[Forbes] AMD Is Wrong About 'The Witcher 3' And Nvidia's HairWorks

[maddie]

Fun fact: Crytek used useless levels of tessellation on lots of assets in Crysis 2 which didn't actually improve the image quality but tanked performance. They also had a massive tessellated ocean of water running under stages. Read this: http://techreport.com/review/21404/crysis-2-tessellation-too-much-of-a-good-thing

Put yourself in AMD's position and tell me what you would do?

The ability of humans to defend practice like this is really terrifying — I'm comparing it to other areas of discussion in humanity and it makes me seriously scared for the future (not mentioning anything specific as to not derail thread).

I feel the same.

Everyone should understand one thing. If AMD is gone, us gamers will suffer with much slower development and higher prices. For those who hate AMD, whats the old proverb, 'cutting off your nose to spite your face'. Please don't indulge in short term thinking. AMD does not have to be king but strong enough to give effective competition to Nvidia. We all benefit. Nvidia supporters can continue to buy their favorite brands and will get more value.

Point 3 is relevant to this thread, but all are happening.

How to increase revenue/profits in a static market:

1) Increase market share [happened: max possible now is 33% increase]
2) Increase ASP [happening: max is what market will accept]
3)"Encourage" rapid turnover [beginning?: largest increase as 2-3 yrs become 1 yr, possible 100-200% increase]

 

[showb1z]

If Gameworks added truly mindblowing, optimized effects, people would commend Nvidia for pushing PC graphics. It would be expected that such advanced graphics would incur a heavy performance penalty.
But Gameworks right now is just wasting performance for no good reason. If Hairworks ran at 16x tesselation it would look the same and it would run much better for everyone.
I'm not sure why people don't understand this. Why is it a good thing for Nvidia to be wasting everyone's performance when a simple tweak gets you the same IQ at 1/3 of the performance hit?

And are the gameworks features truly the one thing that makes the PC version superior to the console version? How about higher resolution and a framerate that doesn't constantly dip into the 20's? People aren't going to trade in their xbox for a Titan X because of some hair effects.

 

[arandomguy]

AMD Gaming Evolved title Dirt:Showdown -

http://www.techspot.com/review/565-nvidia-geforce-gtx-660-ti/page7.html

7870 faster than GTX 680 at 1080p.
7850 29% faster than 6970 at 1080p.

Where was the controversey? Conspiracy theories? Explanation?

 

[exar333]

I feel the same.

Everyone should understand one thing. If AMD is gone, us gamers will suffer with much slower development and higher prices. For those who hate AMD, whats the old proverb, 'cutting off your nose to spite your face'. Please don't indulge in short term thinking. AMD does not have to be king but strong enough to give effective competition to Nvidia. We all benefit. Nvidia supporters can continue to buy their favorite brands and will get more value.

Point 3 is relevant to this thread, but all are happening.

How to increase revenue/profits in a static market:

1) Increase market share [happened: max possible now is 33% increase]
2) Increase ASP [happening: max is what market will accept]
3)"Encourage" rapid turnover [beginning?: largest increase as 2-3 yrs become 1 yr, possible 100-200% increase]

PC gaming is not an 'important' human rights issue. This is a hobby. Seems a lot of people here are taking the issues, while valid, WAY too far.

I'm not sure what we are asking NV/AMD to do. They both have been at the mercy of a technological barrier that was sub-28nm production. If NV just kept re-branding over and over again, you would also be crucifying them for that too.

If a market is shrinking in numbers, you need compelling reasons to continue sales. The three you list above are accurate. NV increased market-share, they raised their ASPs and now are looking to add 'value' with software features. Its debatable if their 'adding value' to new products means gimping older ones. I don't have a crystal ball there, but you could argue both sides. New versions of Adobe CS add new features and older versions don't them. Is that 'fair' to older-version users? Adobe is creating value in their new versions, even if they are 99% the same.

Maybe we have just gotten to that point with GPUs where the rapid 50-100% gains we saw for years are no longer there. Times change...

At the end of the day, we buy a GPU and enjoy some games. Its a hobby and is supposed to be 'fun'

 

[maddie]

All of this gets culled from the pipeline.



Build better hardware. Hardware which is better suited for geometry processing.

Here is a bit from the HAWX2 complain:

Quote:
In fact, Nvidia estimates HAWX 2 with tessellation averages about 18 pixels per polygon. Interestingly, that's just above the 16 pixel/polygon limit that AMD Graphics CTO Eric Demers argued, at the Radeon HD 6800 series press day, is the smallest optimal polygon size on any conventional, quad-based GPU architecture.


http://techreport.com/review/19934/nvidia-geforce-gtx-580-graphics-processor/8

AMD complained about something which wasnt existent. nVidia's hardware was and is just "superior" when it comes to geometry processing.

The same with Crysis 2. The performance impact of tessellation was around 18% on Fermi: http://www.hardware.fr/articles/838-7/influence-tessellation-son-niveau.html

On the other hand the performance impact of Forward+ in Dirt:Showdown was 58% on Kepler:
http://www.hardware.fr/articles/869-14/benchmark-dirt-showdown.html

How is this okay? This is even a bigger performance impact than people have with Hairworks in The Witcher 3. :|

How is it that you can't see the difference in these two points?
Do you think because 18 is close to 16 they are similar?

A 18 pixel polygon average has nothing to do with an 16 pixel polygon limit.

One can have a few large polygons and many tiny polygons [that provide no visual improvement] to arrive at a 18 pixel polygon average.
An 16 pixel polygon limit means you should not need less than 16 pixel polygons.

 

[MisterLilBig]

Where was the controversey? Conspiracy theories? Explanation?

What for tho?

You are trying to point out the same issues on the AMD side of things without actually having anything to base it off.

Pretty much, where is the proof of wrong doing?


There is on the case against NV. And as I pointed out earlier also, the Official Recommended Nvidia GPU, GTX 770, for TW3 does not run that good!!

Its debatable if their 'adding value' to new products means gimping older ones.

How is it debatable, when the settings are automatically put to screw it's older hardware...?

 

[maddie]

PC gaming is not an 'important' human rights issue. This is a hobby. Seems a lot of people here are taking the issues, while valid, WAY too far.

I'm not sure what we are asking NV/AMD to do. They both have been at the mercy of a technological barrier that was sub-28nm production. If NV just kept re-branding over and over again, you would also be crucifying them for that too.

If a market is shrinking in numbers, you need compelling reasons to continue sales. The three you list above are accurate. NV increased market-share, they raised their ASPs and now are looking to add 'value' with software features. Its debatable if their 'adding value' to new products means gimping older ones. I don't have a crystal ball there, but you could argue both sides. New versions of Adobe CS add new features and older versions don't them. Is that 'fair' to older-version users? Adobe is creating value in their new versions, even if they are 99% the same.

Maybe we have just gotten to that point with GPUs where the rapid 50-100% gains we saw for years are no longer there. Times change...

At the end of the day, we buy a GPU and enjoy some games. Its a hobby and is supposed to be 'fun'

If I listen to the extreme green evangelists, very few things are human rights issue. Should I then reject my interests in most thing technological? Where is the line?

Yes times do change. We should be vigilant that they change for the better, not become worse.

 

[exar333]

If I listen to the extreme green evangelists, very few things are human rights issue. Should I then reject my interests in most thing technological? Where is the line?

I don't disagree with the argument of the 'outrage' but a couple titles, and some fur performance issues are not 'the sky is falling'.

NV has pissed me off this year, that's for sure. Does that mean I don't still enjoy my 970? Of course not. The memory issue, dev relation and mobile OC disabling all will factor-in to my decision when buying my next card.

If we see 20%+ less performance in all games, then I will start to really care. Otherwise, its getting a bit overblown IMHO.

 

[digitaldurandal]

Even if one company becomes the dominant PC video card company all gamers who like the PC will be able to enjoy PC gaming at a price that fits their budget. Of this I have no doubt.

Spoken like a man who owns two Titan X's.

 

[maddie]

AMD Gaming Evolved title Dirt:Showdown -

http://www.techspot.com/review/565-nvidia-geforce-gtx-660-ti/page7.html

7870 faster than GTX 680 at 1080p.
7850 29% faster than 6970 at 1080p.

Where was the controversey? Conspiracy theories? Explanation?

In my opinion here will be the proof.

We get new drivers/patches that substantially improve Kepler's performance. If this happens, no one can say it was not planned as there is no way the developer and Nvidia could have missed the sub-par performance on the previous generation Geforce cards. No way.

 

[digitaldurandal]

I don't disagree with the argument of the 'outrage' but a couple titles, and some fur performance issues are not 'the sky is falling'.

NV has pissed me off this year, that's for sure. Does that mean I don't still enjoy my 970? Of course not. The memory issue, dev relation and mobile OC disabling all will factor-in to my decision when buying my next card.

If we see 20%+ less performance in all games, then I will start to really care. Otherwise, its getting a bit overblown IMHO.

By the time there is 20% less performance in all games it is too late.

 

[SirPauly]

My beef is really with Fud -- like using that tessellated ocean from Crysis 2 - and continue to use that as a rally cry or add ammunition to these odd conspiracy theories. It only shows up in WireFrame, straight from the developers, and yet this example gets sensationalized as a beacon of proof.

Here is some data on the mythical concrete barriers -- the subtle difference in quality and a small hit to use the tessellation over-all:


http://maldotex.blogspot.com/2011/09/tesselation-myth-in-crysis-2-el-mito-de.html

 

[exar333]

By the time there is 20% less performance in all games it is too late.

Yes, because there is no room in an industry for a competitor with 20% less performance.

 

[96Firebird]

AMD Gaming Evolved title Dirt:Showdown -

http://www.techspot.com/review/565-nvidia-geforce-gtx-660-ti/page7.html

7870 faster than GTX 680 at 1080p.
7850 29% faster than 6970 at 1080p.

Where was the controversey? Conspiracy theories? Explanation?

But that was well before Maxwell was released?! They must have been planning Kepler's demise well in advanced!

What does DiRT Showdown use for light rendering? Is it Forward+, based on DirectCompute? Why yes, I believe it is...

 

[MrK6]

My beef is really with Fud -- like using that tessellated ocean from Crysis 2 - and continue to use that as a rally cry or add ammunition to these odd conspiracy theories. It only shows up in WireFrame, straight from the developers, and yet this example gets sensationalized as a beacon of proof.

It wasn't just the ocean; EVERYTHING in Crysis 2 was overly tessellated. E.g. you had simple, square concrete barriers that ended up being rounded because the entire thing was tessellated. There are a ton of offenses in the game. Again, just nvidia sacrificing performance for everyone to squeak out a few extra FPS advantage in a benchmark. Don't drink the Kool Aid.

By the time there is 20% less performance in all games it is too late.

Start voting with your wallet. I could run out and buy Titan X SLI right now and for what? Get a few more FPS on some shoddy Gameworks implementation? My GTX 970 overclocked is getting 60FPS fine in GTA V with almost maxed settings, and I'm literally not going to pay them for screwing me over.

 

[SirPauly]

What does DiRT Showdown use for rendering? Is it Forward+, based on DirectCompute?

Dirt Showdown offered advanced lighting, global illumination, and was welcomed and was glad to see AMD try to offer more awareness with advanced lighting techniques. nVidia is trying to raise the bar as well with VXGI with Maxwell.

 

[MisterLilBig]

We get new drivers/patches that substantially improve Kepler's performance. If this happens, no one can say it was not planned as there is no way the developer and Nvidia could have missed the sub-par performance on the previous generation Geforce cards. No way.

If it does not happen, it does not prove that they didn't know about it.

Come on, of course they knew about it, the 900 series wasn't even out when they started on the game. They 100% knew what was happening with the game. This was all planned, designed and agreed upon.

To me, one of the worst things is that they officially recommend a GTX 770!! That is TOTAL BS! That is like the memory issue! Don't you think they got games sold out of that? It doesn't even run max with 30 fps avg. at 1080p. That's the recommended specs for the game!? Jeez!

 

[SirPauly]

Start voting with your wallet.

The market does and ultimately they decide, rightly or wrongly.

 

[xthetenth]

Markets are renowned for failing to consider externalities or even long-term benefits, but we can hope.

 

[exar333]

It wasn't just the ocean; EVERYTHING in Crysis 2 was overly tessellated. E.g. you had simple, square concrete barriers that ended up being rounded because the entire thing was tessellated. There are a ton of offenses in the game. Again, just nvidia sacrificing performance for everyone to squeak out a few extra FPS advantage in a benchmark. Don't drink the Kool Aid.


Start voting with your wallet. I could run out and buy Titan X SLI right now and for what? Get a few more FPS on some shoddy Gameworks implementation? My GTX 970 overclocked is getting 60FPS fine in GTA V with almost maxed settings, and I'm literally not going to pay them for screwing me over.

Haha, so true.

Unless the red team has no viable options, I will hopefully be getting a GPU from them next time. My 970 (while solid) was not exactly as it was promised. Unfortunately, what really 'better' option is around that I don't give NV $1000 like you said?

 

[maddie]

The market does and ultimately they decide, rightly or wrongly.

Very true, but should one just accept a trend? Do you have any political views?

I use political in its truest sense.

 

[digitaldurandal]

Yes, because there is no room in an industry for a competitor with 20% less performance.

Look at AMD's CPU division. It is losing money very quickly. If AMD's GPU division got the point where it had 20% less performance in "all games." Then yea, you are right there would be no room in the industry for them. They certainly would not survive very long. They struggle even when their product has superior performance. 290x vs 980 is less than a 20% difference and they have been dropping market share like a rock.

So you can take your roll eyes and look at the facts.

20% difference in performance in all games would be the death of AMD and too late. It would also indicate that Nvidia had inserted GW into most AAA games, meaning that it would be too late to stop the behavior as well.

 

[sontin]

How is it that you can't see the difference in these two points?
Do you think because 18 is close to 16 they are similar?

A 18 pixel polygon average has nothing to do with an 16 pixel polygon limit.

One can have a few large polygons and many tiny polygons [that provide no visual improvement] to arrive at a 18 pixel polygon average.
An 16 pixel polygon limit means you should not need less than 16 pixel polygons.

First, the 16 pixel/polygon is a AMD problem. Fermi's rasterizer working on 4x2 quads (8 pixel output).
Second having an average of 18 pixel/polygon means that there are parts of the screen which are using more or less than this. You cant control this.
Long time ago i saw the presentation of the implementation. And they complained that DX11 only specifies the tessellation factor up to 64x. This was not high enough for a better quality of the terrain. :biggrin:

Someoney asked for it: Superior hardware.
It is not nVidia's fault that their hardware is better suited for geometry processing.

 

[Attic]

First, the 16 pixel/polygon is a AMD problem. Fermi's rasterizer working on 4x2 quads (8 pixel output).
Second having an average of 18 pixel/polygon means that there are parts of the screen which are using more or less than this. You cant control this.
Long time ago i saw the presentation of the implementation. And they complained that DX11 only specifies the tessellation factor up to 64x. This was not high enough for a better quality of the terrain. :biggrin:

Someoney asked for it: Superior hardware.
It is not nVidia's fault that their hardware is better suited for geometry processing.

You're conflating. The issue is not about geometry processing, obviously. Granted it is true that nVidia has better geometry processing, but let me help you out and point to the ridiculous methods nVidia goes to exploit that advantage to the detriment of many gamers who haven't bought what nVidia wants them to.


It is nVidia's fault for infiltrating these games with their lousy gameworks type "solutions" that needlessly tank performance on gamers cards for a lousy trade off in game graphical improvements.

Yea, the market needs to speak. It doesn't help that nVidia also engages in heavy viral marketing to deceive a lot of buyers with obfuscation, conflation, and misinformation. When it gets serious, you have to lie. We'll see where the pushback against nVidia for its meddling in TW3 by planting nVidia blackbox libraries into the game that have the noticeable effect of tanking performance across all GPU's (but the least amount on nVidia's newest Maxwell cards) gets to.

 

[DooKey]

Spoken like a man who owns two Titan X's.

Don't let the sig fool you. I owned FAR more AMD cards this go round. As I said even if we end up with only one dGPU company there will be video cards at all price levels and performance levels on the market. The market is going to decide all of this and the companies that compete in the market will make their case with their products. All of this drama queen and video card company fanatic stuff is amusing.

I can't wait to buy my Fiji CF setup! I bet Adam goes quad-CF.