Whenever I post a big article, waking up the day after is like waiting to open presents sitting underneath the tree; so of course the first thing I did this morning before showering, brushing my teeth or any of the "normal people" morning routines was run down here and read the responses.

Before I get to the actual responses, I think it's very important to realize the amount of work Derek put into this thing - I helped write the article, but all the benchmarking and analysis was his. He worked for no less than 30 hours straight and I mean 30 hours straight before finally sleeping as I published the piece. Believe it or not, he desperately wanted to do many more tests but I had to split up the article so this one wouldn't take forever to publish.

I fully expected there to be requests for image quality comparisons, which is why we've made Part II focus on high res performance and image quality. The point of our side commentary was to bring to light any noticeable issues that you would see while playing; we will be going back and doing the usual 400% zoom pixel snobbery to see exactly what's going on but we wanted to give you some sort of an initial indication.

Today is the day of rest (I'm not letting Derek near a testbed) but we'll get right back into the grind tomorrow. We will be expanding the test suite (don't for a minute think that we were just happy with 15 games) as a number of games couldn't get in due to time constraints. Next on the list is high res performance and image quality analysis as I mentioned earlier, and the order of what is to follow I have yet to finalize but I'll keep you updated on that.

With that said and done, I can head back upstairs to do what normal people do every morning. I have no problem with normality, but deviation from it keeps us sane :)

Take care and have a great day.

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  • Pete - Friday, October 3, 2003 - link

    Whoops, I see Derek was able to find my Q in the huge article thread and was good enough to answer. I thanked him there, and I'll do so again, here. Thanks, Derek. :)

    I'm really looking forward to the Part II article, as that should encompass the nitty-gritty details that have caused so much consternation these past few months. We're seeing everyone start looking past the "lies, damned lies, and statistics," and that's good for consumers.
  • Pete - Friday, October 3, 2003 - link

    *cough*

    Derek or Anand, any comments? Or is posting in an old blog thread unwise?
  • Pete - Thursday, October 2, 2003 - link

    BTW, thanks for the article. If this is indeed Derek's first article for Anandtech, it's quality work. I, too, am a bit unnerved by beta drivers and unshown IQ issues, but I can wait for Part II, and I'm glad you made us aware that you were looking into things.
  • Pete - Thursday, October 2, 2003 - link

    BTW, thanks for the article. If this is indeed Derek's first article for Anandtech, it's quality work. I, too, am a bit unnerved by beta drivers and unshown IQ issues, but I can wait for Part II, and I'm glad you made us aware that you were looking into things.
  • Pete - Thursday, October 2, 2003 - link

    Derek or Anand, here's a repost of a question from the article comments thread. Maybe one of you can spare a moment to answer. Thanks.
    ---------
    I'm curious why 9600P results were left out of the Homeworld 2 benches. I also thought ATi's framerate problems with NWN were known, because the devs coded the engine around nVidia cards (though I also know ATi seems to be working to fix this).
  • Anonymous - Wednesday, October 1, 2003 - link

    I have a parachute and a plane. Care to be dropped off at the lab?

    :)
  • Derek Wilson - Wednesday, October 1, 2003 - link

    special tools include locking one self in a room and running test after test after test ;-)

    we are working on automation of things, but that isn't an immediate concern at this point... besides, there's a lot to be said for having to sit there and make sure everything happens the way it is supposed to happen.

    ... anyone have any cammo I can borrow? I may try to sneak past the guard dogs and motion detectors to get back to testing for the next part :-)
  • Shalmanese - Wednesday, October 1, 2003 - link

    Hmm... I think a "sneak peek into the AT lab" would be a good idea for an upcoming article. Do you use any special software when your benchmarking or do you do it all manually? Do you have any special procedures so that you can streamline the process (ie benchmarking on one machine while ghosting a fresh HD on the other). It would also be interesting to see all the special tools you use to get work done.
  • GTa - Wednesday, October 1, 2003 - link

    *there (not their) in #2 :)

    I hate typos when I can't edit!
  • GTa - Wednesday, October 1, 2003 - link

    *there (not their) in #2 :)

    I hate typos when I can't edit!

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