Nvidia does not endorse 3Dmark2003

[Rand]

Originally posted by: StattlichPassat

...or the market of people like me who could care less about benchmarks or gaming and just want a great video card with top notch driver support for the business environment. I doubt I'll never need the pixel crunching power of a GF4 Ti4600. If I do, that's what Quaddros and Wildcats are for.

Pixel crunching and WildCat definitely don't belong in the same sentence. If pixel pushing is your goal then even the GF2 GTS is a veritable monster compared to 3DLabs WildCat 4 6210, which is their highest priced product.
Pro3D cards are generally regarded as being extremely powerful when rendering multiple light sources with very complex texturing.
For pure pixel pushing, and relatively simplistic bump mapping, modern gaming cards are generally much better suited.

 

[NOX]

I agree with Nvidia, however I question the timing of their statement. I?m sure if it were 2 years ago it would be a different story.

 

[tRaptor]

Originally posted by: StattlichPassat
Btw, I'm downloading it for eye-candy. I don't care what the numbers are.

HELL YEAH!

My Radeon 7500 dosent do crap for me, even on 01

I am always sitting watching nature on my friends system. I have 03 D/L but i need to wait till tomorrow to really see it!

 

[EdipisReks]

good lord this board has become a fanboi heaven.

 

[apoppin]

From NV News

Good morning. As most of you know, Futuremark released the latest version of their popular benchmarking software 3DMark03 yesterday, which contains the slogan "The Gamers Benchmark."
On the eve of the 3DMark03 launch, I was in a conference call with NVIDIA's Public Relations Director Brian Burke and Mark Daly, Director of Technical Marketing. I met Mark at NVIDIA headquarters a couple of years ago while attending the pre-launch of the GeForce3. There's no question that Mark's credentials in 3D graphics technology are impeccable as he was responsible for demonstrating the features of NVIDIA's leading-edge graphics hardware by developing interactive technical demos.

Now that you've had a chance to read the various 3DMark03 reviews, you probably noticed references to NVIDIA, which on the surface appear to totally discredit 3DMark03. Let me assure you that this was not the impression I had based on my conference call. Mark brought up key points that NVIDIA has questioned in regards to the game tests and the methods that were used to program specific graphics effects.

Brian Burke expressed an on-going concern with synthetic benchmarks, which has plagued NVIDIA, as well as others in the graphics industry. His concern centers around the amount of time and effort the driver development staff spends on optimizing performance for 3DMark when in reality the optimizations don't affect the performance of the games we play. Brian even presented me with a series of drivers yesterday as each new version increased my 3DMark03 score, but had no noticeable effect on my game play in Unreal Tournament 2003.

And that's where the issue lies. NVIDIA feels that 3DMark03 misrepresents the gaming experience and takes exception with 3DMark being referred to as "The Gamers Benchmark." Having looked over various reviews I've written, you see that I've always looked at 3DMark for what it represents.

GeForce4 Ti 4600 Preview - Keep in mind that you don't play 3DMark2001 - it's a synthetic benchmark and should be treated as such.

GeForce3 Ti Preview - Although it's referred to as a synthetic benchmark, the battery of tests in 3DMark2001 contains a variety of state-of-the-art simulations.

GeForce3 Preview - The overall 3DMark2001 score is derived from the four game tests which simulate processing that may be used in future games.
Those of you who've been long time visitors to nV News have seen my graphics card reviews take on a new direction by emphasizing game play. I receive e-mail from visitors who've come to trust my judgment and have purchased NVIDIA-based products based on my game play analysis. It's ironic that the reason my 3DMark03 article wasn't ready is because I'm working on a new section at the site that will provide my game play experiences using popular games. After all, that's the real reason we buy graphics cards, right?

 

[thorin]

Originally posted by: Adul

Originally posted by: majewski9
I dont know if Nvidia will ever be on top again!!!

never underestimate a wounded prey

I completely agree Adul everyone is starting to make that mistake now since nVidia is roughly equal with ATi in performance but ahead of them on the manufacturing front, I'd say they're slightly down but definately not out.

Thorin

 

[Chad]

Kyle is the one who made the decision not to use it, even though Kyle used 3dMark 2001se authoritatively. Kyle is a duchebag IMO. That insulting enough?

 

[CraigRT]

Originally posted by: GTaudiophile
They'll say that until they beat ATi in every benchmark again...then rapidly promote it.

yeah for sure..........

 

[WyteWatt]

I don't care who wins or loses. I just want faster video cards, faster FSAA and AF, and picture quality to improve more! It would be really cool if the battle with ati vs nvidia get so cool that both companys release a new faster video card every 2 months but i know that won't happen. It just would be cool to have video cards get faster so fast.

 

[merlocka]

Although nVidia might be using this sentiment as PR and/spin as a result of NV30's lack of performance, but I agree with the sentiment 100%

It takes too much time from these developers to optimize for 3dMark and other synthetic benchmarks.

Just realize, that if the "technical community" had no interest in 3dMark, those optimizations could have gone into games like UT2003 or others.

 

[Davegod]

Originally posted by: EdipisReks
good lord this board has become a fanboi heaven.

 

[apoppin]

Futuremark Replies (to nVidia's Criticism)

In what is no doubt a reponse to NVIDIA's recent criticism, Futuremark has issued the following statement:

The interest in the recent 3DMark03 release has been phenomenal. We see the active discussion being a testimony to the importance of having neutral performance assessment tools available to independent media and consumers. In light of the interest, we feel that it is important to re-iterate the design process of 3DMark03 and other our products.

Our role as a benchmark developer is based on the fact that the computer industry and consumers need independent and neutral performance metrics. These tools should become publicly available as soon as new technologies arrive, in order to enable true apples-to-apples comparisons. They also should be easy to use that consumers themselves can run them to verify the results.

All Futuremark benchmark products are built in co-operation with our Beta Program partners, which consist of the major technology manufacturers (detailed information of the Beta Program is available here). In order to make sure that all new technologies are measured in a correct and impartial manner, we work with all beta members who have equal access and opportunity for participating in the benchmark development.

A white paper is available that describes 3DMark03 in technical detail. It describes what is being measured, how it is measured and why. 3DMark03 is an accurate tool for analyzing the performance of current generation 3D accelerators. The white paper is publicly available for download from our website.

We will continue to support the previous product, 3DMark2001, as a solid measurement tool for benchmarking the previous generations of 3D accelerators.

3DMark03, as well as all other Futuremark benchmarks, are developed with uncompromising integrity and do not favor or discredit any particular manufacturer. We will gather all comments, concerns from all of our constituents worldwide. We will address all issues and/or concerns in the weeks and months ahead.

 

[Mallow]

nVida gets owned by ATI in that benchmark all the time.

 

[codehack2]

Originally posted by: Chad
Kyle is the one who made the decision not to use it, even though Kyle used 3dMark 2001se authoritatively. Kyle is a duchebag IMO. That insulting enough?

Yep, and insightful too... you convinced me to never trust anything that comes from HardOCP.com again.

CH2

 

[SOSTrooper]

Originally posted by: Dacalo

Originally posted by: GTaudiophile
They'll say that until they beat ATi in every benchmark again...then rapidly promote it.

ditto, now that radeon 9700 pro is destroying their flagship, they need some lame excuese

Sad for nVidia indeed.

 

[jbond04]

Originally posted by: DillonStorm
Exuse me, but the GFFX *Barely* beats the 9700, and actually does it by winning 2 of the 4 scoring tests by 5 fps or less...

Can we please remember that the GFFX is an overclocked overheating monstrocity with a 175mhz clock advatage??? Go look at the Fururemark leaderboard. 9700's are already crossing the 6000 mark, 1000 points faster than the GFFX. And the funny thing is those 9700's are still slower than the FX ultra by 100mhz.

Like the clock speed advantage matters? If it can hit 500MHz, and that's what it takes to beat the competition, then that's what it takes. It shouldn't matter how fast or slow a graphics core runs...as long as it provides the performance. For more information, see Athlon XP vs. Pentium 4. Now, please tell me that the P4 is an "overclocked monstrosity" with a 900MHz speed advantage. Please, stop spewing senseless "arguments" around here...

But I digress...having read the arguments from both sides, I'm gonna have to say that I agree with nVIDIA. If 3DMark03 really wants to become the gamer's benchmark, I think it needs to represent the state of current or future games. Apparently, this isn't the case...3DMark03 is pretty for sure, but I can't think of why it's a justified benchmark any more than Sandra's CPU benchmark is a "benchmark", since neither will provide a good indicator of real-world performance. I think the licensing of a 3D engine (like Unreal Warfare) would have gotten them a lot farther...

 

[chizow]

Its a broken benchmark, I don't blame them for not endorsing it.

If they marketed 3dmark2k3 as "The Vaporware's Benchmark" it'd be great, or maybe the "The Eye-Candy Benchmark of features that aren't and won't ever be implemented in games Benchmark" than maybe it would live up to its namesake. Considering most here don't have the hardware to replicate the benchmarks and conclusions from various sites makes me wonder how they can question them.

Chiz

 

[codehack2]

Originally posted by: chizow
Its a broken benchmark, I don't blame them for not endorsing it.

If they marketed 3dmark2k3 as "The Vaporware's Benchmark" it'd be great, or maybe the "The Eye-Candy Benchmark of features that aren't and won't ever be implemented in games Benchmark" than maybe it would live up to its namesake. Considering most here don't have the hardware to replicate the benchmarks and conclusions from various sites makes me wonder how they can question them.

Chiz

I agree whole heartedly...

3dmark03 reminds me of the girl I took out last weekend.... Fun to look at but not much use beyond that.

CH2

 

[Uclagamer_99]

are sales of the radeon 9700 even that great? i hear you guys talking about how nvidia is down now...but i'm pretty sure market share hasn't changed THAT much since the introduction of the RV300

just like to see some statistics that's all, haven't seen a game out there yet that would require EITHER of these cards