Intel Demos DX11 Support on Ivy Bridge Ultrabook

[Rob Williams]

During an Intel press conference held earlier this week at CES, something embarassing happened. And I do mean embarassing. While attempting to show off a DirectX 11 demo on an upcoming Ivy Bridge processor, Intel executive Mooly Eden attempted to show F1 2011 in action on the projection screen. In during so, someone moved the mouse to the computer which revealed that it wasn't a game being run, but a video of the game being run.

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[marfig]

So why did Intel fake the demo at the press event? With presentations like these, things can change at the last minute, and not everyone coordinates well-enough. It could have been that Mooly Eden thought he was really going to be playing the game. Skeptics might disagree, but I find it very hard to believe that an Intel executive would knowing try to pull one over on the press like this, especially when it's been proven that real gameplay is in fact possible.

It doesn't surprise me. When a technological presentation is dependent on 3rd-party software -- and especially games, since we are all well aware that's exactly the industry that produces the least quality software on the planet -- a company like Intel won't take unwanted risks.

For all purposes, that video could have been recorded on the machine being tested. But outside the event, for all sorts of embarrassing things can happen when you trust a game to showcase your technology in real-time. Neither is Codemasters a company renowned for bug free products.

Internally, had I been in Intel's shoes I'd go berserk at who was responsible for producing such presentation without ensuring a minimum level of security. Why was someone else allowed to touch the computer, why wasn't the presentation advertised upfront as a video demo. The game market is so full of arseholes (that's us gamers and some of the press) that I can understand some flak could arise. But Intel doesn't really need to prove anyone anything. Only the ignorant and malformed genes skeptic would want to believe that the video they are seeing was not recorded on the new processor Intel says it was.

Companies like Intel really need to rise up a level above the jungle market that is the games market. If they level with the monkeys they too will speak monkey language.

[Kougar]

At least for me, the issue was less about the demo being a video, and more about Mooly lying to everyone's face after being caught red-handed about it. The lie stinks worse than the video. I am pretty sure if he replaced "being run from backstage" with "just a video" nobody except a handful of people would've cared in the slightest and this thing never would've blown up into egg all over their face.