[GameGPU] Hatred (UE4 game) - CPU and GPU testing

[RussianSensation]

Besides being of the most controversial games released in recent years (trailer), this game seems to have been made controversially too.

The project was developed on the Unreal Engine 4 using PhysX technology for processing the devastation but it appears there is no setting in the game to toggle PhysX on and off. The Destruction seems to serve as the backbone of the game;s physics and there is no brand agnostic physics engine, it's PhysX!

Whether PhysX runs on the GPU for NV and CPU on AMD I can't confirm or find info on. Either way, the end result is one of the most unoptimized games vs. its level of graphics I've ever seen.

We also know of NV's tight-knit relationship with Epic Games going back 10-15 years. The combination is a perfect storm of an unoptimized turd with bad graphics on not just AMD but also NV cards.

The game's graphics/shadow effects are seriously lacking....

....and yet for 1080P 60 fps gaming, an OG Titan or 970 is required!

To hit 60 fps averages at 1600P, this game calls for a Titan X!

Original source

Luckily, this game is actually pure garbage, which means there is no need to suffer through such an optimized mess.

Kotaku:

It is alarming though to see what would happen to PC gaming if many more UE4 games with PhysX would start coming out - a completely biased game that favours just 1 AIB - in this case NV.

It's also alarming just how poorly optimized some of the many newer PC games are. Even on NV hardware, this game puts a stress on a card like a Titan X at 1600P. WOW! Are they purposely trying to make games run this bad so we upgrade faster?

This is why I always question when software developers and hardware manufacturers work closely on games for the sole purpose of co-marketing the games and at the same time promoting new GPU hardware at the expense of competing solutions OR what seems to be in this case the developer not having enough $ to develop its own physics engine so they decided to use NV's biased PhysX engine. Talk about a cop-out for a software development company! In many cases, especially when NV is involved, the end result is a game that is horrendously optimized. That's not how PC games were made in the past where the focus was to provide a great gaming experience for as many gamers as possible (think Blizzard), while allowing great scaling with better hardware from either manufacturer (think Crytek's Crysis 1 or 3). / rant

 

[pj-]

This hunk of crap was probably made by 3 people, one of whom took an intro C++ class in college.

I wouldn't use it as an example of anything other than cringe-inducing attempts at edginess

 

[flexy]

3 people stuck in 1987.

Just look at screen shot #2. It looks like games I played back in 1990s, except that back then there were better games. This game is pure trash. Not because of its "violence" (which is not more or less than countless other games), but because it IS pure trash.

 

[xthetenth]

The isometric view is just awful for this sort of game too. If you're going to make a game where vision matters, don't pick an arbitrary view direction where some directions you can see much farther than others.

It's an inept attempt to channel some of the success of hotline miami 2, which is really funny because hotline miami 2 was a semi-competent attempt to channel some of the success of hotline miami.

 

[ThatBuzzkiller]

I actually liked playing Hatred ...

Though it's a shame that it's a technical mess ...

 

[ThatBuzzkiller]

The Physx in this game seems pretty light for the most part judging by the CPU scaling ...

You certainly don't really need an Nvidia GPU to accelerate the physics since Physx 3.3 has tons of multithreaded optimizations to make it bearable to run the physics on the CPU ...

 

[SirPauly]

It's CPU based.

Nvidia has put the full source for PhysX 3.3.3 and its clothing and destruction components on GitHub.

http://techreport.com/news/27910/nvidia-physx-joins-the-free-source-party

 

[Subyman]

I watched a quicklook on Giantbomb and the destruction looked kind of neat. If the tone was more tongue-in-cheek with better gameplay, it may have had a chance at being cool. What came out is a mess though, both in tone and, from the looks of it, technically. At first it looked like a careless Unity game.

 

[reb0rn]

The game is not so bad like some ppl/reviewer say as they are biased!
But on the other hand game work as crap on 290x!

 

[tviceman]

It's a crap game made by crap developers looking for cheap attention to their biggot agendas. There is no reason to post a thread about it's performance, which probably has very little to do with the game engine itself.

 

[exar333]

I don't see any issues????

Isn't the GTX 770 generally faster than the 295x2?

2x295 =590. 770 > 590. Simple math....

 

[RussianSensation]

It's a crap game made by crap developers looking for cheap attention to their biggot agendas. There is no reason to post a thread about it's performance, which probably has very little to do with the game engine itself.

I hope you are right that UE4 + PhysX is going to be a lot more brand agnostic in the future as it's one of the game engines I really look forward to! Since it doens't support CF/SLI, if the performance is bad in a UE4 title, you can't even be saved by buying a 2nd card for cheap down the line. I was one of the few that really thought UE4 demo had even better graphics than Crysis 3. Somehow this developer managed to make an ugly looking UE4 game that also runs like a turd. :|

 

[n0x1ous]

I believe Epic tried to distance themselves from this project after hearing about its content. The didn't want their logo or UE4 logo used in it or something to that affect. Not sure if that anything to do with performance in the end......

 

[RussianSensation]

It's CPU based.

So what, we aren't developers and don't know how well it actually runs. Based on Hatred and Project CARS, both using PhysX as the backbone of their physics engines, your argument is 0/2 now since both of those games bomb on AMD hardware for no reason.

These parts are concerning. This could be like GameWorks, but in a sneaky way under the veil of "open source." You'd have to be naive to think NV developed PhysX source code will run equally as fast on NV and AMD hardware. Project CARS already proves that is not the case.

"If I were a game programmer, I'd be salivating at the bounty of cutting-edge souce code that's available free of charge. Unreal Engine 4 and Unity 5 are open books for anyone who wants to take a peek, and they've now been joined by PhysX. Nvidia has put the full source for PhysX 3.3.3 and its clothing and destruction components on GitHub.

The release appears to be related to Unreal Engine 4's recent liberation. PhysX powers Unreal's "core game physics," according to Epic co-founder and programming guru Tim Sweeney, and the code is accessible via the engine's repository. Interestingly, Sweeney says Nvidia is providing the "CPU-based implementation" of PhysX. GPU-specific source may remain under wraps.

Nvidia will be accepting changes to the code, Sweeney adds, and it may roll modifications into the "main PhysX branch." PhysX updates then will be shared with the community through future Unreal Engine iterations."

Clearly, NV has full control of the entire code here. This is a new PhysX strategy it seems to directly infiltrate a game engine and favour NV cards. Except unlike GameWorks, you can't turn it off, like PhysX in Project CARS since it forms the backbone of the entire game engine. :sneaky:

 

[SirPauly]

so everyone is welcome to go inspect the code for themselves, and optimize or modify for their games any way they see fit.

https://www.reddit.com/r/pcgaming/c...eworks_project_cars_and_why_we_should/crc3ro1

 

[Vesku]

I think the point RS is trying to make is that the default behavior of UE4 doesn't look too good. Such a small dev team is bound to have relied a lot on built in UE4 features.

 

[SimianR]

Well from the sounds of it this game isn't worth playing anyway. However, ARK: Survival Evolved is a pretty fun early access game. It's also built on UE4 and it's running pretty terribly across the board, but slightly more so on AMD cards it seems.

 

[tviceman]

I think the point RS is trying to make is that the default behavior of UE4 doesn't look too good. Such a small dev team is bound to have relied a lot on built in UE4 features.

Such a small, un-experienced, agenda-laden development probably didn't care or know how to properly optimize. Every developer needs to optimize their assets regardless of what engine they're using. Valve talked about wanting to do funny circus mirror level in L4D and wanted each player's flashlight to be a real-time light source but admitted the amount of processing power required for these things (at the time of release), even on the lowly Source engine, would have destroyed performance.

Has there yet to be ANY AAA UE3 games yet? If no, lets wait for some of those. And if there isn't many AAA UE3 games coming, that may be telling in and of itself. I'd think Epic surely optimized their engine around PS4 and XB1 so I highly doubt they're going to include physx code that will kill performance on GCN and jaguar-based x86 cores.

 

[Grooveriding]

UE4 was doomed to failure on the PC once they designed it in a way that it does not support multi-gpu.

 

[poofyhairguy]

That 680 beating a 690 just made me laugh.

 

[Insomniator]

I actually think the game looks kinda fun :hmm: maybe for an hour or two...

 

[Vesku]

Such a small, un-experienced, agenda-laden development probably didn't care or know how to properly optimize. Every developer needs to optimize their assets regardless of what engine they're using.

The major engines including UE4 have changed their licensing to be small dev team (and budget) friendly. There are going to be a lot of games using the default tools and optimizations.

 

[Cloudfire777]

Holy moly, Nvidia is doing really well with this game

 

[Red Hawk]

Unreal Engine and other engines have been using CPU-based PhysX for a long time, this isn't anything new. And Nvidia has never been restrictive about AMD and game developers optimizing CPU PhysX like they are now for Gameworks. The first Mass Effect game and Dragon Age Origins both use CPU PhysX.

 

[monstercameron]

Unreal Engine and other engines have been using CPU-based PhysX for a long time, this isn't anything new. And Nvidia has never been restrictive about AMD and game developers optimizing CPU PhysX like they are now for Gameworks. The first Mass Effect game and Dragon Age Origins both use CPU PhysX.

The latest da uses havoks so I guess that may have been a bridge burnt.