So, What do you guys really think happened?

[NB.]

If you didn't understand what the last quote was saying...

DX9 was developed on ATI cards. Hence the GeforceFX having to resort to 8.1/9.x, as when DX was developed, it was developed on cards with 8 physical registers, and when it hit a Geforece FX, with 5 registers, issues began. He then goes to say that maybe NVida were playing the waiting game, and would develop hardware to meet the specifications of DX9.0b...and out came the 6800.

THERE'S YOUR PROOF NB/KOOPA.

Thats not proof, and you keep changing what you are saying, originally you said that DX9 was entirely outsourced to Ati & Nvidia, then that changed to SP2 being outsourced, now your saying that DX9 was developed on Ati cards... Which one is it then? The guy in the article isnt stating facts at all, look again at the bit you bolded out : 'not the least of which is how much influence they may have had on the DX9 specs' The key words being how much influence they may have had. Now how you translate that to DX9 being outsourced by Miscrosoft i do not know...

Microsoft developed DX9, not Ati and not Nvidia, the basic spec
was layed down and the gfx firms decided how best to implement its features through hardware, whilst contributing input towards the project along the way. At no point was the work outsourced to Ati or Nvidia, and DX9 was in no way designed on Ati cards, incase you didnt notice that would mean that the Ati cards would have been fully comliant with a standard that didnt exist.

 

[NB.]

some things can only be said so many times in just certain ways.. if u can't accept that, nobody can help u.

Can you read? i said that i dont dispute what that other guy was saying in any way, what i thought was funny is how cadaveca passed it off as his own words. Its called plagiarism, and it sucks. It was the fact that it made sense that made me search for it, because i was 99% certain when i read it that cadaveca did not write it himself. He has contradicted himself several times already in this thread, and tbh he can try as hard as he wants to convince me he knows what hes talking about, but i dont buy it. He's too random to be taken seriously, and he changes what he says to suit his argument.

He is like any number of people on the net who read different articles etc.. and immediately assume they have a deep understanding of what it is they are talking about. Bear in mind he says he works in the industry, and as we all know, people in the industry have all the time in the world to come flash they're e-penis on HL2.net

 

[cadaveca]

Microsoft DID outsource it...they said to hardware manufacturer's "This is what we want to do with our programming. No current hardware will do this. We need hardware to develop it on."

And ATI answered that call first. DX9 was developed on 9600 pro's. And yes, they were DX9 compliant...becuase of the 8 physical registers @ the gpu. Your're too funny NB...how do you test programming, when nothing can run it? how do you see if it works? :upstare: oh, i forgot...they just dumped Dx9 on an unprepared market. Thankfully ATI was ahead of the game.

Yes, i just copied and pasted that answer, but, it does make a valid point. I made no reference to see whether you all were serious enough in trying to prove your point, that you would google what I said, just like the last time I made a thread. It is called leading a discussion.

If anything, you all are the ones that look kinda silly. MR Freeman knows i can provide links to my ideas, but am lazy. like you said, i am in the industry, and don't have lots of time to be posting here. I want ya'all to do the research yourself, and maybe help you pass the time until the game comes out a little better than hitting f5 @ a forum.

Forums are here for us to discuss a situation...in this forum it's HL2. If you want to argue hardware with me, or anyone, go to a hardware forum.

The whole point I was trying to make is that the release dates all fell around the time new hardware/software has been introduced. I am only implying that maybe it was these things that lent weight to the delay....noone else seems to come up with anything that makes real sense.

In regards to the 64 bit stuff..i think they had started to do 64...but found that the hardware/software integration of 64 bit cpu's, with 32-bit parts, leads to issues. Heck 15% gains in pocessing power, when commands can be physically twice as long, does not make sense. This is where pci-e comes in...pci-e should allow expansion card manufacturers to start making 64-bit devices...at which point, it becomes feasable to make 64bit games, as info flowwing across busses wil not need to be converted twice. As it stands now, 32-bit applications can run on 64-bit machines, albeit with some problems. I would not want to have to deal with driver issues and such, becasue like NB/Koopa have said, it's up to ATI and such to give out the drivers...and depending on them may end up costing alot of people money.

 

[cadaveca]

Can you read? i said that i dont dispute what that other guy was saying in any way, what i thought was funny is how cadaveca passed it off as his own words. Its called plagiarism, and it sucks. It was the fact that it made sense that made me search for it, because i was 99% certain when i read it that cadaveca did not write it himself. He has contradicted himself several times already in this thread, and tbh he can try as hard as he wants to convince me he knows what hes talking about, but i dont buy it. He's too random to be taken seriously, and he changes what he says to suit his argument.

He is like any number of people on the net who read different articles etc.. and immediately assume they have a deep understanding of what it is they are talking about. Bear in mind he says he works in the industry, and as we all know, people in the industry have all the time in the world to come flash they're e-penis on HL2.net

it's not plagerism if you read the subscriber agreement @ the forum...and here...you can get angry that I was right, and posted someelse's response all you want, but it is not plagiarism, or i could sue Valve for copying my posts to the HL2.php site.

 

[Bluestrike]

They lied and got away with it and I kinda not care anymore now HL2 is gold so i guess its forgiven

 

[cadaveca]

For goodness sake, it's like arguing with a donkey. At least you can sort of drag a donkey in the correct direction with enough brute force. Every time someone presents a fact you run off to google and dredge up even more irrelevant technical info in a vain attempt to make yourself look smart.

If it doesn't run efficiently, it's because either a) the drivers suck b) the compiler sucks. There's nothing Valve can do about either of those two things apart from yell at the appropriate people because Valve develop COMPUTER GAMES and not GRAPHICS DRIVERS. At the moment, they're probably just waiting for everything to become mature. But swerving back on topic, none of these things have anything to do with delays!
Last post from me on the subject because I'm starting to enjoy flaming you and that's not good

*aren't you contradicting yourself?

 

[koopa]

*aren't you contradicting yourself?

I did say I wasn't going to post again on this thread, but the thought of you waving your tiny fists jubilantly in the air thinking you'd got me was just too much to bear.

Ok, one more time. The Valve delays have nothing to do with 64-bit anything, and I'm 99% sure of that. I'm saying they're waiting for the 64-bit market to mature (in every way) before really considering releasing 64-bit code.

 

[cadaveca]

oh, i agree with you....totally. It's just no economically feasable to get into the development right now, largely because, i think, of the lack of proper drivers. Running a 64-bit system, and getting EVERYTHING to work right just doesn't happen right now...we are close, but i think we still need 6-8 months, just for driver/bios development.

But they have obviously done SOME development, as they stated that the gains weren't good enough.

All i'm trying to say, through all of this, is that the past 12 months have brought a major transitionary phase on the market. There is alot of new hardware, and even DirectX has changed...DirectNext or whatever the new name is, and it is more than likely that these changes bear heavy weight on the release of HL2.

 

[Swift]

OK.. This is what truly happened, this comes from a confidential source.

We all know that ATI has a stake in the goings on over at VALVe, So much so that they were dismayed when individuals at VALVe told them the game needed to be delayed in order to right some very BIG wrongs that they had currently produced.

Anyways, President and COO of ATI Technologies inc. David Orton, decided that such action was peposterous after 4 years of real develpoment and a lot of money contributed by ATI. Mr. Orton thought processed around the business end of things and he demanded that the release date stay put, and that VALVe personnel work around the clock to fix the game.

Unfortunatly, VALVe new that these demands were impossible and engineered the theft of the Source code. Through some careful manipulation and certain sums of money, VALVe officials were able to keep quiet what had transpired.

Even so, the Source code stolen was obviously not the only one they had in existence, although it was made very carefully to look as if the hackers got nearly all of the code. The problems they needed to fix were scheduled to take only a few more months, but if they were to release the game after such a short period after the theft, then they knew individuals would become suspicious. So they decided to extend it out further then needed, but instead of sitting back and drinking margaritas, they decided to perfect HL2 and make it the game it is today, a game wich will revolutionize the FPS genre once again.

Blessing in disguise?

You be the judge.

 

[evil^milk]

bogus.

 

[fragShader]

OK.. This is what truly happened, this comes from a confidential source.

was sounding good. but u lost me right here:

Unfortunatly, VALVe new that these demands were impossible and engineered the theft of the Source code.

 

[Swift]

Indeed, it seems very improbable. But Mr. Orton was being incredibly unreasonable, according to my source.

Let me Clarify: When I say VALVe "engineered" the theft of the source code, I don't mean they actually did it. They left it easily accesible and made it known to a certain hacker group that it would be possible to get into the VALVe system.

These words are truth, I cannot tell you where I got them, and im not a conspiracy theorist. The source must remain a secret for not only legal reasons, but for the sakes of a select fews continued employment.

Choose to believe what you will, im just setting the facts straight.

 

[rocklegendfm99]

valve was playing half-life2, and laughing at us at the same time

 

[Darkfox]

I think valve just needed more time

 

[Dr. Freeman]

Can you read? i said that i dont dispute what that other guy was saying in any way, what i thought was funny is how cadaveca passed it off as his own words.

and can u read as well?
here.. let me spoon feed it to ya..

some things can only be said so many times in just certain ways.. if u can't accept that, nobody can help u.

i put the part in bold that i thought u completely disregarded.
call it plagiarism or whatever u want.. theres only so many ways to say "Bob went to the store" before it gets used up enough times for u to claim plagiarism.

 

[P4boy]

errm Valve needed 6 million to keep the copmpany afloat but knew HL2 was nowhere near ready.

They con ATI into coughing up some cash (6 million) and then leak some useless source to buy time

Or Gabe really is a dumb ass when it comes to security

 

[NB.]

theres only so many ways to say "Bob went to the store" before it gets used up enough times for u to claim plagiarism.

Yes but thats a different thing entirely. You should state that its a quote from someone else, rather than passing it off as your own work to make you look smarter than you really are. If you cant be arsed to write something yourself, then dont bother.

 

[subz-]

The whole 'Gabes personal PC getting hacked due to a buffer overflow vulnerability in Outlook' sounded comical to me when I heard it. To believe it you have to believe Gabe is a technical newbie and would have cause to hold a copy of the source code on his own computer.

Why would he have a copy of an extremely valuable piece of unreleased code on his computer that was hooked up to the internet? Unbelievable

I think it was delayed because it wasnt finished, simple. Was it Valve that was sticking to the September 2003 release date or Vivendi? If it was Vivendi then they stuck to it either through ignorance or to help ATi sell their voucher packing videocards. Things like this get delayed ALL the time. That HL2 got delayed shouldnt really be a suprise, the length of the delay and why so many release dates were given is the suprising part.

 

[DigitalAssassin]

The whole 'Gabes personal PC getting hacked due to a buffer overflow vulnerability in Outlook' sounded comical to me when I heard it. To believe it you have to believe Gabe is a technical newbie and would have cause to hold a copy of the source code on his own computer.

They didn't expect to get hacked. This is exactly what happened. We don't know if it was Gabe's machine though, do we?

They fixed the problem, and won't make that mistake again. It doesn't mean Gabe is (as you put it) a 'technical newbie', but I wouldn't doubt he would have a copy of the source on his machine.

Really though: Do we know it was his machine? Do we know it was Gabe himself who was hacked?

And the more important question: Could that have delayed the game more than a year? (No, obviously not if they were finished).

 

[Acert93]

Originally Posted by cadaveca
What happened:

AUGUST 2003:
DirectX9 announced. Valve offer the videocard partnership, that almost all games have, up for bid, and the highest bidder was ATI. It is also ATI's version of DirectX9 that Microsoft opts to go with, and based on the number of physical registers(8 for ATI, 5 for Nvida) that ATI uses,, offering a more stream-lined texture path.
SEPTEMBER 2004:
ATI holds ShaderDay, an hardware industry event to promote PS2.1, PS 3.0, and how ATI's cards beat down Nvidia's rivals. 6800GT, Nvidia's savior, is still a myth.

Low and behold, shortly thereafter, the alpha's been leaked, and the game delayed.

APRIL 2004:Servicepack2 comes out, and kills alot of programs. Surprisingly, none of Valve's products have issues, but HL2 is delayed again.

As pointed out by another poster your dates are all wrong--and I am not even talking about Sept 2004. Btw, ATI was not promoting SM 3.0 (i.e. Pixle Shader/Vertex Shader 3.0) in 2004, let alone 2003! Why? None of their hardware has SM 3.0 support.

what difference the 939 made weighed in on thier decision to/not to develop 64-bit compatibility. Obviously you aren't into hardware.
939 also brings pci-e connectivity to AMD64, as there nforce4 will not support 754(will remain n-force3 250GB ultra), or at least that is Nvidia's plans.

What are you talking about? The Socket has nothing to do with the board features in this case. As for right now, there is not a single Socket 939 board with PCI Express support--All AMD platforms are AGP at this time. And as most know, the AMD64 architecture is not limited to Socket 939. Go to www.Pricewatch.com and you can buy 64bit AMD processors wiht the 754 Socket.

Like I said in that last post 939 brings pci-e to AMD. PCI-e uses a different bus than agp, and current driversets are AGP directed. this is in part the reason you do not get more performance on pci-e over agp, but, like when the ATI256mb cards got no better than ATI128mb cards of the same flavor, once the driver is there to take advantage of the hardware, things will speed up.

::Sigh:: No, 939 has nothing to do with PCIe. Again, no PCIe boards out yet (only a paper launch from last week).

As for drivers and so on, BS. You wont be seeing ANY jump in performance from PCIe in the short term. Why? Because 4x AGP is MORE than sufficient 99% of the time as is. The current generation of AGP cards does not even come CLOSE to saturating 8x and only has began to reach the limit on 4x. (FYI - I have a 6800GT running on an Asus P4PE, Intel 845 chipset, and is 4x AGP and my 3DMark05 scores are the same as those with 8x boards).

The benefit of PCIe will be found with Virtual Video Memory. ATi is calling this Hyper Memroy and nVidia Turbo Cache. This will allow 2 major things:

(1) Because the bandwidth on PCIe is bidirectional (i.e. the same both ways) it allows transport of information of all kinds to and from memory over the PCIe bus more effeciently. This will allow for more intelligent memory management that will allow video cards to have less onboard memory, and this cost less. This is done by such things as better MIP Map management. For example, imagine a 3 layer Mips map of a grassy patch on a hill. There is a 16x16 pixels, 256x256 pixels, and 1024x1024 pixels. Lets say that this grassy patch appears way off in the distance, so you need the 16x16 texture. Well, as it stands now with AGP, you are required to load the 16x16, 256x256, and 1024x1024 textures. With Vitrual Video Memory, the unused textures could remain in virtual memory (i.e. RAM or the HD). This means the memory on-board can be used more effeciently.

(2) PCIe will allow for more detailed gaming worlds. The above scenario allows you to have more graphic assets available because video RAM is not being clogged with unused textures. Further it will allow the saving of varying information (like dynamicly calculated light maps) to be recalled later.

As you can see, the benefits of PCIe are down the road--driver fixes are not the problem! Just like 8x AGP was released long before the Bandwidth was required, the same applies to PCIe. The true benefit of PCIe is the bidrectional bus which, down the road with new hardware, will allow for some new techniques for better memory implimentation. You can learn more about this, and other technologies down the pipe, at :

http://www.beyond3d.com/articles/directxnext/

As for 64bit applications there are three issues: 1. OS, 2. 64bit Drivers, and 3. 64bit applications.

Now, there are 64bit Operating Systems. There is a Windows for Itanium (Intels 64bit Performance Server platform) and the Windows XP 64 beta. You can even compile Unix as 64bit. And there are some 64bit apps (www.anandtech.com did some recent tests of apps that can work in 64bit and 32bit modes). The real issue is drivers. nVidia and ATi do not have 64bit drivers out. Simple as that. AS for programs, what 64bit processors offer is better memory management (e.g. the ability to access larger chunks of memory and the ability of systems to have more than 4GB of RAM). While there may be more work than just recompiling for extremely complicated programs, the reality is that it wont be too difficult for most companies to offer 64bit and 32bit programs with very little additional overhead.

Originally Posted by cadaveca Quote:

Originally Posted by NB.
What so your trying to tell me that developement of Directx9b was outsourced to Ati and Nvidia?

Uh, yes. and microsoft chose ATI's version. Do some research before you try to knock my FACTS. This was covered @ ShaderDay...google that. DX9b requires that the gpu have 8 physical registers to deal with commands, and at the time of ShaderDay, Nvidia's only had 5. Vavle basically said at that point that the only reason that NVidia's were so poor performing was because of a driver, and left it up to Nvidia to remedy the problem. In the end, Nvidia's card get DX9b code sent to the card, and aswer the commands, in reverse from how ATI does it. They also break up a few commands. It was the extra processing that led to Nvida's poor performance, and the eventual switch to partial DX9, partial Dx8.1 for Nvidia's cards. you'll notice that Nvidia's packaging for pre-6800 cards also says DX9-compatible hardware, not DX9 hardware.

You got it all wrong. MS developed HLSL (High Level Shader Language), which has become very much incorperated into the DX model and the XNA projext, which ATi has built their drivers and hardware rendering pipeline after. nVidia took a gamble and made their own Shader Language platform known as cG. Just like "The way games are meant to be played" effort by nVidia, the cG effort was/is an effort to use their installed base and money to get better performance from their hardware. To get the most out of nVidia's hardware you need to tailot to it. On the other hand, ATi follows the MS reference design pretty closely and therefore does very well with the standard DX coding paths. They both are DX9 paths, but nVidia has some different ways of doing it. A reverse case is multiple geometry objects being rendered from a single vertex source. ATi can do this, but they do not follow the standard method used in SM 3.0. So while possible with ATi hardware, they do not do it the DX 9.0c way. They have the feature, but it requires a workaround. In the case of nVidia, their DX9 issues are more attributed to a few bad design decisions and underpowered SM 2.0.

Btw, the FX series does DX 9 100% fine. The problem is that PS 2.0 power is not up to snuff and the FX series framerates take huge hits in certain situations (note: NOT ALL). HL2 just happens to be a graphically intensive game and using DX9 features, in the case of HL2, really causes a steep drop in framerate. So the issue is NOT that it cannot do DX9 or that it is not a DX9 part (you are making this stuff up as you go, I swear), but that DX9 performance, in HL2, is very poor on FX cards.


This is my first post here... I have enjoyed the mature (for the most part) HL2 community here. Like everyone else I cannot wait for HL2 to be released. Upon seeing you post over and over again--acting like you actually know what you are talking about--I felt compelled to post.

You seem to be interested in graphic and processor technologies--that is great! My suggestion though? Stop being such a fanboy and step back, take a deep breath, and try to really understand how the stuff works. The fact you seem to confuse the fact EMT64 is Intels 64bit x86 solutions indicates to me you are using a lot of catch phrases and really do not understand them.

You seem motivated, so I would suggest some time reading stuff at beyond3d.com, tomshardware.com, anandtech.com, firingsquad.com, xbitlabs.com, hardocp.com, and so forth (those are some of the more palatable HW sites) to get a good grasp on the industry and then move on to learning about HW directly. Have fun and Good luck

Ps- As for how APIs are developed, specifically DX, MS gets an idea of what they think should be added based upon feedback from developers and IHVs (e.g. ATi, nVidia, S3, Intel, etc). They look at how the API should progress and then come up with a sample spec. They then present it to the IHVs and then there is often some compromises. And if MS goes forward with certain features that either IHVs do not like or developers cannot use effeciently they get dropped (like curved surfaces), only to possibly be brought back in a different form in the future if they still make sense.

In no way is ATi the sole promoter/developer of any DX standard, let alone DX9. nVidia got caught with their pants down with the FX series--more hype than substance. ATi had really been second fiddle to nVidia since the 3D revolution (ATi was the biggest OEM supplier at one time back in the 2D accelerated graphics day, but their first 3D chips stunk, as did their drivers). The R3xx core was a major coup on ATis part. It started with the Radeon 9700Pro and carried over with the Radeon 9800Pro/XT.

MS is going more toward a more open committe like OpenGL, but up until today they still have always sought constant feedback from nVidia and ATi. Just like ATi helped Id with D3 quite a bit and nVidia with HL2, you have to be careful of the mirepresentations out there that assume that if Product A works on Device X better, that means Device Z had no input. It just does not work that way. ATi and nVidia both make sacrifices and design decisions on their boards and guess what the other will do. nVidia messed up with the FX. And ATi guessed wrong about 16 pipes (a late addition... one of the reason for so few X800XTPEs).

 

[deathscent]

My opinion; the game was supposed to be finished by the date, but the didnt have it finished. Realizing this, Valve decided to delay the game for the first time. When they did this, they probably decided to slow down production rate. After making some things better and more realistic, they probably forgot about the second release date and decided to not throw in a date until they were confirmed on an exact date. Now, they gave the date and we're all happy.

 

[Acert93]

For those interested in what went wrong with the FX series release, Anandtech.com has an intersting breakdown:

http://www.anandtech.com/showdoc.aspx?i=2031&p=1

 

[NB.]

Welcome to the forum Acert93 I'm glad that me and koopa are not the only people who took issue with cadaveca's claims. I think you have cleared up the points of confusion very well in your post, its nice to see someone who knows what they are talking about who doesnt need to act like an all-knowing asshat to get they're point across.

 

[jabberwock95]

Anybody else got a sense of deja vu here?

HL was delayed for over a year becuase valve wasnt happy with it. Simple as that. Valve decided to rewrite huge parts of the game, and because of this, HL was an amazing game.

My Personal Theory: When the source code was leaked (accidentally), it gave valve some the perspective to simply look at what they had created. They sat back, and saw that HL2 just wasnt a great game. The solution? It worked for HL1....

Thats right, scrap huge portions of the code and rewrite the thing. Anybody whos played the stolen build (like me) will know that it was hugely unfinished. I seriously doubt that was all valve had if they were considering release in a week.

I also notice that a lot of unbelievable explanations begin with 'Now i'm not a conspiricy theorist, but...' Why would valve leak there own code? Surely they are not so terrified of their own fans to just say 'It's delayed, our fault.' The FBI were involved, and people were arrested. Is everybody forgetting that?

 

[koopa]

I also notice that a lot of unbelievable explanations begin with 'Now i'm not a conspiricy theorist, but...' Why would valve leak there own code? Surely they are not so terrified of their own fans to just say 'It's delayed, our fault.' The FBI were involved, and people were arrested. Is everybody forgetting that?

Agreed. I love a good conspiracy as much as the next guy, but there's no way on earth they'd leak their own code. That's right up there with fake moon landings for me, it just makes no sense.

Re Acert93's post talking about 64-bit stuff (good post btw, must have taken an age to write it), it's not that the drivers aren't mature so much as they aren't significantly better than 32-bit. People are (perhaps a little optimistically) expecting a 30% increase in fps and it's not there. And graphics drivers, one of the last realms of serious optimisation, are going to take some time to sort out.

 

[cadaveca]

Sigh:: No, 939 has nothing to do with PCIe. Again, no PCIe boards out yet (only a paper launch from last week).

Iwill has 939 n-force4 boards available in japan. PCI-E has everything to do with 939, as there will be NO pci-e support for 754...check nvidia/AMD's roadmap. Socket has EVERYHTING to do with features...pinouts to interface properly with the cpu require those 939 pins...just like how 940 is ECC memory...lol.


NO ati did not promote PS 3.0, but rather 3Dc as a replacement.


NUMBER 1: thankyou for pointing out alot of technicalities that are highly useless....but they are not completely useless....like i posted early, most of my comments are made to inspire searching, to prove me wrong. lol. It's called playing "devil's advocate." I said as much earlier. I don't post links, and i post incomplete, wrong info...cause i don't have time to be posting here all the time, but like others to have something to do. call it crazy, but it made YOU post!


In regards to the driver thing....it's just like everyone saysing that buying a 256mb video card was a waste, because no game takes advantage of it. Sounds to me like you're the fanboy....bet you beleived that one too.


I get most of my info from theinquirer.net...maybe YOU should go and read it yourself.

I can argue all your points, except the 64-bit one....OH. and by the way, there are 64-bit ATI drivers...do some checking.
here's a Nvidia 64bit driver: Nvidia 52.14 AMD 64 Forceware/ Detonator WHQL

here's an ATI driver:ATI Drivers for XP64/Longhorn64 v6.14.10.6374 (unofficial) - Same as is included with XP 64bit but may be usefull to someone
here's another ATINA-drivers 2.5.4.5-64 - Based on The Catalyst 4.5 - 64bit Beta1 drivers


no 64 bit driver? tsk tsk....there is, but they just don't work right.


IF the FX series did directX 9 fine, then the whole line would not be forced into DX8.1 by HL2. and, actually, until this past fall, the driver for NVidia and DX9 stunk. The 6800's tho...they got something right there...

 

[cadaveca]

For those interested in what went wrong with the FX series release, Anandtech.com has an intersting breakdown:

http://www.anandtech.com/showdoc.aspx?i=2031&p=1

Why not post all the links to do with the article...the original, and the response....becasue we are at a HL2 forum, and the info should relate, should it not?

http://www.tomshardware.com/business/20030911/index.html
Gabe's ShaderDay presentation, where he said the BENCHMARK would be released on Sept30th, 2003

http://www.firingsquad.com/features/nvidia_editors_day/

is what Nvidia did to refute ATI/Valve's claims on shaderday....

 

[subz-]

DigitalAssassin, from memory, Gabe posted his own explanation of how they were 'hacked' on halflife.net's forums. He explained it was his own computer that was hacked.

Good point about the authourities getting involved. That would be a serious mistake if it was an inside job. Hell, I even heard the Secret Service had some part in the investigation

 

[The Mullinator]

One thing I never understood was why everyone thought that Valve was moronic with their security. If you ask me every development company probably had the same level of security as Valve did no matter how big and well known they were. It just happened to be Valve that was targeted and had their work stolen. If it happened to lets say Bungie instead then everyone would be saying Bungie were morons for having lax security and we would never know if Valve had better security or not.

Several companies were interviewed after the code was stolen from Valve and they all said that they were in the process of upgrading their security to make sure nothing happened to them. If they had better security than Valve then I suspect they would be confident enough to not feel the need for improvement.

 

[koopa]

Socket has EVERYHTING to do with features...pinouts to interface properly with the cpu require those 939 pins...just like how 940 is ECC memory...lol.

How does ECC memory relate to the delays of HL2 again?

I don't post links, and i post incomplete, wrong info

Finally something we can agree on.

I get most of my info from theinquirer.net...maybe YOU should go and read it yourself.

Bad idea - you do know that and its sister (theregister) are pretty disreputable, right? I wouldn't trust them at all on technical issues. Beyond3d, hardocp, etc are all much better. Yes, I know theinquirer isn't the same thing as the other inquirer, before you say it.

 

[GWalker]

I say it was to do with the stolen code, redone the game again as not to spoil anything for us guys.

 

[Acert93]

NO ati did not promote PS 3.0, but rather 3Dc as a replacement.


NUMBER 1: thankyou for pointing out alot of technicalities that are highly useless....but they are not completely useless....like i posted early, most of my comments are made to inspire searching, to prove me wrong. lol. It's called playing "devil's advocate." I said as much earlier. I don't post links, and i post incomplete, wrong info...cause i don't have time to be posting here all the time, but like others to have something to do. call it crazy, but it made YOU post! ...

I posted because what I have seen of the community here is that they are very nice, fairly informed, and have a common interest in a game I have been waiting for since the origincal HL came out. I saw your posts and saw something constructive I could contribute to the community. I think your posts are a disservice to a lot of the people here--I am sure many are not overly technical. Sadly, you have no idea what you are talking about. You even know you post incomplete, wrong info... which indicates you have no desire to learn and to be be even handed in discussing these subjects. Most here I would classify as fans--which is great. Those who are rabid, "Only product X is good" are fanboys and tend to lie and exaggerate to defend their cause. Most grow out of this stage by 16. My intent in posting was to clear the room of some of the smoke you were blowing in.

Many of your statements and assumptions are false--I am trying to say this nicely I think the snipet I posted and the links I provided are enough information for most people to read through the bs you are posting--and that is all I aimed to do. :bounce:

Ps- Funny how you change the topic (like SM 3.0 to 3Dc). It is also funny how you make claims I never made and then judge them--like the 256MB boards. How ironic that I own a 6800GT It is called keeping the audiences eye OFF the ball. Good trick

 

[rAdIOhEaD]

If the code leak didn't happen last year, it still would have been delayed but we would have had the game in our hands by now, probably since May or June. What took most of the past year in developement was probably re-coding the game to prevent online cheating and adapting Half-life 2 to take full advantage of DirectX 9 technology.

Yeah! If Valve would`t have taken the time to rewrite the code, we would have people playing warezed Source-base game online right now!!

errh wait a minute.... :dozey:

 

[NB.]

PCI-E has everything to do with 939, as there will be NO pci-e support for 754...check nvidia/AMD's roadmap.

http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=19131

'This means PCIe for old Athlon 64 and Sempron 754 users. So all you need to change for your next upgrade is a motherboard and PCIe graphic card'

 

[NB.]

It's called playing "devil's advocate." I said as much earlier. I don't post links, and i post incomplete, wrong info...cause i don't have time to be posting here all the time

Really? You have made 687 post's here in less than 2 months, over 12 post's a day on average... You don't knowingly post any inaccurate information to 'play devil's advocate', you post inaccurate information because you dont have a clue what you're on about.

 

[cadaveca]

Really? You have made 687 post's here in less than 2 months, over 12 post's a day on average... You don't knowingly post any innacurate information to cause discussion, you post innacurate information because you dont have a clue what you're on about.

Actually, i post inaccurate info to have others comment on it...uh, do i need to say again, leading conversation? How busy has the forum been?

Everything i say can only be taken with a grain of salt. Like really, if I was an expert, you'd think I'd be using my real name or something, to lend credibility, or something.

Honestly, i know alot of the stuff you do, and maybe more in some areas, maybe less than others...but listen...this is a forum. In traditional terms, a forum is a "meeting of the minds", and hence this BBS's name as forum, IMHO. What happens when intellectual people meet? A debate.

What happens in a debating competition? You are given a side, and then defend it, whether it is right or not. You, NB, and you, Acert93, are leading this debate quite nicely. But in order for the record to be set straight, both sides of the story need to be heard. Like you said, disinformation is all over the internet, and everything i have posted is on some website. Someone starts arguing, and facts need to be laid out. Thanks for filling in the lob.

 

[NB.]

You are a very bizarre man/woman...

Anyway whatever, you've made a fool of yourself and now you want everyone to think that it was intentional, i hope for your sake that someone else buys that excuse so you can keep a shred of credibility. I wont bother replying to anything you say from now on though, so just post whatever the hell you want.

 

[cadaveca]

You're just mad 'cause i played you.

 

[deltree]

You're just mad 'cause i played you.

yeah, you played him good! adamantly argued a bunch of points and got proven to be completely wrong! but u knew it was wrong when u posted it, that's why u argued so vociferously that u were right and posted so many unrelated links in support!
righton! that showed him....

 

[cadaveca]

well, nobody has actually come up with information refuting my original claims...the game was delayed because of DirectX and SP2...

they are just arguing technicallities as to why. Now, nobody can argue that DirectX 9 was developed on 9600 pro's, because that is a fact. With SP2, Microsoft told all hardware manufacturer's to make submissions as to what they would like to see. Microsoft took those ideas, put them together, and released a few beta's, along with a couple of RC's. Nvidia ended up beaing pissed @ Microsoft, as the DirectX version (9.b) that microsoft chose hugely favored ATI cards, because, at the time, Nvidia's GPU's were only the FX line(5 registers as opposed to eight)...the 6800 had not come out.

PS 3.0 was encorporated with 9.c.

::Sigh:: No, 939 has nothing to do with PCIe. Again, no PCIe boards out yet (only a paper launch from last week).

Dude also misses the point about 939 and pci-e,..lol..no relationship there, but i can go and buy 3 boards right now that are 939 pci-e:
here's a board: available in july:
http://www.abit-usa.com/products/mb/products.php?categories=1&model=215
and here's a group of them:
http://www.aria.co.uk/ProductsList.asp?Category=282&SubCat=MBD-939


"I know hardware!" My, my, my, don't we look foolish now...
N/b posts the NOW there is pci-e support for 754,,but last year, there was not.

Seems everone forgot that there were 939 and 940 FX series of chips, and alienware introduced pci-e to amd a long time ago.

Right off the bat, dude doesn't have all the info...i remember claims of thier being no 64-bit video drivers. Well, how come i can find some? How come, that with my harware configuration, i have the highest aquamark scores in the ARC?(well, that recently changed with dude and his 2.4 ghz 250fsb athlon!)

Claiming to know hardware, and not even knowing that 64-bit video drivers are available, seems a bit ludacris to me, but i conceded the points made that could not be refuted.

I flamed him, and got him posting more. More relevant, kinda, information. I said from the start i wasn't gonna post links...in effort to get people to do it for me. I'm lazy, and they dug up the info.


Now the problem is, we are talking about WHY THE GAME WAS DELAYED...not what the situation currently is on the market. Although alot of the points raised by others apply NOW, did they apply THEN? When the game was delayed?

This is why I say they don't know hardware...trying to relate teh current situation to the delay, when the market was by far different, does not make sense. This is why Mr. Freeman saw the points I was making, as in the previos thread, I DID post alot of links...and they were all from a year ago. And that's what this thread was about...last year, not this year.