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ATI Distributing Spurious HL2 Benchmarks

Posted by Zonk on from the game-card-makers-get-involved-in-the-process dept.

BatonRogue writes "Apparently ATI provided a few Half Life 2 benchmarks to the press and some websites are actually using the benchmarks for their Half Life 2 performance reviews. AnandTech and HardOCP seem to be the only reputable sources of Half Life 2 performance data as they both put together their own benchmarks representative of Half Life 2 gameplay. AnandTech apparently went through every Half Life 2 level and put together a list of the 11 most stressful levels and then created 5 demos, while HardOCP put together two long benchmarks for their review. AnandTech and HardOCP's results appear to agree with each other, while the ATI-backed benchmarks show ATI with a huge performance lead in Half Life 2. Apparently (according to the AnandTech article), ATI was allowed to make their demos while at Valve before Half Life 2 was released, while Valve would not let NVIDIA remove any data from their time at Valve until the game was released. Politics at work as usual."

4 of 52 comments (clear)

  1. Could we see some reasonable cards reviewed? by Qrlx · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Could we have a review for the common man? The one who can't afford to spend his rent check on a $600 video card?

  2. Re:ATi's results are spurious for not sucking? by Mike+Hawk · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I'd consider any results that consist solely of the lowest performing parts of the game to be "spurious".

    Why is that? They could go into a crouch-high pitch black corridor and record the FPS there, but that wouldn't be interesting. The worst situation that the user can expect on each card IS very interesting to the consumer. Even if the worst spot for each card is different, its still very interesting.

    For example, if one card consistently runs at 30fps at the highest detail setting no matter what, and another runs at 50 most of the time, but drops to below 10 during every bossfight, which is the better buy? I dont know, thats up to the consumer. But this information is very relevent.

    It may not be "scientific", but the consumer isn't buying an abstract number on a chart.

  3. Most important by Schemat1c · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Here's my benchmark for HL2:

    It's a lot of fun to play.

    Isn't that the only one that really matters?

    --

    "Nobody knows the age of the human race, but everybody agrees that it is old enough to know better." - Unknown
    1. Re:Most important by parliboy · · Score: 2, Insightful

      If you're benchmarking HL2, that's relevant.

      If you're benchmarking video cards, it doesn't mean a damn thing.

      --
      "You're never ready, just less unprepared."