Riva3d.com on NVIDIA PR tactics

[Huma]

Not giving someone a board is one thing, but pressuring for certain content is another. AMK computers has supplied me with gear for review, and they've made it clear that whatever I think is what goes on my site. No pressures about good press or bad press, just gear.

That's the way it should be.

 

[zsir]

<< GQ - I am somewhat surprised that all the regular posters here that reference &quot;poor&quot; PR in their signatures have not commented on this subject. In general, there are less and less people here who like 3dfx cards. That partially is due to NVIDIA trumping 3dfx in specs for the past 6 months or so, but it is also due to the extreme negative reception that any post that says anything good about a card other than a 3dfx card. Many of the anti-3dfx posters have been using professional, disruptive tactics to break up threads and discussions >>



Are you kidding?

If this were the other way around this topic would be 300 replies long with nivda fans posting there &quot;I told you so&quot; and bashing 3dfx...

 

[Pete]

rickn, I don't mean to be harsh, but everything you've posted is too quick to defend nVidia and even quicker to insult everyone else. What on earth did BoomGames do wrong by calling Intel for CPU samples? He had to give them a reason why they'd need samples, and getting to review nVidia's cards is a pretty good one. When Intel checked to confirm what BoomGames said was right (they have to be sure before they send out hundreds of dollars in equipment), it seems to me nVidia acted like childish pricks. Honestly, if Perez actually said what he did of Tim Chambers, what kind of a person does that make him out to be? What the heck does it matte if you're reviewing another product? Of course, I can see why nVidia would be wary of PowerVR, as they're about to use tile rendering of some sort in the NV20, so the less you hear of a competitor touting a feature they don't have, the better. nVidia might have a great product, but they're very slick withtheir marketing, to the point of lying (ie, they don't have true trilinear and their &quot;FSAA&quot; cuts out if the performance is too low). I don't go to sleep at night thinking lovingly of 3dfx, but I have found their marketing and product to be more substance than flash, which is more than I can say of nVidia. I know the purpose of marketing is to say your cards are better than everyone else's, but as an intelligent person, i hate being lied to. Read a couple of nVidia interviews, the realize that while I respect their product, I don't respect their PR department. And this whole issue is whether the PR department is more respectable than the owners of smaller sites.

The reason you don't see large sites &quot;whine&quot; is just because they are more corporation than hobbist. That's the reason I read Anand, not Gamespot or any mags on hardware, though the recent omission of 3dfx cards from the BX board OCing roundup is suspicious. I think Anand makes enough money right now off this site (from my vague recollection) to start buying products off the shelf rather than solely relying on samples, as a question I often have is whether or not that sample he's using has been specifically tweaked to overclock better than most retail cards. I'm not accusing him of anything, I just think he could be a little more proactive in seeing things through the average buyer's eyes, and settle a few worries as well. Sure, the sample is his only means of getting early info out on an upcoming part, but a roundup is a perfect time to double-verify results.

Alright, I got carried away with a lot of this, but I'm too lazy to go back and smooth over the more pointed parts.

 

[WoundedWallet]

I have to say that Pete's post scores a point.

rickn's words - &quot;The way I see it, it is a disgruntled individual pissed off because 1. his co-worker got the Geforce 2, and 2. He didn't get first review on MX. BooHoo&quot; - seems to come straight from the PR office of a big company.

They always use the digruntled excuse when there is no other way to refute an accusation. If I worked for 3dfx I would think that rickn works for NVidia's PR.

Do you rickn?

 

[area51]

Hehe what a bad move on their PR department's part. After all, Nvidia is the master of marketing BS. Think about, how many 3dfx &quot;fan&quot; sites you see? Then think about all the nvidia &quot;fan&quot; sites out there. You gotta love how their PR can sucker people into making &quot;fan&quot; sites which basically equates into dirtcheap free advertising for them. Then with these &quot;fan&quot; sites, they get tons of Nvidiangelists. Whats more amazing is that until the geforce none of their products truly delivered. I really can't think of one TNT, TNT2, TNT2 Ultra card where the fill rate was plastered on the box as a major selling point. Nvidia had a series of broken promises if you think about it, remember everyone, the TNT IS THE VOODOO2 SLI KILLER!!!! With a whooping 125mhz core/mem, that got downgraded to 90mhz, WHAT A GREAT V2 KILLER! The Geforce DDR is one kick ass video card, but the geforce2 is total BS. If anyone says the Geforce2 will kick the <insert card> ass because it has 1.6 gigatexel fillrate, they need to STFU cause all they know is marketing BS. 3dfx on the otherhand has its own problems, its PR department has been crap, they don't understand how to utilize the community, and when they finally get a good PR department, their engineering department turns into crap. Stop the Nvidia worshipping, and go get a life people. Its suprising, how after their favorite company use strong arm tactics and try to screw the community over, people in the community try to actually defend Nvidia. If you look at the Nvidia &quot;fan&quot; sites, quite a lot of them have gone on silent about this. Gotta love those strong arm tactics and false promises that people like so much eh?

 

[Czar]

area51

Junior, the GeForce2 has 1.6 gigatexel fillrate, nVidia is not bullsh&iacute;tting anyone, its just that the chip can do that much fillrate processing but the memmory bandwith doesnt allow it. So technicly they are not lieing, just bending the truth a bit

But I agree for the most part, every company in this industry should just fire their PR department and let tech geeks handle the &quot;let the people know&quot; part.

 

[slacker2]

I've read Riva3d's review and it's one of the few that doesn't make the V5 look like complete junk. Hmm...

 

[Cpntrips]

Typical Anandtech Forum reaction to negative Nvidia news. I swear they could be selling a pile of sh@t and most of you would justify their actions.

 

[Sunner]

Area51, the TNT was an extremely successful OEM product, as was the TNT2.
The TNT2-Ultra was also the fastest card at the time, along with the V3, but the TNT2 had 32 bit color etc, unlike the V3.
nVidia has executed so much better than its competitors since the TNT-1, thats why they're in the position they're in today.

As for this whole mess, it seems like they screwed up if they did indeed threaten Ross(indirectly or not), though it would be noce to actually have some facts.

As for the stuff that was posted about the conversation with Derek Perez when he supposedly said &quot;The bastard&quot; etc, that soudns like bull$hit to me, noone on this earth would be stupid enough to say something like that on the phone, when you're in such a position.

 

[Pete]

Sunner wrote:
&quot;As for the stuff that was posted about the conversation with Derek Perez when he supposedly said &quot;The bastard&quot; etc, that soudns like bull$hit to me, noone on this earth would be stupid enough to say something like that on the phone, when you're in such a position.&quot;

LOL
Seriously, one good quote deserves another:

&quot;Think how stupid the average person is. Then realise that 50% of people are dumber than that.&quot; - George Carlin (I think)

 

[Sunner]

Hehe, yeah thats true, but hopefully the dumber people in the world wont ever make any decently high position so they can spread their stupidity to others

 

[BenSkywalker]

Perez is a mean a$$ SOB, and always has been.

I feel that I should start with that disclaimer before addressing the rest of this. He is to nVidia what Bubba is to 3dfx, except he doesn't make a point of insulting consumers in public places

What I read at Riva3D seemed more like a guilt complex issue then anything else. We have heard things like this in the past from other sites, Rev's pops quickly to mind, with &quot;unspoken threats&quot;, and nothing, nothing at all, has come of it with the possible exception of what BoomGames stated which I have some thoughts on in a little bit.

The Rev just published one of the largest and most in depth reviews of the GF2, though over and over he harped on the GF2's weakest points, as he focused on the V5's strongest points in his review of that product(which was when the last nV PR debacle started). He talked of what amounted to &quot;unspoken threats&quot; stating something along the lines of the company was &quot;afraid&quot; of sending him a board. Nothing came of it, he got the board and posted a very good review. I bring up his focusing on the negatives as he was critical of the board, moreso then any of the other sites who tended to focus on performance for the GF2 and FSAA for the V5. Nothing wrong with either of those things, and Rev clearly did cover the positive aspects, the point? We have heard about these threats before, nothing has come of them yet.

BoomGames and PowerVR- This sounds like complete BS. Sorry if I offend anyone, but does anyone honestly think that nVidia could care about a low end accelerator utilizing a technology that has an established record of being problematic? The Kyro sounds like it has addressed all the issues, but it still is a low to mid end offering posing no threat whatsoever to nVidia. The new technology that was mentioned as being in the NV20 most likely will not be tiling but something completely different, just ending up with similar results.

BoomGames isn't a major site, again nothing against them they just are not a major site. With the amount of hits they generate do they warrant a board from everyone on top of the latest CPUs from Intel? We don't know exactly what was entailed in those conversations, and what was stated between the person from BoomGames and Intel but I have had interactions with several of the people over there and can tell you that they do tend to talk a bit much at times, saying things when in certain moods that they probably shouldn't have. Nothing against that at all, we are all human, but the first thing that pops into my head is what exactly did they say to Intel to make them call nVidia? Think about it, why would they? Some Intel/nVidia conspiracy??? If anything, given the state of 3DNow! support I would say that it is 3dfx and Intel involved in a conspiracy but I don't honestly think that, it just isn't logical to assume that they are too &quot;tight&quot; given the amount of driver tuning that AMD has benefited from nVidia.

Do I think nVidia's PR pulls BS time and time again, of course they do as does AMD and Intel and in their glory years 3dfx though they aren't in any sort of position to do so now. These instances are extremely vague at best, and so far with the exception of claims by BoomGames not one thing has happened, and we don't know even two sides of this three sided story.

Anand not using 3dfx boards in his 133MHZ BX article- Did anyone ever stop and consider that they may not have worked? Would you rather have Anand bash 3dfx for not having an acceptable part when we all know that two &quot;identical&quot; boards will often take different AGP speeds? I assure you that nVidia's PR department does do underhanded things, but the talk in this thread seems to be more along the lines of the second gunman on the grassy knoll.

 

[Michael]

BenSkywalker - In all honesty, the reasons given for the lack of 3dfx cards in the BX overclock line-up (see the Articles forum) were on the line of &quot;the dog ate my homework&quot;. I'm perfectly willing to concede that it just was a snafu, but it isn't the only one recently.

I still find it surprising that when there's a 3dfx &quot;PR&quot; issue, members of his board will even jump onto different sites to post their outrage while there is little or no reaction or even defense of what was done when NVIDIA is involved. I also think that if anyone believes that there is no pressure on sites that accept free hardware, invitations to parties, and other perks, then they are being naive.

As for the Reverend review, I thought it was the very first one that took the time to show the benefit of the GF2 T&amp;L. The MDK2 shots and discussion clearly show the possibilities that are coming and the discusion also pointed out that the V5 could do the lighting but at a much bigger hit. I simply found it a more balanced article where he didn't think that one card was the overwhelming winner. I rank it much better than many other reviews I've read.

Michael

 

[BenSkywalker]

Michael-

&quot;In all honesty, the reasons given for the lack of 3dfx cards in the BX overclock line-up (see the Articles forum) were on the line of &quot;the dog ate my homework&quot;. I'm perfectly willing to concede that it just was a snafu, but it isn't the only one recently.&quot;

I agree, I just think that the whole conspiracy theory here is out of place.

&quot;I still find it surprising that when there's a 3dfx &quot;PR&quot; issue, members of his board will even jump onto different sites to post their outrage while there is little or no reaction or even defense of what was done when NVIDIA is involved.&quot;

This makes 40 posts, and still growing I think in all honesty a few factors effect this, one is that 3dfx was running off to everyone to bash the GF/GF2 because their product was late, in public interviews and in some cases flaming people for stating the truth($4 an hour idiots). nVidia OTOH, handles things just like every other company, keeping things behind closed doors(if you people don't think this is common practice:Q). What have they done exactly? Someone read something into what wasn't being said, compared to 3dfx who openly insults teenagers trying to earn a few dollars. Big difference. It seems that 3dfx wants to be &quot;in your face&quot; while nVidia is rather layed back, that makes a big difference in people's perception of things. I know, and I assume you do also as you seem to be quite informed, who Perez is to nVidia and what his job is, and why there is no chance he will be fired(probably a bonus instead) over things of this nature. Most people don't, but they sure know who Bubba is.

&quot;As for the Reverend review, I thought it was the very first one that took the time to show the benefit of the GF2 T&amp;L.&quot;

The FSAA comments, that he harped on and improperly marked in his charts was my big gripe, but Rev is a gamer, and I'm sure that he honestly believes what he is saying. The technical superiority issue is what bothers me, there are very real reasons why RGSS is not superior. If he didn't make those comments and stated that he felt that the V5 had much better FSAA that would be one thing, it is not on a technical basis superior. That aside, I did think it was an excellent review as is the norm from Rev, no matter what he is reviewing.

 

[Scorpion]

&quot;I still find it surprising that when there's a 3dfx &quot;PR&quot; issue, members of his board will even jump onto different sites to post their outrage while there is little or no reaction or even defense of what was done when NVIDIA is involved.&quot;

The reason for that is because whenever 3dfx screws up it's usually straight from the Mule's Mouth. There for everyone to read, in context, straight from the PR department.

Now in this instance, which is only one of a very few I've heard about bad nVidia PR, this is all on a few comments by a few people with nothing but opinions and speculations really. There isn't any hard evidence that shows nVidia saying this or doing this.

That's the difference.

I have to agree with what Ben said. An Intel/nVidia conspiracy doesn't make any sense. That's almost like saying there is an AMD and Creative conspiracy. &quot;Live's work better on AMD systems!&quot; Please don't make me laugh. That's why I think the guy that made that comment is full of it.

Another thing is I see a lot of people saying things like this:

&quot;Typical Anandtech Forum reaction to negative Nvidia news. I swear they could be selling a pile of sh@t and most of you would justify their actions.&quot;

Isn't that exactly what everyone who's made a comment like that is doing? No, you're not buying nVidia's pile of sh!t. You're buying someone else's. Someone makes a commment, and you believe it fully. If you're going to condem people for believing everything they read, don't be a hypocrite about it.

 

[Michael]

Seems like Riva3d and NVIDIA have kissed and made up (http://www.riva3d.com).

BenSkywalker - I liked The Reverend's V5 and GF2 reviews because he did make an extra effort to show with appropriate screenshots what he liked about both cards. I thought that the animated gif with FSAA/no-FSAA is a great way of showing what a difference it makes. I also thought that the MDK2 shots helped to show how the T&amp;L unit in the GF series can make the graphics better.

It's his opinion that 3dfx's FSAA is better, but it is clear that he really liked the GF2 card as well. I hate to read one-sided reviews where one product is made out to be the best with no questions and all others are not even close. Websites want hits and I expect a certain amount of hype, but I like more detailed reviews.

Michael