Batman AA fiasco: Who's telling the truth?

[jvroig]

The difference is that in the case of McDonalds and Coca-Cola we have all grown accustomed to accepting this restriction in our consumer choices, and there is little fanboy flameage over the matter.

What, there are no McDo/Coke/Pepsi fanbois?? Say it ain't so, IDC!

Back on topic: I sort of agree with those who said this isn't such a big deal by itself. But I just hate for this kind of thing to be rampant. I shudder to think about a time coming where games are truly either NV/AMD crippled.

Not saying this leads to that... but it certainly could IF it's true that NVIDIA did purposely screw with AMD by "bribing" Eidos. But since I doubt it's as black and white as that, I just have to hope the backlash around this issue will help ensure stuff like this (intentionally or not) won't happen again.

 

[Wreckage]

that analogy is just as bad if not worse...

NVIDA isn't to blame here... AMD's and most of the people in here's anger is being directed towards the wrong company. NVIDIA just took advantage of the situation and AMD seems like they are upset they didn't/couldn't beat NVIDIA to the punch.

Everyone's beef should be with the UT3 game engine designers for not haveing AA built in natively. By them not doing it, they created the "segmented market".

Now that was a damn good post.

I'm not going to further comment on the issue anymore because it's been beaten to death. In fact the more I think of it, I will probably just pick up the game for the PS3 because you can play as the Joker. Which interests me far more than which kind of AA it uses.

 

[Seero]

You guys are all missing the point
Batman does not natively support AA in game - but you can force it via the CP
NVIDIA sent engineers to help code and debug In-game AA for their hardware
They put a vendor ID on that code so that only their hardware can run it
ATI had the option to do the same - they chose not to
Now they want the game developers to remove the ID lock from the code - The vendor cannot do that as the code belongs to NVIDIA - they wrote it.
It is irrelevant that ATI hardware can run the same code and get the same results as NVIDIA hardware - the point is that the code belongs to NVIDIA
ATI can either pay NVIDIA to use their code - or write their own for inclusion in the game engine to enable them to run AA too in-game.They cannot have it both ways

QFT

On one hand ATI claims that that piece of code written by Nvidia is badly coded as ATI's card will run slower that it can be. On the other hand, they want that piece of code to run on their cards.

Nvidia won't allow ATI to use their code, but not stopping ATI from writing their own code for that matter. Can't ATI show a piece of code that allows AA to be enabled on Batman that runs faster than Nvidia's code? With it, then Eidoes can retrofit this code into the game and ATI user will be happy.

Did I miss something?

 

[AyashiKaibutsu]

Whenever I read someone piss and moan about borderlands not having AA and that forcing it causes a major drop in performance, I think of this game... I don't really like the whole situation; The devs being lazy sods and nvidia being seedy although somewhat understandably so; it's just a shitty situation. When a company is getting paid to do a bare minimum port from consoles to PC, it's just the sad state of gaming that someone needs to step in and pay/provide their resources to get them to do more.

 

[GaiaHunter]

If I am a customer of McDonalds and I want a soft-drink I have little choice but to buy a Coca-Cola product.

Well a smart person just grabs his hamburger and buy a pepsi next store.

Now if nvidia ran McDonalds, it would strap a bomb on ur hamburger that would blow you into pieces if detected pepsi in a 3 feet radius of you.

 

[v8envy]

that analogy is just as bad if not worse...

NVIDA isn't to blame here... AMD's and most of the people in here's anger is being directed towards the wrong company. NVIDIA just took advantage of the situation and AMD seems like they are upset they didn't/couldn't beat NVIDIA to the punch.

Everyone's beef should be with the UT3 game engine designers for not haveing AA built in natively. By them not doing it, they created the "segmented market".

Yes, blame the bait shop owner's landlord for not providing a drive through window in the first place.

As consumers we don't want ATI and NV pummeling us in the first place. It doesn't matter who gets to punch me in the face first, the problem is the resultant black eye.

Hardware vendors paying for exclusive features in PC game titles will just have more migration toward consoles. One hardware vendor just seems not to realize how this could be very, very bad for their long term.

Unless, of course, GPUs are the future and who gives a damn about PC gaming.

 

[GaiaHunter]

QFT

On one hand ATI claims that that piece of code written by Nvidia is badly coded as ATI's card will run slower that it can be. On the other hand, they want that piece of code to run on their cards.

Did I miss something?

Yes, you did.

AMD claims that the code runs on their hardware just fine if vendor lock is removed.

Additionally they claim that while AA isn't rendered on their hardware, the initial part of the code is still being sent to their hardware for no useful purpose as AA isn't being done.

So they claim that a) Their cards can render AA just fine and the NVIDIA AA code isn't in anyway special as in the circumstances of not working on ATI hardware and, b) That their cards are being sent useless junk that just make the game run slower with no legit reason whatsoever.

If you want to read more, they are claiming, although not directly, that their hardware is being made to look bad.

 

[Paratus]

Anyone who isn't disturbed by the thought of hardware vendors locking generic game features for money is blind or a raving fanboy.

Do we want hardware vendors paying devs to lock out features and artificially slow down other manufacturers hardware?

I can see it now:

Enjoy Alien v Predator with super DX11 effects - requires Amd GPU NV down modes to DX8 effects!

New Batman 2: Enjoy NV HD Gaming! - Lack of separate Physx card will result in down moding to 640x480!

 

[Paratus]

One other thought:

In the future, I'd like for video card reviewers to add a review of each companies PR arm:

ex 2010 Anandtech Fermi review: While Fermi is 10% faster than the 5870 for $300 more, TWIMTBP will be able to inhibited over 2X as many features on the competitions card making Fermi the card to get!

 

[nitromullet]

From my perspective the analogies are pretty apropos. The difference is that in the case of McDonalds and Coca-Cola we have all grown accustomed to accepting this restriction in our consumer choices, and there is little fanboy flameage over the matter. Not so much with enthusiast graphic cards and PC games.

This is only the difference from the NVIDIA/Eidos perspective, but not the consumer perspective. There is no reason for you expect to get Pepsi when you drive up to a McDonald's, as McD's has not explicitly or implicitly stated you would get Pepsi.

The difference here is that a reasonably informed consumer could expect the game to work about the same on NV and ATI hardware for the following reasons:

1) It's a Windows PC (DirectX) game. Both NV and ATI hardware are supported hardware for the platform.
2) Historical precedence - in the past a feature such as AA has not been hardware vendor dependent, there is no reason that a consumer to expect that to change.
3) Eidos themselves specifically recommend ATI hardware: http://support.eidosinteractive.com/index.php?_m=knowledgebase&_a=viewarticle&kbarticleid=706 Nowhere is it mentioned that by using one set of "recommended" hardware over another the consumer is sacrificing a pretty standard feature in most modern games. IMO, they should have mentioned a PhysX capable card as well under the recommended system.

My point is not so much that your analogy is bad, but more that pretty much all analogies will be bad because this is somewhat unprecedented from a consumer perspective. Vendor lock out is not new, but vendor lock out in conflict with standard platforms/APIs, historical precedence, and explicit/implicit information from the vendor is.

 

[Seero]

yes, you did.

Amd claims that the code runs on their hardware just fine if vendor lock is removed.

that is written by programmers of nvidia, but AMD claims it will run fine on their product, yet they have never run any QA test on it.

Additionally they claim that while aa isn't rendered on their hardware, the initial part of the code is still being sent to their hardware for no useful purpose as aa isn't being done.

If nvidia's driver won't work on ati's card, then why should something that is written by nvidia runs on ati's card? let alone runs at its best? Where are those ati programmers when that piece of code is being developed?

so they claim that a) their cards can render aa just fine and the nvidia aa code isn't in anyway special as in the circumstances of not working on ati hardware and, b) that their cards are being sent useless junk that just make the game run slower with no legit reason whatsoever.

Clearly nvidia handles AA slightly differently than ati handles it. To so called junks to ati's card are not junks to nvidia's card.

if you want to read more, they are claiming, although not directly, that their hardware is being made to look bad.

nvidia don't want ati to look bad, and thus disabled it for all non-nvidia cards.

Of all these claiming, ATI really didn't do anything but claiming. Is it not clear that ATI never sent a piece of code that enables AA to Eidos? All ATI claims was it will be the same as the one send by Nvidia, yet on the same time claiming that Nvidia's code will reduce performance of ATI's card.

What ATI is claiming is not to un-block AA from being activated on ATI's card, but to allow a piece of code that was created by Nvidia to run on ATI's card which made AA possible. Yes, Eidos can write a piece of code based on Nvidia's code which allows ATI's card to enable AA, but Eidos will then have to spend time and money on that. Now of course Eidos can also leave it as it is and spend no money and time just for ATI's card to work while Nvidia has backed Eidos throughout the development.

Who is the bad guy here?

 

[Schmide]

that is written by programmers of nvidia, but AMD claims it will run fine on their product, yet they have never run any QA test on it.

Did you read the BSN article? AMD was testing many builds, they even complained that it did half the AA step and never finished it, causing their cards to run slower without the eyecandy benifit.

If nvidia's driver won't work on ati's card, then why should something that is written by nvidia runs on ati's card? let alone runs at its best? Where are those ati programmers when that piece of code is being developed?

Duh. Because it is based on DirectX standard calls. The days of program for each specific card are over, it's called standards.

Clearly nvidia handles AA slightly differently than ati handles it. To so called junks to ati's card are not junks to nvidia's card.

WTH are junks? I've been programming for 30 years and have never heard the term. BTW on the card they may internally implement AA slightly differently but the DirectX calls are identical.

As far as I understand it, in this case, render to a FP16 texture, do an AA resolve, use texture basis for final rendering target, render HDR, etc.

nvidia don't want ati to look bad, and thus disabled it for all non-nvidia cards.

Oh the irony, who is getting the bad press despite all the efforts of the fanbois.

Of all these claiming, ATI really didn't do anything but claiming. Is it not clear that ATI never sent a piece of code that enables AA to Eidos? All ATI claims was it will be the same as the one send by Nvidia, yet on the same time claiming that Nvidia's code will reduce performance of ATI's card.

One thing for sure, if ATI worked on a piece of code, for which they do for many games and developers, it wouldn't have a vendor lock and would run on any directX compatible card.

What ATI is claiming is not to un-block AA from being activated on ATI's card, but to allow a piece of code that was created by Nvidia to run on ATI's card which made AA possible. Yes, Eidos can write a piece of code based on Nvidia's code which allows ATI's card to enable AA, but Eidos will then have to spend time and money on that. Now of course Eidos can also leave it as it is and spend no money and time just for ATI's card to work while Nvidia has backed Eidos throughout the development.

Who is the bad guy here?

Uh you are? 1st for not understanding the issue, then for repeating the crappy marketing explanation for why it happened and not caring about the end user.

 

[Idontcare]

This is only the difference from the NVIDIA/Eidos perspective, but not the consumer perspective. There is no reason for you expect to get Pepsi when you drive up to a McDonald's, as McD's has not explicitly or implicitly stated you would get Pepsi.

The difference here is that a reasonably informed consumer could expect the game to work about the same on NV and ATI hardware for the following reasons:

1) It's a Windows PC (DirectX) game. Both NV and ATI hardware are supported hardware for the platform.
2) Historical precedence - in the past a feature such as AA has not been hardware vendor dependent, there is no reason that a consumer to expect that to change.
3) Eidos themselves specifically recommend ATI hardware: http://support.eidosinteractive.com/index.php?_m=knowledgebase&_a=viewarticle&kbarticleid=706 Nowhere is it mentioned that by using one set of "recommended" hardware over another the consumer is sacrificing a pretty standard feature in most modern games. IMO, they should have mentioned a PhysX capable card as well under the recommended system.

My point is not so much that your analogy is bad, but more that pretty much all analogies will be bad because this is somewhat unprecedented from a consumer perspective. Vendor lock out is not new, but vendor lock out in conflict with standard platforms/APIs, historical precedence, and explicit/implicit information from the vendor is.

nitromullet I fully agree with your statement. I was serious when I said vendor lockout sucks for the consumer. (I have gathered from the posts that my original post on the analogy was viewed as an attempt at sarcasm on my behalf...which it was not)

Its great for the businesses involved but it has absolutely nothing to do with the best interests of the consumer. DVD regions? Fast food and beverage supplier? PC gaming?

To me these are all shades of the same business practices and are taken out of the same business management handbook.

NV and Eidos did not invent anything new in the world of business and marketing here, we have all come to accept the realities of very similar analogs in other areas of our consumer-sided lives, but the passion that comes into play on these forums is somewhat unique in my perspective.

I don't say that to undermine it or to discount it, quite the opposite. I am loathe to the fact we are so desensitized to care about how the same playbook is used against us consumers in so many other markets.

At the same time though what are we consumerists to do? Vote with our wallets. But who do we vote against? Eidos? Nvidia? AMD?

I am more inclined to say the guilty party here to be voted against (if we had to be selective about it and make a prioritized list) would be Eidos...they are the ones who whored themselves out to begin with and put themselves up for the highest bidder.

That we found out in hindsight that NV is a John in this case doesn't exonerate them at all, it takes two to f*** the consumer, but the consumer also has to be a willing third party member in that dance before they too get screwed...did you buy the game? I did not, and I won't.

 

[GaiaHunter]

that is written by programmers of nvidia, but AMD claims it will run fine on their product, yet they have never run any QA test on it.


If nvidia's driver won't work on ati's card, then why should something that is written by nvidia runs on ati's card? let alone runs at its best? Where are those ati programmers when that piece of code is being developed?

Clearly nvidia handles AA slightly differently than ati handles it. To so called junks to ati's card are not junks to nvidia's card.


nvidia don't want ati to look bad, and thus disabled it for all non-nvidia cards.

Of all these claiming, ATI really didn't do anything but claiming. Is it not clear that ATI never sent a piece of code that enables AA to Eidos? All ATI claims was it will be the same as the one send by Nvidia, yet on the same time claiming that Nvidia's code will reduce performance of ATI's card.

What ATI is claiming is not to un-block AA from being activated on ATI's card, but to allow a piece of code that was created by Nvidia to run on ATI's card which made AA possible. Yes, Eidos can write a piece of code based on Nvidia's code which allows ATI's card to enable AA, but Eidos will then have to spend time and money on that. Now of course Eidos can also leave it as it is and spend no money and time just for ATI's card to work while Nvidia has backed Eidos throughout the development.

Who is the bad guy here?

Man you need to do some reading in this debate.

I'm not saying these things are true, but those are the things AMD claim.

- They said they circumvented the vendor lock and AA worked fine;

- They claimed even though AA isn't working on their cards, the initial AA
code, even though it is disabled for ATI hardware is being sent to their cards, so they are getting the performance penalty as if they were using AA but getting no result.

All this has been talked in other threads in here and you can find them for yourself.

Again, I'm not saying who is right or wrong, who's lying or not, just correcting your affirmations by providing you the correct AMD claims or the way they present their side of the story.

 

[NIGELG]

nitromullet I fully agree with your statement. I was serious when I said vendor lockout sucks for the consumer. (I have gathered from the posts that my original post on the analogy was viewed as an attempt at sarcasm on my behalf...which it was not)

Its great for the businesses involved but it has absolutely nothing to do with the best interests of the consumer. DVD regions? Fast food and beverage supplier? PC gaming?

To me these are all shades of the same business practices and are taken out of the same business management handbook.

NV and Eidos did not invent anything new in the world of business and marketing here, we have all come to accept the realities of very similar analogs in other areas of our consumer-sided lives, but the passion that comes into play on these forums is somewhat unique in my perspective.

I don't say that to undermine it or to discount it, quite the opposite. I am loathe to the fact we are so desensitized to care about how the same playbook is used against us consumers in so many other markets.

At the same time though what are we consumerists to do? Vote with our wallets. But who do we vote against? Eidos? Nvidia? AMD?

I am more inclined to say the guilty party here to be voted against (if we had to be selective about it and make a prioritized list) would be Eidos...they are the ones who whored themselves out to begin with and put themselves up for the highest bidder.

That we found out in hindsight that NV is a John in this case doesn't exonerate them at all, it takes two to f*** the consumer, but the consumer also has to be a willing third party member in that dance before they too get screwed...did you buy the game? I did not, and I won't.

I did not buy this game and I have no interest in doing so.I simply don't want to have anything to with it.I hope this doesn't happen when the next Hitman game comes out because the Hitman games are the only Eidos games I like.

 

[novasatori]

Man you need to do some reading in this debate.

I'm not saying these things are true, but those are the things AMD claim.

- They said they circumvented the vendor lock and AA worked fine;
.

I would like to put forward a question for you here...
True/False
Its NVIDIA's job to QA ATI hardware.
Its EIDOS' job to QA ATI and NVIDIA hardware.

So what if it works fine, I'm sure NVIDIA couldn't care two shits about testing ATI hardware with their code, and really who can blame them, they don't get paid for that.

 

[lopri]

I'd love to see the (TWIMTBP) contract between Eidos and NVIDIA. My guess is that there is a clause in there that enables NV to retract and void the co-marketing agreement (and seek damage) were Eidos to allow AMD cards to run AA. Obviously AMD has seen/known it and decided to not let go this time.

 

[Schmide]

I would like to put forward a question for you here...
True/False
Its NVIDIA's job to QA ATI hardware.
Its EIDOS' job to QA ATI and NVIDIA hardware.

So what if it works fine, I'm sure NVIDIA couldn't care two shits about testing ATI hardware with their code, and really who can blame them, they don't get paid for that.

I would ask you the following question.

When you decided to subscribe to the DirectX standard, was that only to benefit your cards or the industry as a whole?

They don't get the benefits of DirectX without the responsibilities that come with it. If they want to ignore every statement that has been presented at every DirectX talk to make rendering decisions based on the CAPS bits and not the vendor string, they should exit the DirectX market!

 

[dflynchimp]

I would ask you the following question.

When you decided to subscribe to the DirectX standard, was that only to benefit your cards or the industry as a whole?

They don't get the benefits of DirectX without the responsibilities that come with it. If they want to ignore every statement that has been presented at every DirectX talk to make rendering decisions based on the CAPS bits and not the vendor string, they should exit the DirectX market!

Exactly. The very thing that differentiates the PC market from the console market is the open standard. In theory every game developed for the PC should adhere to the coding standards allowing for theoretically limitless combinations of hardware. If devs try to force vendor-specific feature sets onto end customers they are shooting themselves in the foot because the further they stray from uniformity, the more they will alienate the entire PC gaming base.

I love PC gaming because of its ease of access. I can be doing work, keeping in touch with people, watch multimedia, and game on the same screen without having to setup a separate console station. But if the future of PC gaming is one where I have to make purchasing decisions that will lock me out of things that I want (PhysX, AA, etc) then I might as well cave and buy an xbox.

 

[GaiaHunter]

I would like to put forward a question for you here...
True/False
Its NVIDIA's job to QA ATI hardware.
Its EIDOS' job to QA ATI and NVIDIA hardware.

So what if it works fine, I'm sure NVIDIA couldn't care two shits about testing ATI hardware with their code, and really who can blame them, they don't get paid for that.

You, and others, come up with questions like that because you see this as an AMD/ATI vs NVIDIA competition and you've chosen a side to support.

I'm just worried what will happen if this become the standard procedure - actually I already know, because a few years ago it was like that! - it is a nightmare for the consumer since you have very limited choices because x or y piece of hardware might not work because those vendors didn't pimp enough money for the software vendors or the other way around, and you finish with a damn pc filled with incompatible hardware/software, hardware/hardware, software/software or you just bite the bullet and buy the hardware from the biggest vendor around as that one will have enough money to pimp software companies or the other way around.

In my opinion, collaborating with developers to allow them to develop "Windows Standards", as that is the platform I use, is fine. Getting the initial advantage of seeing the code and churn better drivers faster for your hardware is fine too.

NVIDIA does have that advantage - generally when a game is out they have better support out of the box. ATI strategy seems to be a bit different - they just throw drivers every month and generally end up catching up on performance sooner or later.

This situation is a bit different.

For the companies involved can make pretty much sense - and we know that until NVIDIA has some next generation hardware they need every bit of leverage they can get as the fastest GPU out there is based on the RV870 and ATI has atm a very solid line up of cards at several price points.

As a consumer, and purely speaking as what is best as a consumer, I prefer the hardware companies to invest in making better hardware products, and I prefer software companies to make products that work on certified WINDOWS HARDWARE.

And I couldn't care less about this game - if it wasn't because of this situation I would probably never hear much about it.

And I both have ATI and NVIDIA hardware (even capable of running batman with physX).

I'm concerned that this procedure will become the norm.

PCs for gaming are already very expensive. For web surfing, office work and some movie watching, an el cheapo pc with some IGP will do.

If this become the norm, well, I'll be thinking very hard if I'm spending my money on a graphics card that cost $250+ every couple of years.

Because lets not fool ourselves, if NVIDIA can do this legally, so can AMD or GOD FORBIDS, Intel.

At that point I'm just buying a console for my gaming needs - which isn't my favorite option.

Now if you are in here to cheer up a company over another, well it is ok. But many others are just concerned for the future of the PC Windows platform, not to bash NVIDIA or AMD.

It is capitalism mate - I want what is best for me and don't give a crap about AMD/NVIDIA/INTEL. But even capitalism have some rules, or we will just be shooting each others - and who wants to live in a world where you never know when you can have a bullet flying trough ur head?

 

[dflynchimp]

who wants to live in a world where you never know when you can have a bullet flying trough ur head?

CS whores

 

[zmatt]

My .02.

AA is nothing special. We have had it since 2002 if not earlier. I bet it would take 10 seconds to look up how to code simple AA support in a DX environment. When I read about the developer needing Nvidia's help to develop AA for the game I see a poor cover story for Nvidia's attempt at paying the dev to optimize the game for their cards and purposely de-optimize it for ATIs. No major developer is that inept at game design. The same thing happened with crysis. The irony being that ATI's cards were so good it makes little difference now.

 

[SSChevy2001]

that is written by programmers of nvidia, but AMD claims it will run fine on their product, yet they have never run any QA test on it.

If nvidia's driver won't work on ati's card, then why should something that is written by nvidia runs on ati's card? let alone runs at its best?

Clearly nvidia handles AA slightly differently than ati handles it. To so called junks to ati's card are not junks to nvidia's card.

nvidia don't want ati to look bad, and thus disabled it for all non-nvidia cards.

Who is the bad guy here?

Well it does works just fine on my 4870 and here's a SS for you.

The only one looking bad is Nvidia.

 

[Idontcare]

Well it does works just fine on my 4870 and here's a SS for you.

The only one looking bad is Nvidia.

SSChevy2001, what's it look like if you don't do the hack but you do enable that "AA for everything" switch? And correspondingly what kind of fps difference do you see between running the hack versus the "AA for everything" option?

And maybe its just me, but does anyone else think both shots look like crap? With and without hack AA the game's jaggies are pretty glaring in your screenshots...do you notice it when playing?

 

[palladium]

Now that was a damn good post.

I'm not going to further comment on the issue anymore because it's been beaten to death. In fact the more I think of it, I will probably just pick up the game for the PS3 because you can play as the Joker. Which interests me far more than which kind of AA it uses.

Interesting, why did they decide to only allow Joker to be played in the PS3 and not PC version?