Sony being sued for removing features, nVidia question

[BenSkywalker]

I honestly don't know the answer to this, but do the PPUs work in Win7 at all atm? Last I was aware they didn't work with nV GPUs either.

 

[Skurge]

On the box or wherever, does nV state that their product will stop functioning if a non-nV primary display adapter is detected? If it doesn't, then I think a lawsuit would be pretty open and shut.

 

[BenSkywalker]

On the box or wherever, does nV state that their product will stop functioning if a non-nV primary display adapter is detected? If it doesn't, then I think a lawsuit would be pretty open and shut.

ATi's AIW line didn't work when you didn't have it as the primary display adaptor either, and it never made mention of it not working under such a situation on the box. Doesn't come remotely close to winning you a law suit. Unlike the Sony case, your nV card will work as a PhysX card as soon as it is returned to being the primary display solution. For the Sony suit to be comparable it would be like them removing support for 360 controllers if they worked at some point.

 

[Skurge]

The thing is, nV advertise that the card can be used as a Physx card, weather its the primary display adapter or not. But the argument would be that they went to the trouble of disabling it in the 1st place. Why would they do that to Geforce and ageia users?

 

[Attic]

ATi's AIW line didn't work when you didn't have it as the primary display adaptor either, and it never made mention of it not working under such a situation on the box. Doesn't come remotely close to winning you a law suit. Unlike the Sony case, your nV card will work as a PhysX card as soon as it is returned to being the primary display solution. For the Sony suit to be comparable it would be like them removing support for 360 controllers if they worked at some point.

FTR, I don't see any correlation with ATI's AIW. Completely different scenario.

As to the bolded part: This is a mirror of the situation with nVidia and Physx accleration. Initially GPU physx with an nVidia card worked with an AMD card as primary display driver, then nVidia removed support for this after it did indeed work at some point. To be explicit, it worked up until the point when nVidia decided to remove support.



I don't have a hard time understanding why people would be upset by this. As far as lawsuit over it goes, i'd say that's the last thing i'd consider.

 

[railven]

ATi's AIW line didn't work when you didn't have it as the primary display adaptor either, and it never made mention of it not working under such a situation on the box. Doesn't come remotely close to winning you a law suit. Unlike the Sony case, your nV card will work as a PhysX card as soon as it is returned to being the primary display solution. For the Sony suit to be comparable it would be like them removing support for 360 controllers if they worked at some point.

I'm not sure if they changed it down the road, but I use to use my AIW Radeon VE (PCI version) in conjuction with my Radeon 9700 Pro as my primary display adapter.

I kept the setup up until I just figured I'd get an all in one (performance+AIW) and just picked up a Radeon AIW X800 XT.

I'd use the PCI card to capture and display analog video all the time. Since I owned a 27" (800x600) TV-Monitor, I just fed it my TV signal so I could watch TV while I did other stuff on my primary display.

In fact my first OEM computer was a Gateway Destination XTV (where I got that 27" TV) and the primary GPU was a Voodoo 2 AGP, and the secondary card was an ATI AIW Radeon (can't remember if it was the Pro or reg) as a PCI card.

I still have it I think...but unlike other cards (least I've never seen one like this again) it had a VGA in and VGA out. The Voodoo's out would hook up to the Radeon's VGA in and the Radeon's Out would go to the monitor.

 

[HendrixFan]

FTR, I don't see any correlation with ATI's AIW. Completely different scenario.

As to the bolded part: This is a mirror of the situation with nVidia and Physx accleration. Initially GPU physx with an nVidia card worked with an AMD card as primary display driver, then nVidia removed support for this after it did indeed work at some point. To be explicit, it worked up until the point when nVidia decided to remove support.



I don't have a hard time understanding why people would be upset by this. As far as lawsuit over it goes, i'd say that's the last thing i'd consider.

nVidia didn't remove support, they intentionally disabled it. There is a huge difference between them saying they aren't going to put time and effort into supporting a configuration and willfully and intentionally shutting down their product in certain configurations. There is no hardware limitation in place.

 

[Martimus]

For the Sony suit to be comparable it would be like them removing support for 360 controllers if they worked at some point.

I don't see that analogy at all. Maybe if they stopped supporting non-Sony TV's, then it would equate. Either way, I don't see what the need for analogies is. This is an interesting case for a class action suit though. If anyone wants to start one, forward your complaint to Green Welling LLP at gw@classcounsel.com, http://www.classcounsel.com/ and see if they want to take it on.

 

[SlowSpyder]

ATi's AIW line didn't work when you didn't have it as the primary display adaptor either, and it never made mention of it not working under such a situation on the box. Doesn't come remotely close to winning you a law suit. Unlike the Sony case, your nV card will work as a PhysX card as soon as it is returned to being the primary display solution. For the Sony suit to be comparable it would be like them removing support for 360 controllers if they worked at some point.

I never used an AIW card, but I figured I'd look into what you are saying.

http://ec1.images-amazon.com/media/i3d/01/A/man-migrate/MANUAL000039021.pdf

Page 23, ATI clearly states to enable the multimedia functions the AIW must be the primary display controller. I assume this information was available at the time, though I don't know how readily displayed it was (on the box in the fine writing, the manual, etc.) I also grabbed the first one I found, I haven't looked at every model AIW in existence, but judging by the 9600 it was indeed notated.

I think that makes your AIW comparrison invalid. That information was available before you bought the part. Or at the very least, if you bought an AIW then found out that it wouldn't do what you want you could return it.

That is a completely different situation than someone who bought an Aegia PPU or GeForce for Physx to work with their primary AMD card. Nvidia took your money happily, then they took away the capabilities they advertised (without the no-AMD primary card information). Nvidia changed the system requirements after the fact. It's obviously an artificial limitation, they could have left that configuration unsupported.

 

[railven]

I never used an AIW card, but I figured I'd look into what you are saying.

http://ec1.images-amazon.com/media/i3d/01/A/man-migrate/MANUAL000039021.pdf

Page 23, ATI clearly states to enable the multimedia functions the AIW must be the primary display controller. I assume this information was available at the time, though I don't know how readily displayed it was (on the box in the fine writing, the manual, etc.) I also grabbed the first one I found, I haven't looked at every model AIW in existence, but judging by the 9600 it was indeed notated.

I think that makes your AIW comparrison invalid. That information was available before you bought the part. Or at the very least, if you bought an AIW then found out that it wouldn't do what you want you could return it.

That is a completely different situation than someone who bought an Aegia PPU or GeForce for Physx to work with their primary AMD card. Nvidia took your money happily, then they took away the capabilities they advertised (without the no-AMD primary card information). Nvidia changed the system requirements after the fact. It's obviously an artificial limitation, they could have left that configuration unsupported.

I think this is a bad example for the All-In-Wonder series. The 9600 Pro version was only available in AGP flavor, and I don't think there were any dual AGP boards back in the day.

The manual also says "

For correct operation of your card’s multimedia features, the
ALL-IN-WONDER 9600 PRO card must be your computer’s​

primary graphics card." Which is vague. Going to page 15 as it suggest on that page it only states for multiple display support the card has to be set as primary, which is a function, thus I guess to cover their asses they have to say what they said in page 23.

I'm going to look up a PCI version and see what it says. I clearly remember using my PC AIW as my capture card for a long time.

 

[Qbah]

Could you use the AIW 9600Pro's tuner capability, when you had a Radeon 7200 PCI in the computer too and it was hooked as your primary card? Based on the description you couldn't. As the AIW card needs to be primary for the tuner to work at all. Hence it's a different scenario.

For nVidia, your 8800GT can work as a PhysX card when you have another nVidia card in the system doing the 3D. You could use the same 8800GT as a PhysX card with an AMD main card, before nVidia locked it out. It worked fine - it still does, you just need hacked drivers.

However, I personally don't care. If nVidia won't let me use their products, I won't buy their products. It's as simple as that.

 

[SlowSpyder]

I think this is a bad example for the All-In-Wonder series. The 9600 Pro version was only available in AGP flavor, and I don't think there were any dual AGP boards back in the day.

The manual also says "

For correct operation of your card’s multimedia features, the
ALL-IN-WONDER 9600 PRO card must be your computer’s​

primary graphics card." Which is vague. Going to page 15 as it suggest on that page it only states for multiple display support the card has to be set as primary, which is a function, thus I guess to cover their asses they have to say what they said in page 23.

I'm going to look up a PCI version and see what it says. I clearly remember using my PC AIW as my capture card for a long time.

But the point I'm trying to make is that ATI did notate that for the AIW features to work properly it had to be the primary card. The information is available for a potential customer of an AIW.

Nvidia never mentioned that you can only use Nvidia hardware, no AMD card can be present. They sold the part, took their customers money, than placed an artificial limitation to block functionality that they advertised their part as capable to do.

In Ben's example, which is flawed in my opinion, ATI sold the part with that information clearly available... that the card has to be the primary rendering part.

Again, this would be like AMD removing the Radeon's HTPC abilities if it detects an Intel chipset/CPU in an upcoming driver release. Is this the direction we really want the PC hardware world to go? Every time a driver for a piece of hardware detects a competitor's part it disables some of it's own functionality in an atempt to make you buy only that manufacturer's parts? My Logitech keyboard detects my MS mouse and disables functionality until I buy a Logitech mouse? My MSI motherboard disables on-board sound when it detects my Sapphire video card in an attempt to get me to use only MSI video cards? I just can't believe that their are posters who defend this type of action on Nvidia's part. It very well may be legal, I don't know. But it's not good for the PC gaming world.

 

[Madcatatlas]

This is highly newsworthy in my opinion. If this issue, which does irritate some, even if its not many now, gets some coverage, we can already now stop stuff like this happening in the future.

my plea to tech newssites, like Anandtech, is that stuff like this gets covered in all aspects, also with the "accused" parts explanation/story.

Do we want technology to head in this direction? one cancels out the other when they clearly can coexist to provide the customer the better deal.

Arent the products for us? Arent these companies living of us?

Anandtech is for us, as Anand said. Id like this to get some coverage in light of the information that is known to most of us.

 

[BenSkywalker]

In Ben's example, which is flawed in my opinion, ATI sold the part with that information clearly available... that the card has to be the primary rendering part.

On the box or wherever, does nV state that their product will stop functioning if a non-nV primary display adapter is detected? If it doesn't, then I think a lawsuit would be pretty open and shut.

ATi's AIW line didn't work when you didn't have it as the primary display adaptor either, and it never made mention of it not working under such a situation on the box.

So are you saying that they are fine not to support it when it doesn't say it on the box or not?

 

[VirtualLarry]

If nVidia won't let me use their products, I won't buy their products. It's as simple as that.

Amen. Just say no to nv.

 

[darckhart]

VirtualLarry pretty much says all I want to say. =)

upset? yes. lawsuit? i dunno. if you can get enough people to cry foul, i'd be happy to join.

 

[akugami]

Pretty much agree with what VirtualLarry said.

First, if you have an Ageia PPU and are still using it, you would likely have a valid reason to complain about nVidia disabling ATI support. The Ageia cards should work with ATI or nVidia cards. That's what they were advertised to do. Period. nVidia purposely disabling it is removing advertised features just like Sony removing Linux support is removing advertised features. While I think nVidia disabling ATI support on Ageia cards is not a huge deal, it sets a bad precedence and is harmful to consumers. So on that front, I think that nVidia should be liable.

On the Geforce cards, I don't recall them ever saying they supported any video cards in writing when working as a PhysX processors. Though I haven't really paid much attention to it since I'm not really into PhysX. If they did have something in writing about supporting "all major video cards" or specifically saying they supported ATI in writing then nVidia should be liable. However, this is not a new issue and nothing I've been shown/read has nVidia stating their Geforce cards supported ATI video cards when working as a PhysX accelerator. Thus, nVidia should not be liable for the removal of ATI support when Geforce cards are used as a PhysX card.

For various reasons I've previously stated and don't wish to state yet again, I feel that nVidia limiting PhysX in this way actually hurts PhysX in the long run and, though legal, is harmful to consumers.