[Guru3d] Crysis DX11 Benchmarks (AMD vs Nvidia)

[RussianSensation]

I'd like to see some *proof* of that nonsense you just stated as fact. No one cripples their own games on purpose.

So you'd give someone $$$ to make a game look better 'out of the goodness of your heart'? Why would NV just give a random company $ to make their game look better if it didn't translate into more videocard sales? The fact is Crysis 2 was one of the most anticipated titles for the PC this year. It's a great way to get people to upgrade their hardware in an environment characterized by a declining desktop dGPU market.

Either way, the coding is at least partially to blame. If you can render the same piece of rock without using Tessellation, then why would you use Tessellation, which carries a massive performance hit and yet does not have any visual benefits?

 

[Madcatatlas]

Regarding Nvidias underhanded marketting and adding "special sauce" or "code" to provide their own hardware with a performance advantage, even if it screws their own customers by hitting them hard with the tesselation bat (stuff that isnt even ON your screen..lol)

:

I TOLD YOU SO.

 

[Dribble]

Either way, the coding is at least partially to blame. If you can render the same piece of rock without using Tessellation, then why would you use Tessellation, which carries a massive performance hit and yet does not have any visual benefits?

The whole point of tessellation is to improve performance.

Without tessellation you can render that rock using 10,000 triangles - doesn't matter whether you are looking right at it or it's miles away you graphics card is still processing 10,000 triangles.

With tessellation it dynamically works out how many triangles to use - from just a few if the rock is in the distance to 10,000 if you are looking right at it. On top of that because the higher detail is worked out inside the graphics card it doesn't need the cpu to tell the gpu about each of those 10,000 triangles.

 

[ArchAngel777]

No way. ()

Did anyone read this article?

http://www.hardware.fr/articles/838-5/plus-details.html

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NV $$$ = +20% performance hit on AMD cards as a result of clever Tessellation techniques.....

Great post. Very enlightening. Hard to argue against those points.

 

[apoppin]

So you'd give someone $$$ to make a game look better 'out of the goodness of your heart'? Why would NV just give a random company $ to make their game look better if it didn't translate into more videocard sales? The fact is Crysis 2 was one of the most anticipated titles for the PC this year. It's a great way to get people to upgrade their hardware in an environment characterized by a declining desktop dGPU market.

Either way, the coding is at least partially to blame. If you can render the same piece of rock without using Tessellation, then why would you use Tessellation, which carries a massive performance hit and yet does not have any visual benefits?

First of all, show me proof - or even evidence - where Nvidia gave CryTek any money for Crysis 2.
- Fact is that both AMD and Nvidia support PC gaming and the devs that they have good relations with.

As to tessellation where none is apparently needed, this is the FIRST DX11 patch; i full expect the devs to refine it (as they said they would do). Just as they did with Warhead .. as with Crysis .. as with FarCry 2.

:whiste:

 

[Lonbjerg]

Its all about the codeing.
Also AMDs tesselation unit is "faster" than Nvidia's under light tesselation factors.
Its under heavy tessellation factors that nvidia pulls ahead, so its wrong to say faster, its right to say faster on certain scenarios.

Anyways end of the day, the thing is Nvidia payed them $2mil, and the result is it plays better on their hardware.

If AMD had payed 2mil to them, the game would have run better on AMD cards than Nvidia ones.

Which cards run the games best? how much did u bribe the gameing company with? and you have your answears.

Could you link to documentation for that claim?

Normal tesselation is x16, but that is irrelevant as AMD cheats in their drivers now.
The developer could design at low polygon level and make up for that with x32 tesselation and request that in the driver.
AMD's driver would then say "you want x32, but i am going to give you x8".

They went with a fixed function teselation engine (just like we had vertexpipes, texturepipes and shader pipes before a unified architechture) and thus their DX11 GPU design is no longer unififed.

NVIDIA went with a unified design and thus a lot getting better performance in +x8 tesselation cases.

Max tesselation level is x64.

 

[GaiaHunter]

First of all, show me proof - or even evidence - where Nvidia gave CryTek any money for Crysis 2.
- Fact is that both AMD and Nvidia support PC gaming and the devs that they have good relations with.

As to tessellation where none is apparently needed, this is the FIRST DX11 patch; i full expect the devs to refine it (as they said they would do). Just as they did with Warhead .. as with Crysis .. as with FarCry 2.

:whiste:

Why does the TWIMTBP/NVIDIA logo shows on the initial splash screens?

 

[apoppin]

Why does the TWIMTBP/NVIDIA logo shows on the initial splash screens?

Is this the first time you noticed?
:whiste:

It's on a lot of screens. AMD has a similar program . . .. you never brought it up before .. perhaps it's because a lot of twiimtbp games actually run better on AMD HW and vice versa

Do you have a specific point?

The discussion is about the Crysis 2 DX11 patch; no one can seem to find me ANYTHING about a *supposed* $2 million dollars that changed hands is anything but a rumor started by KitGuru.

 

[cusideabelincoln]

They should have posted screenshots comparing all the tess factors. Specifically how do x8, x16, and x32 look different from each other.

 

[Mr. President]

NV cards do perform better since they have superior Tessellation performance, but that's not an excuse to use Tessellation inefficiently.

Sure, but that goes without saying. Everything should always be used as efficiently as it can. But, realistically, that's not always possible.

Most games have some scenes in them where performance drops more than it should, and Crysis 2 may have some scenes with far too high subdivision. It may even hurt AMD cards more than nVidia cards, but it still hurts both of them. And, whether or not nVidia funnelled money to Crytek, they didn't oversee QA.

The occasional scene being poorly optimized doesn't mean anybody paid anyone to make a third party look bad.

Their analysis indicates that going to 32x or sometimes even 16x samples is OK (for walls they said going below 32x is noticeable already). But beyond that there is a very noticeable decrease in visual quality. My point is, I have no problems with using Tessellation when it improves visual quality. For example, imo Normal Tessellation in Unigine Heaven is much preferable to Extreme Tessellation, both visually (I think extreme looks too artificial) and as a trade-off in performance.

If you're talking about that french site on Crysis 2 then their analysis is wrong.

In case you missed my earlier screenshots, the Catalyst controlled overrides for tessellation are borked. The only way to get correct tessellation in Crysis 2 on an AMD card is to tick 'use application settings' in the driver (or the inactive 'AMD optimized').

 

[Mr. President]

They should have posted screenshots comparing all the tess factors. Specifically how do x8, x16, and x32 look different from each other.

I made a post on the last page.

None of them work correctly.

 

[Spjut]

Is there any word whether Crysis 2 supports DX11 multithreading or not? Since Nvidia supports it and AMD does not, it could explain the performance differences

 

[RussianSensation]

The whole point of tessellation is to improve performance.

It was touted to be able to reduce performance hit since the level of detail wouldn't have to be as complex from the get go (if you are far away from the object). However, in which real world game do you get faster performance with Tessellation on?

I think the point of Tessellation is to improve realism without having to tax artists and designers to create all the little details in the game world that can be done with Tessellation. Of course all those additional details that Tessellation brings increase geometric complexity exponentially - which reduces performance unless you have a lot of parallel Tessellation engines.

With tessellation it dynamically works out how many triangles to use - from just a few if the rock is in the distance to 10,000 if you are looking right at it. On top of that because the higher detail is worked out inside the graphics card it doesn't need the cpu to tell the gpu about each of those 10,000 triangles.

Max tesselation level is x64.

Tessellation by itself is not very useful (see comment by NV below). When combined with bump/displacement mapping, PN-Triangle algorithms, greater levels of artwork and geometry details are possible, thus increasing the complexity of the scene, and in turn improving realism. This helps add more levels of detail to a game without having to spend millions of dollars on new artwork.

"By itself, tessellation does little to improve realism. For example, in a game, it doesn’t really matter if a square is rendered as two triangles or two thousand triangles—tessellation only improves realism if the new triangles are put to use in depicting new information." - nVidia

If you looked at the analysis done by that hardware website, there are instances where Tessellation does not depict any new information, and yet brings unnecessary performance hit.

 

[cusideabelincoln]

I made a post on the last page.

None of them work correctly.

I saw that, but I would rather see comprehensive results from hardware.fr.

 

[GaiaHunter]

Is this the first time you noticed?
:whiste:

It's on a lot of screens. AMD has a similar program . . .. you never brought it up before .. perhaps it's because a lot of twiimtbp games actually run better on AMD HW and vice versa

Do you have a specific point?

The discussion is about the Crysis 2 DX11 patch; no one can seem to find me ANYTHING about a *supposed* $2 million dollars that changed hands is anything but a rumor started by KitGuru.

So what you are saying is that the NVIDIA logo appeared there by miracle?

Note, I wasn't saying the $2 million is true or not - I'm saying it is irrelevant the type of means used by NVIDIA to supported Crytek, what matters is there was support and that support (that isn't free cost) has a return.

Likewise, with the AMD program it is similar.

You might wish to get better track of myposts.

The new normal.

Buy the games that have stickers of your GPU brand at launch. Buy the games that don't have the sticker of your GPU brand at a discount a few months later when your brand finally gets decent driver support.

If you are lucky your brand gets the games you want - otherwise you wait.

DA2, Crysis 2, Shogun TW 2, etc.

It was obvious this would happen if AMD joined NVIDIA "in their excellent devs relations and support to give PC gamers more".

http://developer.nvidia.com/content/nvidia-twimtbp-update-english , pages 13 & 14.

Why Join The TWIMTBP Program?
->Technical Collaboration with NVIDIA experts
->Early access to NVIDIA graphics boards
->Early access to NVIDIA’s drivers and tools
->Market Reach - NVIDIA has #1 market share
->Increased Visibility - NVIDIA marketing power
->Consumer Confidence
->Let gamers know your software is compatible with their hardware

Product Development & Test Support
For Stability, Performance & Quality!

NVIDIA Can Provide Help With:
->Optimizing code to increase performance
->Writing pixel shaders and vertex programs
->Creating special effects to enhance a game’s appeal
->Extensive QA (test) on NVIDIA drivers & NVIDIA
->GPU’s
->Bug fixing assistance

Maybe NVIDIA engineers and pr people work for free.

It is like the story "No. no. We didn't receive any money from them. Well, yeah, they gave us a house and food, but no MONEY!".

 

[OCGuy]

Hey! Stick with the status quo here, Nvidia is evil and is a money-hungry beast that loves to pay off businesses.

:awe:

Yep it's like a political forum or console war....when your side does something, it is always justified, when the other side does the exact thing, they are evil, yada yada...


The status quo seems to be members who insist on derailing threads, inciting flame wars, and/or professing their innocence as they cast stones to the [Red|Green] sinners.

Stop it.

Moderator jvroig

 

[apoppin]

So what you are saying is that the NVIDIA logo appeared there by miracle?

Note, I wasn't saying the $2 million is true or not - I'm saying it is irrelevant the type of means used by NVIDIA to supported Crytek, what matters is there was support and that support (that isn't free cost) has a return.

Likewise, with the AMD program it is similar.

You might wish to get better track of myposts.


http://developer.nvidia.com/content/nvidia-twimtbp-update-english , pages 13 & 14.



Maybe NVIDIA engineers and pr people work for free.

It is like the story "No. no. We didn't receive any money from them. Well, yeah, they gave us a house and food, but no MONEY!".

You are doing a lot of writing, but i don't see any point to it.

TWIIMTBP is on a LOT of games; how is Crysis 2 any different so as to be singled out?

Yes there is a "return" - you get to see either an AMD or a Nvidia logo on the game's splash screen. How hard is this to figure out?
^_^

*Both* AMD and Nvidia's employees are generally hardcore gamers that do everything they can to advance PC gaming - e.g. i get a email from one of Nvidia's top PR guys at 5:15 AM (Pacific time) letting me know their latest driver fixed a 3D Vision issue with Crysis 2. And AMD guys do the same thing; they each reflect their company
-- These guys are unreal dedicated doing what they love to do .. and like us - they are PC gamers who compete to advance PC gaming more than any other two companies on earth.

Both AMD and Nvidia will provide help to devs. This help can be incredibly detailed and personal and there are literally libraries of information (and people) to help improve graphics and visuals. When there is an AMD or a Nvidia logo, it usually means that the company who is sponsored gets help with their game.

 

[GaiaHunter]

You are doing a lot of writing, but i don't see any point to it.

TWIIMTBP is on a LOT of games; how is Crysis 2 any different so as to be singled out?

Yes there is a "return" - you get to see either an AMD or a Nvidia logo on the game's splash screen. How hard is this to figure out?
^_^

*Both* AMD and Nvidia's employees are generally hardcore gamers that do everything they can to advance PC gaming - e.g. i get a email from one of Nvidia's top PR guys at 5:15 AM (Pacific time) letting me know their latest driver fixed a 3D Vision issue with Crysis 2. And AMD guys do the same thing; they each reflect their company
-- These guys are unreal dedicated doing what they love to do .. and like us - they are PC gamers who compete to advance PC gaming more than any other two companies on earth.

Both AMD and Nvidia will provide help to devs. This help can be incredibly detailed and personal and there are literally libraries of information (and people) to help improve graphics and visuals. When there is an AMD or a Nvidia logo, it usually means that the company who is sponsored gets help with their game.

You might not see any point but others will understand what I'm saying and after the recent experiences with games like Dragon Age II and Shogun 2, some were given (or got their memory refresh - anyone remembers HL2 vs Doom 3?) a basis to compare early benchmarks (NVIDIA has been undeniable more pro-active in the recent years) of games where AMD and NVIDIA helped the sponsored company.

What those benchmarks have shown is that generally the company that helped gets better results in the early benchmarks (per performance class) while the other company has (and generally is able to) to close the gap with future drivers.

It is certain that some engines or some features prefer one architecture over the other, but I would be very surprised if the 6970 in a few months don't bench much more closely to the GTX570 than it does now.

 

[apoppin]

You might not see any point but others will understand what I'm saying and after the recent experiences with games like Dragon Age II and Shogun 2, some were given (or got their memory refresh - anyone remembers HL2 vs Doom 3?) a basis to compare early benchmarks (NVIDIA has been undeniable more pro-active in the recent years) of games where AMD and NVIDIA helped the sponsored company.

What those benchmarks have shown is that generally the company that helped gets better results in the early benchmarks (per performance class) while the other company has (and generally is able to) to close the gap with future drivers.

It is certain that some engines or some features prefer one architecture over the other, but I would be very surprised if the 6970 in a few months don't bench much more closely to the GTX570 than it does now.

Of course it will. AMD probably hasn't had time to make a profile for its tessellation slider and they did not get to optimize for the patch like Nvidia did.

When one company sponsors a game, they make sure the game is validated for their HW; they work with the devs to make sure it works on many configurations. AMD may have got the code later than Nvidia. i am certain that CryTek will continue to optimize Crysis 2 and Nvidia and AMD will both will give us better performing drivers in the months to come.

Even 3D Vision needed a beta driver to work properly with many Nvidia systems with DX11 Crysis 2 (and it looks awesome in S3D, btw)

 

[Lonbjerg]

Either way, the coding is at least partially to blame. If you can render the same piece of rock without using Tessellation, then why would you use Tessellation, which carries a massive performance hit and yet does not have any visual benefits?

Perhaps you should read up on tessellation?

Or link to documentation supporting that bogus claim?

Either way...sense...you make none.

 

[Lonbjerg]

It was touted to be able to reduce performance hit since the level of detail wouldn't have to be as complex from the get go (if you are far away from the object). However, in which real world game do you get faster performance with Tessellation on?

I think the point of Tessellation is to improve realism without having to tax artists and designers to create all the little details in the game world that can be done with Tessellation. Of course all those additional details that Tessellation brings increase geometric complexity exponentially - which reduces performance unless you have a lot of parallel Tessellation engines.





Tessellation by itself is not very useful (see comment by NV below). When combined with bump/displacement mapping, PN-Triangle algorithms, greater levels of artwork and geometry details are possible, thus increasing the complexity of the scene, and in turn improving realism. This helps add more levels of detail to a game without having to spend millions of dollars on new artwork.

"By itself, tessellation does little to improve realism. For example, in a game, it doesn’t really matter if a square is rendered as two triangles or two thousand triangles—tessellation only improves realism if the new triangles are put to use in depicting new information." - nVidia

If you looked at the analysis done by that hardware website, there are instances where Tessellation does not depict any new information, and yet brings unnecessary performance hit.

Relevance?
You strawman has nothing nothing to do with either the performance of tessellation or Crysis 2.

 

[Lonbjerg]

Info about tessellation:

http://blogs.amd.com/play/2010/11/29/tessellation-for-all/

http://www.nvidia.com/object/tessellation.html

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff476340(v=vs.85).aspx

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tessellation


They should clear up a lot of the myths being spread in this thread.

 

[SirPauly]

who compete to advance PC gaming more than any other two companies on earth.

I agree.

 

[Pantalaimon]

they are PC gamers who compete to advance PC gaming more than any other two companies on earth.

How does crap like vendor ID lock in Batman: Arkham Asylum advance PC gaming?

 

[Mr. President]

How does crap like vendor ID lock in Batman: Arkham Asylum advance PC gaming?

Last I remember, it was Eidos' legal department who disallowed the use of what they thought was nVidia's IP. Maybe it was a legal misunderstanding and maybe it wasn't but, either way, it was resolved. Both vendors got AA instead of neither.

More importantly, there are no vendor ID locks going on in Crysis 2 so it's completely off-topic.