I don't understand your faked surprise.
I have a nVidia Gayforce card.
nVidia pays a lot of money so the game publishers insert the "runs best on nVidia" logo. Obviously, that money does not go into overall better games. Why should a company pay for overall better games if it is mere chance the game is played on their hardware?
The money is paid -if everyone of us is lucky- solely into that silly logo, advertising. Spam, if you want. The game does not get cheaper if there are ads at its start displayed, right? So they force you to see advertising even if you buy a game. Like pay TV WITH ads.
That lot of money wasn't put under nVidia's CEO's pillow by the tooth fairy. No.
Ultimately, those people that buy nVidia products help fund that money that doesn't go into better hardware, but into ad-spam.
So we gamers are twice the fools. First, we pay for games but still get ads, second, we pay for the ads to be inserted into the game.
Some nVidia CEO must be laughing his ass off.
But I have to come back to my mentioning "if everyone of us is lucky".
I think we're not.
Why pay for ads, if you can boost your sales by funding a game company, too?
Let's assume company A pays a game publisher XY to make sure the approximately equal hardware of company B does not perform so well when playing XY's games.
Gamer magazines and websites will shout out "Company A products perform better! Buy A products!". And company A does not even have to put more money into research, but only a small amount of cash into the game industry. Those publishers are almost broke for a big part anyway, they do not have much choice.
Ironically, nVidia at the moment has the better, faster PCIe video cards. OK, not anymore in the AGP sector, but the GF7 series is pretty impressive and Ati is struggling to release contenders.
And returning much less profit. And less successful in the motherboard chipset market.
Still someone at nVidia must have deemed it necessary to play foul.
And deserves a kicking.
So, I bought a nVidia GPU, and a game that displays a big "Runs best on nVidia", I sure do expect that all the money my money that nVidia pumped into that game publisher pays off by me getting more frames out of it than my peers. They are even running more expensive Ati cards. They even have nicer looking AntiAliasing, so it's only fair if nVidia lashes back at them! It's in my interest, even!
(in case you do not note the irony, this was irony)
I am not proud to own a nVidia GF6800.
Here I am, running Microsoft WindowsXP, owning a GF6 video card, and my parents even have an Intel Coppermine in their PC.
Who am I to throw the first stone? I am deep within a glass house...
! Did they honestly expect to keep this a secret forever? This makes me rather angry.
But that's real low nVidia... You could've just made your cards better instead of trying to make your opponent's cards seem slower you bastards :shadedshu .
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