Het begon allemaal met geruchten in een thread op 3dfx Gamers, nVidia zou niet al te vriendelijk gevraagd hebben aan Riva 3D, een fansite, om hun review van de Voodoo5 weg te halen... het was te positief ten opzichte van hun GeForce2. In eerste instantie hebben ze daar aan toegegeven, en een message neergezet in de trant van 'we zijn bezig met het updaten van deze review'. Het is natuurlijk een _bijzonder_ slechte zaak als nVidia zegt: "jij krijgt van ons nooit meer materiaal (videokaart, info, press releases etc.) als jij niet snel wat negatiever gaat praten over de concurrent". Gelukkig heeft Riva 3D de juiste stap genomen en niet toegegeven aan nVidia's eisen: ze hebben de review weer terug gezet en een verhelderende open brief geschreven. Hieronder een kleine quote:
How are sites like RIVA 3D supposed to grow when you're given no chance to be the first with breaking news? How do you think it feels when you've busted your ass for three + years, ALWAYS being there for the company, even when those major sites weren't, and then see those same sites get preferential treatment?
And now to be made to feel like you have to bow to the potential threat of being cut off for posting a review which nobody disputes for its accuracy and integrity. Well, I think I've had enough, thank you. The V5 5500 review is back up, and it's STAYING UP. If NVIDIA punishes me for being honest about a competitor's product, then so be it. I would prefer that that not happen, but at a certain point you just have to go out on a limb for what you believe in.
RIVA 3D will not die, however. I still plan on being a primarily NVIDIA enthusiast site because I've always believed in the company and the product. If I'm forced to change the content of the site, then so be it, but with the lack of support shown by NVIDIA over the last 6 months, maybe that's exactly what needs to happen in order for the site to grow and become better.[break]Hieronder de conclusie van hun review, zoals je ziet concluderen ze dat 4x FSAA gewoon beter is dan de FSAA bij de GeForce2: sneller en mooier is. En dat de performance van de Voodoo5 er zeker wel mag wezen maar dat de GeForce2 nog net een stukje sneller is. Het moge duidelijk zijn: deze conclusies zijn gemaakt op basis van duidelijke feiten en er is gewoon helemaal niks tegenin te brengen:[/break]While many have questioned the V5 line as being too little too late, taking an objective viewpoint indicates that the 5500 is actually a pretty decent card after all. The antialiasing capabilities of the card are truly outstanding, with 4x FSAA being truly unbeatable for visual quality and overall playable performance in both D3D and OpenGL. Extensive game play has convinced me that the benefits of Full Scene Anti Aliasing are well worth it, and I didn't encounter a single game that suffered to any noticeable extent when FSAA was set to 4x. Real World performance is very smooth, and ultimately playable.
[...] And while the V5's overall performance is not as fast as the GeForce 2, nor near as feature rich, it's still plenty fast enough to make the V5 5500 an intriguing option when choosing your next video card, that is, if having the best FSAA is your only consideration. And if 3DFX can manage to get their cinematic effects implemented in some big name games, the potential becomes even greater for the V5 line to be much more popular than anyone expected. That's a big "if", however, and only time will tell if the V5 can manage to stand up to the GeForce 2. [break]Hieronder een stukje van iemand van 3dfx, geplukt uit de thread op 3dfx Gamers over het marketing beleid bij nVidia. Als we dit mogen geloven is dit geen incident, maar is nVidia systematisch bezig nieuws en reviews te beinvloeden:[/break]The problem goes beyond Nvidia fan sites. Well known and independent sites have been threatened by Nvidia for writing positive reviews for 3dfx products. I'm not going to name names, but what concerns me is how widespread this tactic/behavior could very well be, especially if Nvidia's PR dept. is more than willing to bully-boy their own fan sites.
I will say that I was forwarded an email exchange between a webmaster and Derek Perez in which Perez was threatening no interviews, no communication, no review boards, etc., unless that webmaster converted his site into an Nvidia fan site. As I read it the first time I honestly couldn't believe what I was reading; call me naive, but I was shocked that a large company would try to coerce and bully the online media in such an unethical fashion. The good thing is that this particular webmaster didn't brook Perez's slimey tactics and called him right out on the carpet for such behavior. The problem is, however, how many people out there would be as firm in their resolution to maintain journalistic integrity?
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Bedankt Seniorbro voor het insturen van dit 'minder leuke' nieuws.
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