> 1. A comment by Nvidia? Read safe-harbor statement in the press release dedicated to the GeForce 7950 GX2, I think it explains a lott: http://www.nvidia.com/object/IO_31673.html.
Sorry, I don't understand. The link points to PR announcing GX2. How does it support your earlier statement "With the release of the GeForce 8800, the GX2 owners probably have learnt a lot of “things they didn’t know” along with “reasons” why their graphics cards, unlike the Radeon X1950 XTX, are not supported anymore."
Do you work for Nvidia? Do you know for a fact the company doesn't support GX2 anymore? If you do, please give us some clear proof like a link to the statement announcing discontinuation of support. I doubt you have one, but I'll be waiting.
And if you don't, then allow me to ask why do you think you are entitled to make Nvidia policy-related statements you seem to have very little idea whether they are true or not?
--
On the subject, I'm not sure if you are really failing to understand what I was saying from the beginning: what you are describing is not specific to GX2. Translation: speedup varies across applications both in case of SLI and Crossfire; driver code can affect performance in both cases. Is it more clear now?
If you admit it, there is nothing to argue about. But in case you are trying to convince us that it's just GX2 which has performance-scaling problems, then you are simply not making your point well.
You need figures to see which of the two has more performance-scaling problems, in fact. And if you neither performed tests with Crossfire, nor bothered to read what people say, then allow me to make a wild guess you have no idea how adding another card affects performance in the case of Radeons in these games.
E.g. here is what people experience in SC:DA (from ubi forums):
"I don't have SLI but I have Crossfire and it doesn't seem to benifit from the second card at all. The performance I am getting is extreamly low for a X1900XTX and adding the second card does nothing for the performance."
> 2. Pardon me, you did not answer the question again.
> Do users of Nvidia hardware need to visit forums and
> download drivers not supported anyhow (which contain
> unofficial workarounds that would not pass WHQL) in
> order to play a game properly?
No, they don't NEED to. Anyone with a brain KNOWS shadows can be turned off. Anyone with a brain KNOWS that whenever there's an issue, the first thing is to figure what fixes it, and then do it -- be it installing a newer driver (true for both Geforce and Radeon), a game patch (ditto), selecting particular game/driver setups (ditto), or editing config files (ditto).
People with a brain KNOW they can use google and forums to quickly find the best solution of any problem they are facing. Except, of course, when there is just no way around to enjoy a game (crash of SC:DA on X850 Pro: http://www.digit-life.com/articles2/digest3d/0207/itogi-video-g allery-bugs.html ).
Heck, if there's anything what anyone with a brain doesn't NEED, it's to rely on your ridiculous advices for imbeciles like
"So, despite the excellent speed of the GeForce 8800 GTX we cannot call it a gamer’s choice (just like we cannot regard the GeForce 8800 GTS as such) because you can have problems with it not only in Call of Juarez."
> 4. We use recommended prices for graphics cards submitted by ATI and Nvidia to compare products. Recommended prices reflect classification of a product across the world, not a deal in an online store in the U.S. Recommended pricing help people in different countries to understand relative positioning of a product. We did not compare the GeForce 7900 GS against the GeForce 7600 GT or Radeon X1650 XT.
LOL Now that's a PR talk! Lots of general words and evading the answer altogether.
Let me repeat: can you tell us what are your "recommended prices" and why you use them instead of normal street prices?
You write your articles for people who want to order a card in an online store, or walk in a shop with money and walk out with a card, right? If you agree, then what is this absurd focus on mysterious "recommended prices", which you can't even put here, all about?
Anyway: whatever your secret "recommended prices" are, the reality is that these days, X1650XT has to compete head-on with 7900GS for the money of people who want a $150 card, and X1650Pro/X1600XT must fight against 7600GT for the bucks of $100 buyers, however hard it may be to admit. $100 and $150 are not exact prices of course, but nice ballpark figures.
I'm not even trying to convince you in case you -- being a graphics card reviewer -- are not aware of current pricing. Feel free to check prices in any retailer/etailer you like and if you manage to find at least a single store where prices are such that X1650XT competes with 7600GT rather than 7900GS, 7600GT competes with X1650XT rather than X1650Pro/X1600XT, and 7900GS competes with X1950Pro rather than X1650XT as in your article, then you will have one hell of a good excuse!
> 3. Do you have a Radeon X1900-series graphics card? Have you tried Splinter Cell: Double Agent on that board? Have you noticed any problems? We have been using Splinter Cell: Double Agent for months without having any problems.
LOL "Not noticing" various issues associated, for some reason, predominantly with Radeons is exactly what I exposed about you and your article!
You used Catalyst 7.1, right? And you didn't notice any issues on Radeons, correct?
Well, here is something from 7.2 relnotes:
"Splinter Cell Double Agent: Corruption is no longer noticed when playing the game with AA enabled. Further details can be found in topic number 737-25104"
( http://www2.ati.com/relnotes/catalyst_72_release_notes.htm l )
It is always the best policy to tell the truth, unless, of course, you are an exceptionally good liar.
--Jerome K. Jerome.
> If that ForceWare 100.x driver is so sweet, why Nvidia does not
> allow end-users to download them even using its unofficial Nzone web-site
> (http://www.nzone.com/object/nzone_downloads_rel70betadriv er.html)?
That's a ridiculous question to ask me, actually. Try asking Nvidia or Nzone.
> We have not tested the Radeon X800-series graphics cards in this review.
> Why do you mention it?
Because I think people have a right to know not only what YOU want to tell them.
5. You know, what's curious about your SC:DA "problem" with 8800 GTX is that the -ll switch solution was known back in November 2006 http://forums.ubi.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/954105331/m/777105 1505
"Re: Fix for d3ddrv.dll error and odd box ingame with dark graphics
arobyte Posted Fri November 17 2006 08:11
I had both of these issues. I had a BFG7900 GT OC SLI card the game will lauch fine but be too dark with a wierd box on the top left. To fix that, I disable AA (antialiasing) and it worked fine. I then upgraded to an eVGA 8800 GTX yesterday and now the single player won't launch. To fix the d3ddrv.dll error, after reading extensively here, I seem to have come across the solution. Make a shortcut to the splintercell4.exe file so it reads ( "C:\Program Files\Ubisoft\Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell Double Agent\SCDA-Offline\System\SplinterCell4.exe" -ll ) It should work. I don't know why but kudos to those who found that solution.
Please recommend this to others if it helps."
so why the hell are you selling in April 2007 that SC:DA won't work on a 8800 GTX? What's your freaking goal here?
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Posted by: AM

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Date: 04/05/07 01:55:36 PM]