**thread name change* Nvidia and AMD moral and immoral business practices

Page 6 - Seeking answers? Join the AnandTech community: where nearly half-a-million members share solutions and discuss the latest tech.

SirPauly

Diamond Member
Apr 28, 2009
5,187
1
0
There's nothing wrong with well-founded bias like anti-NV sentiments - it happens to be my personal opinion too that Nvidia, by default, is a company with no morals whatsoever and I believe this behavior stems from the top, from its founder.

That's a powerful, very strong, emotional opinion!:)
 

Kenmitch

Diamond Member
Oct 10, 1999
8,505
2,250
136
I think ATI will make a lot of money if they start selling stickers. Can you imagine how cool will it be if there is a ATI logo right at the hood of my car? How about a ATI tattoo at my back? Not at my shoulder but the entire back. Nvidia suck btw as there are too many characters.

I said it first, you guys own me money if you use my idea!

What does this have to do with How Nvidia helps keep PC gaming alive?
 

Lonbjerg

Diamond Member
Dec 6, 2009
4,419
0
0
AMD didn't want crap, it's simply responding to competitive bulletpoints and you can tell the size of the "CUDA market" by the fact that AMD easily overtook the entire discrete market without anything comparable...*snip*

I stopped reading there. If having 1/3 of the discrete market in your "world" means have the entir market, futher debate is useless...
 

golem

Senior member
Oct 6, 2000
838
3
76
AMD didn't want crap, it's simply responding to competitive bulletpoints and you can tell the size of the "CUDA market" by the fact that AMD easily overtook the entire discrete market without anything comparable...

...so much for being useful (and yes, we develop our own CUDA apps here.)

Nonsense. Bullet is free, Havok isn't, that's all but ATI was always very Havok-friendly.

Why does your company develop apps using tools created/sponsored by a company w/o morals (in your words).
 
Last edited:

Idontcare

Elite Member
Oct 10, 1999
21,110
64
91
Folks, please let's get this thread off of the current D-rail and back onto the main-rail.

The OP has made a valiant effort, make that repeated valiant efforts, to clarify what he feels is on-topic and what is to be considered off-topic.

It is very simple, either post something on-topic or don't post in this thread.

Whatever message you have for the forums you can rest assured we'd love for you to share it with us but please find an appropriate thread to contribute it towards or craft a nice new thread with an appropriate topic to convey your message. (within forum decorum expectations of course)

Moderator Idontcare
 

Seero

Golden Member
Nov 4, 2009
1,456
0
0
What does this have to do with How Nvidia helps keep PC gaming alive?
Hmm, let see. People complained from Nvidia's bad business practice, being unethical to no moral. Some even jump on Keys about being a member of the Nvidia's focus group. What do those have to do with How Nvidia helps keep PC gaming alive?

Does anyone mentioned anything about AMD's contribution on gaming consoles? To PC gaming? If you can bring one or two on the table than you may be able to disprove what the title states.

People continuously claiming that Nvidia take away what AMD user should have, but it really isn't difficult to see that without Nvidia, there won't be PhysX, batman's AA, and CUDA. Without AMD on the other hand, everyone will be able to enjoy all those. Who is the blocker here?

Do not be fooled as AMD can purchase PhysX from Nvidia, yet they decided not to. And you can mark my words, if AMD can proprietarize something, they will. It is dump not to. In reality, people don't say thank you after taken your stuff. Consider yourself lucky not getting seriously hurted during the cause. In business, no one pitty you, but laugh at you or take advantage off you. If your work is worth 1000 bucks, people will ask to sell it for a dollar. If you don't protect yourself, then you don't worth a dime. Welcome to the real world.

All companies are aiming for the cash in your wallet and bank. You, regardless of you like it or not, will have to pay some of them. Nvidia ask for you to pay, in return give you a piece of metal and spend a bit from what you pay on helping game developers somewhat. At the end they take a big credit as if all games will cease to exist without them. However, why will you buy a console port if it looks exactly the same as with your 4xfire 5970 or 3xsli 480 compare to a 300 dollar console? Is it the 200+FPS that is running on your 23" 60hz monitor? Yes PhysX, specifically when it is running on GPU, is simply a few more pieces of paper, leaves, sparks or whatever of those shape flying around. That however, it is a good enough reason to a purchase of the PC version of the game. Could game developers made it without Nvidia's little dirty, backstabbing, unethical, no moral tricks? Yes. Would they? probably no. Why? Well other than a bit better FPS and PhysX, there are no other differences. Rule of thumb, biggest sales with the least amount of work. Adding extra on something that can only be ran on PC defeat that premise, and therefore unless it is a PC only game, it rarely happens.

In the business world, companies eat other companies. Cheating is the usual, and if you don't get caught, you win and no one will question. Laws are like a fence and tricks are like water through the fence. Unless you are really dump or go way overboard, it isn't there (Tax however, can't be avoided.) Hoping laws will protect you is worst then winning lotteries. If you don't know how to protect yourself and what belongs to you, it will be gone in no time. Only your debt follows you. Proprietarizing softwares that you made is not wrong, it is right because if you don't, someone else will proprietarize it away from you.

I typed too much.
 

happy medium

Lifer
Jun 8, 2003
14,387
480
126
Hmm, let see. People complained from Nvidia's bad business practice, being unethical to no moral. Some even jump on Keys about being a member of the Nvidia's focus group. What do those have to do with How Nvidia helps keep PC gaming alive?

Does anyone mentioned anything about AMD's contribution on gaming consoles? To PC gaming? If you can bring one or two on the table than you may be able to disprove what the title states.

People continuously claiming that Nvidia take away what AMD user should have, but it really isn't difficult to see that without Nvidia, there won't be PhysX, batman's AA, and CUDA. Without AMD on the other hand, everyone will be able to enjoy all those. Who is the blocker here?

Do not be fooled as AMD can purchase PhysX from Nvidia, yet they decided not to. And you can mark my words, if AMD can proprietarize something, they will. It is dump not to. In reality, people don't say thank you after taken your stuff. Consider yourself lucky not getting seriously hurted during the cause. In business, no one pitty you, but laugh at you or take advantage off you. If your work is worth 1000 bucks, people will ask to sell it for a dollar. If you don't protect yourself, then you don't worth a dime. Welcome to the real world.

All companies are aiming for the cash in your wallet and bank. You, regardless of you like it or not, will have to pay some of them. Nvidia ask for you to pay, in return give you a piece of metal and spend a bit from what you pay on helping game developers somewhat. At the end they take a big credit as if all games will cease to exist without them. However, why will you buy a console port if it looks exactly the same as with your 4xfire 5970 or 3xsli 480 compare to a 300 dollar console? Is it the 200+FPS that is running on your 23" 60hz monitor? Yes PhysX, specifically when it is running on GPU, is simply a few more pieces of paper, leaves, sparks or whatever of those shape flying around. That however, it is a good enough reason to a purchase of the PC version of the game. Could game developers made it without Nvidia's little dirty, backstabbing, unethical, no moral tricks? Yes. Would they? probably no. Why? Well other than a bit better FPS and PhysX, there are no other differences. Rule of thumb, biggest sales with the least amount of work. Adding extra on something that can only be ran on PC defeat that premise, and therefore unless it is a PC only game, it rarely happens.

In the business world, companies eat other companies. Cheating is the usual, and if you don't get caught, you win and no one will question. Laws are like a fence and tricks are like water through the fence. Unless you are really dump or go way overboard, it isn't there (Tax however, can't be avoided.) Hoping laws will protect you is worst then winning lotteries. If you don't know how to protect yourself and what belongs to you, it will be gone in no time. Only your debt follows you. Proprietarizing softwares that you made is not wrong, it is right because if you don't, someone else will proprietarize it away from you.

I typed too much.

Thats a excellent post. Now do me a big big favor and start a new topic ,with a great new title and lets all discuss this.
Really,please do, copy and paste this, and lets discuss it.
:thumbsup:

edit: chicken.?...:)
 
Last edited:

RussianSensation

Elite Member
Sep 5, 2003
19,458
765
126
Nv is such a horrible company with unethical business practices... - AND the only one which stands in the way between AMD selling $1000+ GPUs. Plus, last time I remember, NV was the only one spending its own $$$ to push GPGPU computing which can improve efficiency of R&D arms of major corporations, motion-picture animation studios, the fields of oil and gas exploration, etc.

"As an effort to understand how photosynthesis works. What must be simulated is a process that involves the electrostatic charging of a spherical structure consisting of roughly 10 million atoms. This simulation can be broken down into a series of operations performed on a grid, which maps very well to the GPU programming model. As a result, the team was able to conduct a simulated step on a trio of G80-class GPUs in 90 seconds. On a single CPU core, that same simulation takes an hour and 10 minutes. As Schulten noted, that's a 46X speed-up, and such gains open up new frontiers for research." - http://www.techreport.com/articles.x/19722/2

T2K, can you provide some examples of "Unethical business practices by NV?" For example, I presume you then view Apple is the epitome of unethical tech company since 300,000+ of Foxconn's workers are too busy manufacturing iPhone 4s, with some even committing suicide from being overworked. You probably don't buy anything at Wal-mart or from Nike because most of their products are in one way or another manufactured by child labour/or overworked employees in sweat shops. :eek:
 

Grooveriding

Diamond Member
Dec 25, 2008
9,147
1,330
126
Nv is such a horrible company with unethical business practices... - AND the only one which stands in the way between AMD selling $1000+ GPUs. Plus, last time I remember, NV was the only one spending its own $$$ to push GPGPU computing which can improve efficiency of R&D arms of major corporations, motion-picture animation studios, the fields of oil and gas exploration, etc.

"As an effort to understand how photosynthesis works. What must be simulated is a process that involves the electrostatic charging of a spherical structure consisting of roughly 10 million atoms. This simulation can be broken down into a series of operations performed on a grid, which maps very well to the GPU programming model. As a result, the team was able to conduct a simulated step on a trio of G80-class GPUs in 90 seconds. On a single CPU core, that same simulation takes an hour and 10 minutes. As Schulten noted, that's a 46X speed-up, and such gains open up new frontiers for research." - http://www.techreport.com/articles.x/19722/2

T2K, can you provide some examples of "Unethical business practices by NV?" For example, I presume you then view Apple is the epitome of unethical tech company since 300,000+ of Foxconn's workers are too busy manufacturing iPhone 4s, with some even committing suicide from being overworked. You probably don't buy anything at Wal-mart or from Nike because most of their products are in one way or another manufactured by child labour/or overworked employees in sweat shops. :eek:


The reason there is a lot of distrust of NV in this forum has a lot to do with Rollo I bet.

You have a guy who was a viral marketer hired by nvidia, spreading fud in these forums, making another 3 or 4 pro-nvidia posts every day, slagging the competition.

All the while denying he had any affiliation with a marketing team or nvidia. Even going so far as to report members of the forum for calling him out as being a viral marketer and he even managed to get some banned for calling him out.

Then it came out that he was a viral marketer and a member of the nvidia focus group, after having lied about it.

Crap like that puts your company in a bad light. Once a spade always a spade. There is no reason to expect that nvidia is not continuing to propagate these techniques, why would they stop ?

Then you have a CEO who recently held up a carpentry product and played it off as working hardware and led his shareholders and potential customers down the garden path for half a year with failed promises of a product release.
 

MagickMan

Diamond Member
Aug 11, 2008
7,460
3
76
So, you've just basically told me that you buy with your heart and not with your brain. Is that the right thing to do? Or the smart thing to do?
And I like Nvidia for their "products". Hardware, software, Dev relations. Not because of what I think of the company. Although they are VERY driven and I do like how Nvidia continually pushes and never ceases. Always have something to show that is new.

I use both. It's not that difficult.

Edit: didn't see the mod post. Fine, I'm done.
 
Last edited:

blastingcap

Diamond Member
Sep 16, 2010
6,654
5
76
The reason there is a lot of distrust of NV in this forum has a lot to do with Rollo I bet.

You have a guy who was a viral marketer hired by nvidia, spreading fud in these forums, making another 3 or 4 pro-nvidia posts every day, slagging the competition.

All the while denying he had any affiliation with a marketing team or nvidia. Even going so far as to report members of the forum for calling him out as being a viral marketer and he even managed to get some banned for calling him out.

Then it came out that he was a viral marketer and a member of the nvidia focus group, after having lied about it.

Crap like that puts your company in a bad light. Once a spade always a spade. There is no reason to expect that nvidia is not continuing to propagate these techniques, why would they stop ?

Then you have a CEO who recently held up a carpentry product and played it off as working hardware and led his shareholders and potential customers down the garden path for half a year with failed promises of a product release.

When I emerged from my gaming drought a couple of years ago and was on the market for a GPU, I almost bought a used 8800GT because I was kind of an NV snob and distrusted AMD because of a weird glitch I once got in Warcraft III using a Radeon GPU. But ultimately I chose an ATI product because I wasn't sure if the NV bad bumps thing was over yet, and I certainly didn't trust NV claiming it was over, after its earlier behavior. NV lied and denied until they were taken to court. Last I heard, they have spent $500 million to date on the issue, ultimately settling out of court. (For those who don't know about it, here's the tip of the iceberg; it's an issue that goes way back: http://www.pcworld.com/businesscent...continue_to_burden_nvidias_profitability.html ) NV eventually fessed up but only after legal action. That's not how I would treat my customers, whether they were retail consumers or PC makers like Apple or whatever.

Time will tell if GTX480s die faster than expected because of all the heat (watercoolers excepted, but imho you shouldn't HAVE to watercool a card; it shouldn't be that hot in the first place!). Imho, their bump history + heat = unacceptable risk, and NV needs to earn their credibility back when it comes to claims that their hardware can take a lot of heat. Their handling of the bad bumps issue was *that* bad, in my eyes.

I don't mind if I'm in the minority in these things. Many people only think short-term without looking at lifetime costs of ownership, risks, energy costs, etc. That's fine, but I'm risk-averse when it comes to hardware, whether it's CPUs, GPUs, cases, mobos, etc. and I pay plenty of attention to efficiency, temperatures, etc. To each his or her own.

The pettiness regarding Batman/PhysX on mixed systems, the CEO's pettiness in setting up http://www.intelsinsides.com/page/home.html and the wood screws and other stuff that people mention don't help, but in my mind Bumpgate towers over the rest of them.

I have to admit that the viral marketeering thing comes a close second, though; that crap must have happened during my gaming drought days when I was on crapply laptops and never gamed and thus never heard about it.
 
Last edited:

Scali

Banned
Dec 3, 2004
2,495
0
0
Nv can help PC gaming by working together with ATI to develop a universal physics engine.

They actually wanted to support AMD with implementing their own back-end for PhysX.
Problem is, AMD refused.
Apparently the only thing AMD wants is for nVidia to do ALL the work for them, and make an OpenCL implementation.
AMD doesn't want to do anything, they just want a free ride.
 

happy medium

Lifer
Jun 8, 2003
14,387
480
126
Apparently the only thing AMD wants is for nVidia to do ALL the work for them

Just like you got to twist there arm to get AA in SC2. Better late then never though.
You can't blame the game producers for that. That's what TWIMTBP is all about.
99% of games out of the box run great along with sli and sli profiles. No hotfixes every 2 weeks.
 

blastingcap

Diamond Member
Sep 16, 2010
6,654
5
76
They actually wanted to support AMD with implementing their own back-end for PhysX.
Problem is, AMD refused.
Apparently the only thing AMD wants is for nVidia to do ALL the work for them, and make an OpenCL implementation.
AMD doesn't want to do anything, they just want a free ride.

Wouldn't that make AMD at the mercy of NV then since NV controls PhysX? It'd be like a competitor going to your company and saying, "hey let's make my proprietary communications protocol standard between both of our companies, but I get to call all shots as to how to further develop it and if I want to cut you off later on, after luring you into complacency and thus delaying your own physics initiatives."

NV may have also feared Intel at the time that it approached ATI, given rumblings about Larrabee. Keep in mind that NV doesn't do things out of the kindness of its heard.

Also keep in mind that NV has also done this crap before--the lawsuit was settled before even more damning stuff came out, but even this one quote should give you pause. Note that it was NV who contacted AMD, not the other way around:

http://www.crunchgear.com/2008/07/1...-in-class-action-suit-against-nvidia-and-amd/

Nvidia and AMD have been accused of price fixing in the GPU market. The class action suit alleges that Nvidia and AMD colluded to keep prices artificially high, by releasing products at the same time and at similar prices.

Judge William Alsup of the Northern District of California read aloud an email which plaintiffs’ attorneys say contained evidence of a conspiracy to fix prices. Out of 9 million documents turned over in discovery, of particular interest was a 2002 email from Nvidia senior vice president of marketing, Dan Vivoli, to ATI’s president and chief operating officer, Dave Orton.

Vivoli wrote, in part, “I really think we should work harder together on the marketing front. As you and I have talked about, even though we are competitors, we have the common goal of making our category a well positioned, respected playing field. $5 and $8 stocks are a result of no respect.”

Judge Alsup considered the email strong evidence in the price fixing case, stating, “That’s not good for the defense. A jury would like to see this.”​

This is your precious NV talking about price fixing to keep graphics card prices artificially high, and who knows what other stuff would have turned up with more discovery? (They settled the case with the prosecution.)

Keep defending NV if you want, but bumpgate, the viral marketeering, potential price collusion, and other offenses and the general pettiness of JHH (http://www.intelsinsides.com/page/home.html and his comments about opening a can of "whoop ass" on Intel) make it really hard for me to actually like the company's management.

Edited to add: I'm sure the non-executives (i.e., engineers) at NV are mostly good people, and I am not criticizing them. I'm also not letting AMD off the hook for being slow sometimes to address issues. However, understand that AMD doesn't have the financial firepower of Intel or NV and can't fund as easily stuff like TWIMTBP so it will take a string of victories for them to get enough money together to fix things faster and such. They do come up with stuff like Eyefinity before their competitors sometimes, though, or AMD 64-bit instruction set. In any case, I haven't heard nearly as many stories of AMD or ATI shadiness similar to NV's bumpgate/viral marketing/price-fixing/etc. garbage or Intel's payola scheme re: Dell exclusivity, etc.
 
Last edited:

Scali

Banned
Dec 3, 2004
2,495
0
0
Wouldn't that make AMD at the mercy of NV then since NV controls PhysX?

AMD has three choices basically:
1) Support PhysX and be at the mercy of nVidia.
2) Support Havok and be at the mercy of Intel.
3) Support Bullet and be at the mercy of Sony.

Basically AMD should have been more pro-active and acquired either PhysX or Havok before their main competitors did.

Currently the best thing they can do is to support all physics APIs and hope for the best. AMD simply cannot develop a new physics solution from the ground... and there is no more major middleware physics company to acquire. Apparently there is not going to be a new middleware physics API either (as you can see with Bullet, although it's a good piece of software, it is mainly popular on PS3 (which it was originally written for, Erwin Coumans is a Sony employee), it cannot really get any marketshare in the PC market, which is already divided between Havok and PhysX).

I will just ignore the rest of your post, as it seems to have no bearing on anything I said (I'm not even defending NV, heck I have a dead 8800GTS and 9800GTX from bumpgate, but that's a completely different topic anyway). And I really am not interested in any of that.
 
Last edited:

blastingcap

Diamond Member
Sep 16, 2010
6,654
5
76
AMD has three choices basically:
1) Support PhysX and be at the mercy of nVidia.
2) Support Havok and be at the mercy of Intel.
3) Support Bullet and be at the mercy of Sony.

Basically AMD should have been more pro-active and acquired either PhysX or Havok before their main competitors did.

Currently the best thing they can do is to support all physics APIs and hope for the best. AMD simply cannot develop a new physics solution from the ground... and there is no more major middleware physics company to acquire. Apparently there is not going to be a new middleware physics API either (as you can see with Bullet, although it's a good piece of software, it is mainly popular on PS3 (which it was originally written for, Erwin Coumans is a Sony employee), it cannot really get any marketshare in the PC market, which is already divided between Havok and PhysX).

I will just ignore the rest of your post, as it seems to have no bearing on anything I said (I'm not even defending NV, heck I have a dead 8800GTS and 9800GTX from bumpgate, but that's a completely different topic anyway). And I really am not interested in any of that.

To some extent I agree with you, but your original statement made it sound like AMD was uncooperative for no reason and just wanted "free rides," to use your term. None of its options were that good, especially after Intel's acquisition. It's easy to criticize, but it's tough when you're the one having to make the decision.

I do think the rest of what I wrote has bearing, especially Intel's payola scheme in conjunction with your glibly saying that AMD should have been "more proactive" and bought Havok first; but you don't have to reply of course. Just know that the story is more complex than you glibly made it out to be.
 

Lonbjerg

Diamond Member
Dec 6, 2009
4,419
0
0
There's nothing wrong with well-founded bias like anti-NV sentiments - it happens to be my personal opinion too that Nvidia, by default, is a company with no morals whatsoever and I believe this behavior stems from the top, from its founder.

Let me see
AMD made a patch for FarCry, claming it was 64 bit and only worked om x86-64 systems running 64 bit.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/1677

"The patch and the exclusive content update will only install under Windows XP Professional x64 Edition, so 32-bit XP Professional users will not be able to even install the additional content patch. "

That was a lie.
Extracting the files from the installer and copy/pasting it into my FarCry folder I got it working...under Win XP 32 bit.

http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=141616

You even got a cracked installer floating around:
http://farcry.filefront.com/file/FC_64ecu_to_32os_conversion;50861

Now armed with these facts, I would like to hear your views on a company that lies publicly and restricts user from using their software artificially?

Wake me up when you have gotten your foot out of your mouth ;)
 

Lonbjerg

Diamond Member
Dec 6, 2009
4,419
0
0
They actually wanted to support AMD with implementing their own back-end for PhysX.
Problem is, AMD refused.
Apparently the only thing AMD wants is for nVidia to do ALL the work for them, and make an OpenCL implementation.
AMD doesn't want to do anything, they just want a free ride.

I see it this way.

NVIDIA has CUDA complete with tools, libaries support ect.
AMD would like to have the same...but they won't pick up the slack themselfes...they would like OpenCL to pick up the slack for them.

NVIDIA has PhysX complete with tools, libaries, support ect.
AMD would like to have the same...but they won't pick up the slack themselfes...they would like Bullet to pick op the slack for them.

NVIDIA has 3D complete with glasses, ingame support ect.
AMD would like to have the same...but they won't pick up the slack themselfes...they would like a 3rd party to pick up the slack for them.

When AMD launched Eyefinity, NVIDIA didn't wait for others to pick up he slack, the got their version up and running faster than anyone expected.

I don't like support "slackers" with my money, but choose to support compaines that pushes forward.
 

Scali

Banned
Dec 3, 2004
2,495
0
0
I do think the rest of what I wrote has bearing, especially Intel's payola scheme in conjunction with your glibly saying that AMD should have been "more proactive" and bought Havok first; but you don't have to reply of course. Just know that the story is more complex than you glibly made it out to be.

Havok or PhysX.
And why should I reply to that? It really IS that simple. If nVidia can acquire Ageia, then so could AMD. And if Intel can acquire Havok, then so could AMD.
Basically AMD let two opportunities slip.

The rest is mostly FUD, really. You just throw some unrelated topics around, trying to establish how 'evil' nVidia is, and now it's Intel with payola this-and-that...
But you haven't really given any decent arguments why AMD *couldn't* have acquired any physics middleware while both their competitors did. It's 'more complex'? Is it now? How so?
 
Last edited:

Pantalaimon

Senior member
Feb 6, 2006
341
40
91
Yeah, lets not forget him IIRC he was even banned from HardOCP (or was it another one). Hell Rollo was banned because one of the anandtech editors decided to.

At one point he was banned from nvnews even. I think he has single handedly caused more damage to NVDIA's good will on various forums than their PR machine could ever fix.
 

SlowSpyder

Lifer
Jan 12, 2005
17,305
1,002
126
I have to admit, Rollo gave me a somewhat negative impression of Nvidia. I remember reading these forums and wondering why this guy always seemed to find some sort of half truth to push an Nvidia part, even when their part was clearly not the best option for someone's needs. For quite a while he never mentioned that he worked for Nvidia, I think the only reason he did was because he was eventually discovered. Pretty shadey in my opinion.

I don't believe that what they did helped PC gaming at all...
 

toyota

Lifer
Apr 15, 2001
12,957
1
0
I have to admit, Rollo gave me a somewhat negative impression of Nvidia. I remember reading these forums and wondering why this guy always seemed to find some sort of half truth to push an Nvidia part, even when their part was clearly not the best option for someone's needs. For quite a while he never mentioned that he worked for Nvidia, I think the only reason he did was because he was eventually discovered. Pretty shadey in my opinion.

I don't believe that what they did helped PC gaming at all...
speaking of Rollo and looking at your sig has prompted me to ask why does Wreckage just disappear for several weeks at a time? I always wondered if he gets temporally banned but it never says so by his name. :confused: