BigFoot Networks Killer NIC: Killer Marketing or Killer Product?
by Gary Key on October 31, 2006 2:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Networking
Killer NIC Marketing Materials
Instead of rewriting the BigFoot Networks marketing materials we will just present it as is in abbreviated form. There are five features that are prominently featured on the Killer NIC website and the descriptions listed below are a quick recap of these items. We have already implied the marketing utilized by BigFoot Networks is very aggressive, and while understandable to those with a marketing background (no offense to the suits) we believe the website information and advertisements set the expectations of this card too high. A little more education about the background of the technology utilized and how it really works would have been better than in your face statements about gaming domination and free T-Shirt giveaways.
In fact, the description of MaxFPS technology along with the associated graphs in the reviewers guide we received does more to explain how the card works and why than the entire website at this time. Our suggestion to BigFoot Networks is to openly provide the technical information and remember that not everyone is a thirteen year old (not that there is anything wrong with them) gamer with $279 in hand and wanting to pimp out their rig because a Killer NIC advertisement with a limping sword makes them feel inferior in some way. All this is academic anyway; if the hardware does not work then who really cares about the marketing, right? So here's the marketing spiel:
MaxFPS - MaxFPS will increase the frames per second (FPS) in most gaming systems. It does this by reducing the CPU utilization due to networking, and speeding up the main game loops of the game. For gaming systems that have older graphics cards, the additional performance in CPU, cache, and main system memory will improve the efficiency of the card. This allows it to run at more FPS or at higher resolutions and settings. For gaming systems that have new graphics cards, the FPS performance is usually limited by the performance of the main gaming loop or the CPU's ability to get data to the card. MaxFPS will improve the speed of the main gaming loop and reduce the CPU utilization and main system memory thrashing thus improving FPS. Depending upon the situation MaxFPS will use its direct transfer of data to host application memory. Latency is further reduced by eliminating the time to write in and out of the system memory.
UltimatePing - UltimatePing will reduce the effective UDP-internal ping time (ping using UDP sockets). A UDP-internal ping is very different than a standard ICMP ping such as one might get when calling "ping" from the command line. UDP-internal ping runs over a UDP socket and includes such overhead as UDP checksum, buffer copy, real data transfer, and stack efficiency. UltimatePing is based on two technologies. First it ensures that neither your operating system nor your network card is introducing unnecessary latency into your game by ensuring interrupts from the NIC and OS are efficient. Secondarily, UltimatePing uses a side effect of MaxFPS to improve the response time in the main game loop or threads.
PingThrottle - PingThrottle is a user controlled setting that literally adds latency to any outbound network traffic, effectively increasing ping a gamer has to the server. The max latency you can add is 20ms and the latency is real as it is processed by the NPU. (The basic premise is that this will allow you to placate anyone complaining about LPBs (Low Ping B...s), although the real application of the technology can be somewhat less desirable depending on your viewpoint.)
GameFirst - GameFirst basically prioritizes your inbound and outbound network traffic so that your gaming packets are delivered or received first. This feature is very useful if you are running other applications that are uploading or downloading data while gaming.
FNA - FNA stands for Flexible Network Architecture. It is in effect the infinite flexibility of the Killer NIC. FNapps are designed to allow a user to run an application with a minimal or reduced impact on the main system's CPU, memory subsystem, or hard disk. FNapps can be anything from simple packet monitoring utilities like firewalls to full blown VoIP programs or file sharing programs like BitTorrent. FNapps can be designed to utilize the dedicated USB port as well as the Gigabit port. FNapps are designed with the included open-source Linux compiler and source code. The card includes a Linux console, 64MB of RAM, and an embedded Linux build.
The single most touted feature on the Killer NIC is the MaxFPS system that includes the LLR technology. Please note these comments as we will find out shortly if they work or not. The second most hyped feature is FNA. We believe this feature can really set this card apart from others and has the potential to be the most useful feature. Unfortunately, there are no FNapps available to test at this time. Considering the time that has passed since the card was introduced and the press material describing how easy it is to make an FNapp we would have expected something to test by now. FNapps are still MIA at this time, though we understand there might be some released over the course of the next few weeks.
UltimatePing actually worked in a few of our benchmarks. PingThrottle worked as advertised and by using it continuously during a heated Quake 4 match we were able to get kicked off the server and brandished cheaters for life. (It was fun while it lasted.) GameFirst worked but the outgoing packet prioritization worked about the same as our NVIDIA nForce 590 NIC and D-Link Gamer Lounge DGL-4100 router. The inbound capability is what makes the difference although we typically would not be caught downloading or uploading files while gaming online.
Instead of rewriting the BigFoot Networks marketing materials we will just present it as is in abbreviated form. There are five features that are prominently featured on the Killer NIC website and the descriptions listed below are a quick recap of these items. We have already implied the marketing utilized by BigFoot Networks is very aggressive, and while understandable to those with a marketing background (no offense to the suits) we believe the website information and advertisements set the expectations of this card too high. A little more education about the background of the technology utilized and how it really works would have been better than in your face statements about gaming domination and free T-Shirt giveaways.
In fact, the description of MaxFPS technology along with the associated graphs in the reviewers guide we received does more to explain how the card works and why than the entire website at this time. Our suggestion to BigFoot Networks is to openly provide the technical information and remember that not everyone is a thirteen year old (not that there is anything wrong with them) gamer with $279 in hand and wanting to pimp out their rig because a Killer NIC advertisement with a limping sword makes them feel inferior in some way. All this is academic anyway; if the hardware does not work then who really cares about the marketing, right? So here's the marketing spiel:
MaxFPS - MaxFPS will increase the frames per second (FPS) in most gaming systems. It does this by reducing the CPU utilization due to networking, and speeding up the main game loops of the game. For gaming systems that have older graphics cards, the additional performance in CPU, cache, and main system memory will improve the efficiency of the card. This allows it to run at more FPS or at higher resolutions and settings. For gaming systems that have new graphics cards, the FPS performance is usually limited by the performance of the main gaming loop or the CPU's ability to get data to the card. MaxFPS will improve the speed of the main gaming loop and reduce the CPU utilization and main system memory thrashing thus improving FPS. Depending upon the situation MaxFPS will use its direct transfer of data to host application memory. Latency is further reduced by eliminating the time to write in and out of the system memory.
UltimatePing - UltimatePing will reduce the effective UDP-internal ping time (ping using UDP sockets). A UDP-internal ping is very different than a standard ICMP ping such as one might get when calling "ping" from the command line. UDP-internal ping runs over a UDP socket and includes such overhead as UDP checksum, buffer copy, real data transfer, and stack efficiency. UltimatePing is based on two technologies. First it ensures that neither your operating system nor your network card is introducing unnecessary latency into your game by ensuring interrupts from the NIC and OS are efficient. Secondarily, UltimatePing uses a side effect of MaxFPS to improve the response time in the main game loop or threads.
PingThrottle - PingThrottle is a user controlled setting that literally adds latency to any outbound network traffic, effectively increasing ping a gamer has to the server. The max latency you can add is 20ms and the latency is real as it is processed by the NPU. (The basic premise is that this will allow you to placate anyone complaining about LPBs (Low Ping B...s), although the real application of the technology can be somewhat less desirable depending on your viewpoint.)
GameFirst - GameFirst basically prioritizes your inbound and outbound network traffic so that your gaming packets are delivered or received first. This feature is very useful if you are running other applications that are uploading or downloading data while gaming.
FNA - FNA stands for Flexible Network Architecture. It is in effect the infinite flexibility of the Killer NIC. FNapps are designed to allow a user to run an application with a minimal or reduced impact on the main system's CPU, memory subsystem, or hard disk. FNapps can be anything from simple packet monitoring utilities like firewalls to full blown VoIP programs or file sharing programs like BitTorrent. FNapps can be designed to utilize the dedicated USB port as well as the Gigabit port. FNapps are designed with the included open-source Linux compiler and source code. The card includes a Linux console, 64MB of RAM, and an embedded Linux build.
The single most touted feature on the Killer NIC is the MaxFPS system that includes the LLR technology. Please note these comments as we will find out shortly if they work or not. The second most hyped feature is FNA. We believe this feature can really set this card apart from others and has the potential to be the most useful feature. Unfortunately, there are no FNapps available to test at this time. Considering the time that has passed since the card was introduced and the press material describing how easy it is to make an FNapp we would have expected something to test by now. FNapps are still MIA at this time, though we understand there might be some released over the course of the next few weeks.
UltimatePing actually worked in a few of our benchmarks. PingThrottle worked as advertised and by using it continuously during a heated Quake 4 match we were able to get kicked off the server and brandished cheaters for life. (It was fun while it lasted.) GameFirst worked but the outgoing packet prioritization worked about the same as our NVIDIA nForce 590 NIC and D-Link Gamer Lounge DGL-4100 router. The inbound capability is what makes the difference although we typically would not be caught downloading or uploading files while gaming online.
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rqle - Tuesday, October 31, 2006 - link
I never like to bash a company product because always believed there a niche market, but at its very best, this product doesnt seem to justified the $300 price cost. I do believe many would buy it at a lower price.My current broadband is 3.0mbps/512kb, i can pay $5 more a month more for Verizon Fiop 15mbps/2mbp, i would rather go that route for my improve network + other capibilities. As for the side processing function, a cheap $200 (Athlon64 3200+ computer system) can do a whole lot more. Am not saying it a bad product, it just price way to high for me.
cornfedone - Tuesday, October 31, 2006 - link
SOS, DD.Just as we've seen with Asian mobos in the last few years, this NIC card is an over-hyped, under-performing POS. Just as mobos from Asus, DFI, Sapphire, Abit, and more have suffered from vcore, BIOS, memory, PCI slot and many other issues, the BigJoke NIC card is more defective goods with zero customer support. I'm sure everyone looks forward to a wiped hard drive image... due to a poorly designed NIC card.
Sooner or later consumers are gonna wise up and stop buying these defective products. Until they vote with their wallet instead of their penis, unscrupulous companies will continue to ship half baked POS products and fail to provide proper customer support. If consumers stop buying these defective goods, then the company will either correct their problems or go tits up.
autoboy - Tuesday, October 31, 2006 - link
I didn't buy a NIC to make up for my small penis, I bought a Porsche. Chicks don't notice my NIC.The K does look pretty cool. Maybe it will fit on my Porsche.
Frumious1 - Tuesday, October 31, 2006 - link
I dare say few if any people have purchased AGEIA or Killer NIC cards. As for your whining about ASUS, DFI, etc. I guess you're one of the people running a budget $50 mobo that can't understand what it's like to really push a system? Or are you the other extreme: you overclocked by 50% or more and are pissed that the system wasn't fully stable?slashbinslashbash - Tuesday, October 31, 2006 - link
You talk a lot about how it's virtually impossible to test something whose entire performance is based almost entirely on an Internet connection which is inherently variable. That's why you need some more control over the variables in your test. Namely, a LAN.For example... have 4 computers, each with exactly the same configs except for the network cards. One of them has the KillerNIC, the rest have different NICs. They are all running Unreal Tournament. You also have one computer set up as the server, on the same Gigabit Ethernet switch as the 4 "player" machines. The level is a small plain square room with no doors, trenches, or any other features. Each of the "players" is running the same script where they have unlimited ammo and a machine gun, running circles around and around, shooting constantly from the minute they respawn. Let the scripts run for 100 hours and capture the framerate and pings on each machine.
So you have 4 computer players running around in circles in a small square room, shooting each other for 100 hours. Yes, there will still be randomness, but over the course of 100 hours it should cancel out, and this test should be replicable. Any real differences between the NICs would come out over time. Run it again to make sure.
Or maybe that's not the best way of doing it. I don't even play UT2003 so I don't know what's really possible and what's not, but I've heard of people doing scripts and stuff. Maybe there are better ways of doing it, but you can eliminate the variable of the Internet connection by limiting your testing to a LAN.
Gary Key - Wednesday, November 1, 2006 - link
We tested over a LAN, the results were not that different, in fact the NVIDIA NIC and Intel PRO/1000 PT cards had better throughput and latencies the majority of the time. We did not show these results as the card is marketed to improve your Online Gaming experience. If the card had been marketed as a must have product to improve your gaming capability on a LAN then it would have been reviewed as such.
When we tested on the LAN the steps you outlined were basically followed from a script viewpoint in order to ensure the variables were kept to a minimum. We did not provide these results, maybe we should have in hindsight. Our final opinion of the card would not have changed.
Thanks for the comments. :)
Frumious1 - Tuesday, October 31, 2006 - link
The product is targeted at gamers. Look at the marketing material. now, while a LAN party goer might get some advantage out of it, there are FAR more people playing games from home using broadband connections. If this only improves performance in a LAN environment (clearly NOT what is being advertised), then it's already a failure. I like what Gary did here: look at real world testing and let us know how it turned out. Who gives a rip about controlled environments and theoretical performance increases if the reality is that the product basically doesn't help much? What's really funny is that they even show a ping "advantage" in FEAR of maximum 0.40ms and average 0.13ms. WTF!? Like anyone can notice a .13ms improvement in ping times! The frame rate improvements might be good (if they were available in many games)... still not $270+ good, though.Bladen - Tuesday, October 31, 2006 - link
Or as you touched on, do the test for a long time, or many many repeats, and let the averages soeak for themselves.shoRunner - Tuesday, October 31, 2006 - link
You pay almost $300 for the ultimate NIC card, and its PCI so it can't even get anywhere near gigbit throughput. AND the CPU utilization isn't even better than an onboard solution. PLEASE. If anyone is truely thinking about buying this, send me a PM I've got some beautiful ocean front property in Montanta to sell you for pennies on the dollar.mlau - Tuesday, October 31, 2006 - link
You underestimate this card greatly. This is the ultimate network card for linux:it could theoretically offload almost all of linux' network stack (including linux'
advanced filtering/routing capabilites and protocols). It's a firewall-router on a
card. IMHO the card is targeted for the wrong crowd (although I understand it somewhat,
since gamers are usually stupid enough to buy 2 video cards and other completely
unnecessary stuff [ageia comes to mind])