Your Thoughts on 3DMark threats to HardOCP.

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I have several points to make:

First, to those users uninstalling all Futuremark programs from their computers and posting screenshots, please, your acting pretty immature. Do you really believe that Futuremark cares if you uninstall their application when most of you never payed for them in the first place? The real money comes from those who pay for the the Professional verson and those companies who sponser the benchmark.You are behaving like little children throwing a tantrum.

Second, I believe that HardOCP's behavior in this matter has been less than professional. While I agree that HardOCP is entitled to its opinions and can express them in any way they choose, comments such as "little doggy barking up the wrong tree," "sucks," and "you guys aren't Americans" have no place on a site which is supposed to represent us all.
Not all HardOCP readers think Futuremark employees are foreigners ignorant to American freedoms. Comments such as this will ostracize companies from dealing with HardOCP in the future and only cause legal issues for the site. This is the era of frivilous lawsuits, and this kind of behavior will embroil HardOCP in more than it can handle.

Finally, I would like to make a comment about the usefulness of 3dmark. Overall, the concept of a universal benchmark for 3d performance is a good one. Yet, the idea can never be implemented sucessfully because of the varying architecture of the two primary competing solutions on the market, and because the implications of losing such an all important benchmark are huge. The concept of one definining graphics benchmark is dead, because, as has been demonstrated by the latest series of games, each architecture has strengths and weaknesses. To define a system's performance in terms of some vague "marks" which have no correlation to image quality or framerate, no longer make sense. Also, a benchmark which cripples the latest high end hardware does not make sense in any application besides marketing.

The age of 3dmarks is over. HardOCP may be the first to realize this among the enthusiast sites. I hope it can rise to Futuremark's challange. It is my sincere hope that it can do so in a manner that will not alienate other companies or misrepresent the larger community.
 
This is the email i just sent:

After reading the email sent to [H]ard OCP I will never buy another Futuremark product.
Good job "Executive Vice President of Sales and Marketing"

Sincerely,
Beowulf




Vote with your dolllars :cool:
 
Looks like Tero/FM is used to strongarm tactics. When I am pissed calling in the lawyers isnt usually the first move . I totally agree with Kyle's response , FM could have started a pissing match and it would have been ok , but no "I will no longer communicate with you after this. Our attorney is looking that this situation will get resolved and will contact you if necessary." .Is this a response from a somewhat pissed off individual or of a first class asshole ? You decide.
 
Tidy_Sammy said:
Zardoz, you must be pretty sad to post things like that, what do you want?, a cookie? :confused:
Click to expand...

Gee, I hope u wiped your ass when you took that crap. Lamest comment of this thread by far. Congrats Tidy. :rolleyes:
 
I sent my response today:

- - - - -
-----Original Message-----
From: {dthind}
Sent: Wednesday, October 06, 2004 8:58 PM
To: [email protected]
Cc: [email protected]; [email protected]
Subject: Regarding HardOCP

Mr. Sarkkinen,

I am personally disappointed with your position in regard to the opinions posted on www.hardocp.com October 6, 2004. I have found this site to be extremely informative and lacking any specific bias for or against any software or hardware vender. I have frequented this site for over four years and will continue to do so for as long as they exist.

Your response of the potential threat of legal action is uncalled for and appears rather low brow in my opinion. I would expect an executive in your position would approach this issue with more candor and tact than you have exhibited.

I am not some young kid reading their web site that lives with mom and dad and uses an AOL dial up account to chat with buddies. I have been a successful businessman working for a fortune 100 company for over 13 years. I have held the position of Director of Operations and efficiently run two separate customer service call centers with an excess of 150 full time employees. I understand the necessity of sales, service and marketing. With that in mind, I truly believe your position is not within the best interest of your company and does not suit your end customer base or shareholders desires.

Please reconsider your position and take the appropriate corrective action.

Best,

{dthind}
 
As I read thru the thread there's all these people that are offended by the posts on the front news page or think Kyle should've dealt with this internally thru the lawyers and kept everyone else out of the loop... Frankly I don't see what's wrong with providing everyone with as many facts as can be had, you're still free to formulate your own opinions... Unless that's too stressing in itself.

This is the information age, if you don't want something broadcasted, reproduced, and regurgitated then don't put it out there... Otherwise be ready to deal with the consequences. It's the online equivalent of Darwin's law. Having the e-mail exchange posted on the front page may actually lead to the matter being resolved out of court once the "higher-ups" realize the effect it's having on the community. /shrug
 
first of all, the emails from futuremark look like some guy who hates hardocp. doesn't look very proffesional, but i guess if it is for real, futuremark better wise up.

i dont think the people uninstalling are being childish either, i never plan to download any of their software now. doesn't mean i'm being childish, i choose not to shop at certain stores too for various reasons.
 
The comment about the barking up the tree is unprofessional . Probably stems from frustration. With that said is there any doubt that HOCP isnt 100 % in the right? What is it with people that are lawyer happy trying to smother free speech?
 
I don't think any1 bothered to read your post Mister Rodgers. They are to busy riding the 'bash Futuremark' wave. The ideas Rodgers posted are excellent and Futuremark should take note.

This whole situation is crap. I like [H] and I like Futuremark. I don't want to pick sides at all. However, I have felt that Kyle and Brent, [H] basically, have been rather [H]ard (hahaha pun definetly intended) on the 3DMark series since '03. But hey, I also believe every1 is entitled to their opinion. America is great, but please don't rub constitution bs in peoples faces. They are hardly ever impressed.

Ok, so the 3DMark benches aren't the greatest tool for determining gaming performance. Who cares! You're not forced to DL the FREE software they provide. Are you forced to submit results online to compair to other peoples hardware configurations? No. I use Futuremark tools all the time. They help me determine how my system is functioning. It shows what tweaks werk, and which tweaks fubar me. I've been grateful for the free software they have provided over the years. So much so I bought '05 for 20 bucks cause I thought it looked great! I do have a pretty good system to run it on though. And it gives me the tools to bump up the rez and use AA/AF.

Lets all just be happy that Kyle and [H] do all the work of finding actual gaming performance for us. Their new way of reviewing cards and games just RAWKS! Takes all the work away from users who don't really want to run time demos and other worthless bench tools that are included with games. Time demos are just as worthless as 3DMark for determining actual gaming performance since they don't include AI, player animations, etc.

So what can Futuremark do now to improve things for the gamer? Lots!! Mister Rodgers nailed it with his suggestion of using actual game engines for the tests. Futuremark will listen to us guys and gals. Change will take time. Change also requires some of us to be a little less critical. We never get exactly what we want the 1st time around. Share your ideas about how to make things better instead of e-flaming a dead horse.

And lastly. Those of you trolling this thread just to call people names, whine about spelling mistakes, and generally act a fool need to grow up just a bit.

Thanks for reading.

E
 
The most amusing thing I've read so far is the reply Tero has sent to people who've e-mailed him saying he was only desperate for feedback... If 3dMark's bean counters had a clue they'd use his salary to license a game engine or two and actually improve upon the product as a benchmark, a suggestion any monkey could've come up after simply lurking in this or any other forum for a day. :rolleyes:
 
3dmark 2001 was decent when it had the max payne engine, cause then you could rely on 'some actual gaming experiance'.
I totally agree with Kyle, sure I think 3dmark 2003 sucked big time too, and its not too far from 2005 either. After I ran 3dmark 2003, I uninstalled it right away, it was a waste of space. Athough the benchmarks sure do look good, but no games are made like that anyways to run that crappy. And now Mad Onion errr Futuremark wants so much money now? I think thats the reason why they want to stop the slander so that more people will buy their product. But it sucks anyways, I was totally turned off with the demo of 2005, you can't change anything. Oh buy it now, then you can alter this... They just want to get richer. I would never buy anything from Futuremark.
Anyone know what happened to those older tech demos that had good graphics and played music at the same time and were fairly small in MB size?
 
Sharp4600 said:
Anyone know what happened to those older tech demos that had good graphics and played music at the same time and were fairly small in MB size?
Click to expand...

Codecreatures? :D
 
when do you think futuremark will realize games are nowhere near as videocard-desperate as they make people believe with their scores. i've run my 2.8ghz at 1.4ghz and gotten a 100 point drop, while lowering my 9700pro's core by 10mhz does 100+ points off.

this deserves a nice long roooooooooooooooooooll eyeeeeeeeeees. Hocp is the shit! :)
 
very lame act! its against freedom of expression.
Futuremark should learn to accept reviews and user opinions
personally i understand HOCP since 3DMark codename is "the gamers benchmark" or something like that.. anyway 3DMark05 doesnt have any OpenGL engine based game test. 50% of the popular games based on OpenGL games!
and their installer about 300mb (way too much)
it costs 20$ and personally i dont think it worth the price since you can find benchmark software for free. now SUE ME
 
Damn..I dont post on the forums much..but this is just out of hand. Who do they think they are...honestly? Gods gift to the gaming community or something? What a joke..I dont have time to read thru everyone else's posts here...but it seems that people mostly agree.

As with many others who have said it..I am going to delete all of their crappy software off my computer, and make sure everyone at my store never mentions that company again. Maybe their home office will burn to the ground...and we can see some real life specular lighting! :)

-Bedlam
 
Nomad said:
Hey Kyle - care to share the email address of this fool so that some of us can send him our opinion directly?[/SIZE]
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Heh, don't know about his email, though others have apparently worked that out, but his work number and fax number are fairly visable on the futuremark website

http://www.futuremark.com/companyinfo/?management

Any monkey with a phonebook can probably find his home number, but I wouldn't recommend any calls to it as they could be taken as harrassment, which whether or not Kyle said don't do it, would reflect badly on him and the community here.

Now, anyone wanna fax him a black sheet of paper that has the ends taped together? ;)
 
lol... you can label one card maker better than the other with a simple number and everything "is how it turned out," but when someone dislikes FM, FM gets in their face about it.

nvidia: hmmm... the sum of all our work proved to be useless just from the single event of ati beating our best score in a single benchmark. this could very well mean our product won't sell as well as it could/should.
FM: yup, that's life.

anonymous: i dislike futuremark for reasons that i've established through my own opinions.
FM: wtf, we're going to sue your ass! no one can degrade another person like that and get away with it!!


icon_rolleyes.gif
 
I been waitin for a chance to say this on just the right thread...

FM is as useless as tits on a bull.

(besides, Im tryin to get that damn nub tag off my profile) ;)

Thank you, goodnight.
 
Ok so I can't understand what Tero wants. He says that Kyle hasn't been helpful in delineating his problems with 3DMark. I, somehow, understood what Kyle was saying and what could be done about it before I got off of the mainpage. The dam benchmark doesn't include any content from and ACTUAL game engine. If they want it to be relevant, then they should ADD SOME CONTENT FROM A REAL GAME ENGINE. WTF. Is this hard to understand? I can't fathom how anyone with at least a minimum of intelligence has missed this simple point. As for the people who think Kyle has been inflamatory towards FM, who really and truly cares? If Kyle doesn't like FM and you do, just keep that in mind and move on. I work in an electronics store and yet I hate SONY products. If you want the skinny on them I'll tell you all about them, however. Kyle does the same thing for FM and I find that valuable. Also, those of you who want the parts removed from the frontpage and think things should be worded differently shoudl consider this thoroughly. It's not your website. You don't pay the bills, you don't add the content, you don't sift the emails. If the owner of the website wants to say something, then so be it. For the "let's move on" crowd, I remind you that the topic has only been there a day and that hardly justifies a "let's move on" comment. If this had been there for several weeks or something, then I would expect some kind of moving on comment.
 
Didn't read it all due to the shear massive amounts of posts but this threat is so funny. Do they really think they would win? I mean if its possible wouldn't game developers be able to sue magazines and game websites that give thier games bad reviews?

Jeeez imagine how much hell would break loose... Im glad [H]ardocp doesn't buckle under the pressure of these companies... if they did who would be next!

[H] 4 Life!
 
Nomad said:
Hey Kyle - care to share the email address of this fool so that some of us can send him our opinion directly?[/SIZE]
Click to expand...

Tero's email address is posted on the front page in the email that he sent.

What I'm interested in is the president's email so I can tell him how I feel about Tero's actions.
 
|MaguS| said:
Didn't read it all due to the shear massive amounts of posts but this threat is so funny. Do they really think they would win? I mean if its possible wouldn't game developers be able to sue magazines and game websites that give thier games bad reviews?

Jeeez imagine how much hell would break loose... Im glad [H]ardocp doesn't buckle under the pressure of these companies... if they did who would be next!

[H] 4 Life!
Click to expand...

Along those lines, I wonder how many emails Tero got over this? I know I sent him one.
 
Kyle,

My most humble opinion, is that 3DMark05 is a pointless benchmarking program. At least the Free version is. Had the free version a little more options to tweak, I might have felt otherwise. I feel that my current PC is, while not Top-Of-The-Line, it IS still powerful. So once 3DMark05 was released, I spent 30mins & downloaded it to see how my PC would stack up against it. I was less than thrilled with my score to say the least.

Like you had mentioned in your original post on the front page of this site, 3DMark05 dosen't really serve any purpose. It does NOT IMO, tell me how my PC will stack up against the next generation of PC Games. I am also glad that you posted about the first amendment, though since the makers arn't American, our rights do not pertain to them. I am brand new to your forums & so I do not know what has been said about FutureMark in the past, I only know what I read & that I agree fully with that which you posted.

There is more to a benchmark than just testing the video cards capabilities, which is what 3DMark05 seems to only pay attention to.

My 3DMark05 Score was: 2,484

My PC:
AMD Athlon XP Mobile 2600 @ 2.30ghz & 400mhz FSB
nForce 2 NF7-S Mobo
1GB PC-3200 GEIL RAM @ 400mhz
SATA 250GB WD
Radeon 9800 Pro Clocked @ 400Core/700RAM
Audigy 2
WinXP SP2

On one of the sites I provide tech support, I posted about 3DMark05 & people with PC's HALF as fast as mine were getting DOUBLE my score because they had a better video card. Which is funny if you stop & think about it. I can run Doom3 in all it's glory on HIGH & 1024x768 & get a solid 65+ FPS, while they are lucky to get 35 FPS on medium @ 800x600. So, you tell me whats the point of the Benchmark??

Oh well.

-MRG
 
I got the automated/canned reply from Tero after sending in a cursory opinion of what was happening... If he's keeping tabs at all over his inbox and actually cares for "feedback" I won't be getting the same automated response to my second e-mail (could care less whether I get any response at all tho), I'd hope.

Even if he doesn't realize I've already e-mailed him once the first sentence of my second e-mail makes that clear. We'll see if he actually wants "feedback" or if he's just covering his tail now, I guess. Still seems like an awfully shoddy excuse...

Any trained monkey could roll thru forums all day long for them if they really wanted feedback and ideas, so I don't buy that excuse. Not sure what they actually pay him for otherwise...
 
Mister E said:
America is great, but please don't rub constitution bs in peoples faces. They are hardly ever impressed.
E
Click to expand...


BS? You are full of it sir. The constitution is the last defense in keeping anything at all sane in this country. Our 'leaders' make it their duty to take away as many freedoms as they can, as quickly as they can. Our BS constitution is the only thing that keeps us from becoming a total freedomless bunghole of a country.
 
wow, 26,698 views in a little over 12 hours. . . this thread now scares me. . .
 
Tidy_Sammy said:
Zardoz, you must be pretty sad to post things like that, what do you want?, a cookie? :confused:
Click to expand...


Really I am happy. I got a lot of hard drive space back for better things. to bad you feel like you must dump on me though... You are a very bad person...
 
I just have a few more things about a "gaming benchmark" and what it should have

1. Physics engine, more and more games are using them today (I've stated them before) Cpu load

2. Enemy AI this has been around more or less for a long time and it does count. Cpu load

3. Input controles, I'm not sure if that is all but if anyone taking my comments seriosuly wants to look into this I believe its worth while. While I'm playing a demand game like Doom3 and they go from game to info, I can tell instatnatly when the game switched to cenimatic mode if my system wasn't running so great becaue it gets smooth as soon as my control is taken away. I don't know what exactly they turn off but look into emulating it.

4. At least OpenGL and Direct3D because they are booth used booth likely to go away anytime soon

5. Normal maps seem to be all the rage and with good reason.

I believe that sound is a given.

6. The stressing of AA and AF probably trying to evaluate (visually) Image quality and AntiX over periods of low and high frame rate.

Oh and if I must say so the Vulpine GLmark result feature is really nice by showing you your speed over a period of time and an estimate picture of what was on the screen. I think a good start to build from there is listing what is intensive in that seen as well.


However noon of this will actually make synthetic tests alright when trying ot figure out how a game will work. This is because of math, yep math is to blame. There are soo many was to do the same thing these days filtering/geometry/special lighting functions, it can go on and on and lests not even get into shaders. So basically you say sugar, they say High fructiose corn surup and someone else says Splinda, but it all tastes sweet. One way to try and quell this is reporting the socre in a tally type way and play down the final figure or go to a multi-section based score each section will represent a differetn vital part of what a game might likely need to function (IE: 2342.13123.23423.1216.13) Then comparing that score to how that same scoring system did with xyz game running maybe your own special sauce of demoing the third party program (which could be made avaliable to the public if leagally feasable). Also a base line socre based on whats in the system genericly would be good as well.

That all I can think of now I don't think IE spell is working so sorry for the mispellings

Edit: I forgot to say why I put game bench in quotes. Its because I believe there is a difference between a Video card Bench and a game Bench. Most of the suggestions wouldn't be need in a pure video card bench.
 
Zardoz said:
Well folks here is proof of what I did this evening... I also removed all sumits to the ORB and will be closing the free account (if I can.)

++UPDATE++

ORB account removed pic below...

mark01se.JPG


mark02.JPG


mark05.JPG


pcmark04.JPG


orb.JPG
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What URL is that removal form? Thanks.


Kyle,

Willie Nelson was right..shoulda become a lawyer.... Need to be these days if you want to fuction in society.
 
siegecraft4 said:
I have several points to make:

First, to those users uninstalling all Futuremark programs from their computers and posting screenshots, please, your acting pretty immature. Do you really believe that Futuremark cares if you uninstall their application when most of you never payed for them in the first place? The real money comes from those who pay for the the Professional verson and those companies who sponser the benchmark.You are behaving like little children throwing a tantrum.

Second, I believe that HardOCP's behavior in this matter has been less than professional. While I agree that HardOCP is entitled to its opinions and can express them in any way they choose, comments such as "little doggy barking up the wrong tree," "sucks," and "you guys aren't Americans" have no place on a site which is supposed to represent us all.
Not all HardOCP readers think Futuremark employees are foreigners ignorant to American freedoms. Comments such as this will ostracize companies from dealing with HardOCP in the future and only cause legal issues for the site. This is the era of frivilous lawsuits, and this kind of behavior will embroil HardOCP in more than it can handle.

Finally, I would like to make a comment about the usefulness of 3dmark. Overall, the concept of a universal benchmark for 3d performance is a good one. Yet, the idea can never be implemented sucessfully because of the varying architecture of the two primary competing solutions on the market, and because the implications of losing such an all important benchmark are huge. The concept of one definining graphics benchmark is dead, because, as has been demonstrated by the latest series of games, each architecture has strengths and weaknesses. To define a system's performance in terms of some vague "marks" which have no correlation to image quality or framerate, no longer make sense. Also, a benchmark which cripples the latest high end hardware does not make sense in any application besides marketing.

The age of 3dmarks is over. HardOCP may be the first to realize this among the enthusiast sites. I hope it can rise to Futuremark's challange. It is my sincere hope that it can do so in a manner that will not alienate other companies or misrepresent the larger community.
Click to expand...

Your comments are very well said. And among the hundred or so replies I see so far, yours stands out as the most professional and intelligent. My views are exactly the same.
 
Mister E said:
America is great, but please don't rub constitution bs in peoples faces. They are hardly ever impressed.
Click to expand...


pahncrd said:
BS? You are full of it sir. The constitution is the last defense in keeping anything at all sane in this country. Our 'leaders' make it their duty to take away as many freedoms as they can, as quickly as they can. Our BS constitution is the only thing that keeps us from becoming a total freedomless bunghole of a country.
Click to expand...

Don't twist my words.

Coulda wrote constitution crap, constitution stuff, blah, sayings, talk, etc etc. You sir put the bs be4 constitution in your post. :rolleyes:
 
Mister E said:
Don't twist my words.

Coulda wrote constitution crap, constitution stuff, blah, sayings, talk, etc etc. You sir put the bs be4 constitution in your post. :rolleyes:
Click to expand...


You said that people aren't impressed by the constitution. Well i certainly am. I find it has a lot of forsight into exactly what would happen.

People can be unimpressed all they want, but regardless of whatever authoritarian state you wish to live in, we have the right to express our opinions... mostly
 
burningrave101 said:
I'd much rather spend my $20 on my girl instead of spending it on Bungholiomark2005 cause the points i score with her actually mean something haha.
Click to expand...

Amen. :D
 
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