UPDATE: NVIDIA backtracks - Hardware Unboxed blacklisted from receiving GeForce FE review samples over “focus on rasterization over ray-tracing”

[Random_Person1234]

It's the headline topic on today's WAN Show. They just released the full email for the first time to the public.

[harryk]

Eh, sorry Linus you're wrong about this one and here's why:

 

Sending out early sample units to the press is NOT about publishing fair honest reviews or any of that BS. It's simply another form of marketing. Even if it is a fair review, If the journalist is not advertising the aspects of the product that the company wants to emphasize then it is not the marketing they want. So the logical business-focused decision is to not send an early product sample to that publisher. As Linus said, no one is entitled to an early product sample.

 

In this purely business transaction, the publishers hold no or very little power. By accepting a privileged position from NVIDIA to receive an early product sample, they are accepting NVIDIA's wishes. NVIDIA has no reason to send anything to anyone that does not do what they want to produce the marketing they want.

 

If it were up to me, early product samples for review wouldn't be a thing. It's impossible to have this practice without bias or shills.

[Roswell]

Meh, people aren’t entitled to free samples. They can buy them like everyone else.

 

Nvidia is free to choose who they want to partner with in their marketing campaigns.

[TheBahrbarian]

4 minutes ago, harryk said:

Eh, sorry Linus you're wrong about this one and here's why:

 

Sending out early sample units to the press is NOT about publishing fair honest reviews or any of that BS. It's simply another form of marketing. Even if it is a fair review, If the journalist is not advertising the aspects of the product that the company wants to emphasize then it is not the marketing they want. So the logical business-focused decision is to not send an early product sample to that publisher. As Linus said, no one is entitled to an early product sample.

 

In this purely business transaction, the publishers hold no or very little power. By accepting a privileged position from NVIDIA to receive an early product sample, they are accepting NVIDIA's wishes. NVIDIA has no reason to send anything to anyone that does not do what they want to produce the marketing they want.

 

If it were up to me, early product samples for review wouldn't be a thing. It's impossible to have this practice without bias or shills.

I think Linus wasn't necessarily attacking Nvidia for not sending them a sample, he reiterated that Nvidia (and other companies) frequently do not send review samples to media for a variety of reasons and they have every right to do so. Rather, the issue lies with the precedent set by the email. The email itself frankly, came across as extremely aggressive and disrespectful, it was really surprising to read.

 

I mean, is he wrong about how consumers after this will have noticeably less trust in media? I sure will. Clearly they are not afraid to do whatever it takes to ensure that media reviews say what Nvidia wants, not their honest objective opinion. Especially when its quite obvious HUB did spend entire videos discussing RT and DLSS (even being featured on Nvidia's website lol), yet they didn't say exactly what Nvidia wanted. 

 

If consumers think it's ok that companies leverage any power they want to control the media coverage of their products and censor negative coverage, then we have no trustworthy reviews left, and that doesn't sound too great to me.

[CarlBar]

12 hours ago, leadeater said:

Well it could be worse, years ago when Textures and Lighting (TnL) was introduced if your GPU didn't support it then games that used it flat out did not work. It's why I had to get a new GPU, I brought a game and could not play it.

 

I remember ;). It's kinda a variation on that point that prompted my comment.

 

12 hours ago, Mark Kaine said:

I think what they're saying is that a current RT card is hopelessly outdated when it should be playing such a RT game that consists mostly of RT in an AAA level visuals game, and that is obviously true. 

 

So while you don't need RT now, you might need it in the future, on a completely different card with possibly completely different architecture.

 

Or in other words, nvidia found a clever way of having their customers pay for and at the same time beta testing a technical feature that will see widespread usage in a rather distant future (10-20 years)

 

Tldr: buying RT now is useless, *except* to sponsor nvidia's future endeavors in the field, which I'm pretty sure most customers wouldn't really agree with, they expect improved visuals with this tech right here and now (which is just "lol better reflections" right now basically , something the majority doesn't even notice, realistically) 

 

 

No on the current cards with the current architecture. most people don't replace their GPU's every generation. There's going to be a lot of people 5 years from now gaming on current hardware, and 5 years from now the current new cards will certainly be good enough at ray tracing that developers could be making the switchover. Don't get me wrong, i don't agree with NVIDIA's characterisation here and i think it gets the degree of focus it deserves, but it's not a nothing capability eithier.

[Mark Kaine]

4 minutes ago, CarlBar said:

No on the current cards with the current architecture

I think you misunderstood me, or the capabilities of these cards. I have been very precise and careful with my wording however. 

 

These cards aren't capable of playing *fully ray traced* games at AAA graphics level fidelity, and they aren't meant to be. 

 

13 minutes ago, CarlBar said:

and 5 years from now the current new cards will certainly be good enough at ray tracing that developers could be making the switchover

 to be clear this isn't happening, these cards are much too weak in their ray tracing capabilities, ray tracing is currently nothing more than an overrated gimmick for "reflections" and such. 

 

 

We're getting there, it's been an inevitability for quite some time but it's a slow process, that just started... 

 

 

[D13H4RD]

47 minutes ago, harryk said:

Sending out early sample units to the press is NOT about publishing fair honest reviews or any of that BS. It's simply another form of marketing. Even if it is a fair review, If the journalist is not advertising the aspects of the product that the company wants to emphasize then it is not the marketing they want. So the logical business-focused decision is to not send an early product sample to that publisher. As Linus said, no one is entitled to an early product sample.

I don't think that's the issue here. NVIDIA is well within their right to send or withhold the shipment of review samples to any reviewer they deem "worthy" for whatever reason. 

 

Much of the issue just stems from the why. Once again, they can do it, but it doesn't really mean they should, especially when the email does not really line up completely with what I've seen from HUB, notably their exceedingly high praise of DLSS. 

 

IMO, I think what ticked them off was Steve saying that there wasn't really a reason to buy a 3080 over a 6800XT if both are at MSRP. 

[harryk]

31 minutes ago, TheBahrbarian said:

I think Linus wasn't necessarily attacking Nvidia for not sending them a sample, he reiterated that Nvidia (and other companies) frequently do not send review samples to media for a variety of reasons and they have every right to do so. Rather, the issue lies with the precedent set by the email. The email itself frankly, came across as extremely aggressive and disrespectful, it was really surprising to read.

 

I mean, is he wrong about how consumers after this will have noticeably less trust in media? I sure will. Clearly they are not afraid to do whatever it takes to ensure that media reviews say what Nvidia wants, not their honest objective opinion. Especially when its quite obvious HUB did spend entire videos discussing RT and DLSS (even being featured on Nvidia's website lol), yet they didn't say exactly what Nvidia wanted. 

 

If consumers think it's ok that companies leverage any power they want to control the media coverage of their products and censor negative coverage, then we have no trustworthy reviews left, and that doesn't sound too great to me.

Yes, the email and NVIDIA's attitude is overly aggressive and not good for general PR. Though I don't think this practice of hand picking reviewers is anything new, this is just a really bad example of it. 

 

IMHO we shouldn't necessarily trust the reviews of early products anyway. If this whole fiasco leads to anything good, it'll be the end of early product samples for reviewers. LTT and the rest should band together and stop accepting review units. As Linus said they have more than enough money to purchase the products themselves.

[harryk]

2 minutes ago, D13H4RD said:

I don't think that's the issue here. NVIDIA is well within their right to send or withhold the shipment of review samples to any reviewer they deem "worthy" for whatever reason. 

 

Much of the issue just stems from the why. Once again, they can do it, but it doesn't really mean they should, especially when the email does not really line up completely with what I've seen from HUB, notably their exceedingly high praise of DLSS. 

 

IMO, I think what ticked them off was Steve saying that there wasn't really a reason to buy a 3080 over a 6800XT if both are at MSRP. 

There doesn't need to be a good reason, or any reason for that matter. No one is entitled to anything. The system does not have to be fair. If someone wants a review unit, they have to make NVIDIA want to give one to them.

[D13H4RD]

4 minutes ago, harryk said:

There doesn't need to be a good reason, or any reason for that matter. No one is entitled to anything. The system does not have to be fair. If someone wants a review unit, they have to make NVIDIA want to give one to them.

Like I said, they can do it. Doesn't mean they should but they can legally do it for whatever reason they deem fit. 

 

Perhaps their stance will change as more media outlets chime in but I still look at GN's move of blacklisting MSI from sponsorship deals being a more significant one after the whole TTGB fiasco. 

 

I wonder if they'll actually refuse review samples and choose to just get the cards themselves, although this also means losing out on Day 0 content delivery, so unless all the big guys chime in, unlikely... 

[SpaceGhostC2C]

1 hour ago, harryk said:

Eh, sorry Linus you're wrong about this one and here's why:

 

Sending out early sample units to the press is NOT about publishing fair honest reviews or any of that BS. It's simply another form of marketing.

Linus explained as much in considerable detail. Of course they send review samples as a form of marketing. It's still a different form of marketing from sponsor spots. Arguing that reviews of early samples should become sponsor spots (if they control the content, that's what it must be called) is destructive for the review industry as a whole. As Linus put it, there is a transaction, it's not that transaction.

 

Quote

By accepting a privileged position from NVIDIA to receive an early product sample, they are accepting NVIDIA's wishes.

There is no reason why they should, and as you can see, as a matter of fact they aren't.

 

20 minutes ago, harryk said:

There doesn't need to be a good reason, or any reason for that matter.

There doesn't need to be. However (something Linus also said), providing a bad reason is a problem, and it's much worse than providing no reason at all. "We have a limited number of cards, and we allocated them to other outlets" or a plan "no" would not have caused such a response. But giving as a reason (and as you said, without having to give a reason) "you are not obeying our marketing guidelines, but you can return to the fold whenever you are ready to obey" is not only a crook move, it's also a threat to anyone else and a way to tell that other reviewers who continue to receive cards are Nvidia shills. Because Nvidia itself is saying that shill membership is required to receive the cards. All of the sudden, Linus will get called a shill even more for his genuine interest in RT and DLSS. That's what his rant is about. And it has nothing to do with any obligation to provide cards to anyone.

[Gamer Schnitzel]

Okay so please correct me if I am wrong.

 

1. Nvidia sells a big chunk of cards straight to miners. Everyone and their dog complains that these are GAMER cards but apparently several people here disagree and know better.

2. Nvidia writes an email to a Youtuber that they won't send him any more cards like the 3090 because they AND GAMERS care about other things than what the Youtuber covered.

 

Am I just dumb or are they pretty much confirming here that these are gaming cards and are clearly for the gaming community, yet they sold to miners for quick cash and we aren't allowed to hate on them for it?

[TheBahrbarian]

2 minutes ago, Gamer Schnitzel said:

Okay so please correct me if I am wrong.

 

1. Nvidia sells a big chunk of cards straight to miners. Everyone and their dog complains that these are GAMER cards but apparently several people here disagree and know better.

2. Nvidia writes an email to a Youtuber that they won't send him any more cards like the 3090 because they AND GAMERS care about other things than what the Youtuber covered.

 

Am I just dumb or are they pretty much confirming here that these are gaming cards and are clearly for the gaming community, yet they sold to miners for quick cash and we aren't allowed to hate on them for it?

Yeah personally I had 0 issue with them selling to miners. At the end of the day they're paying customers just like the rest of us, and maybe Nvidia thought they could capitalize on mining craze by selling to them first. Disappointing for the rest of us, but a legitimate business decisions if you ask me.

It is definitely ironic considering the phrasing of the email where they basically position themselves as a company "by gamers for gamers" as if they speak for all gamers or something haha.

[piemadd]

I feel like its crappy of Nvidia to do this, but they do have a point. 

Hardware unboxed is basing their performance numbers pretty much only off of Rasterization. The thing is, while the improvements they have made there are kinda eh, we're going into a new era of everything is ray traced, down to linus' ball hairs the particles of sand in MC. Technologies such as DLSS and RT allow for us to start looking into what games in 2021 and 2022 will be using, most of which will probably be focused on ray tracing. This only makes sense, as better lighting = moar better. 

This was 100% a sleep deprived Piero ramble but I hope you get my point.

[Shimejii]

27 minutes ago, pierom_qwerty said:

I feel like its crappy of Nvidia to do this, but they do have a point. 

Hardware unboxed is basing their performance numbers pretty much only off of Rasterization. The thing is, while the improvements they have made there are kinda eh, we're going into a new era of everything is ray traced, down to linus' ball hairs the particles of sand in MC. Technologies such as DLSS and RT allow for us to start looking into what games in 2021 and 2022 will be using, most of which will probably be focused on ray tracing. This only makes sense, as better lighting = moar better. 

This was 100% a sleep deprived Piero ramble but I hope you get my point.

They have 0 point. HUB Did dedicated videos on Ray tracing and such. Raytracing as its stands is Hot Garbage, Looks great, performs like dogshit. DLSS helps a bit but not enough to justify it in the HANDFUL OF TITLES (3 years after) So yeah, RT should not be focused on. 

 

The guy that wrote the email needs to be fired. They literally have HUB on marketing material for DLSS, theyve gone quite in detail on raytracing. NVIDIA HAS 0 merit for what was said in the email. They just look plain stupid, and thats just pathetic. 

 

Reviewer cards are one thing, when they use them basically for advertising and nothing else, its pretty much up to nvidia to say who gets what. THATS NOT THE ISSUE, what the issue was that in the email it says if they change their opinion and lose the integrity they have built up, they will get cards again. This behavior got mobsters killed and put in jail, its mafia mentality and it doesnt pay off in the long run.

[Dionyz]

29 minutes ago, pierom_qwerty said:

I feel like its crappy of Nvidia to do this, but they do have a point. 

Hardware unboxed is basing their performance numbers pretty much only off of Rasterization. The thing is, while the improvements they have made there are kinda eh, we're going into a new era of everything is ray traced, down to linus' ball hairs the particles of sand in MC. Technologies such as DLSS and RT allow for us to start looking into what games in 2021 and 2022 will be using, most of which will probably be focused on ray tracing. This only makes sense, as better lighting = moar better. 

This was 100% a sleep deprived Piero ramble but I hope you get my point.

New Era?!? Go to any competitive esport title and tell me how high the Ray Tracing is. None! They could care less about Ray Tracing performance. It's about getting the highest frames per second with little latency in return. 

 

We are not anywhere close to that era you speak of. About 90% of us cannot even purchase the cards that take advantage of the Ray Tracing. All you have to do is look at steam hardware survey and see if the majority of the video cards can take advantage of Ray Tracing.

[RejZoR]

21 minutes ago, Dionyz said:

New Era?!? Go to any competitive esport title and tell me how high the Ray Tracing is. None! They could care less about Ray Tracing performance. It's about getting the highest frames per second with little latency in return. 

 

We are not anywhere close to that era you speak of. About 90% of us cannot even purchase the cards that take advantage of the Ray Tracing. All you have to do is look at steam hardware survey and see if the majority of the video cards can take advantage of Ray Tracing.

Competitive esports is a class of its own anyways. They run games at lowest just to have 300 trillion fps. They are not an indication of anything.

[Serin]

Just quietly amusing myself over the fact that we can't even get founders 30 series cards here in Australia.
Of course, he'll have an international audience that likely outsizes his Aussie audience, but still.

"We won't be sending you a card to review that you and your countrymen can't even friggen buy without importing."
Well the frak done, Nvidia. What the hell. 

[D13H4RD]

37 minutes ago, Dionyz said:

We are not anywhere close to that era you speak of. About 90% of us cannot even purchase the cards that take advantage of the Ray Tracing. All you have to do is look at steam hardware survey and see if the majority of the video cards can take advantage of Ray Tracing.

I need to point something out. 

 

A majority of users on Steam aren't PC hardware enthusiasts who have the means to build or even afford a powerful rig with a 8+ core CPU and a RTX 3080/6800XT class GPU whilst still having income left over to live a daily life. A lot of them typically either use more mundane midrange PCs whether custom or prebuilt, and there are also the people gaming on laptops too. It stands to reason why cards like the GTX 1060 continue to dominate the charts. 

 

In a way, this is the "enthusiasts curse" you see some of us mention around here. We live in our own little community bubble where everyone has the same interests and even similar choices of hardware. And this tends to cloud our judgement between this bubble and the wider reality. 

[Moonzy]

As much as I'm a Nvidia GeForce fanboy (openly so)

I can't see RT and DLSS being good from my experience with it in SOTR, I even think DLSS sucks because it makes SOTR look blurry

 

RT is eh, but as others said the hit to fps is high, and it doesn't wow me

I only keep it on because the way they implement shadow in the game without RT is broken (flickers and such)

 

I believe RT isn't really ready today, judging by videos of Linus turning it on or off in his latest video about CP2077, but DLSS seems better

 

But just like physx, if no one implements it, it's going to die, that's why I can see Nvidia pushing for it real hard this time, but trying to skew reviewers to do it is NOT the way to go about it

[RejZoR]

Just now, DutchGuyTom said:

I don't thing ESports is by any means representative of the entire gaming industry but I do think it is a worthwhile example. It demonstrates that ray tracing is also not transforming the entire gaming industry.

If ray tracing was a standard feature used by everyone, taking advantage of reflections and shadows to spot enemies better if you know how to take it to your advantage would also be a thing. I've used sound to such degree when I was playing competitive and I was using it so well to a point I've been accused multiple times of using wallhacks. Yet all I did was listen to their footsteps and positioned them in game's 3D space. Reflections that give away enemy positions could be not a visual only thing but a core gameplay element. Same for real-time shadows or just global illumination that would give away enemy position accordingly. But that won't happen for many many years because not all have graphic cards with RT and thus can't be used on gameplay level. Unless they use it in "software" where it's fast enough and can't be turned off.

[Moonzy]

12 minutes ago, D13H4RD said:

majority of users on Steam aren't PC hardware enthusiasts

To further add to this point, me and my friends were debating just yesterday about cyberpunk's launch

 

I complained about how can they release a game that runs on 30fps on 1080p on the lowest settings in the most popular GPU (1060)

I argued that 60 fps is minimum for average gamers, but further inspection I noticed that most of the recommended spec in the table for different CP2077 settings is only 30 fps judging by gpu benchmarks provided by GN and HUB, which makes me wonder

 

Is asking for 60 fps an enthusiast thing and most people are genuinely fine with 30fps?

Am I out of touch with majority of the gamers?

[SpaceGhostC2C]

8 minutes ago, Moonzy said:

Is asking for 60 fps an enthusiast thing

Yes

8 minutes ago, Moonzy said:

and most people are genuinely fine with 30fps?

If it's constant, no-dip 30 most likely yes, but even those who would care more about it are used to demanding games running like that, and it's not like most user run an FPS counter at all times. So the question is whether they will notice "a problem" or not, and stable 30FPS will not be detected as such.

 

I think a huge part of my gaming experience (when you account both number of years playing and weekly hours available to play) were spent on sub-native resolutions with unknown framerates but certainly at the risk of severe stuttering here and there. Back then I would consider anything without "the stutter" good. And "the stutter" wasn't 30FPS, or any FPS really, it was just that dip, that moment where everything is a slideshow for a second or two.

Now I'm not indifferent between 30 and 60, but I'm also less representative of the masses than I was. And I still think high FPS is over-hyped, constant FPS is infinitely more important to my experience.

[Dionyz]

48 minutes ago, RejZoR said:

Competitive esports is a class of its own anyways. They run games at lowest just to have 300 trillion fps. They are not an indication of anything.

They are a indication of performance. That's what they care about. Meaning Rasterization over Ray tracing. There is a survey somewhere in this thread that that's what majority of the people prefer.

 

At the end of the day most people care about performance. Real talk people will disable ray tracing to have the fluid game play. (Ray Tracing is a cool feature, but when push comes to shove it's off)

[Man]

On 12/11/2020 at 9:41 AM, Jae Tee said:

Just going to leave this here...as I go looking for a 3070...

 

 

Oh yes! Let's all blame (sh!t on) Nvidia for not supporting an OS with a market share of whopping... 2%, possibly even less!

 

I considered migrating to Linux when I decided to dump Windows XP a few years ago, an year or so after Microsoft officially ended its support. I tried to like it but it was just... WAY too much for a mere mortal like me who knows next to nothing about Linux environment! I'm not even entirely sure what Linux Geeks mean when they say "debugging"! I wouldn't know where to begin. 

 

Then there's the issue of "Plug & Play". Take Bluetooth dongle, for example. On WinXP I just have to plug the dongle and that's it. On Linux... well, let's just say things are a 'bit' difficult over there! Same goes to USB Wi-Fi, Xbox controller, my vintage MP3 player, Bluetooth mouse, multimedia keyboard... you get the idea! Things which I take for absolute granted on Windows are a nightmare on Linux. I'm not saying they "can't" work on Linux, of course they can, It's just not as straightforward as Windows. Not even close! Then there's ThrottleStop, MSI Afterburner, RTSS, Nvidia Inspector, OneDrive... and the games themselves, of course.

 

If you want to blame something then blame capitalism! Business empires follow the money. They need incentives which Linux simply lacks. I hope Linux become the next big thing one day... But till then I'll be running Windows 10!