Wikipedia entry on nVidia is biased

sweatlaserxp

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I read the nVidia entry on Wikipedia, and they ended the history of the company by talking about how the FX series (5800 etc.) sucked at DX9 shaders, ran too hot, and how their Vista drivers are crap. I went ahead and filled them in on what has happened since 2004, since the author(s) clearly don't want to admit that nVidia is more or less competitive with ATi. I myself am slightly biased towards ATi, but I still think that nV is a good company, and if I were building a new computer today, I would have a hard time choosing between the two for a midrange card.

Feel free to correct/criticize my entry, but I think what was there before was just unacceptable.
 
Well to say nV wasn't aware of DX9.0 specs is ridiculous, and a cop-out, the NV30 was pretty much mapped out before DX9.0 was finalized, heck the R9700 hit the market before DX9 was available in it's final form (still Beta), to think either had the chance to redesign with the amount of time required to make a chip, especially back then is ridiculous.
That statement also pretends that only nV and ATi were involved in the process; 3DLabs, intel and Matrox were all involved in this too. In fact both Matrox and 3DLabs lobbied to have some things added (displacement mapping) and removed (FP support for all stages). Wiki pretends that nV got shafted by someone else when it was in fact their own decisions that shafted them. Should 3DLabs blame ATi as well for the failure of it's P10?

Also the section "Rendering color support was limited to 24 bits floating point" is inaccurate, it wasn't limited unless you mean minimum is the lower 'limit'. nV picked FP32/15/FX12/int8 support for the NV30 (then crippled it for the NV35 to get more speed), but they still didn't have the ability to run in full FP32 in most situations at any reasonable speed, with a lack of register space and inefficient memory support.

How much influence do you think nV's lower support of specs on the GF4 series (PS1.3/DX8.0) versus the R8500 (PS1.4/DX8.1) had to do with that decision to not let them be outdone by anyone including 3DLabs' FP32 P10.

Also the R3xx series rendered everything in FP24, no FP16 no FX12, so even despite that extra work it was still a solid DX8.1 card because of the true 8 simple pixel pipes, which may not have been architecturally impressive, but did the job better becase the games weren't there yet to make a difference (heck they barely arrived by the time the X1900 did).

No mention of nV's 8x0 / 4x1 design decision which had just as much of an impact is a glaring omission, and something nV had said would make them better (only helped in heavy shadow / z-only situations [like D3]).

Also the mention of SLi i in the G7 series, when it came during the GF6 series (I remember questioning that 'extra connector' that nV kept calling and 'engineering port'. Xfire also came out with the X850XT and X700 series, just weeks before the X1800s were launched not after the X1K series launched.

The RSX is a modified 128bit version of the GF7900GT if anything, not the GF7800.

Interesting that there's no mention of the GF8800 delays either (much of which in reply to the Vista delay) as if it was right on time.

Current market share should be changed, nV is now #2.

Love the mention of this section;
"This has been responded to by some users who have made rude and derogatory posts in the NVIDIA forums"

'rude' customers, in a forum, no eh? :roll:

Also the issue was more than perceived, at the time nV forum mods in response to complaints about RTM support said that nV would have certified drivers by the time Vista was in retail (IIRC that was WaltC saying that), which didn't happen, they were still beta.

Also this part is of course incorrect; "NVIDIA does not manufacture video cards, only the GPU chips..."

They actually don't mfr the chips either, like ATi they are a fabless VPU maker.

Just another reason why Wiki is sketchy.

I doubt the ATi material, nor Matrox etc is any better. Maybe I'll check it at work.


(edit: typo R9700 out before DX9, not DX10 like I typo'ed)
 

jaoreill

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First of all, you write way to much for me to read. Second, any joe schmo can edit wiki, ergo it is not a valuable/reliable source for information. Just let it go.
 

sweatlaserxp

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I think you guys misread my post, or didn't understand what I was saying (which is perhaps my fault). The section that I wrote begins with the GeForce 6 series, or NV40, the paragraph beginning "With the GeForce 6 Series". I didn't write or edit anything before or after that and the end of the "Shortcomings of the FX series" section. I was irritated by a lot of what is written in the whole entry, frankly. Wikipedia makes it appear that nVidia has no history after NV30. That, and I'm more of an ATi fan myself.
 

sweatlaserxp

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BTW Grape, thanks for the feedback. I probably committed some technical errors in my short contribution, and when I have time I'll make sure that I have the exact order of events correct. But, yeah, to reiterate my point, I didn't write the whole entry! :roll: That would have taken me a year.
 
Oh I didn't think you wrote it all, I wasn't sure if your contribution had even been added yet or not. I got the feeling you had either contributed a little bit or nothing yet.

I think that it'd be nice if they got some reviewers to write some entries.

The thing is if you're a good reviewer and old enough usually you're snapped up by ATi and nV like Lars from THG and Wavey Dave from B3D, and your perceived objectivity get ruined.

I might add an edit or two in the future, but likely to Matrox, S3 and 3DLabs more than the typical ATi and nV fare, if anything I'd just fact check that stuff.

Just never thought of Wiki as a credible source, but now that I look at it, I wonder how many people go there and get lead astray.

No worries man, my rant wasn't directed at you (other than as simply the one to point the page out to me), it was just directed at the overall nature of Wiki I guess.
 

sweatlaserxp

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Yeah, if one of the old nerds here has the time and energy to just re-write whole sections of the nV entry, that would be great. Send it off to me and I'll copyedit it for free. I think the ATi entry is much better, although it's a bit too congratulatory in some sections.
 

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