writes: "Read out the next round in Nvidia ethic story. The guy at Hypothermia does
an interview with Nvidia where they in fact admit to all the charges against them, and they apologize to Hypothermia as well."
This is a followup to a
recent story where Nvidia was accused of trying to bully around various Web sites.
>I hadn't realized that Nvidia was responsible for hypothermia. Wow, they're more powerful than I previously thought.
Wow... I think you are on to something... If NVidia is responsible for hypothermia, just think how fast you could overclock their chips...
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"The only difference between me and a madman is that I'm not mad." - Salvador Dali (1904-1989)
I can only shake my head after reading Hypothermia's summary. Did he have the same conversation he posted on his site? Are the Slashdot posters reading the same thing I read? This is what I saw in that conversation:
Here at NVIDIA we have over 60 people in marketing and unfortunately, someone who thought he was doing the correct thing was not. The contract that is on Hypothermia (sp?) is a document that we use for corporate to corporate promotions.
Translation: Someone here really f**cked up. (Note lack of apology).
Let's say if and OEM would like to do a banner for a show this agreement assures us that we have top billing with that promotion.
Then why is there all this text in the agreement about web sites? What does this have to do with a show?
Whatever you review is whatever you review...we've never asked anyone to pull a review for competitive reasons.
Yeah, but you guys sure have no problem pressuring reviewers into biasing for your card's strengths.
I feel really bad in your situation, because for the last 7 months you have been misled by a non-NVIDIA employee (intern, contractor, etc...). To Hypothermia, who had thought that this was an accurate PR rep, I apologize and for all of the grief/headache this has caused I apologize for that too.
What kind of company allows this to happen? Is NVIDIA such a loose operation as to allow non-NVIDIA employees to use their corporate email? Note that this does not satisfactorily explain Hypothermia's situation, because in the evolution of this whole ordeal Hypothermia clearly states that he spoke to at least two different people.
So this apology means nothing to me because none of Derek's explanations hold water. The apology I see only really applies to allowing someone to impersonate an NVIDIA employee.
All the opinions expressed above do not necessarily represent those of my employer.
The opinions I post here have nothing to do with my employer.
It would have to be humour....neither you nor Taco could ever qualify as great minds.
3DFx killed their own golden goose by keeping the Glide API closed until Death came to dinner. Not much to credit them for.
You know you can set your background and text colors in IE at least...
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Segfault 11's unified theory: There are no politics other than politics.
Hardware is not politics. I will continue to buy hardware that will offer me the best value and/or performance and/or happens to be available. I own one NVIDIA card, two 3dfx cards, an S3, and a Matrox. Why? See above.
Food is not politics. If I have to hear another tirade about how terrible I am and the foods I eat, I'm going to wring the fucking vegan's neck. My vegetarian friends can be cool -- they eat their hummus and leave me alone.
Television is not politics. Leave me alone. I don't care if there is no educational value. I don't care if the book by XYZ author is better than anything on TV. I enjoy watching The Simpsons and South Park and The Family Guy -- try fitting that kind of humor into a book.
Smoking is not politics. If you don't like where I smoke, that's fine -- I'll step outside. If you want to prevent me from smoking with laws making cigarettes outrageously expensive, or setting zones so that I can't smoke anywhere on the grounds of my workplace, fuck off. You think it's disgusting? Well, I think your nail biting is, too!
You get the idea. Assess things on their merits, and forget the company's politics. The practices of a company now will affect their karma somewhere down the road anyway (see M$).
I registered my hate for Jon Katz
Yeah, and this corporation is run by people like Scott Sellers and Gary Tarolli who are truly good guys. These guys are the founders of 3dfx and they STILL hang around on newsgroups posting messages. They often help out with a particularly tough programming issue, or answer some technical questions.
It's this sort of thing which sets 3dfx apart.
Scott
Actually they apologised for the way everything happened and the screwballs they had dealing with hypothermia. He did sign a contract to do everything they were wanting him to, he just thought it meant something else. Once he realised it he tried talking to a guy who wouldn't help him much, and turned out to not be a "real" nVidia employee. The contract they had sent was for big companies at shows and such, not small * no offense intended its a great site * sites like hypothermia.
Quick! Print up your manifesto and mail it to the NY Times!
That said, I think it's time I changed my
anything that is good for corporations is good for us Score +5 (Funny) ROFL
"When I first heard Daydream Nation it quite frankly scared the living shit out of me." -- Matthew Stearns
I'm sorry if this sounds judgmental, and I'm not saying that nVidia is a shining example of great corporate ethics, but none of this would be a problem if the review sites had any independence and/or ethics. The author of the site signed a contract he didn't understand, and shouldn't have been proper for his site (as he says, just to get free equipment from nVidia), and when a PR from nVidia (I don't care if he's a contractor, if you act for the company you represent the company) enforced that contract (which had to do with posting competitors' logos, not reviews) he starts screaming that they are strongarming him. Make a deal with the devil.... Then when it turns into a PR nightmare the spin control comes in, and he uses his newfound clout to beg for more free stuff, to which the nVidia guy makes a noncommital bribe to get him to shut up.
Finally, the author brags that he could have made them give him 50 GeForce2 boards.
I'm sorry but this type of airing of dirty laundry of your business partners (which I consider signing the type of promotional agreement to be) reflects badly on yourself more than it does nVidia.
.sig: "Are you moderating me down because you disagree with me?"
It is very encouraging to see a successful company grow some balls, even if it was just for reasons of PR. I can only hope that they will take steps to not only make amends, but make sure that this is not repeated.
Free as in speech, free as in beer, or free as in lunch?
This is really neat. Thanks for taking the time to type it out.
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Who gives a crap? Really! Oh no! nVidia did THIS and THAT to me and now I won't get free cards so I'm going to publicly whine about it
It's sickening to see that people are in this type of "biz" only to get free stuff and go to their friends and say "Hey man! Look what XXX sent me! nah nah nah!" Pathetic. I really wish I could do this sort of thing only because I love messing with hardware and writing about it. Unlike some people over at *cough* HardOCP who start writing editorials the minute nVidia says they won't send him a Geforce 2 MX card.
To those of you who fall in that category I say the hell with you and you will fall by the wayside to websites which don't give us this soap opera style crap. Anand comes to mind, no wonder he has the largest internet/hardware e-mag on the net. (Note to anand: can we have different benchmarks OTHER than Q3? =))
When death looks you in the eye, smile. Someone needs to cheer him up.
Consumer Reports does it, and their reputation is unimpugnable.
I always thought CR was a reliable source of information until some time in 1990. I worked at a bicycle store as a mechanic for most of the 80's (back when a 100ns 64kbit DRAM chip in a DIP package cost ~$7).
Anyway, I read a review in CR on a number of bicycles, and to my surprise, they had listed a few department store bikes over specialized, higher quality brands. I couldn't figure out how they could make these claims, I mean, there's a world of difference in just the components alone.
After reading the article, it appeared to me that the stores which supplied the test bikes obviously had differing levels of competence w.r.t. their mechanics. I don't remember the exact wording, but apparently the reviewers' opinions were based largely on the performance of the bicycle, rather than the components. Since the department store had better mechanics, the inferior product got higher marks.
So I guess there really isn't a parallel for video cards since there isn't any real 'tuning' per-se. However, it is interesting how even the most well-intentioned publication can be misleading through no fault of its own.
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The correct spellings are as follows:
I registered my hate for Jon Katz
I agree. If there are only two marketing people who are actually employed by Nvidia, and thus by his definition responsible for the official policy, how hard could it be for them to talk to each other, and find out if this was something Nvidia condoned?
Substitute ink for light. Good design/type in print relies on using small amounts of ink on a largely uninked page.
Good design/type on screen should (IMO, obviously) rely on using small amounts of light on a largely unlit screen.
Perhaps more important on tech sites where people are more likely to have high resolutions with larger areas of white.
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Most 3d board vendors will give developers and reviewers demo boards before they hit the shelves. Meaning - you couldn't buy them if you wanted to. A magazine usually has to have a 1-3 month lead time to finish the next issue before it goes off to the presses. After all, it has to be printed, bound, and mailed.
And with technology related items, people are much more interested in new stuff. Magazines that reviewed only products that were on the shelves would have a hard time competing with magazines that review stuff that will be out next week.
Getting free hardware doesn't usually make for a better experience anyway. You often get beta drivers that have all sorts of conflicts with other drivers. I still have all sorts of 3d boards that I can't use anymore because they use beta drivers that don't exsist anymore and I didn't have the mind to save them.
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Damn I'm hating this thread.
The industry is rife with this sort of thing. While it's not "playing nice" for a company to leverage reviewers like this, it is not at all unethical - for the producer. The producer of goods has a fiduciary responsibility to increase sales. They are ultimately not responsible for the accuracy of information printed in some trade rag or review site.
The ultimate responsibility for journalistic integrity is; SUPRISE! THE JOURNALIST!! If Jim's Hardware can't get a demo unit from nVidia for a review, and loses readers to ZDNet, TOO FUCKIN BAD! Wait until the product is released (what a concept) and anonymously buy it. Obtaining sample product any other way represents a CLEAR conflict of interest!
The way this is SUPPOSED to work is, ZDNet plays kissy-kissy with vendor, vendor plays kissy-kissy with ZDNet, who writes a favorable review for the vendor - a month in advance of the product's actual release (is this a review, or a press-release in sheep's clothing?). When the product is released, people buy the product, find out it's really poo, and get pissed off. A month later, Jim's Hardware has their reivew ready, and is honest, clear of any conflict of interest, and people read it and go - damn, I'm not going to trust ZDNet any more, I'm going to trust Jim's Hardware, because though their information was later in arriving, it was accurate. Jim's Hardware didn't SELL me to the vendor for a hot scoop.
If you're going to point your finger, learn WHERE you should point it.
if it ain't broke, then fix it 'till it is!
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
3dfx is going to do this. They will, or they will perish. It's that simple. Until READERS start taking the reviewers to task for conflict of interest, innacurate and biased reviews, this will remain the standard, review sites will continue to let themselves be strongarmed (poor babies), and the only way people will be able to tell if they've got a quality product is to do their own comparisons. That's nice and cheap.
if it ain't broke, then fix it 'till it is!
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
Right, blame it on the fan sites, who usually start their sites out of love for the product.
Hmm... ya, that sounds like journalistic ethics.
[quote]
Distinguish between advocacy and news reporting. Analysis and commentary should be labeled and not misrepresent fact or context.
Distinguish news from advertising and shun hybrids that blur the lines between the two.
[...]
Act Independently
Journalists should be free of obligation to any interest other than the public's right to know.
Journalists should:
Avoid conflicts of interest, real or perceived.
Remain free of associations and activities that may compromise integrity or damage credibility.
Refuse gifts, favors, fees, free travel and special treatment, and shun secondary employment, political involvement, public office and service in community organizations if they compromise journalistic integrity.
Disclose unavoidable conflicts.
Be vigilant and courageous about holding those with power accountable.
Deny favored treatment to advertisers and special interests and resist their pressure to influence news coverage.
Be wary of sources offering information for favors or money; avoid bidding for news.
[unquote]
source: http://www.publicintegrity.org/ethics.html
And that's why I said this kind of thing wouldn't be a problem if the sites had any kind of independence (which equals ethics in this case).
The same rationale could be applied to alcohol consumption, driving an automobile, or even eating vegetables.
The truth is that you don't like smoking, and you don't think people should have the right to do what they want with their bodies.
I know my life would be much less pleasant if I were in the company of a bunch of fussy, whiny antismokers...
I registered my hate for Jon Katz
fall on his own sword? I'd say its more we're going to run him through with his own sword, then arrange the body to suggest that he might have done it himself...
Intolerant people should be shot.
Heh. Now 3dfx is the saint, and nvidia is the devil? It seems a lot of people suffer from short term memory. Remeber GLide? How did that help the community? By forcing people to buy 3dfx cards? OpenGL support was slow to sppear because of 3dfx pushing GLide. Oh sure, it was great when 3dfx was alone in the high end, but then other players started to creep their way up. Do you think 3dfx sat back and said "let the best card win"? They spin reviews and press articles just as much as nvidia does, I gar-ron-tee. Let people make their own decisions based on the card, and lets all drop this good versus evil crap.
"I live in a world of make-believe, with faeries and leprechauns and tiny little frogs with funny hats."
But, in doing so crassly in many cases causes them to LOSE money in the long run.
It's is generally accepted that sans-serif (eg ariel) fonts are easier to read on screen then serif fonts (eg times), and vice-verse with respect to printed output.
Don't ask me why, it just is.
I know that reviewers (web-sites especially) need to have hardware early so that a review is available simultaneously to product release.
However, I really don't think it's such a wise decision for a consumer to rush right out and by a product the day it's available. First off, the drivers (be they windows/linux/whatever) are generally not very mature, nor support the full features of the hardware.
It would seem that the smart buyer would wait for USER's reviews, be it friends, newsgroups, etc. Those are the true reviewers, your peers.
I never trust a website/magazine review anyway. The product they reviewed is not always what's seen on the shelf and I refuse to pay top dollar for what might really be a beta product.
Praying for the end of your wide-awake nightmare.
"You know you want me baby!" - Crow T Robot
Bullshit. 3dfx was just as tight lipped with specs (closed glide, binary-only drivers, etc) when they were #1. Now that they're not, they're trying to be 'nice' to earn a better reputation, so they might be #1 again, at which point, they'll be behaving just as they were, and just as nVidia is now.
Corporations don't 'care'. People within those corps may care, and may have the power to do something nice, but the organization itself cares about market share and profit.
It depends on screen resolution and dpi - try higher screen resolution and dpi (eg 1280x1024/120 dpi/17" monitor) and you'll see what is more readable.
They have appologized for the incident, and changed their company policy to prevent this from happening again. If that's not taking responsibility, then what is? Please, I'm not being facetious here: what exactly would you have wanted them to do?
Everyone wants to be a judge; just wait until you're a defendant.
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Patrick Doyle
I mod down every jackass who puts his moderation policy in his sig. Oh, wait a sec....
Same in Netscape. But I refuse to go to "Edit...Preferences...Netscape....Colors...click click *think* select" just to read a single website.
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So NVIDIA programmed a backdoor into their cards that lets them access the cards directly from a remote location? I wonder why anyone didn't catch this before.
That's really underhanded -- NVIDIA is skating on very thin legal ice, and if this gets out, they will probably he headed into court in the near future.
Steven, I wanted to look at some of your current projects in development, yet your webpage didn't have a DNS entry. Any reason behind this?
Daniel Lev.
I'd like to know when nVidia will start supporting BeOS like they support Linux. BeOS needs GeForce drivers badly and nVidia doesn't seem to want to help. Oh sure, BeOS has TNT and TNT2 drivers. But that doesn't do much good anymore since everyone is getting GeForce cards. Grrrrr....
l8r
Sean
Hexy - a strategy game for iPhone/iPod Touch
I'm using ad hominem attacks becuase you keep perpetuating a bunch of bullshit. Yes, corporations have a fiduciary duty, but there are no instances in the law stating that corporations must take every opportunity to make money. Furthermore, they cannot be "acting illegally" since cases involving management misconduct are civil, not crimial cases. If you can find some cases which contradict me, please feel free to post the appropriate citations, otherwise, I still content... you are full of shit.
DrLunch.com The site that tells you what's for lunch!
I suppose you didn't really read my post, or you assume that I hate 3dfx just because I don't think they're a bunch of angels. GLide was not open sourced until it was on its deathbed. 3dfx realized it no longer had a monopoly on high end 3d graphics, so it set its PR spin machine into action. They know what gamers like, and even though opening GLide was a useless manouver, it made them popular. Same with FXT1. I didn't mention it because its irrelevant. I'm not complaining about it. I'm not complaining about anything. I'm just playing devil's advocate to your blind faith.
"I live in a world of make-believe, with faeries and leprechauns and tiny little frogs with funny hats."
Why does anyone care about nVidia anyway? Back during the Fall 1998 they promised to release full documentation on their TNT. This was before they had the large market share they do now. Of course they never did. They only released obsfucated XFree86 source until they was a loud outcry. They then released better drivers and very poor 3D drivers. Now they have released binary only 3D drivers that are good. To this day they have never released proper documentation and the last time I tried the Linux rivafb it was in very bad shape.
I bought a TNT after being promised that they would release docs. I have learned to never believe a promise, and I will no longer buy nVidia products.
Hrrrmmm. Your website has no DNS entry. I did a web search, and the closest match was Dr. J. Your email address is at yahoo, not a corporate address. (Mine is not listed because of a certain person hating my arse...)
Your thoughts provide curious possibilities, but there is no evidence of your existence, nor is there any way to follow up on this.
Before I completely discredit you, you mind responding?
We don't need no Net Explorer We don't need no Thought control
People speak of "nvidia feeling sorry" or "nvidia doing this or that". There is no sentient entity called nvidia. It's a corporation. Sometimes they hire good PR people who slick things over, sometimes they hire morons. In this case, they hired a moron.
A corporation simply exists to make profits for its shareholders. Stop associating these touchy-feely qualities of niceness and morality with corporations. It's naive and silly.
Sure, sometimes companies donate to charity to improve their image, or sponsor sports and crap like that, but it's still the same thing. Ultimately, it's a big building with cubicles and paid PR people. Don't confuse a company with being good or bad. It's just there to make money. MS, oracle, Sun, napster - they're all there to make money, and they just bitch about justice and morality when it suits them.
Don't be so naive. Being loyal to a company or thinking it's ethical is as silly as like having feelings for your gas station. Even if the company happens to make software/hardware you like.
w/m
(Which is OK with me, I personally like 3dfx (right now) better anyway, for most of the reasons you've stated. I dunno, may change depending on what they do in the future... (After all, I thought Windows 3.1 was pretty cool and didn't care to see MS go away until after Win95...) Although I'd still like to get my hands on a Voodoo 5 :))
You are in a maze of twisty little relative jumps, all alike.
I seem to remember an episode where there were stickers being put on game software boxes that implied that you needed a 3dfx card to run that game even though that wasn't true. Anyone remember who ended up being responsible for that?
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
Sure, they produced a better piece of hardware. That doesn't give them the right to bully reviewers into changing their reviews or review methods.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
Several magazines that I read and trust, have a policy of buying review items off-the-shelf. They sell or auction off the items after they are done with the review.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
This is all spot on. I saw this illustrated once when my Editor Buddy and Artist Buddy were having an argument about when to use all-caps.
Editor Buddy made the point about the word's "coastline" and how the shape of the word is used to read, and all-caps has a uniform coastline and is harder to read because of t. Artist Buddy didn't buy it.
Editor Buddy then had Artist Buddy think of a common phrase, and draw it out as BOXES on a page, each box representing the BASIC shape of a letter -- so a "p" would be a box that descended below the text baseline, an "l" would be a box that rose above the baseline, etc.
Editor Buddy got 2 out of 3 phrases right. Artist Buddy saw the light.
From the NVIDIA web site:
Notes to Editors: GeForce 256, GeForce2 GTS, and GeForce2 MX should be written as shown, with an uppercase "G" and "F", with a lowercase "e" and a lowercase "orce." There is no space between "GeForce" and "2" for GeForce2 GTS and GeForce2 MX. There is a space before "GTS," "MX" and "256." "MX" and "GTS" are in ALL CAPITALS. The recommended format for Vanta and Quadro is title case. Quadro2 Pro and Quadro2 MXR should be written as shown, there is no space between "Quadro" and "2". There is a space before "MXR" and it is in ALL CAPITALS. The recommended format for NVIDIA, NVIDIA TNT2, NVIDIA TNT, RIVA 128, and RIVA 128ZX and is ALL CAPITALS. For further nomenclature information, please visit our image kit at www.nvidia.com/company.nsf/imagekit.html.
Good to see Nvidia swallow some pride and own up to their mistakes. Well done Nvidia!
Trolling is a art,
One of the most interesting comments I've seen on /. in a long time. Posts like yours keep us coming back.
s/capitalist/corporatist/g
They have no right to make money. They have no right to FORCE others to take down logos, or say "sure, we'll do that," get the contract signed and then proceed to harass them.
Firstly, there is a bit of a counter-example: Kim's Costumes, Limited. This is a corporation that my wife started. It is very much under her control. When KCL makes a donation to a school, which happens more often than I approve of, it is for the purpose of helping that school, because Kim does, in fact, care. Sure, the company stands to, possibly benefit from the exposure and improved image, and from the way the kids get their standards for costuming raised (the basic printed plastic bag and mask doesn't seem so cool after wearing theater-grade costumes). But that isn't why that company does that.
Secondly, even if it [b]is[/b] (and the "if" is rhetorical, not conditional) a polite fiction that a company that cares about justice and morality and all that, the end result is that justice and morality get brought foreward and argued about and thought about, and money goes to charities. I'm well aware of the crude greed that powers the engine. I'm also aware that the sailboats on Lake Michigan are powered by a long-term thermonuclear blast that can, and does, kill people. [b]Pretend[/b] that corporations that make the right donations and noises and have the right policies care, if only to keep the right noises and donations and policies profitable. Yes, it is BS. I've lived on a farm, I've seen what BS can do when spread correctly.
Adam Smith pointed out that the profit motive gets lots of good things done. That's something both the Capitalist Pigs and the Commies forget: profit is not the goal of a society. (It [b]is[/b] the goal of a company.) Profit is the engine that makes a Capitalist society work, and in most ways, work very very well.
Our secret is gamma-irradiated cow manure
Mitsubishi ad
We apologize for the inconvenience.
Oh geez, here I go.... feel like I'm feeding the trolls again....
Let me start by saying how much I agree with your other statements (food, tv etc.) but your rationale breaks down with smoking. Your rights extend only up to the zone where mine begin, and I have the right not to pollute my body, or that of my 3 month old baby to your toxic waste. You want to chew, fine, just don't blow anything out into the air that belongs to me too. I'm not saying that poeple shouldn't smoke, or drink, or whatever. Just don't do it in a way that affects me without my consent. If you smoke, do it somewhere far, far, away. If you drink, don't drive. I've got enough problems without you taking my life into your hands.
An insightful poster recently remarked that the only way to ensure true independence from the companies you review is to:
1) purchase your own, off-the-shelf copy of the product - to ensure you experience what customers experience
2) politely return all unsolicited "gifts"
Consumer Reports does it, and their reputation is unimpugnable. Regrettably, in the hardware and software business, prices for off-the-shelf products often exceed the budget of enthusiasts. We're talking $100's to $1000's of dollars in most cases, especially for hardware.
The solution I would suggest is this. Establish a "blind" company that federates reviewers. This company accepts contributions from its members, pools them, purchases a sample product at the lowest price it can find, then allows the reviewers to share the sample product for their reviews. When all reviews are complete, the product can be auctioned off or resold in some other fashion. The companies bacing the reviewed products will never have contact directly with the reviewers, and the monetary issue is alleviated.
-konstant
Yes! We are all individuals! I'm not!
-konstant
Yes! We are all individuals! I'm not!
Why oh why do so many tech sites (/. fortunately excepted) insist on using white text on a black background? Attn Webmasters: This is unreadable!
Now, to the point. It's great that NVidia apologized. It's even greater that they admitted wrongdoing. But the question is: What steps are being taken to ensure it never happens again?
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It is good to see them fessing up to strong arming their way through business. This is something that some companies never admit to who are even worse about it. I like their chips, but they should achieve their gains through hard work and being better than the other guy (and those of us who have had the pleasure to look at their graphics know that they can do this).
Still, it is good that they have fessed up to this, but someone had to call them on it. Nobody admits that they have done this sort of thing when they have done it, so you can't blame them for not fessing up, hardly anyone on this board can claim that they would have fessed up after the fact, I don't fault them for that at all. What I fault them for is for bullying their way around in the first place. I think that people should concentrate less on the fact that they wouldn't have fessed up and more on the fact that they did this in the first place. Also, it is VERY big of them to admit this, this is really bad press, and fessing up isn't really going to help it (yes, arguably it can, but really, admitting to something that you don't have to doesn't really help people's opinion of you. You altruists should know that their cup is half empty in doing this, not half full).
Anyways, good for them for fessing up, it takes guts. Bad for them for doing it in the first place, and nobody can blame them for not fessing up sooner.
Eh...
This commented isn't directed at the AC, it's directed at the people claiming this is a troll. A lot of Slashdot readers are libertarians. You people must know this, they dominate via sheer numbers any political thread. Good thing the moderators are more open-minded than the responders. You may not agree with the AC, but calling it a troll is nothing more than arogantly dismissing a valid viewpoint. We obviously all love technology here, and corporations have been key in creating new technology and bring it into our everyday lives.
nVidia was one of the worst offendors in telling review sites to downplay 16-bit color benchmarks on games... even on ones where the textures were in 16-bit color (so no benifit to 32 bit!) for the sole benifit of making 3dfx's faster card look worse. (ATI was particuarly bad, as well).
nVidia also "wants" reviewers to focus on speed instead of quality now - and encourages them to benchmark FSAA, because nVidia's approach is faster (and less good-looking) than 3dfx's.
nVidia has gotten used to playing a little bit dirty - that's how they managed to overthrow 3dfx. But now is the time that they need to step back and let fair reviews be fair reviews. If your card is fairly the best in the market, then you don't need to play Microsoft.
Corporations do not have the right to do anything to make money, otherwise they'd all be selling class A drugs.
Whether we like it or not, we live in a capitalist world where people need to fend for themselves rather than being supported by the state. Corporations, the lifeblood of our economy, have every right to do whatever it takes to make money, and this was what an Nvidia contractor attempted to do for them.
What's so bad about that?
I thought 3dfx were the ones that went after whoever made those glide wrappers for some other card. Anyway, the reason I don't like 3dfx cards is that they're PCI, they're 3D only, they're expensive, and their 2D+3D solutions all seemed to get bad reviews. I'm not sure what the case is with their new products.
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I hadn't realized that Nvidia was responsible for hypothermia. Wow, they're more powerful than I previously thought.
my what short memories you kids have.
nvidia has never sued hobbyist programmers for legally reverse engineering their proprietary libraries and writing _open source_ wrappers for it.
not that nvidia is squeaky clean either.
once you get out of your parent's basement and into the real world, you'll realize that companies are not good or evil; they just want to make money, and will do whatever they think will make them more money.
Blaming outside contractors is a cheesy excuse. When you hire contractors to represent your company, then you need to verify everything that they say is in line with your company. And you need to stand behind, or directly take responsibility, for the actions of that contractor.
They at least admit that it was wrong, but they didn't exactly take responsibility. One step forward, one step back, and we're still where we started.
No boom today. Boom tomorrow. There's always a boom tomorrow. - Cmdr. Susan Ivanova
1. I don't know what Steve really does at Hypothermia except fill in for Kyle at the HardOCP and dog him every time he gets a chance to post. I liked the site when it was Kyle posting, and Steve was just a standin, not just a friendly pissing contest between the two of them.
2. Nvidia should be spelled NVIDIA.
3. Is this really an apology or just a pacifier? To me, it sounds like the kind of thing that any other PR department would come up with after a similar debacle. "Oh, it was a mistake", "It wasn't _us_ doing that per se", "it won't happen again" -- you get the picture. M$ has done this how many times???
4. There are three kinds of people in this world: those who can count, and those who can't.
I registered my hate for Jon Katz
Those evil bad interns eh? ;>
--
Andy (currently an Intern although, not at nvidia)
Everyone makes mistakes. Every company makes mistakes. Most companies never apologize at all, and frankly I'm astonished that nVidia has. Now that they have, let's at least give them a chance. Unless you can see into the future, you don't know if their apology is sincere or not. Sure, we can speculate, but no one knows.
If this apology is an insincere attempt at press manipulation, we're all certain to find out sooner or later. If it's genuine, then we'll just alienate them and get ourselves into a tizzy for no reason at all. We have nothing to lose by giving them the benefit of the doubt.
Look at their Linux support, if you want a good example. They used to treat Linux like a red-headed stepchild, but now they appear to be genuinely interested in having us use their products. Sure, this is a market-based decision. But it's also a good market-based decision to not piss off your customers by strong-arming review sites. Let's hope they made the right decision for the right reasons, congratulate them, and move on. Time will tell.
This isn't as much "normalization" as it is "don't take so many drugs when you're designing tables."
I was pretty shocked when I first heard of these tactics but this interview is really encouraging.
It looks like this was a few loose cannons in a large department. If anything this will have served to help nVidia clarify and communicate their own practices internally. I expect we won't see this kind of thing from them again in a hurry now they've had a chance to calibrate their moral compass.
I wish people would quit repeating this lie. You obviously don't know what the hell you are talking about. Please cite the law that states that corporations have a duty to make money by whatever means are necessary (your emphasis, not mine).
Obviously you can't becuase there is no such law and you a full of shit.
DrLunch.com The site that tells you what's for lunch!
By giving away an expensive piece of hardware in exchange for a review, companies like NVidia are using similar tactics to the record execs who paid off radio stations to play their label's songs. The fact is that those Geforce2 cards cost a few hundred dollars apiece and the banner-revenue from the reviewer's site may not even be equivalent to the value of the card.
All hardware submitted for review should be sent with pre-paid return packaging. After the company receives the hardware in return, they can ship the same unit to another reviewer. In this model, sites receive no financial incentive to review specific products, while even the smallest sites will be able to receive hardware to review. The manufacturers safe a few dollars and the sites have no ethical dillemas.
ByteMyCode.com: A Web 2.0 code sharing community.
I read your post, I simply found your points uninteresting. Opening glide did nothing? Try following DRI dev maybe. See how useless it is. They wouldn't have opened specs just to be popular. 3dfx hardware works on more platforms that just about any other 3D card. I'm not totally sure of dev. status in FreeBSD of other cards, but there is rudimentary support in the most recently releases for 3dfx and DRI. I'll also mention that 3dfx has supported Linux just about as long as any company has, though unofficially. Darryl Strauss was given specs starting several years ago with the Voodoo1 and wrote linux drivers. From listening to him and others, many wanted to open specs and source even earlier than they did, but it was too disputed and dangerous a move. Darryl now works full time a Precision Insight. 3dfx also now has at least one dedicated linux engineer. now, I compare this to Nvidia who hasn't open specs, who releases obfuscared source code after first releasing binary only drivers. I would hardly say my faith is blind. Scott
OTOH, reading a similar site on the 17" Trinitron monitors at my college computer labs with similar fonts yielded different results... and it was FAR more readable! I personally use the 8x16 VGA font with my 'rxvt' terminals with a white-on-black interface... since it's a thick font. But some color schemes still irritate me (like Chimmy's Yahoo client's dark blue and dark green colors on black... yeah I should change that myself)
the real at&t mix
Just wanted to take the time to say thanks. I love little snippets of information like that.
THANK YOU VERY MUCH (oh yeah, the caps thing...sorry)
------
Let me give you the lowdown
At the risk of repeating what others have said, I have to ask: how does this constitute bullying?
As far as I can tell, nVidia offered them a deal: say nice things about our products and give us pride of place over our competitors, and we'll give you free hardware and permission to use our trademarks.
The Hypothermia guys just wanted the goodies, and no strings attached. You can't blame them for wanting it, but I don't see how it's unethical for nVidia not to give it to them.
You mean the free speech advocated by those nasty, evil liberals like George Washington and Thomas Jefferson?
no, I'm definitely not Scott Sellers :)
I do agree with you--if 3dfx does something that goes contrary to my beliefs I've stated here, if they do turn out to be "evil" or what not, I wouldn't be as supportive of them as I am.
Scott
Well, you could try the link to the recent story, as mentioned in the post.
I like white text on a black background.
I think it's easier to read.
Ideally, this should be a browser option, of course.
Actually, I'm surprised that Slashdot hasn't added color customization yet. I can filter stories, I can filter comments, and I can choose my link boxes, but I can't change something fundamental like the color of text?
--Lenny
http://slashdot.org/articles/99/04/08/1345204.shtm l
several of those wrapper authors legally reverse engineered glide from publicly available documentation.
3dfx is just as bad as every other corporation. they just managed to market theyselves to the gullible slightly better...
I'm not a troll, I just speak my mind.
I'd just like to know how big this whiny antismoker range is. To me, it seems unrealistic to ban smoking ON THE ENTIRE GROUNDS anywhere. If you're sitting in an outdoor cafe and want to complain about other people smoking, shut the fuck up. You may as well stop driving or walking on the sidewalk, because you're inhaling even more toxic fumes from a resource that isn't even renewable.
I have a friend in the hospital. After several hours of visitation with him and his wife last weekend, it was time for a cigarette. I'm not a heavy smoker or even a particularly activist smoker, but it seems ridiculous to me that they ban smoking on the grounds of the facility. You can step across the street, but since it's not even their property, they can't put an ashtray there. These kinds of things don't resolve a "problem", they simply divert them.
I registered my hate for Jon Katz
then understand where I go to school. Then talk about my GPA. Anyone here could be going to any other school in the nation and have a 4.0.
"We "tier" the GPA's we expect from schools. We expect the highest GPA's from state schools, slightly lower from many of the Ivy League schools, and even lower schools from Harvard and MIT. We expect the lowest GPA's from Caltech, they have their own tier for grades."
Seriously, how nice that Derek Perez apologized. Anyone who seriously follows 3d stuff knows that Derek Perez is one of the loudest, abrasive, and derogatory. He'll be back to his usual antics within no time. He represents Nvidia's attitude, and I'm surprised that so many people at slashdot just let slide.
You don't see 3dfx pulling any crap like this. You don't see Nvidia opening their specs or giving free open source technology like FXT1 away. That's why I support 3dfx.
I honestly believe, and actions speak louder than words (well..maybe not in Derek Perez's case!), that 3dfx is a good corporation. They really care about the community.
Scott
Within the bounds of law a corporation has a duty to make money using whatever means are necessary. For them to do otherwise is criminally negligent and goes against the whole foundations of our society. Since they are the main providers of tax income, it follows that anything that is good for corporations is good for us. We should be supporting their efforts to make money, not trying to stifle it.
From Derek's answer to Hypothermia:
"I feel really bad in your situation, because for the last 7 months you have been misled by a non-NVIDIA employee (intern, contractor, etc...). This situation has been rectified and we have put in the necessary steps so this doesn't happen again..."
Translation: We're not going to take the blame, so this disposable Intern will be ordered to fall on his own sword.
Free hardware to reviewers is a good thing, when handled responsibly by all parties involved.
As the former Technical Editor (responsible for untold amounts on benchmarking) of 'boot Magazine' (now known as 'Maximum PC') - I know what I am talking about. Let me explain why some of the proposed 'sollutions' don't work.
A: Buying the hardware retail.
This chief value of many reviews is to allow people to get a feel for a product before they can buy it. Reviews that come out weeks (or even months) after a product is on store shelves lose an immense amount of value. Particularly with a print magazine, lead times are such that it is not at all practical to delay a review until the propper retail experience can be tried.
B: Loaner hardware.
This seems nice in theory - ask for the boards back to make sure that the reviewer has nothing to gain by keeping it. But - reviewers NEED to keep boards they test around so that they can later be held accountable for recreating their results, and so that they have boards handy to do comparative reviews.
Imagine if all the Voodoo 5 reviews on the net came out with no comparative results with a GeForce2. It doesn't work. Reviewers need to be able to build a library of all the products that they test.
The real problem here is small, not very credible sites that are pushing one-off reviews. Anyone who is getting paid to professionally review products should be smart enough to have no conflicts of interest caused by the free hardware around them. But fan sites that crank out a review or two every month or so - well, they have to go a lot further to prove their credibility and lack of bias.
- chris dunphy
Half the reason these people do reviews is because 'they can do it better' than the competition. Sharing would not be a palatable idea. Also, on-up-manship and being 'on the inside' is a big ego booster and can attract more of an audience (thus more hits, prestige, money). It just wouldn't work unless you wanted to limit the number of reviewers to a handful.
Fsck cluebie moderators. I'll say what I want, offtopic or not. And fsck having to qualify every bloody statement just
simply from my experiences with them at the career fair at Caltech. When I was able to talk to recruiters (when I wasn't dragging one of my friends away from the Microsoft booth he was trying to destroy), nearly all of the recruiters were like, "Let us have your resume, here's our business card, what do you do, we'd like to hire you" etc. All the company reps were great, very understanding that no one at Caltech has good grades, stuff like that.
The NVIDIA reps? They were like conducting interviews on the spot. The same friend I had to drag away from the MS booth was talking to the NVIDIA reps, and they were talking about internships, and the rep just like pulls out a notepad and starts asking him to solve all these programming problems. During this, I'm looking at the info sheets NVIDIA has on hand. The requirements they were holding new hires to seemed rather steep. For their engineers and coders they basically wanted a 4.0 GPA for any new hire. Maybe this is just their standard information sheet, but I honestly don't know anyone in the electrical engineering dept. or the computer science dept. who would have those kind of grades. And if they do, they don't go into industry, they go to grad school and get doctorates. The long and short of it is that the NVIDIA people came across as being incredibly arrogant and demanding, like they were doing us a favor by talking to us. Their attitude was far different than any of the other companies there.
Moller