kaninja

candle_86
nah good folks will continue to support EVGA and continue to buy Quality American products.

lol, what American products....most of what they sell is made in Asia.

kaninja
Too bad for EVGA. They are way too short sighted to see the long term negative impact this will have. Sure they got away with it, and I am sure they were banking on the fact Unwinder lives half way around the world and the difficulty taking legal action he would have.....which makes this sort of crap even worse.

To the rest of the community (outside the EVGA forums) not everyone condones this here, and we don't all believe what some other trolls here believe.

Such a small thing EVGA.

WinMacLin

bdary
I'm not a programmer or anything of the sort, but after reading through this thread and the one at Guru and others, one thing keeps coming to mind.  If this was a blatant "cut/paste" as so many are claiming, why is it so bug riddled and why is the OSD look and work nothing like how using RTSS does?
 
In my mind, it would seem that if it were an "exact" copy as so many insist, it would be running trouble free like it did before.  Less the 64bit OSD support of course.
 
Just my 2 cents...

You'd have to be a Programmer to understand what they've done. When you write software like this it is compiled into a machine readable format. The original code that the programmer actually wrote is not accessible.
 
However there are lots of programs out there which allow you to decompile a compiled binary. The thing is when you compile software a lot of the information is condensed and interpreted by the compiler so when you decompile it later the code looks completely different. It is pretty much not able to be read by human eyes unless you are extremely talented and modifying that decompiled code to add new features is almost impossible and a lot more work than if you had the original source.
 
So what EVGA have done is decompiled the original binary and then reverse engineered it. They give the program an input and watch what it does then they write new code that does the same thing. They may not even understand why the program does what it does but that doesn't matter to them as they are simply copying the steps to get the result.
 
Another thing they've done is resource copying. When you decompile a binary there are many resources such as fonts, dynamic link libraries, images, text strings and so on which you can just include in your own software without needing to modify them in the future. In this case they've literally opened the old Precision X in a resource manager and pulled out this content and then stuck it in to their own clone when they are compiling it.
 
It is unethical in my opinion but now you may understand why it doesn't work very well.

bdary

WinMacLin

bdary
I'm not a programmer or anything of the sort, but after reading through this thread and the one at Guru and others, one thing keeps coming to mind.  If this was a blatant "cut/paste" as so many are claiming, why is it so bug riddled and why is the OSD look and work nothing like how using RTSS does?
 
In my mind, it would seem that if it were an "exact" copy as so many insist, it would be running trouble free like it did before.  Less the 64bit OSD support of course.
 
Just my 2 cents...

You'd have to be a Programmer to understand what they've done. When you write software like this it is compiled into a machine readable format. The original code that the programmer actually wrote is not accessible.
 
However there are lots of programs out there which allow you to decompile a compiled binary. The thing is when you compile software a lot of the information is condensed and interpreted by the compiler so when you decompile it later the code looks completely different. It is pretty much not able to be read by human eyes unless you are extremely talented and modifying that decompiled code to add new features is almost impossible and a lot more work than if you had the original source.
 
So what EVGA have done is decompiled the original binary and then reverse engineered it. They give the program an input and watch what it does then they write new code that does the same thing. They may not even understand why the program does what it does but that doesn't matter to them as they are simply copying the steps to get the result.
 
Another thing they've done is resource copying. When you decompile a binary there are many resources such as fonts, dynamic link libraries, images, text strings and so on which you can just include in your own software without needing to modify them in the future. In this case they've literally opened the old Precision X in a resource manager and pulled out this content and then stuck it in to their own clone when they are compiling it.
 
It is unethical in my opinion but now you may understand why it doesn't work very well.

Thanks for the explanation as to how things like this "could" work.  But I'm not buying it.  There is no proof of what your claim is and actually now, some proof to the contrary.  >>  http://www.overclock.net/t/1502290/guru3d-did-evga-just-steal-the-rivatuner-rtss-design-concept/200_50#post_22580588
 
The statements in bold are only an opinion on what EVGA "could have" done, and not based on any factual basis.

bdary
As far as I'm concerned, there's a lot of speculation with a bit of fact sprinkled in going on here on both sides.  I like EVGA and I've enjoyed EVGA's/Unwinders software for several years.  Personally, this is between them and shouldn't be getting aired out like this without knowing ALL the facts which we don't, and probably never will.
 
Again, my 2 cents... 

SilentRecoil
Looks like someone decompiled both versions and compared the code over on OCN, and they're different. As a matter of fact, the new Precision is a lot larger. http://www.overclock.net/...t/200_50#post_22580588

Yes, pretty much it. The only winner coming out of this seems to be the guys who published this as a news article without consulting EVGA or Unwinder. What a surprise!

maskedmenace
Per Unwinder:
 

Hope those are my last comments on this story. First, there are different rumors walking on the net related to the product licensing terms. Some people are trying to justify copying from the previous versions, so I’d like to clarify that to prevent any misunderstanding:

The agreement defines the following intellectual property ownership terms: software product which I develop remains my copyrighted property, but during the contract the company receives exclusive distribution rights on it. Besides exclusive software distribution rights the company exclusively owns all the rest intellectual property, which is not directly related to software and which I could create during the contract: i.e. product name, product logos, artwork. That’s all. There are absolutely no ways to fit any form of previous software copy-pasting into the licensing model.

Second, I just decided to peek inside "in-house" application EXE. I'd better avoid doing so: even my original EXE string table is inside new executable as is. Including all the messages of original application, including all the messages of my proprietary USF skin compiler / decompiler built into original RivaTuner skinning engine, even including the references to original RivaTuner core libraries (RTTSH.dll). Even including the messages related to RivaTuner’s G15 LCD output module, which the company probably also tried to clone but couldn’t get working yet. Really, EVGA? 

Dear company PRs, take a fair advice and simply stop giving any public comments with fake excuses. I’m not going to start a legal action against the company, I’m not asking for ANY compensation. I just want to let my users know the truth, protect my software, my ideas and technologies and then forget our past partnership. Just keep your lips sealed and let this story die istelf. Do not beat the dead horse.

 
This really puts a solid end to the debacle.
 
It was copied. EVGA failed to give him credit...It is what it is.

ragingcain
Hey all, my binary analysis has made it's way over here.

I just want to state that disassembly/decompilation is not an exact science so I did go by other factors such as the size of the program and the potential for simple function call renames.  I can not replicate Unwinder's claims.  If someone else can please step up.

I also want to point out that Unwinder has stated they have never had the source code.

SO, is settings user interface copied? Yes, but that can be done easily in Visual Studio.  Maybe not functional but to replicate visually yes.

Does Alex/Unwinder deserve credit for his 17 years of Riva work? Absolutely and overclockers are borderline dependent on his work and will continue to be. I, myself, am an Afterburner user.

Here is the binary analysis:
http://www.overclock.net/t/1502290/guru3d-did-evga-just-steal-the-rivatuner-rtss-design-concept/200_50#post_22580588
 
Here is the hook analysis:
http://www.overclock.net/t/1502290/guru3d-did-evga-just-steal-the-rivatuner-rtss-design-concept/250_50#post_22581088

You can make up your own opinions, but I personally think RTSS was EVGAs model or guideline for Precision X 15, and EVGA PR/Marketing got away with themselves (foot in mouth), and that was way overblown on Guru3D.

Also note those analysis' are of build 17, where the EULA was fixed.  I realize I am in complete violation of the new EULA, I do apologize to EVGA and have taken steps to destroy all data other than the non-consequential data in my analysis.

I believe that EVGA has replicated functionality of RTSS without using its source code.  I think we all should take a deep breath and join in arms against the real threat: console peasants.

EVGA_JacobF
Here is the official EVGA statement:
 

First, we value the relationship that we have with RivaTuner Alex/Unwinder since Feb.13th, 2008. With EVGA and Alex/Unwinder mutual efforts, Precision has become a very popular overclocking utility since it launched. Afterburner’s first release was in Oct. 2009.

It was originally EVGA’s idea to provide the world’s first “simple” overclocking GUI designed for NVIDIA cards that utilizes some of the Rivatuner technology for free. Due to some misinformation floating around about EVGA Precision recently, we would like to clarify several points. Also, EVGA wouldn’t have any interest to develop our own version if Alex/Unwinder had showed his interest back then like we’ve seen today!

1. The EVGA Precision main GUI (main Window) and format was fully designed and owned by EVGA, that means Alex/Unwinder did not design the Precision GUI at all. The Rivatuner technology was used for the backend like GPU reporting, OSD and overclocking. Other features like voltage tuning, pixel clock control and Bluetooth function were coded by EVGA. We want it to be clear that Rivatuner source code has never been released to EVGA. A year and half after Precision was introduced, Afterburner was released, that shared a lot of the same ideas and concepts originally set by EVGA’s Precision, and also used Rivatuner technology.
2. Most gamers knew that some of the key features that have been requested and missed such as 64bit OSD, voltage control and video recording in the early versions of Precision, yet Afterburner had it. You probably don’t know that some of those ideas were initiated and requested to Alex/Unwinder by EVGA to implement into Precision well before it was available in Afterburner, but Alex/Unwinder had no intention to add it. One year later they showed up in Afterburner exclusively without any notification and/or offer to EVGA. We felt that we became Alex/Unwinder and Afterburner’s free consultant if we continue this route.

We like Precision, the interface and the features, just like most of the gamers in the community, but under these circumstances, it became clear that in order to provide more features that are requested by the community, we needed to recode the back end from the ground up, using our own existing Precision skin designed as merely inspiration, that is why today we have the new EVGA PrecisionX 15. In the latest PrecisionX 15 we have put in some features like 64bit OSD support, Steam achievements and more. We want to make it clear that EVGA PrecisionX 15 is 100% coded in house without using any code from the older Precision due to we don’t have the source code since day one!

EVGA will continue adding features to support the community on PrecisionX15 for free as usual, and hope to inspire other overclocking utilities to be better for the entire gaming community.

The bottom line is that EVGA doesn’t want any third party to dictate what features the community should or should not have!

EVGA