FutureMark & Nvidia joint statement on 3DMark03; FutureMark tucks its tail between its legs.

ElFenix

Elite Member
Super Moderator
Mar 20, 2000
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sounds like nvidia paid them off because inserting clipping planes isn't just using a more efficient path
 

NFS4

No Lifer
Oct 9, 1999
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Yeah, I smell a rat...or at least a rat with a fishy smell.
 

GTaudiophile

Lifer
Oct 24, 2000
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Originally posted by: ElFenix
sounds like nvidia paid them off because inserting clipping planes isn't just using a more efficient path

Of course, everyone at Rage3D has already come to that conclusion.
 

Rand

Lifer
Oct 11, 1999
11,071
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My guess is FutureMark was more or less legally forced to make some type of reparative statement.
Doubtlessly nVidia would have been quick to involve their lawyers in the dispute.

At the very least inserting static clipping planes between frames has been pretty much clearly proven at that definitely isnt applicable to a typical gaming environment.

In any case I'm not sure it matters whether it was a cheat or an optimization.... FutureMark prohibits application specific optimizations, so even doing such would be cheating.


Anyone want to bet that despite this press statement FutureMark will NOT call back the 3.30 patch, and nVidia will NOT input the same cheats/optimizations again.
I'd be willing to bet such was part of whatever agreement nVidia/FutureMark came to.
 

GTaudiophile

Lifer
Oct 24, 2000
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Originally posted by: Rand
My guess is FutureMark was more or less legally forced to make some type of reparative statement.
Doubtlessly nVidia would have been quick to involve their lawyers in the dispute.

At the very least inserting clipping planes between frames has been pretty much clearly proven at that definitely isnt applicable to a typical gaming environment.

In any case I'm not sure it matters whether it was a cheat or an optimization.... FutureMark prohibits application specific optimizations, so even doing such would be cheating.


Anyone want to bet that despite this press statement FutureMark will NOT call back the 3.30 patch, and nVidia will NOT input the same cheats/optimizations again.
I'd be willing to bet such was part of whatever agreement nVidia/FutureMark came to.

I have the feeling you're right.

 

NFS4

No Lifer
Oct 9, 1999
72,636
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FutureMark has absolutely NO credibility now in my books. They can't even stand up for themselves.
 

Rand

Lifer
Oct 11, 1999
11,071
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Originally posted by: NFS4
FutureMark has absolutely NO credibility now in my books. They can't even stand up for themselves.

It seems it's more profitable not to.
In any business everything will always come down to one factor in the end-$.
 

Novgrod

Golden Member
Mar 3, 2001
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Personally I'm going to reserve judgement. I hardly think what's written is really proof of fraternization or what have you--both companies had their tails in a rock, and both wanted out. gasp, everyone realized futuremark isn't the be-all end-all of benchmarks, that nvidia would cheat in an artificial test with which they had a beef, and that futuremark would try to stick it to nvidia for opting out of their little collective.

In summation, the proof is in the pudding--in the benchmark, that is, so unless futuremark bends over for nvidia somehow and suddenly the geforces get another 20% performance jump, it doesn't matter what either company says.
 

Tab

Lifer
Sep 15, 2002
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How many people use 3dmark on a regular basis? Lets see a raise of hands! Any? Thats what I thought!
 

OverVolt

Lifer
Aug 31, 2002
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Yes i love to play 3dMarks :p!
Only thing it's good for now is a stability test!
 

Gstanfor

Banned
Oct 19, 1999
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nVidia originally withdrew their membership and support for BRIBEmark, whoops, thats not the name..., err, QUAKmark, no thats not it either - close though..., 3DMARK 2003, when futuremark refused to consider benchmark optimizations nVidia put forward in the development stages.

nVidia then publically stated that 3DMARK 2003 was a flawed benchmark that could easily be optimized and they proved it.

It would seem Futuremark finally agrees with them.

I wonder if ATi's "membership subscriptions" have made up in any way for the damage Futuremark have inflicted upon themselves?
 

ultimatebob

Lifer
Jul 1, 2001
25,134
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Originally posted by: NFS4
FutureMark has absolutely NO credibility now in my books. They can't even stand up for themselves.

More importantly, I won't be trusting ANY benchmarks that are produced with Nvidia's "application optimized" drivers. Nvidia's credibility is even more screwed than FutureMark's is at the moment.
 

GTaudiophile

Lifer
Oct 24, 2000
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Originally posted by: ultimatebob
Originally posted by: NFS4
FutureMark has absolutely NO credibility now in my books. They can't even stand up for themselves.

More importantly, I won't be trusting ANY benchmarks that are produced with Nvidia's "application optimized" drivers. Nvidia's credibility is even more screwed than FutureMark's is at the moment.

Exactly. This fiasco just tells me that without these special FX drivers, the 5900 Ultra can't compete with ATi's offerings. R3XX core pwns.
 
Jan 31, 2002
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Great. A whole new generation of mudslinging. :p

/bookmarks this thread for the many many times he's going to have to yell REPOST in the Video forum

- M4H
 

Chobits

Senior member
May 12, 2003
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Originally posted by: Gstanfor
nVidia originally withdrew their membership and support for BRIBEmark, whoops, thats not the name..., err, QUAKmark, no thats not it either - close though..., 3DMARK 2003, when futuremark refused to consider benchmark optimizations nVidia put forward in the development stages.

nVidia then publically stated that 3DMARK 2003 was a flawed benchmark that could easily be optimized and they proved it.

It would seem Futuremark finally agrees with them.

I wonder if ATi's "membership subscriptions" have made up in any way for the damage Futuremark have inflicted upon themselves?

Wait...so you are telling me it is their fault to refuse to add in Nvidia's cheats to make the 5900FX run faster? Okay....

Sounds to me that nVidia is the one that is making futuremark look worse than it is. Though if I ever do buy another card ( I will need a compelling reason to throw away my Geforcemx420ddr) looks like it'll be ATI
 

DaveSimmons

Elite Member
Aug 12, 2001
40,730
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Futuremark now has a deeper understanding of the situation and NVIDIA's optimization strategy. In the light of this, Futuremark now states that NVIDIA's driver design is an application specific optimization and not a cheat.. .
This is such an obvious and shameless lie that it's amazing they can bear to speak it. Sadly, the general public doesn't know enough about software development to see it for the bought-and-paid-for lie it is.

Inserting clipping planes tied to one specific camera path is so far from a legitimate optimization that only the small-brained technical writers at ZDent/CNet could fail to see it as an obvious cheat.

Sad, pathetic and disgusting behavior by both Futuremark and nvidia.
 

GTaudiophile

Lifer
Oct 24, 2000
29,767
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You all should read this very heated thread over at Rage3D.com! The Rage3D members are having a field day with Kyle from HardOCP (frgmstr).

CATALYST maker (a software/driver developer for ATi) had this to say:


OK time to get in the fun.

ITS CM TIME!!!!

First of all as a favor to me, leave Kyle and Brent out of this. This has nothing to do with them. Period

Secondly I am a little upset tonight so I wont say much until tomorrow.

Third I guarantee you that I will ask for an investigation for optimized drivers tomorrow such that has never happened in ATI's history. I am prepared to put a hold on all new features I have in the pipeline so our top engineers can see how much we can optmize by not rendering the whole scene. I am guessing we can gain 25% at this point.

Fourth I am not commiting to do these optimizations ever in a released driver but I think its time for apples to apples comparison.


Fifth I am sorry to hear you (the end consumers) so dissapointed in the state of the industry. I feel for you.

Sixth, you all have my personal guarantee that if you continue to support ATI the way you have so far, I will always be here to help out and be one of the boyz on the forums. (I hope that means something to at least some of you)]

Have a good night everyone and lets talk more tomorrow
Terry

 

DaveSimmons

Elite Member
Aug 12, 2001
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Originally posted by: Harabecw
Do the GF-FX's do this kind of optimization in games or just 3dmark?
They might, but if so some of the cheats would be tied to specific timedemos / fixed runs of the game, and would not speed up the game when really playing it.

Also some cheats like the clipping planes would completely mess up the image as soon as you tried to play (big chunks of the landscape would be sliced away to save time in creating the image).

And their shader cheats would speed up the game but do so by turning down image quality and ignoring the image-quality settings of the game itself. This is what ATI did with their "quack" cheat.
 

Harabecw

Senior member
Apr 28, 2003
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Ah, thanks, that's what I wanted to know.
For me it doesn't matter. If I can run a game like Raven Shield online with X4AA/X16AF with no stuttering whatsoever to me its a good card :)
I suppose the 5900 Ultra would be the same.