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

[Enigmoid]

The only gpu maker with a tesselation problem is AMD.

Even intel with their less than ideal architecture and drivers do better.

Iris pro absolutely dominates over the a10-7850k, even the significantly weaker HD 4600 ties (1 fps is measurement error). Intel made major leaps with HD 4600 over HD 4000 and does better than Nvidia's equivalent. AMD needs to tighten things up.

 

[sontin]

Slide 23: http://www.highperformancegraphics.org/previous/www_2010/media/Hot3D/HPG2010_Hot3D_NVIDIA.pdf

On Fermi it is possible to even go lower than 16 pixel/polygon and process more triangles. It is not a limitation of the nVidia architecture. So using it as the common ground doesnt make sense.

 

[Jaydip]

Do you?
Mantle was intended to run everywhere. Why do people keep making this false information? Did Mantle run everywhere? No! But, it was intended to. And it became a reality.

Mantle became Vulkan. Khronos(which includes people from pretty much every company, including NV) gave a huge "Thank you" to AMD a COUPLE OF TIMES at the Game Developer Conference 2015.

For all purposes, Mantle should not be mentioned anymore, it did what it was supposed to do, it became what it was intended to. Mantle was a success.

So let me try again which NV card did run mantel? and people believing that we wouldn't get DX12 if was not for mantle is simply hilarious.Mantle definitely pushed MS out of their comfort zone and they deserve kudos for that.The point is every vendor is free to offer exclusive closed features specific to their products there is really nothing more to it.

 

[xthetenth]

So let me try again which NV card did run mantel? and people believing that we wouldn't get DX12 if was not for mantle is simply hilarious.Mantle definitely pushed MS out of their comfort zone and they deserve kudos for that.The point is every vendor is free to offer exclusive closed features specific to their products there is really nothing more to it.

Companies improving performance for their own products is cool and good, but damaging performance for other products is not.

 

[SirPauly]

I'm going to offer an uninformed view on why nVidia focused on strong x64 performance: To offer more quality so there are less under sampling, cracking, aliasing, shimmering artifacts. Be gentle: I don't know.

 

[SirCanealot]

Again, the fact that people are arguing about this is the thing that's more distressing.

There's two reasons for some of the actions taken by certain devs recently:
Laziness/lack of time to optimise or clear anti consumer practices (Edit: Please don't quote this part and say 'OMG EVIDANCE PLOX')

I can't even think of examples for all of the silly excuses and defenses in this thread for this behaviour.

Of course these are all conspiracy theories; the world is filled with conspiracy theories right now if you check the news in any region.

But do you accept the excuses and call it just a 'conspiracy theory' or do you actually look at the evidence and try to challenge things?

Of course we can vote with our wallet, but do you think this will actually be the case when there's clear evidence of people supporting and defending such practice all over the world about many issues?

When you hear hoofbeats, do you think of horses or zebras?

In other words: If it smells like a rat why are we making excuses that it's just our new perfume and not checking if there's a dead rat under the sofa that will keep stinking forever?

 

[xthetenth]

I'm going to offer an uninformed view on why nVidia focused on strong x64 performance: To offer more quality so there are less under sampling, cracking, aliasing, shimmering artifacts. Be gentle: I don't know.

We're PC game playing big boys and girls, we can handle a slider.

 

[Jaydip]

Companies improving performance for their own products is cool and good, but damaging performance for other products is not.

Who damaged the performance for other products? HW should always run better on NV as they developed it.The funniest thing is people used to disregard Physx because it was just fluffy stuff so what happened to HW? it is not like having nicer hair will give Geralt a concession somewhere :biggrin:

 

[SirCanealot]

Who damaged the performance for other products? HW should always run better on NV as they developed it.The funniest thing is people used to disregard Physx because it was just fluffy stuff so what happened to HW? it is not like having nicer hair will give Geralt a concession somewhere :biggrin:

The problem is that performance is damaged on their own products too; just damaged on the competing products slightly more.

Try to keep that in mind.

 

[Jaydip]

The problem is that performance is damaged on their own products too; just damaged on the competing products slightly more.

Try to keep that in mind.

So it means NV knows what exactly they are doing!!! also iirc a kepler fix is coming soon we will see

 

[xthetenth]

Who damaged the performance for other products? HW should always run better on NV as they developed it.The funniest thing is people used to disregard Physx because it was just fluffy stuff so what happened to HW? it is not like having nicer hair will give Geralt a concession somewhere :biggrin:

HW has locked settings that are well past the point where every little bit of IQ comes at a huge cost for GCN and Kepler cards. It's preposterous that a PC game makes something where a tradeoff can see a huge increase in performance for little loss a binary switch that requires driver support for the user to optimize for their system. If the default tesselation factor were lower or there were an option slider for it, that'd be pretty much fine and no big deal.

 

[tential]

So it means NV knows what exactly they are doing!!! also iirc a kepler fix is coming soon we will see

It's more funny that people defend this when the vast majority of gamers can't run hair works.

At this point I associate gameworks with poor quality. When a game has gameworks I'm worried. That's not a good thing for nvidia and while I'm in the minority I think people will start to question the gameworks features as many time they only work on sli builds or better and that's just stupid.

 

[SirPauly]

The problem is that performance is damaged on their own products too; just damaged on the competing products slightly more.

Try to keep that in mind.

Did AMD forsake their 6XXX series and customers with DirtShowdown or simply HD 7970's architecture was more forward thinking and robust?


www.techspot.com/review/546-amd-radeon-hd-7970-ghz-edition/page7.html

 

[Jaydip]

HW has locked settings that are well past the point where every little bit of IQ comes at a huge cost for GCN and Kepler cards. It's preposterous that a PC game makes something where a tradeoff can see a huge increase in performance for little loss a binary switch that requires driver support for the user to optimize for their system. If the default tesselation factor were lower or there were an option slider for it, that'd be pretty much fine and no big deal.

So I believe it only affects NV users then as the AMD owners can already do that so what is the big deal? for a long time we have been trying to achieve higher image fidelity and that is the reason we have spent so many resources into it, it would be foolish to start compromising on that factor now.

 

[sontin]

HW has locked settings that are well past the point where every little bit of IQ comes at a huge cost for GCN and Kepler cards. It's preposterous that a PC game makes something where a tradeoff can see a huge increase in performance for little loss a binary switch that requires driver support for the user to optimize for their system. If the default tesselation factor were lower or there were an option slider for it, that'd be pretty much fine and no big deal.

The performance impact of the Gameworks effects are the same between Maxwell and Kepler. Can we stop this? :|

BTW: There was no slider in Dirt:Showdown for GI or Tomb Raider for TressFX. Yet AMD's motives arent questioned...

 

[Jaydip]

It's more funny that people defend this when the vast majority of gamers can't run hair works.

At this point I associate gameworks with poor quality. When a game has gameworks I'm worried. That's not a good thing for nvidia and while I'm in the minority I think people will start to question the gameworks features as many time they only work on sli builds or better and that's just stupid.

Back in the day vast majority couldn't run Crysis too, so again it proves nothing.If you believe GW is not well optimized open an account with NV and ask for developer access, share your proof of concept with them and if it is good you will get the access to the code base.Now debug through the code and find the issue.The problem is people try to throw "not optimized","shitty" at every occasion because they believe it makes them cool, if you think you are better than them go fix it period.

 

[Flapdrol1337]

Saw somewhere deleting the apex clothing dll in the witcher folder increased fps.

Tested it, forcing physX to the cpu gives me over 10% higher fps on my gtx670. (probably depends on location), I monitored with msi afterburner in the nilfgaard garrisson thing in the first area.

I'll take it.

 

[showb1z]

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

Yea just keep repeating this while completely ignoring everyones point that Hairworks is using heavy tesselation for no IQ improvement.
Answer this one question: What's the point of severely hampering performance on all hardware by using x64 tesselation when it offers no improvement over x16?

 

[Kenmitch]

Yea just keep repeating this while completely ignoring everyones point that Hairworks is using heavy tesselation for no IQ improvement.
Answer this one question: What's the point of severely hampering performance on all hardware by using x64 tesselation when it offers no improvement over x16?

The part about the no IQ improvent isn't entirely true. If you look at the 3 images of W3 that were posted 64x does look somewhat better. Ignore the hair and look at his clothing. Much more detail.

As far as the performance hit....How else would you notice if you didn't get some stuttering to slow down the action? Not everybody takes screenshots!

 

[SirCanealot]

Did AMD forsake their 6XXX series and customers with DirtShowdown or simply HD 7970's architecture was more forward thinking and robust?


www.techspot.com/review/546-amd-radeon-hd-7970-ghz-edition/page7.html

What does this have to do with anything?

Again, instead of actually discussing the issue people like to just link to something else vaguely related that seems to support their point to cloud the issue.

The part about the no IQ improvent isn't entirely true. If you look at the 3 images of W3 that were posted 64x does look somewhat better. Ignore the hair and look at his clothing. Much more detail.

All the pictures I looked at showed no difference. What on earth are you even talking about? As has been said: this is subpixel differences which cannot be viewed. And it doesn't even effect the clothing...?

And the fact that this is FORCED on all users is even worse.

I think I will just paste this TBH:
"Yea just keep repeating this while completely ignoring everyone's point that Hairworks is using heavy tessellation for no IQ improvement.
Answer this one question: What's the point of severely hampering performance on all hardware by using x64 tessellation when it offers no improvement over x16?"

 

[exar333]

The part about the no IQ improvent isn't entirely true. If you look at the 3 images of W3 that were posted 64x does look somewhat better. Ignore the hair and look at his clothing. Much more detail.

As far as the performance hit....How else would you notice if you didn't get some stuttering to slow down the action? Not everybody takes screenshots!

Do agree with this.

I would say that 16x is great for most people though. A slider would have been a lot better to implement. PC gaming is great because it (should) allow us to tweak the settings. 16x should be fine for most people, but why not let users select all the way up to 64x if they want?

On a side note, a tesselation level < 16 doesn't look very great, so if 16x is too much of a hit, then turning it off all together is probably a good idea.

 

[ocre]

The performance impact of the Gameworks effects are the same between Maxwell and Kepler. Can we stop this? :|
.

Amen,

They repeat it over and over so many times they hope it becomes true.

:whiste:

980 Hairwork off 76fps vs hairwork on 56fps
76-56=20fps
-26.3% impact


780 HW Off 49fps HW on 36fps
49-36=13
-26.5% impact


The performance issues for kepler is not Hair(game)works in the witcher 3.

I post this, others have posted similar results yet this will continue on and be ignored. I guess just doesnt matter anymore, people just say whatever over and over. Valid or not, they dont care

 

[Stuka87]

In screen shots there is a small difference between x16 and x64. In game play however its nearly impossible to tell the difference. But the performance boost is huge. Even for NV hardware (if their control panel supported changing it) would show a big FPS increase.

 

[SirPauly]

What does this have to do with anything?

Again, instead of actually discussing the issue people like to just link to something else vaguely related that seems to support their point to cloud the issue.

What is your issue? Points are all over the place without much clarity.

Already offered that I wouldn't mind a tessellation tweak from the developer -- could possibly institute one like they did for multi-sampling tessellation. I don't desire going behind the developers back to alter IQ no matter how slight based on this is a very slippery slope. Don't desire this from the control panel and rather have them focus on more robust hardware and software.

Already offered I would like to see nVidia rethink their strategy for optimizations based on it is using industry standards and brand agnostic to some degree.

 

[happy medium]

Amen,

They repeat it over and over so many times they hope it becomes true.

:whiste:

980 Hairwork off 76fps vs hairwork on 56fps
76-56=20fps
-26.3% impact


780 HW Off 49fps HW on 36fps
49-36=13
-26.5% impact


The performance issues for kepler is not Hair(game)works in the witcher 3.

I post this, others have posted similar results yet this will continue on and be ignored. I guess just doesnt matter anymore, people just say whatever over and over. Valid or not, they dont care

I guess this answers the thread title directly.
end of thread?