[Forbes] Why 'Watch Dogs' Is Bad News For AMD Users

[desprado]

Marketing, what marketing??

Recognise the card?
Notice that alarmingly red contraption in the background.
Not a very subtle fellow, is he LOL

Maybe, just maybe hire few more driver guys instead :hmm:
If not, hell lets just talk ourselves out of it, right?

In the real world, this kind of marketing work is pure defeatism.
I don't see how this guess working about NV motivation behind GameWorks can in any way be good for AMD

Has Nvidia ever mentioned Gaming Evolved, Forward+, TressFX, Mantle, let alone talk in length about competitors IP?

Wrong bro Marketing is the key for game success.

Why Thief sales fall miserably this is the reason and why battlefield 4 was a success because they did not cripple DX performance for Mantle.

 

[f1sherman]

I'm not saying they should ditch marketing. Of course it's important. Very.
But NV marketing advantage stems from years of user generated opinions and experience.

Not from hw gifts, or from workshops where believers are preaching to each other,
or from social media where everyone is thumb upping "only 36 hours left", "guess what's coming next", and similarly stoopid teasers.

And interviews like Hallocks... "They got us by the balls" should never ever reach the daylight, even if it's all 100% true. Especially not then LOL

 

[sontin]

http://www.pcgamer.com/2013/03/07/t...ing-looked-at-by-nvidia-and-crystal-dynamics/

Nvidia had access to Tomb Raider source code. Some last minute changes by the developer broke their pre-launch optimization work. This had nothing to do with AMD.

nVidia didn't has access to the source code of Tomg Raider.
And AMD used this broken game for performance comparision:
http://community.amd.com/community/...ider-launches-with-revolutionary-tressfx-hair

This is AMD at best: Paying developers to cripple performance on the competition hardwares and whine when the competition is doing the exact same thing.
They put Mantle behind a wall and complain about Gameworks.

What is the term in englisch for this? Hypocrite.

 

[RussianSensation]

Forbes is using the performance driver. Even with it, the 780Ti is >40% faster than a 290X.

Where does it show performance of 780TI vs. 290X in the article?

The reference to 40% is market share.

“Gameworks represents a clear and present threat to gamers by deliberately crippling performance on AMD products (40% of the market) to widen the margin in favor of NVIDIA products,”

Their numbers do not at all align with a credible reviewer. For example, at guru3d, preliminary testing before the latest AMD driver has it beating the 770.

 

[Silverforce11]

nVidia didn't has access to the source code of Tomg Raider.
And AMD used this broken game for performance comparision:
http://community.amd.com/community/...ider-launches-with-revolutionary-tressfx-hair

This is AMD at best: Paying developers to cripple performance on the competition hardwares and whine when the competition is doing the exact same thing.
They put Mantle behind a wall and complain about Gameworks.

What is the term in englisch for this? Hypocrite.

There's a difference though, PhysX and TressFX you could disable. These aren't core features. I mean if thats the case, every NV game bench will have PhyX on and AMD will have a slideshow.

Entirely different to AA in Batman, and invisible ocean and flat surface concrete barriers and walls maxed tessellation in Crysis 2.

 

[AnandThenMan]

Anybody complaining about Gameworks should also be complaining about Mantle. Sure, Mantle might not directly cripple nVidia's performance, but it still takes away time developers could be spending on optimizing DirectX.

Mantle caused Microsoft to fastrack DX12 to market (or at least the promise of such) which will benefit all graphics hardware. And very importantly, Mantle highlighted how "blind" devs are when using D3D, which has a heavy cost in terms of efficiency and creativity. In fact devs learning to optimize for Mantle paves the way for them to leverage DX12, which by many accounts is very similar if not Mantle under a different name.

Now can you give examples of how Nvidia's initiative will benefit AMD hardware?

 

[Silverforce11]

NV's initiative have benefited AMD hardware by being a fierce competitor, it forces AMD to innovate and improve at a much faster pace for their survival.

I dont mind that these developer programs happen, I just note that based on history, AMD users are going to suffer in NV games more than NV users do in AMD games.

Dont forget, these are major corporate rivals. Business is war, and all that jazz.

 

[RussianSensation]

Before even using the 14.6 cats, 7970Ghz/280X have no issues competing with a 770. R9 290x and 780ti are also very close, except of course the massive price disparity between them. 7950 Boost is right on the heels of the 680, pretty amazing considering 7950 V2 cost $280 when 680 was $450!

http://www.techspot.com/review/827-watch-dogs-benchmarks/page3.html

I have no problem with NV and AMD working with developers but with NV's GWs initiative, it sounds like the developer cannot take any input from the competitor. I can see how such moves will constantly push NV's features on us like the horrible TXAA. It would be great if developers just took all the best features from NV and AMD. This way, we could have all the latest bells and whistles in games. Right now it continues to be a game of who throws more money at developers, in which case with NV's finances it is a foregone conclusion really.

Still impressed how AMD's $430-500 R9 290X is not far behind NV's $630-700 GTX 780ti. With these prices, what's saving NV is not GW but its faithful customers who will continue paying $100s more for the brand.

Lets hope with Maxwell generation, If Nv continues to charge way more than AMD that they at least have a substantial lead to justify their mark ups.

 

[Larnz]

With the likes of the ROG swift etc G-sync monitors hitting shelves soon I think that is a strong incentive to go NV for an enthusiast currently / next 6 months. I wouldn't think we will see amd and adaptive sync monitors for at least a year?

I also hate missing out on physX games even though they are few and far between. I remember when borderlands 2 came out how bummed out my friend who had X-fire AMD cards, pulled great fps but when he saw me and others at our LAN with Physx effects on he was a sad panda, made a huge diff in that game.

 

[Leadbox]

I trust this Gameworks is something you can turn off or disable in control panel/CCC if so I have no problem with this developement?
If not, then lol at you folks defending this and even more lol to those likening this mantle

 

[AtenRa]

http://pclab.pl/art57916-6.html

They use Catalyst 14.6 Beta, i dont see a huge performance difference.

 

[Skurge]

I couldn't care less about the gameworks stuff. Why the hell does the game use so much VRAM. It feels like gameworks cripples performance on all cards AMD and NV included. Cause everything that uses gameworks seems to run like crap. Shows that there are no free lunches, just lazy devs.

If DICE and Crytek can make engines that look and run as good as they do for both vendors, all the while being used in a billion different games, why can't UBI make a game that doesn't run like crap which all of nVidia's help?

 

[SirPauly]

CryTek uses GameWorks!

 

[Skurge]

CryTek uses GameWorks!

Ah well, that's news to me. The engine runs fine on AMD hardware and it will have mantle so this does sound like a lot of crying from AMD really.

 

[sontin]

There's a difference though, PhysX and TressFX you could disable. These aren't core features. I mean if thats the case, every NV game bench will have PhyX on and AMD will have a slideshow.

Entirely different to AA in Batman, and invisible ocean and flat surface concrete barriers and walls maxed tessellation in Crysis 2.

Neither AA in Batman:AA nor Tessellation in Crysis 2 are "core features"...

BTW: Techreport wrote that AMD will not open Mantle to other architectures because of DX12:

The story also makes some odd claims. It asserts, for example, that AMD's Mantle API "doesn't require" AMD graphics hardware to function and "will work equally well on Nvidia cards." (AMD told me at GDC that, with DirectX 12 now on the horizon, we're "probably not going to see" Mantle on Nvidia hardware.)

http://techreport.com/news/26515/amd-lashes-out-at-nvidia-gameworks-program

 

[monstercameron]

Neither AA in Batman:AA nor Tessellation in Crysis 2 are "core features"...

BTW: Techreport wrote that AMD will not open Mantle to other architectures because of DX12:

http://techreport.com/news/26515/amd-lashes-out-at-nvidia-gameworks-program

what does that have to do with gameworks?

 

[Kenmitch]

Neither AA in Batman:AA nor Tessellation in Crysis 2 are "core features"...

BTW: Techreport wrote that AMD will not open Mantle to other architectures because of DX12:

http://techreport.com/news/26515/amd-lashes-out-at-nvidia-gameworks-program

It's in your quote " were probably not going to see " is what they said.

Skimming thru the article I didn't see were AMD or Techreport stated they were not going to open Mantle to other architectures.

 

[sontin]

what does that have to do with gameworks?

You should ask Mr. Hallock:

AMD is upset because they adopt the opposite approach. “Our work with game developers is founded concretely in open, sharable code, all of which we make available on our developer portal,” Hallock says. “We believe that enabling a developer with obvious and editable code that can be massaged to benefit everyone not only helps AMD hardware, but makes it possible for all gamers to benefit from our partnerships with a developer. [...]"

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jasonev...-entire-pc-gaming-ecosystem/?partner=yahootix

 

[KingFatty]

The spin that AMD is trying to put on this narrative is about transparency right?

So it doesn't matter how well the game performs on one brand of video card or another. Even if AMD *beats* Nvidia for performance, there is still the issue of transparency, and that proprietary is bad because the lack of transparency?

I mean, does the Gameworks agreement somehow lock the developers into underground dungeons and blocks all forms of communication somehow? Don't they still have free will?

Maybe AMD is trying to exaggerate the transparency issue into something more? I could see how Nvidia can easily counter the transparency argument by saying that proprietary solutions can be better and it's fair to financially reward them for their hard work/product.

 

[sontin]

The irony is that Ubisoft supports their own AO and temporal AA methods. And yet AMD cries about Gameworks...

In Watch Dogs, gamers can enable Ubisoft’s half-resolution, console-quality Ambient Occlusion technique, MHBAO, and NVIDIA’s HBAO+, a DirectX 11 AO technique that renders shadows at full resolution with an unprecedented 36 occlusion samples per AO pixel.

http://www.geforce.com/whats-new/gu...formance-and-tweaking-guide#ambient-occlusion

No AMD user is forced to use HBAO+.

 

[Sable]

What do you guys think of Nvidia's practices and are they killing PC gaming?

Seems they're doing a poor job as AMD are still faster lol.

http://www.hardocp.com/article/2014/05/27/watch_dogs_amd_nvidia_gpu_performance_preview/3

 

[Kenmitch]

The irony is that Ubisoft supports their own AO and temporal AA methods. And yet AMD cries about Gameworks...


http://www.geforce.com/whats-new/gu...formance-and-tweaking-guide#ambient-occlusion

No AMD user is forced to use HBAO+.

Viewing the comments in your link it looks like the game is somewhat of a POS to me. Many complaints by the devoted make me think so.

 

[BFG10K]

Mantle caused Microsoft to fastrack DX12 to market (or at least the promise of such) which will benefit all graphics hardware.

You don't seriously believe that folklore, do you? nVidia says DX12 has been in development for at least 3 years, and from a software engineering standpoint that sounds about right.

I mean let's think about it: you don't really think Microsoft could have a working DX12 alpha built in the space of 3 months, do you? Even they're not that good.

And very importantly, Mantle highlighted how "blind" devs are when using D3D, which has a heavy cost in terms of efficiency and creativity. In fact devs learning to optimize for Mantle paves the way for them to leverage DX12, which by many accounts is very similar if not Mantle under a different name

Many developers were well-aware of DirectX's overhead a long time ago (the "batching problem", as it was known on DX9). DX10 was already taking steps to remedy this back in 2006.

Now can you give examples of how Nvidia's initiative will benefit AMD hardware?

It won't, no more than Mantle will benefit nVidia hardware. Mantle is a vendor-locked API that's useless outside of a handful of AMD's parts. It also wastes developers' time when they could be optimizing for DX and having all customers benefit.

 

[The Alias]

I don't get the outcry from Nvidia sided forum posts. Mantle does not hinder dx11 performance by any means, yet gameworks does because they cannot take suggestions from amd. Therefor by comparison, Mantle is a lot less damaging than gameworks. and before someone disagrees that mantle hinders dx11 performance, read what Dan Baker said here: http://www.oxidegames.com/2014/05/21/next-generation-graphics-apis/

 

[Fox5]

You don't seriously believe that folklore, do you? nVidia says DX12 has been in development for at least 3 years, and from a software engineering standpoint that sounds about right.

I mean let's think about it: you don't really think Microsoft could have a working DX12 alpha built in the space of 3 months, do you? Even they're not that good.

Many developers were well-aware of DirectX's overhead a long time ago (the "batching problem", as it was known on DX9). DX10 was already taking steps to remedy this back in 2006.

It won't, no more than Mantle will benefit nVidia hardware. Mantle is a vendor-locked API that's useless outside of a handful of AMD's parts. It also wastes developers' time when they could be optimizing for DX and having all customers benefit.

According to Oxide, the cost of supporting Mantle is relatively low. It's less buggy than DirectX, and performs better with less optimization, and makes up a relatively small portion of the entirety of the development cost. Once its incorporated into an engine, you can pretty much just forget about it.

Back in the day, some games supported DirectX, OpenGL, Glide, and occasionally even a few more vendor specific APIs. Even today, most games support at least two APIs, OpenGL to run on phones and consoles, and DirectX for Microsoft platforms. Once you've abstracted your code to translate between two APIs, additional ones aren't a lot of work.