Does GameWorks influences AMD's Cards game performance?

[lilltesaito]

Give this a look: http://gamingbolt.com/amd-nvidia-ga...ty-of-the-developers-gamers-who-run-amd-cards

Seems like a lot of crying from AMD to me.

One link is a lot of crying? Not only that but game works is a lock out and can not be changed by amd.

I would have no issues if gameworks just added cool stuff that can only be used on Nvidia hardware. The issue I have is when it is forced and causes issues with AMD hardware.

I still think that Nvidia has some kind of contract with Dev to keep AMD locked out for a few months so that the reviews come out and make AMD look bad. After those reviews come, then they let the Dev open up the code and so AMD performance issue is fixed. Kind like they are getting exclusive rights for a short time(like apple just did with HBO Now).Many people have said that Nvidia wants to be like Apple.

Because of how this is done, it is to hard for anyone to prove something is happening.

If Nvidia was so sure about their Hardware, I dont think they would have to use this tactic.

 

[SirPauly]

wasting resources in the process..

I wanna touch on this --- I don't understand how getting advanced PC fidelity settings in gaming titles is a waste of resources but an investment for one's customers, potential new customers' experiences, differentiation, name brand awareness, technology leadership and to build upon an ecosystem.

 

[AnandThenMan]

I wanna touch on this --- I don't understand how getting advanced PC fidelity settings in gaming titles is a waste of resources but an investment for one's customers, potential new customers' experiences, differentiation, name brand awareness, technology leadership and to build upon an ecosystem.

Could you use any more buzzwords and hyperbole?

 

[stahlhart]

Could you use any more buzzwords and hyperbole?

Stay on topic, and stop the personal attacks.
-- stahlhart

 

[Grooveriding]

I hadn't seen that, but I wouldn't categorize it as crying it seemed fairly calmly stated and accurate.

“The same cannot be said for Gameworks, which remains a mystery to developers unless they commit to a special license for which there are no public details.”

“That is a disservice to the significant percentage of the gaming public that runs AMD Radeon graphics, and it’s a disservice to the ingenuity of the developers.”

These seemed to me the strongest statements quoted in the article. You seem to be the only one attaching oddly emotional language to this.

It's quite accurate. Gameworks is not just physx, but in games that make full use of it, is pervasive and accounts for many of the effects you see in games; hair, shadows, post processing, fire effects, dof, water, facial work on characters, physics and a few other things.

For developers it's a way to save money by using nvidia's pre-baked effects by building the Gameworks libraries into the game. Often they can't even see in the gameworks dlls. Can't get source code and nvidia now has a way to directly manipulate performance in games that make heavy use of it. They can cripple AMD's cards, cripple their own last generation cards etc. Which is what we see happen in the gameworks games, they've all been outliers to the typical performance hierarchy we see of currently released GPUs, showing awful performance on AMD cards and terrible performance for nvidia's own Kepler cards. Then a game patch comes out down the road after reviews have been done and lessens it.

We've seen this with all the gameworks games. Expect Witcher 3 to perform like complete garbage on AMD hardware at release.

 

[SirPauly]

I don't get it --- wasted resources -- my so-called hyperbole and buzzwords are reasons why they are not wasted.

 

[lilltesaito]

I wanna touch on this --- I don't understand how getting advanced PC fidelity settings in gaming titles is a waste of resources but an investment for one's customers, potential new customers' experiences, differentiation, name brand awareness, technology leadership and to build upon an ecosystem.

I am all for making new tech and moving forward. I even said that before with the whole CLC debate.

Now, it is different to force this onto another company who can not run it or even make changes to make it run right on their hardware.

If people could choose to turn it on and off, this thread would not even be here.

I really wish Nvidia would of gone about this a different way. Like having Dev add this in and them saying look what our hardware can do and what you get from buying our product. Not forcing on people and making it bad for AMD customers.

 

[Azix]

I would like to think the witcher 3 devs would not allow gameworks to harm AMD gamers, but if it does....

I will be furious.

 

[lilltesaito]

I would like to think the witcher 3 devs would not allow gameworks to harm AMD gamers, but if it does....

I will be furious.

From what I have seen of them, I do not think that would happen whatsoever. They seem to be all about opening up and really getting as many people they can.

But money talks and that could change things.

 

[SirPauly]

Has anyone ever asked nVidia why they decided on this closed method with GameWorks?

 

[96Firebird]

This thread is pointless and will lead nowhere and your point proves it because some NV owners believe that putting proprietary closed-source code GW SDK or PhysX extensions that can never be altered, modified or optimized by AMD/Intel for their GPUs is perfectly OK.

The moral of the story here is that because NV owners have never been affected by unfair competitive business practices, and no firm ever tried to buy out developers with a program like GW that it's not NV's gamer's problem. Haha.

Not surprised for a second at all the NV defending and cheer-leading over the last decade (bumpgate, 970 fiasco, AC DX10.1, Batman AA, Kepler drivers, closed PhysX) considering the support everywhere for closed-source GSync with a GSync module premium. It's becoming pretty obvious that the majority of NV users on our forum will never buy AMD, ever and either wish for AMD to go bankrupt OR they only want for AMD to produce competing products just so that they can buy NV cards cheaper.

Let's not forget at all the constant comments how AMD's Silver and Gold game bundles were viewed as "AMD is so desperate to bundle games because no one wants their cards" to today's "970 and 980 are awesome values because they come with free games like TW3 and Batman AK!!! What an awesome promotion by NV".

Thank you for not answering my question at all, when you can't argue, attack!

Why would Intel/AMD need to modify the exisitng code? All they need to do is see the code, write their own code to execute the functions, and voila! Success! They don't own the code, so of course they can't modify it. The fact that you think that means they can't optimize for it is shocking.

 

[Azix]

Has anyone ever asked nVidia why they decided on this closed method with GameWorks?

It's nvidia. That's what they do. It would be odd if they went a different route

 

[SirPauly]

Curious to hear their official take!

 

[gamervivek]

Sure it does. If the devs sabotage the DX path - for example increase the amount of draw calls - then it will impact the performance on nVidia hardware. Eventually nVidia saw this and optimized their DX driver for less overhead.

It is quite ironic that a proprietary API is praised as the next big thing but standard DX libaries, which are working on every dx based hardware, is the devil.

That's a good one, now if you only think of it the other way round and combine that with crysis 2 tessellation fiasco, and we might have solved this riddle.
And apparently dx isn't proprietary....

 

[lilltesaito]

http://gamingbolt.com/amd-nvidia-gameworks-is-a-disservice-to-the-ingenuity-of-the-developers-gamers-who-run-amd-cards

Is this basically what is going on?

If only that were true. OK so nvidia creates a new technique for let's say ambient occlusion. Now nvidia shoves that into GameWorks so now nobody can use it unless they use game works. In the past things like this would be open for all possibly with a license fee on the code. nvidia does it backwards. They will go out to publishers who control all the money and say hey we have this new thing and it will make your game be able to do this and this. Then nvidia effectively pays that publisher via license discount if they ONLY support GameWorks technology.

So then we have a situation where the developer is making a game that will be totally optimized for an nvidia card and break visual quality and performance on an ati card. Still we are OK there is nothing inherently wrong yet.

The problem comes when nvidia will refuse to license the technology to any competitor. In effect nvidia is using their position as market leader to allow them to get away with anti competitive business practices. They skirt a fine legal line with this one.

So a game launches with this new techniques and then AMD is in a mad scramble to try and code their own driver optimizations without having access to the games libraries. Generally speaking GPU makers get access to libraries so they can tune drivers but the license of GameWorks prevents this. This is the really shady area. Its perfectly fine that nvidia invented something and has a leg up and first mover advantage but its not OK to deny AMD a fair chance.

Even if AMD ignores the new technology in the game created by nvidia they can't even gain access to things that used to be openly available for optimization. Even If the game isn't using anything new it will still run worse by default.

 

[FatherMurphy]

It seems to me that the crux of many criticisms expressed in this thread is a purported obligation, duty, or responsibility on the part of NV to either (1) AMD, (2) AMD's customers, and/or (3) Game Developers, to ensure the best possible gaming experience. I fail to see how NV owes any such obligation, duty, or responsibility to any of the foregoing persons or companies other than NV's legal contracts with Game Developers).

As an initial matter, video games are not developed by NV or AMD. They are not the product of NV or AMD. They are the artistic creation and product of Game Developers (and their publishers). The end-user, the PC gamer, is the intended customer, not NV or AMD. NV and AMD merely supply one physical component (the GPU) among many that ultimately allows the end-user (PC gamer) to enjoy the game.

(1) AMD. What duty does NV owe to AMD? None. The companies are competitors selling graphics cards that, for all intents and purposes, do the same thing -- process and display games for PC gamers. Both companies exist to profit, which means, generally speaking, selling more video cards than their competitor. To do so, both companies market their GPUs as the superior product. Both companies create exclusive technologies to incorporate into PC video games (e.g. GW suite by NV, Mantle or True Audio by AMD). These companies invest in these technologies to allow them to differentiate their products and "prove" to potential customers (PC gamers) that their respective GPUs will result in the superior gaming experience. The notion that one company must divulge its exclusive technologies to its competitor or construct its technologies in a certain way because it might result in its competitor's product providing a less compelling gaming experience is, frankly, a fundamentally radical, anti-competitive position in and of itself.

(2) AMD's customers. What duty does NV owe AMD's customers? None. We must assume that purchasers who bought a GPU for PC Gaming made a choice. Buy an NV card or buy an AMD card. Presumably, the customer purchased the card on the basis that the purchased card would provide the best all-around gaming experience for the price. Indeed, both companies market their products as providing the best gaming experience. Accordingly, if a person has chosen to purchase an AMD card, it is AMD's obligation to provide the best gaming experience to its customer. As a corollary, if someone has chosen not to purchase an NV card, NV has no obligation to that person at all.

(3) Game Developer? What duty does NV owe game developers? Whatever their legal relationship requires. NV goes to a game developer and says "We have certain technologies that we believe will make your more marketable to PC gamers. We will license them to you and help you implement them in your game on certain conditions." As an attorney myself, I can guarantee you that an army of lawyers representing the game developer read, understood, and represented to their clients what those conditions were. The Game Developer, which has absolute discretion to freely enter into contracts, accepts those conditions from NV, fully knowing the responsibilities and consequences of doing so. If the Developer was concerned about the effects such a deal would have on the gaming experience of AMD cards, then it would either have not entered the deal.

Based on my reading of this thread and my own understanding, I think we can conclude a few things:

(1) The quantitative data shows that GW results in PC games that run better on NV cards (or worse on AMD cards, however you look at it), which was the question posed by OP;
(2) the GW suite is designed to give NV card owners the best possible gaming experience in the market;
(3) if the net effect is that AMD's cards provide a less optimal gaming experience than NV's as a result, then it is incumbent upon AMD, not NV, to create a solution to ensure AMD's customers have a better gaming experience;
(4) the ultimate responsibility for the gaming experience is on the Game Developer/Publisher, not NV or AMD;
(5) if the Game Developer and NV's tactics are unacceptable to PC gamers, then the market will respond.

Those are my hastily scratched out thoughts. I'm speaking from a business/legal standpoint, even though I am a consumer as well. In an ideal world, would I wish things to be different? Probably. But attaching moral or emotional components to this situation does not make any sense to me.

If we want to "get mad" at someone, it should be the Game Developer for taking the cash and implementing GW in the first place. Without that willingness, GW would not exist.

 

[boozzer]

no one is attaching moral anything, at least not me. all I care about is the future of pc gaming. your points 2 to 5 are all wrong. I can also clearly tell which side you are on nothing wrong with it by the way. I just want to respond to point 5. no, the market would not respond. Just look at the cheering on the nv side, including your own post. and you are also speaking as the owner of a nv gpu, don't sugar coat it.

I simply don't want the gpu market to become the same as the cpu market where you have 5 to 10% improvements per generation. it might actually be worst, just look at the current prices of i7 cpus compare to top of the line gpus, excluding outliners like titan.

 

[FatherMurphy]

Your response is a non-response, with the exception of the personal attack on my credibility. If you could respond to the merits of my post, that'd probably be more helpful.

As for what "side" I'm on, again, that's the sort of ad hominem that consistently derails these types of threads.

No one wants to see the GPU market become as lop-sided as the CPU market, but that isn't the question we are discussing.

 

[AnandThenMan]

(2) AMD's customers. What duty does NV owe AMD's customers? None. We must assume that purchasers who bought a GPU for PC Gaming made a choice. Buy an NV card or buy an AMD card. Presumably, the customer purchased the card on the basis that the purchased card would provide the best all-around gaming experience for the price. Indeed, both companies market their products as providing the best gaming experience. Accordingly, if a person has chosen to purchase an AMD card, it is AMD's obligation to provide the best gaming experience to its customer. As a corollary, if someone has chosen not to purchase an NV card, NV has no obligation to that person at all.

Making a GPU choice should not also mean you can only play certain games optimized for the hardware. That is NOT what PC gaming is all about why is this point lost on some people? The more financial power a vendor has to basically bride game developer to favour their hardware the less hardware choice we will all ultimately have. Do you really want that?

 

[cusideabelincoln]

As an initial matter, video games are not developed by NV or AMD. They are not the product of NV or AMD. They are the artistic creation and product of Game Developers (and their publishers). The end-user, the PC gamer, is the intended customer, not NV or AMD. NV and AMD merely supply one physical component (the GPU) among many that ultimately allows the end-user (PC gamer) to enjoy the game.

Do you really stand by your statement? Nvidia is doing more than simply supplying one physical component to allow gamers to enjoy artistic content. They are doing much more than that with GW. They are inserting themselves into the creative process. So this isn't a black and white scenario as you're making it out to be.

Their duty should be to promote PC gaming as a whole. That will allow the market to grow even more. Instead they are trying to lock out the competition, and the effect of which has not lead to much innovation in the PC gaming space in quite some time. You can take PhysX as an example. It could be a wonderful tool to enhance the interactivity and visual fidelity of most games, but there has been zero growth in PhysX and the artistic use of PhysX since Nvidia bought it and made it a proprietary solution.

To use a metaphor, what Nvidia wants to do is eat all (well, as much as they can) the slices of a single pie and they're trying to do this by saying the pieces of the pie they don't have will make you sick. But the alternative is much more beautiful, IMO - just make some more pies!

 

[AnandThenMan]

For people that advocate intentionally crippling game code on competitors hardware. Suppose AMD gets a big cash infusion and does the same thing Nvidia is doing but on a larger scale. Going forward your nice expensive Nvidia hardware is going to significantly under perform and there won't be anything you can do about it unless you buy a Radeon GPU.

Now remember AMD would be doing exactly what some are championing Nvidia for doing. AMD is being blamed for bad dev relations and bad drivers even though neither is why GW titles don't run like they should on a Radeon GPU. If the shoe is on the other foot will Nvidia be blamed for bad drivers and poor dev relations?

 

[FatherMurphy]

@anand and @cusideabelincoln:

I feel like we are talking past each other. I think everyone who has posted or lurked on this thread would agree that the domination of PC gaming by one GPU vendor would ultimately result in a less exciting market.

But I'm still waiting for someone to tell me why the GW suite is "wrong," and, if so, why the Game Developer isn't ultimately the one who we consumers should go after with the torches and pitchforks.

 

[96Firebird]

But I'm still waiting for someone to tell me why the GW suite is "wrong," and, if so, why the Game Developer isn't ultimately the one who we consumers should go after with the torches and pitchforks.

Sounds to me like some are saying it is "wrong" because it is hurting AMD, and we need to do everything in our powers to help AMD!

The victim card is an easy one to play.

 

[ph2000]

For people that advocate intentionally crippling game code on competitors hardware. Suppose AMD gets a big cash infusion and does the same thing Nvidia is doing but on a larger scale. Going forward your nice expensive Nvidia hardware is going to significantly under perform and there won't be anything you can do about it unless you buy a Radeon GPU.

Now remember AMD would be doing exactly what some are championing Nvidia for doing. AMD is being blamed for bad dev relations and bad drivers even though neither is why GW titles don't run like they should on a Radeon GPU. If the shoe is on the other foot will Nvidia be blamed for bad drivers and poor dev relations?

sounds like response to mantle

maybe EA should just buy AMD and create game that run radeon only

 

[xthetenth]

Is it more important that something is legal or that it leads to good outcomes? Bad things can happen and still be legal, it just means the system isn't perfect.

Sounds to me like some are saying it is "wrong" because it is hurting AMD, and we need to do everything in our powers to help AMD!

The victim card is an easy one to play.

Yeah, I'd personally rather not have a market where anti-competitive tactics are the norm and so are resulting monopolies, thanks.