the saga never ends (nvidia)...

[gururu]

LINKAGE

"The bug is not in the Radeon driver, the bug exists within DX9 ? Dany Lepage, one of the developer of Splinter Cell contributes in our forums and he has confirmed this with us. The reason that you see no issue with the NVIDIA boards is that, quite simply, NVIDIA detect this game and turn off AA ? you can verify this yourself by enabling AA (without AF enabled) and running the benchmark and you?ll probably find that the scores are exactly the same as with AA. The results you are displaying on that page is comparing AA and AF of the Radeon to just AF on the 5900/5800."

again, you're not always getting what you think your getting from nvidia.

gururu

 

[Glitchny]

is this another instance of cheating by Nvidia or is this the same one that has been discussed before?

 

[Lonyo]

nVidia are getting a little on the edge, just gotta hope they don't fall off the cliff.

 

[Schadenfroh]

OMG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! IT MUST BE ON CHEATING ON XBOX TOO, nvidia chipset!!!! takes XBOX and GEFORCE4 TI and tosses them down the stairs.

/PUts trusted S3 ViRgE back in.
/installs Atari 2600 back into Sony Wega
ahhhhh, no more driver cheating


but seriosly all my games run very well without lag. the lag that does occur at wierd settings is caused by my 1700 and pc2100. That is what i pay nvidia for and that is what they give me, i am happy with that and i will buy from them next time. unless parhelia2 comes out.

/waits for flame war to ensue

BTW, i think what you say is a bad thing is actually a good thing. Nvidia's software team worked around a bug that was not their fault in order to provide their customers with a helpfull soultion. cant say the same for ATI. BTW, does this happen on matrox cards?

 

[MercenaryForHire]

/withholds rage

Christ almighty. What aren't they going to fux0r with?

- M4H

 

[zsouthboy]

uh.... i don't see how this is cheating... Splinter Cell is seriously f#$ked up when you run it with AA on, on ANY card...

EDIT: DX 9 IS the reason why AA is fux0red btw, not nvidia or ati's drivers...

 

[Mem]

again, you're not always getting what you think your getting from nvidia.

You can say the same thing about ATI and other companies.

Is it me or there too many anti-Nvidia threads going around over the last few weeks?

 

[gururu]

is this another instance of cheating by Nvidia or is this the same one that has been discussed before?

I wouldn't call this a cheat. It was obviously meant to bypass a splinter cell/DX9 bug, but all benchmarks with SC in AA are useless. You'd think Nvidia would've mentioned this, but maybe they were waiting for someone to ask.

OMG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! IT MUST BE ON CHEATING ON XBOX TOO, nvidia chipset!!!! takes XBOX and GEFORCE4 TI and tosses them down the stairs.

I was thinking the same thing. when you run sc on the xbox, you can notice that every once in a while, graphics near the bottom of the screen become corrupt momentarily. Also, in Halo, the sky sometimes just kidding I don't even own an xbox.

uh.... i don't see how this is cheating... Splinter Cell is seriously f#$ked up when you run it with AA on, on ANY card...

i agree. its just that if YOU WANT AA on, it should remain on. it should be up to the user to disable.

Is it me or there too many anti-Nvidia threads going around over the last few weeks?

bad news is about as anti-nvidia as good news is pro-nvidia. its just news, not slander.

gururu

 

[nRollo]

OMG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! IT MUST BE ON CHEATING ON XBOX TOO, nvidia chipset!!!!

Nooooooooooooo! Not my XBox! <gnashes teeth in blood lust of rage, searches for hammer>

 

[Rogozhin]

Yes, I don't think it's a cheat but I've had some nvidiots around here say "SC is broken on ATI cards." And I've had to resort to posting ubi's own claims that it's the game.

THis just makes it more difficult to flink crap on ati.

rogo

 

[nRollo]

I don't think anyone wants to "fling crap on ATI", more like just give nVidia some credit where credit is due. (at least in my case)

 

[Rand]

Originally posted by: Mem

again, you're not always getting what you think your getting from nvidia.

You can say the same thing about ATI and other companies.

Is it me or there too many anti-Nvidia threads going around over the last few weeks?

For all the anti-nVidia thread sthere will be a dozen that would rather die then say anything negative towards them.
Personally I'd just as soon see all the anti-nVidia threads turn into anti-EVERYONE threads... these companies arent out for the good of man kind. Their out to make money any way they can.
Cash will always win out over morals.

 

[squidman]

I seriously want nVidia to flop. But then i think of all the people, that gonna get fired, hirde as janitors by ati...nVidia is stumbling, and i dont want it to fall untill i get GOOD, working, drivers for nForce2. Nothing good would have came out this war o' titans. One of them turned really, totally, gay (nVidia). Also, if nVidia flops, then ATI would dictate the market prices. and radeons would cost $n-to-infinity.

 

[nRollo]

nVidia is stumbling, and i dont want it to fall untill i get GOOD, working, drivers for nForce2. Nothing good would have came out this war o' titans.

Er, yeah, nVidia is hurting. Market share leader by far, making money hand over fist, best AMD platform, XBox contract, I see what you mean.

ATI has the best high end VGA, and ...the best high end VGA, and er...the best high end VGA!

nVidia has had problems with their high end VGA of late, but the problems have been more TSMCs than theirs. The 5800 is the second best card you can buy, and a lot better than the Ti4600, so it's not a total failure, just late and doesn't compete well at some high detail settings.

 

[Falloutboy]

At this point I think Nvidia is feeling a downsides of getting thier hands in multiple areas IE: Nforce, Xbox, Graphics. Not to say this is a bad thing but thier are bound to be problems. Now how they deal with the problems is whats going to make or break them. for example if the 5900 do come in good supply and 5600 stays competitive price wise with a 9600 I think they are in fine shape.

 

[DefRef]

Originally posted by: Mem
Is it me or there too many anti-Nvidia threads going around over the last few weeks?

The ATI fanboys are terrified of their 9 months of being able to go "nyeah-nyeah" are coming to an end and they're going insane with panic and rage. (No pun intended.)

 

[jjjayb]

The worst part about this....

Anand's very own nv35 review has bogus bench numbers for the splinter cell benchmark. He benched the 9800 with aa and af on against the nv35 without aa on. He say's aa was on for both cards but we no this isn't true because of this specific bug. Worse than that he used half a page talking about ATI drivers being buggy because they had lighting issues in splinter cell. This is true for any card that uses multisample AA, including the NV35 if you actually have AA on.

EVEN WORSE IS THAT I POINTED THIS OUT TO HIM 3 WEEKS AGO ON THE VERY DAY THE REVIEW CAME OUT!!!!!!! HE STILL HASN'T FIXED THIS CRAP!!!!! (sorry bout the caps but I'm pissed that this issue still hasn't been fixed in the review.)

There was a thread in the article feedback section where we were discussing this issue also. Evan lieb posted and said that they were looking into this. That was almost 2 weeks ago. Since then they have deleted the entire thread without a word.

Reviewers need to spend a little less time looking at numbers and more time looking at the screen while they are benching. You'd think you'd notice a little thing like AA not actually being on. You'd think you might also double check your quake3 scores when you get the same scores across the board in all resolutions with AA and AF when NO other reviewer managed to pull off that amazing feat.

Ok. That's the end of my rant. NOW FIX THE ARTICLE ANAND! (ok. had to get that last holler in there)

 

[Idoxash]

Originally posted by: jjjayb
The worst part about this....

Anand's very own nv35 review has bogus bench numbers for the splinter cell benchmark. He benched the 9800 with aa and af on against the nv35 without aa on. He say's aa was on for both cards but we no this isn't true because of this specific bug. Worse than that he used half a page talking about ATI drivers being buggy because they had lighting issues in splinter cell. This is true for any card that uses multisample AA, including the NV35 if you actually have AA on.

EVEN WORSE IS THAT I POINTED THIS OUT TO HIM 3 WEEKS AGO ON THE VERY DAY THE REVIEW CAME OUT!!!!!!! HE STILL HASN'T FIXED THIS CRAP!!!!! (sorry bout the caps but I'm pissed that this issue still hasn't been fixed in the review.)

There was a thread in the article feedback section where we were discussing this issue also. Evan lieb posted and said that they were looking into this. That was almost 2 weeks ago. Since then they have deleted the entire thread without a word.

Reviewers need to spend a little less time looking at numbers and more time looking at the screen while they are benching. You'd think you'd notice a little thing like AA not actually being on. You'd think you might also double check your quake3 scores when you get the same scores across the board in all resolutions with AA and AF when NO other reviewer managed to pull off that amazing feat.

Ok. That's the end of my rant. NOW FIX THE ARTICLE ANAND! (ok. had to get that last holler in there)

I stoped reading his reviews a few months ago and heck I dun even goto the main site now. In my opinion it feels like over the last half year anandtech as a whole has turn their backs on some things around here but this is about video so i'm not going there. All I'm going to say is ATI and nVidia both lie, ripya off, and sucks with drivers. I'm looking forward that card that someone of you never thought would happen but now would seem to happen by a company called PowerVR

--Idoxash

 

[Harabecw]

I'd hardly call that a bug, as others have said AA is total poo in Splinter Cell, no matter what card. I'd say its SMART if the drivers turn AA off just for that.

btw, has anyone found a reason why AA doesn't work in SC but works perfectly in Raven Shield?

 

[Lonyo]

Originally posted by: Rollo

nVidia is stumbling, and i dont want it to fall untill i get GOOD, working, drivers for nForce2. Nothing good would have came out this war o' titans.

Er, yeah, nVidia is hurting. Market share leader by far, making money hand over fist, best AMD platform, XBox contract, I see what you mean.

ATI has the best high end VGA, and ...the best high end VGA, and er...the best high end VGA!

nVidia has had problems with their high end VGA of late, but the problems have been more TSMCs than theirs. The 5800 is the second best card you can buy, and a lot better than the Ti4600, so it's not a total failure, just late and doesn't compete well at some high detail settings.

He said stumbling, not hurting.
The 5800 is the second best card out, for now, until the 5900 is released, it has also pretty much been phased out.
ATi has a Gamecube contract, which may not be as big as the XBox contract, but you can't point out one thing from one company and ignore the other.
Best AMD platform with a fair few bugs in the drivers (people complain about ATI's buggy VGA drivers, so nVidia having buggy motherboard drivers is a valid counter point)
The Radeon 9700 and 9800 are quite even with the 5800 so it's only just up there, and not all that available.

Whether they're hurting or not doesn't matter, they need to sort out drivers and get informing the public on things rather than trying to cover whatever up.

Even if the Splinter Cell AA is a DX9 bug, that doesn't mean nVidia are good for turning off AA, because they haven't said they do that. If they had informed the public this was the case, there would be no problem as it is a justifiable move. Instead they decide to leave it, and as a consequence, ATi look bad in the benchmarks.

 

[jjjayb]

The problem with turning off Anti-Aliasing without telling you:

I've seen at least 3 reviews that showed the nv35 dominating the 9800 in splinter cell with AA and AF. NONE of these reviewers realized that AA was automatically disabled on the NV35. So now you have review sites putting up bad numbers that make the nv35 look way better than it is, and or the 9800 look way worse in comparison. Did Nvidia tell these websites that AA is automatically disabled in splinter cell? No. So these sites post these erroneous numbers.

I really think the reviewers need to pay more attention to detail when they are benching though. Although Nvidia's AA isn't the best, it's not so bad that you can't tell when it's on or off by looking at the screen. Another thing that should tip them off is the lighting errors. It's a well known issue that AA doesn't work properly in Splinter cell. That you should get lighting errors when you have AA on. These reviewers should have noticed that the lighting errors weren't there on the Nv35. That should have given them a clue that AA wasn't actually on.

 

[Megatomic]

Originally posted by: DefRef

Originally posted by: Mem
Is it me or there too many anti-Nvidia threads going around over the last few weeks?

The ATI fanboys are terrified of their 9 months of being able to go "nyeah-nyeah" are coming to an end and they're going insane with panic and rage. (No pun intended.)

Hahahahaha!!! I was thinking the same thing myself.