Things are looking grim for Nvidia

PoopyTheJ

From Gamers Depot -

NVIDA's Money Lures EIDOS To Pull Patch Discuss
EIDOS Interactive, the publisher for Tomb Raider: Angel of Darkness issued a patch a couple of weeks ago for the game which happened to include a way to use the game as a DX9 benchmark. Since it shows NVIDIA hardware performing slower than ATI, EIDOS has pulled it down. Remember, this is a "Way it's meant to be played" game, which means NVIDIA has paid EIDOS marketing money. Keep in mind, that this patch improved performance on both ATI and NVIDIA hardware. Here's a bs statement from EIDOS Europe:

"It has come to the attention of Eidos that an unreleased patch for Tomb Raider: AOD has unfortunately been used as the basis for videocard benchmarking. While Eidos and Core appreciate the need for modern benchmarking software that utilizes the advanced shading capabilities of modern graphics hardware, Tomb Raider: AOD Patch 49 was never intended for public release and is not a basis for valid benchmarking comparisons. Core and Eidos believe that Tomb Raider: AOD performs exceptionally well on NVIDIA hardware." - Paul Baldwin, Eidos

Ouch!
I can't believe the tactics Nvidia is using to cover up the deficiencies of it's hardware. Sad.

DriveEuro

Well, imagine...... What if they really did go under....... What if they got screwed like 3dFX..... I mean, I doubt it'll happen, but wow..... That would turn ati to the king.....

craig588

Whoa, thats really bad. 3DFX never got crazy like that, they went around making odd claims like "16bit color and 32bit color look identical to most people" but they never outright lied.

dipstick

ATi is already king, but I do want nVidia around to keep the price wars going
Not sure waht to say about the above since the patch actually improved performace for nVidia

Vampyromaniac

Guys, nVidia didn't do anything . . . it was EIDOS

Vengeance

Why do you think eidos did it?

Vampyromaniac

to not lose their deal with nVidia I think . . . pretty lame of them

PoopyTheJ

It was EIDOS however I have to think they did so at the behest of NVIDIA, since as they say it a "Way it's Meant to be played" game. You have to figure these games are meant to sell more Nvidia hardware the fact that they play better on ATI hardware has probably caused NVIDIA to release some sort of statement to it's partners not to use the game as a benchmark. My two cents.

black_out

If they don't stop jerking us around and come out with a real solution I belive they will suffer a similar fate like 3Dfx.

They are just trying to push frame-rates in exchange for video quality.

I noticed something wierd -- in the application and performance tweaking section of the Nvidia tools, that they renamed the 3 settings from Application controlled, quality and performance to the newly updated -- quality, performance, and high performance.....excuse me but what the he** are they trying to pull here??

What's with the naming convention here -- I could give a sweet hoo-hoo-dilly what they call these damn settings. I am getting VERY bitter at what they are doing and all they do is keep exacerbating the situation.

Oh -- and let's not forget than besides giving us nothing but and expensive sh** for a video card and not fixing the problem, lying their a**es off but the also upset the whole Nvidia community not only by doing these things, but since Omega actually improoved the drivers in a way they couldn't/wouldn't (not sure which) they told him to stop -- and then realizing what they did (too little, too late) -- let him resume, but not after backpeddling, and acting like they still had authority over the situation, then threw in some a** backwards mumbo jumbo to make it sound like they aren't appologizing for being jerks about this.

Let's just say -- ATI Radeon is going to be my next card, Nvidia clearly sucks and for the price -- damn expensive for what we're getting! I doubt their new Detonator 50 drivers will help -- they have yet to pull themselves out of this stink pot they've been in for some time now.

Can you tell I am bitter twoards them?

PoopyTheJ

Sounds like me when I bought my first ATI card a Radeon7000. Boy where theyre drivers awful! Thank God for Omega. It's another corporation using underhanded dirty tricks to make themselves look good. It's the way of the world. The only difference I can see is they aren't actualy stealing money yet, ala Enron. Things are very bad indeed unless nvidia can completely redesign a card and have a real dx9 part in theri next card they are in serioous trouble. at least with the enthusiast community. They may skimp along on the mainstream lines for a while, or on OEM deals for a bit but it could be the first death knell.

The_Neon_Cowboy

Yea i'm sure nvida had nothing to do with it... and the moon is made of cheese

"AOD performs exceptionally well on NVIDIA hardware."

YEA i'm sure NVIDIA had everything to do with it...(NOT)

Personally all sites should use it as a benchmark standard then. Because it’s an impartial test meaning NVIDIA hasn’t had time to make cheats oh sorry optimizations for them yet.

Zardon

Well im not going to post a long winded reply defending nvidia as really its hard right now to feel they are playing fair generally but I will say one thing in their defence, their high end pro cards (quadros) are the most awesome piece of hardware/driver combination ive ever had the pleasure to use. The opengl on these cards is almost perfection.

BWX

Maybe Nvidia should concentrate on their IDE drivers.

Rayder

It is my opinion that nVidia should stop trying to deviate from the norm and stick to ACTUAL DX9 and OGL codepaths. I read that stuff about an 'nvidia path' and 'DX9 path' and the same thing with OpenGL, where there was a STANDARD path, and an nVidia path, very rarely did I see anything about a special RADEON path. Seems to me THAT is the problem, nVidia is trying to be different about everything and it's coming back to bite them in the butt.

If software companies have to create all these 'special' little paths for nVidia hardware to work correctly(or to run at the speed of cards that use a STANDARD path), to me, that means it's nVidia's fault that their hardware doesn't perform well with STANDARD coding. And it may also be nVidia's fault when an ATI product doesn't work correctly because the creator of that game had to make all these special conscessions to nVidia and got confused about which is the CORRECT way to code and left out something that STANDARD-CODE COMPLIANT cards needed to function. (it's a good theory anyway )

I remember when 3DFX went down. We started looking at new video cards to replace our Voodoo's. Many companies had to make 'special' patches to make their game's work with an nVidia card (certain Voodoo cards had that problem too). My brother and I both saw the warning signs right there. We avoided nVidia products and went with ATI. (in fact, my bro always preferred ATI over even 3DFX, but Voodoo's were the 'gaming' card so.....) At least ATI cards utilize the STANDARD coding paths and we found very few ATI specific patches at gaming sites.

nVidia seems to be trying to force the gaming industry to program THEIR way instead of the RIGHT way. That is NOT 'the way it's meant to be played'. As far as all these 'problems' that nVidia seems to be having as of late.....well, ATI has the fastest card now, so companies are programming for ATI (you know, with STANDARD code paths) and it doesn't agree with nVidia's hardware. So nVidia has to cheat to compete.

I'm sure lots of people will correct me for anything I may be incorrect about, I AM being very general here. It just seems like this is the way it is from things I've read on the various forums.

Heh, that should be nVidia's new slogan: We cheat to compete.

dipstick

Toms hardware had a shoutout between the pro cards not too long ago and the nVidia line seems to kick some major butt. OGL does rock on nVidia hardware, glad you like it

Al_Vampyre

Yep, that would solve the problems, and its so feckin' obvious!! Why nVidia can't see it I have no idea

black_out

Well yah -- that's what 3Dfx did too!

Always thought they could do better than the standards out there deviated from 3/4 of them.

But Nvidia has taken it one step further -- thinking they are better than directX and OpenGL standards. their optimizations are going to omptimize them right outta the industry.

Markius

when 3DFX were king nvidia were doing everythnig in their power to prove they were the best....3DFX died and nvidia is king......

when nvidia was king ATI were doing everything in their power to prove they were the best...nvidia isnt dead but it seems ATI are becoming the Kings.....

lets hope that nividia doesnt die. i think the reason nvidia is falling down is because they think their shit doesnt stink and for a while they had no real competition,they have to wake up and smell the bacon coz ATI are the best out there at the moment and look like theyre only going to get better....
but if nvidia was to die (and ATI had no real competition) would they (ATI) go down the same path?

well thats my dribble for now.......

The_Neon_Cowboy

this sums up everthing i've said.... (repost )

look @ just thier stocks.... thier customers & thier investors switching to ATI
at's sales are up 75

nvida's revenue fell 14% Net income fell 50% last qurter
while ATI has reported a 71 percent surge !!!!!!

ati's stock once 1/4th of nvida's stock now costs MORE than nvida's stock by about 20%

http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=ATY....z=m&q=l&c=nvda

CherryPopper

Excellent !!

black_out

I think there's one thing we have to face, as history has shown us several times, I think this is the viscous cycle that is the 3d video card gaming industry.

Nvidia will fall, like 3Dfx before them and ATI may as well, if they don't rest on their lauels, and if they get enough competiton from XGi - which seems to be living up to what they' promised so far. Also S3 is making a comeback, hopefull they too will comeout with something to be reconed with.

None-the-less, don't get to comforatble with any video card company becuase they may go tits up regrdless of how good they've become, unless there is a corporation willing to put them selves at stake and hold themselves responsible all the time so they won't go down the tubes.

But, have you heard of *any* corporation doing that now-a-days?

RIV@NVX

That would mean for NVIDIA making new videocard, which they can't do right now, just like 3dfx at the point when it was loosing.

Vengeance

It will be a sad sad day if nvidia goes under as a graphics card maker.
As much as I don't like the way they are doing things right now.
8 months ago I loved there cards.
I used to swear by my Geforce 3 card, And nvidia!
I just don't understand why they started doing things the way they are.
Maybe I was blind because I used NV cards in the past, But was nvidia always like this?
Did they do shady things back in the GF2-GF3 days as well?
I'm still fairly new to the PC crowed, I've only been into PC gaming for about 2-2 1/2 years.

HawK

Well I remember a couple of slides from Nvidia towards their retailers,
why the Kyro (PVR) was a worthless piece of craphic card, there where some benchmarks and alot of lies & halftruths.
Remember, the original target of the Kyro was the Nv GF2 MX line,
in which NV claimed the MX line was at least twice as fast as the Kyro and later the KyroII
Well my KyroII, still with the sharpest 2 & 3D image Vcard I have ever had (which includes the Ati's)
It outperformed the GF2ti line in most of the games I play (mainly fps) if you had a 1ghz &up proc.
And (but this is only my opinion) the sudden & unexpected redrawing of ST micro from the 3d market, making the launch of the KyroIII impossible, and I still feel NV had something to do with it..
But you might ask why would a big company do something like that..??
well the Kyro with it's TBR (tilebased rendering) was/is with the right backup and good advertising a very dangerous player to deal with,
and it outsold the GF2mx in Brittian & Germany
So i'm hoping that PVR will get back in the market with the promised Series5 card and finish off what i should have done more than 2 years ago
(I did see the targeted specs of the S5 ).