Beyond3D Forums Close & Delete Benchmarking Discussion.

Oh, and Wavey put the thread back up. He hadn't deleted it, but since you were unhappy it was gone he put it back. :)
 
Looks like this one is going well with different opinions being voiced. I don't see any need to return on this subject.
 
ElMoIsEviL said:
There's a problem.. your reviews show both cards running High Quality AF and people figure both have the same image quality. When in fact you should state that nVidia's Control Panel High quality AF still contains optimisations (or a driver bug depends who you ask) and inflates the score by 15-35%... in OpenGL games ;)
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Hmmm, this is interesting, because we do compare in-game screenshots and make our determinations about IQ. We also highly value the in-game playing experience as well. If there is some small difference in IQ that does not impact gameplay and can only be picked out in a still screenshot, we really don't let that influence our opinions.

Again, you guys have to realize that in the real world of gaming, there are not apples to apples anymore, and to try and force it to be is not being realistic about the experience IMO.

When I saw folks starting to compare rasterized images down to the last pixel, I knew then that many in our industry had lost site of what WE, HardOCP was truly trying to do...and that is suggest the best video card for playing games. I will leave the arguments as to what team is technically superior to others.
 
ElMoIsEviL said:
Therefore are you encouraging ATi and nVidia to cheat? Cut corners so long as it's not too noticeable?

I agree with you partially. That is why we have normal AF (Adaptive).. but when High Quality AF is enabled... and is marketed by either company as being without tricks.. then your argument does not hold. Don't you agree?
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We are encouraging ATI and NVIDIA to deliver the best gaming experience possible.

What I agree with is the user to have the benefits to select a better quality of image if he finds that the current one is negatively impacting his gameplay.
 
Well theres certainly enough crying and whining going on it the thread on elitebastards.

Its nice to see reviews done in different ways. Or just different opinions or people observing little differences.


I read [H], GamePC, Anand, and FiringSquad for reviews.


I love reading the complaints about not seeing the GTO card.
 
Brent_Justice said:
Optimizations are not cheating.
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Best reply of the year thus far...

I would seriously like to know how optimizing to gain performance is a form of cheating? Maybe the cards need a drug test as well?
 
Brent_Justice said:
Optimizations are not cheating.
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I agree.. but not if the big video card companies are telling us it's optimisation free and optimising anyways.. that's lying.. cheating. As reviewers will test the cards and most people will believe it's the same both both high Quality settings.

When nVidia introduced there high Quality AF it was marketed as giving the user the ability to disable optimisations. Do you remember the slides where they looked towards ATi's unwillingness to offer an off switch for there adaptive AF in ill manner?

It's a cheat or perhaps a driver bug... which I doubt.
 
If I can't see it, it's not cheating.

If it noticably reduces IQ, it's not an optimization.

-dB
 
Geforce 7800GTX 16xAF High Quality (with optimisations)
doom3_pseudohq_4xaa_16xaf.png


GeForce 7800GTX 16xAF High Quality (without optimisations, manually removed).
doom3_echteshq_4xaa_16xaf.png


It's a cheat..:p (or driver bug, doesn't look to good)

Oh and the performance difference..
af_high.jpg


Hanners looked into it and came up with the same results with AF enabled in teh Control Panel.
 
I like ((H)ocp way of reviewing. They do tend to be a little biased, but every reviewer has a bias. (The anti ati rants are more questionable) Personally I would like a review using css, showing min fps during firefights, but since I seem to be the only person who cares and wants to stay around 100fps - am not expecting this soon.
 
John Reynolds said:
Depends on what the "optimization" is doing.
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ATi's Brilinear was a cheat when it was exposed. There's no doubt in my mind about that. I feel optimisations can be cheats if the optimised feature is marketed as being optimisation free.

BTW... with the fix that removes optimisations in High Quality AF on nVidia cards ATi's x1900XTX is now also the fastest Video Card for OpenGL games and Direct3D games with eye candy turned on.

So you see... it depends on the publics perception ;) I'm not a popular guy and I'm not looking for a popularity contest btw. I'm one of the most h8ted peeps online. I've been called an nVidia !!!!!!, ATi !!!!!!, AMD !!!!!!, Intel !!!!!!s... meh.. don't care. I tell it like it is.
 
ElMoIsEviL said:
It's a cheat..:p (or driver bug, doesn't look to good)

Oh and the performance difference..

Hanners looked into it and came up with the same results with AF enabled in teh Control Panel.
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~20 FPS in difference and I wouldn't(and havn't actually) notice it while playing the game? :D

Terra - This is the big fuss? :p
 
Brent_Justice said:
Optimizations are not cheating.
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Your right it is not cheating . However for me these three little letters GPU mean way more to me than FPS and if a Graphics card delivers a more vibrant picture and more detail . To me this is what a quality GPU does . To many people get hung up over 1 or 2 FPS performance increase and if that comes at the cost of graphics quality it defeats the idea of a better gaming experiance.
 
What it really all comes down to is does this negatively or positively impact your gaming experience. Can you notice it, do you see it, does it hurt your gameplay experience, does it impact your ability to play the game, does it distract you from the game, etc....
 
Amanda said:
To me, HardOCP isn't biased at all. They lean towards the better GPU at the time. The remarks they made for the ATI chipset were warranted, and NVIDIA has had their share of the bashing as well.
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Anybody remember the "Dustbuster". I was using a TI 4200 8X at the time and was anxiously awaiting the FX series. Talk about a bashing. If [H] was biased, I never would have ended up with the 9600XT I replaced the 4200 with. It was simply no contest and the commentary, editorial or otherwise, reflected that. I remember Kyle talking about his 9700 like he needed to buy it flowers or something.

ATI DID paper launch and paper launch and paper launch, I was really shocked to see that other respected sites had this opinion about ATI bias. In my mind if [H] is biased then so is Anand, Toms etc.etc. Everybody was saying the same thing.

I for one am glad they stopped reviewing unavailable hardware and that Kyle used the editorial bully pulpit HE created to say something about it. I think things have gotten better because of it. The ATI !!!!!!z at the other sites that got there feelings hurt are ignoring a LOT to complain about this and if there is an agenda or bias........it is their's and not the [H].
 
Depends on what the "optimization" is doing.
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now if your saying per game optimizations are a thing that makes evaluating games not fair, while your moaning, have fun making that non biased replacement for OGL and D3D... cause really what your saying is evaluating anything that has an unfair advantage is sin, say, do you play half life 2?
 
Brent_Justice said:
What it really all comes down to is does this negatively or positively impact your gaming experience. Can you notice it, do you see it, does it hurt your gameplay experience, does it impact your ability to play the game, does it distract you from the game, etc....
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That's not the point.

We have Adaptive AF marketed for this VERY reason. ATi marketed it using the VERY same words as in your post. but when a company claims that there High Quality AF contains no optimisations. We all believe it doesn't, we also believe we can use it to compare performance with a competitors high Quality AF. We end up with an apples to oranges UNFAIR comparaison.

Many peeps have pointed out that ATi's Catalyst AI set to advanced shows better AF quality then nVidia High Quality AF. We, myself included, brushed them off as !!!!!!s... now we know it might have been true.

People hound ATi on there supposedly poor OpenGL performance. Well, looks like it's not poor at all.
 
0mega said:
now if your saying per game optimizations are a thing that makes evaluating games not fair, while your moaning, have fun making that non biased replacement for OGL and D3D... cause really what your saying is evaluating anything that has an unfair advantage is sin, say, do you play half life 2?
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Are you one of the peeps who actually thinks that Half Life 2 was programmed to run better on ATi VPU's?

Half Life 2 follows Direct3D spec to a T. ATi followed Direct3D spec to a T. Half Life 2 was originally made to take advantage of SM2.0 (much like ATi's SM2.0 parts). It ran better on ATi hardware just because both companies chose a similar path.

John Carmack chose OpenGL and expressed his preference for Z Stencil optimisations. nVidia... followed John Carmacks demands to a T. Hence the nVidia cards run Doom3 better then the ATi cards.

;) It's all about money.
 
Brent_Justice said:
What it really all comes down to is does this negatively or positively impact your gaming experience. Can you notice it, do you see it, does it hurt your gameplay experience, does it impact your ability to play the game, does it distract you from the game, etc....
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That question is so easy to ans. YES it does in a fast past shooters game higher detail can be the differance in spotting an oppenant or not seeing them . So so it makes a big differance exspecially at the mid map level.
 
Brent_Justice said:
What it really all comes down to is does this negatively or positively impact your gaming experience. Can you notice it, do you see it, does it hurt your gameplay experience, does it impact your ability to play the game, does it distract you from the game, etc....
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Which is entirely subjective. What one person fails to notice another will. . . .
 
no but my whole point was that optimizations that make a card perform better in one game then the other brand is cheating, so what im pointing out is its like OGL and D3D but more specific :p i know it wasnt deliberate :p But it DOES work for my argument :p Because despite the fact that its an unfair comparison because one card performs on D3D better, and the other on OGL, people still do it, why? because why the hell does it matter if it works? :D
 
John Reynolds said:
Which is entirely subjective. What one person fails to notice another will. . . .
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Exactly.. you're supposed to speak for the entire gaming community. Therefore you must present your findings with journalistic integrity. Let the reader come to his/her own conclusions.

You're not Fox News or an Editorial site. Those comments can come at the conclusion but not during the testing or content aspects of the article. That should remain subjective. but all information should be given to the reader ;)
 
0mega said:
no but my whole point was that optimizations that make a card perform better in one game then the other brand is cheating, so what im pointing out is its like OGL and D3D but more specific :p i know it wasnt deliberate :p But it DOES work for my argument :p Because despite the fact that its an unfair comparison because one card performs on D3D better, and the other on OGL, people still do it, why? because why the hell does it matter if it works? :D
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Because some people care about Image Quality If you're speaking for an entire community of enthusiasts then things should be kept with journalistic integrity and not one huge editorial. Especially if a said feature is being falsly advertised. It is up to the writer to uncover this and present it in a subjective manner for the reader to come to his/her own conclusions.
 
ElMoIsEviL said:
Because some people care about Image Quality If you're speaking for an entire community of enthusiasts then things should be kept with journalistic integrity and not one huge editorial. Especially if a said feature is being falsly advertised. It is up to the writer to uncover this and present it in a subjective manner for the reader to come to his/her own conclusions.
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So people who write editorials don't have journalistic integrity?

You seem to keep running round and round in circles contradicting yourself in your posts.
 
ElMoIsEviL said:
Are you one of the peeps who actually thinks that Half Life 2 was programmed to run better on ATi VPU's?

Half Life 2 follows Direct3D spec to a T. ATi followed Direct3D spec to a T. Half Life 2 was originally made to take advantage of SM2.0 (much like ATi's SM2.0 parts). It ran better on ATi hardware just because both companies chose a similar path.

John Carmack chose OpenGL and expressed his preference for Z Stencil optimisations. nVidia... followed John Carmacks demands to a T. Hence the nVidia cards run Doom3 better then the ATi cards.

;) It's all about money.
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When Doom 3 was released it didn't use ultrashadow. Also Carmack has always been a fan of stencil shadows ;), get your info right before ya start slandering.
 
I'm not registered at Beyond3D, so I guess I will post here.

Although I tried reading this thread and ended up skipping to the end because most of it seemed off topic.

There are multiple ways to benchmark a video card and it's hard to say (with facts) which way is better than the other. Synthetic, real word game play, time demos, drop test, etc.

I welcome the fact that Site A benchmarks in a different way than Site B. In fact I'm sick of 30+ tech websites all using the same 3 games plus 3Dmark.

Sadly it does feel like the bigger issue is politics and which political party you vote for Red or Green. :rolleyes:

The initial post at Beyond3D is a good idea, but if every site benchmarks that way, what's the point of having 30+ tech websites. Maybe I want to see 1680x1050 benchmarked (I do) or older games or more RPG games or just the windows screensaver, what's wrong with that?

If you are pissed that the political party you voted for got a poor review, then go buy both parties cards and benchmark em yourself.
 
Brent_Justice said:
So people who write editorials don't have journalistic integrity?

You seem to keep running round and round in circles contradicting yourself in your posts.
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Tomshardware comes to mind.
 
Brent_Justice said:
So people who write editorials don't have journalistic integrity?

You seem to keep running round and round in circles contradicting yourself in your posts.
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No they don't. Editorialism is not journalism. I've taken journalism in school and I have a degree in basic journalism. First rule is that they're NOT the same.

In a review... you post your opinions in the conclusion of the article... you may post findings during the article.. but the only segment of a review which contains editorial aspects is supposed to be the conclusion.

Therefore the information contained in the article has to remain subjective. In the case of optimisations.. you have a duty to inform the reader that it's not an Apples to Apples review going on with similar features (mainly AA and AF wuality levels) because people, wether you like it or not, think in apples to apples mentality.
 
razor1 said:
When Doom 3 was released it didn't use ultrashadow. Also Carmack has always been a fan of stencil shadows ;), get your info right before ya start slandering.
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That's what I said... John Carmack expressed his preference for Stencil optimisations. Nothing I said is slanderous. I suppose you can't read.

Didn't help that at the time ATi had piss poor OpenGL drivers. Took them switching a shader in order to get decent performance.. which may or may not give you incite into how Doom3 was marketed.
 
For the record we don't call them reviews, they are evaluations. We stopped reviewing video cards a long time ago.
 
Brent_Justice said:
For the record we don't call them reviews, they are evaluations. We stopped reviewing video cards a long time ago.
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And what would you say the difference is between what you call a review and what you call an evaluation?
 
ElMoIsEviL said:
That's what I said... John Carmack expressed his preference for Stencil optimisations. Nothing I said is slanderous. I suppose you can't read.

Didn't help that at the time ATi had piss poor OpenGL drivers. Took them switching a shader in order to get decent performance.. which may or may not give you incite into how Doom3 was marketed.
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Dude, they stated from DAY ONE of Doom 3 development that the code and shaders were optimized for nVidia's cards. ATI was just plain SOL wether or not the drivers were poorely coded for OpenGL. This is something we've known about ATi and OpenGL games for ohhh.... say 4 years?
 
Coldtronius said:
Dude, they stated from DAY ONE of Doom 3 development that the code and shaders were optimized for nVidia's cards. ATI was just plain SOL wether or not the drivers were poorely coded for OpenGL. This is something we've known about ATi and OpenGL games for ohhh.... say 4 years?
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Careful how you word that. Doom3 was not optimised for nVidia. It was optimised for Stencil Shadows. nVidia fit the bill.
 
I dont know about you guys, but it would take a "its better in every shape and form" situation for me to go ati. Sure makes everything easy for me decision wise.

(my fx5900u has way more features than a 9800p, although my old voodoo5500pci which it replaced has better AA with rotated grid samples and who could resist the T-Buffer. I dont think this fancy AA thing will catch on though... But the T-Buffer is the future)
 
ElMoIsEviL said:
And what would you say the difference is between what you call a review and what you call an evaluation?
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I would venture to say that evaluations can gear towards emotions as well... frustration, like, dislike, etc etc...

A review would simply be a straight list of what something offers, high points and weak points,... An evaluation would be a little more in depth.
 
ElMoIsEviL said:
Careful how you word that. Doom3 was not optimised for nVidia. It was optimised for Stencil Shadows. nVidia fit the bill.
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Either way, nVidia had the technology, ATi didn't.
 
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