"Is everything OK, Nvidia?" - Ogre3D dev blog

[Obsoleet]

While I have not been taking the stance that Nvidia's lawsuit is frivolous (yet, perhaps with more information or more time spent examining the situation my view will change), this Ogre3D developer presents an interesting take on it.

As a software developer myself, I find fellow dev opinions to be the most insightful. While I don't do graphics programming other than some tinkering with Unity3D, I find everything else that I can directly relate to in his blog as being in agreement with.

The only part I don't fall into complete agreement with, is that Nvidia drivers are necessarily 'better' than AMD's. We've seen NV release at least 3 card-killing drivers over the past 4 years (196.75; 267.52; 320.18), something which AMD has never done once. I don't think those types of 'driver bugs' can be washed away, nor should be ignored so easily. I find it is only very powerful propaganda that somehow going as far to kill a graphics card with a driver update, is better than a small rendering bug or similar.
The fact on that matter is that this type of information is only known to those who are paying very close attention. And literally no one is drumming it up, just drumming up vague accusations that AMD has somehow, lesser quality drivers.
Times change. They have changed.

When there are other things not spoken often as well, such as the removal of Nview from GF driver packages. AMD still offers many of the types of functionality offered in Nview, to their consumer Radeon lineup.
So I think there is more than a good case for driver equality, if not outright AMD superiority if a favorite must be picked. I disagree with the author on this point, fervently.

Without judging the merits of the lawsuit- I do believe in the end, Nvidia will reap nothing of great value from this sort of action financially. It will only serve to damage their reputation.

Let us peacefully discuss this blog and points made within, without personal attacks. Interested to hear your viewpoints.
http://yosoygames.com.ar/wp/2014/09/is-everything-ok-nvidia/

 

[sontin]

I like two parts:
He asking if Intel would be next. I guess that was a joke...

And the part where he mentioned all these graphic cards companies which nearly all left the market after nVidia released the Geforce SDR and is talking how easy it was to integrate a hardware Transform and Lighting unit.

 

[Obsoleet]

I like two parts:
He asking if Intel would be next. I guess that was a joke...

And the part where he mentioned all these graphic cards companies which nearly all left the market after nVidia released the Geforce SDR and is talking how easy it was to integrate a hardware Transform and Lighting unit.

Yes the author got that wrong-

Yes, they were the first to move vertex transform and lighting processing out of the CPU into the GPU with the original GeForce. But moving pre-existing algorithms written in C and x86 assembly into the same silicon as the rasterizer can hardly qualify as an enforceable patent.

This is "patently" incorrect. Nvidia was not the first to implement T&L in hardware. That was the 3DLabs Glint Gamma. Nor first for unified shaders, that was the Xbox360 (AMD Xenos).

 

[Alatar]

The fact that the author of the blog post didn't bother to read the actual patents (and instead focused on an NV blog article probably written by some PR employee) and doesn't know that AMD/Intel/NV have extensive graphics IP cross licensing deals ought to give an idea about how well researched his opinion is.

 

[sontin]

Integration on the same die with the other functions. It's out of the question that other companies have released a dedicated T&L unit like ImgTech for the dreamcast.

 

[ShintaiDK]

The fact that the author of the blog post didn't bother to read the actual patents (and instead focused on an NV blog article probably written by some PR employee) and doesn't know that AMD/Intel/NV have extensive graphics IP cross licensing deals ought to give an idea about how well researched his opinion is.

Yep. I wasnt sure if the author was simply misinformed or trying to troll/rant. So many other flaws too.

 

[Obsoleet]

It's true that there are mistakes, I found a few myself. But that doesn't mean I'm dismissing him outright.

There's a lot of insight and truth here as well. His general take-away is correct, in my opinion-

They’re basically saying they have a monopoly on GPUs. If you want to manufacture GPUs, you have to pay them.

What I can only deduce from all this is that Nvidia’s future is uncertain, and not looking bright. They’re failing in mobile land. It’s a shame. We had hopes to see OpenGL (not ES) in mobile, decent drivers. And TADP is just great. It even allows debugging Android NDK application through Visual Studio almost as the same as I debug a C++ Windows application; that is an amazing feat.

On the other fronts, AMD is clearly cornerning NV with their GCN-everywhere + Mantle + Openness strategy. On the desktop market they still have brand recognition as the #1 GPU maker (and NV drivers are certainly better than AMD’s). But if they don’t act fast; they’ll eventually lose that comfortable position.
What I can deduce from this lawsuite is that they’re panicking.

It would be a logical fallacy to take someone's argument, which may contain an inaccuracy, and use that to dismiss the entire argument. If that were the case, everyone here would be not worth listening to, at all. As I haven't seen anyone who gets everything right all the time. The key point is to admit mistakes, then correct them. Those who do that, are the ones to listen to. The man who is 'never wrong', is usually spreading propaganda. AKA, trying to sell video cards.
To me, this guy is attacking both AMD and NV on some level and seems to be speaking from at least a position of truth as he sees it. Which is more than you can say for most.

Being a dev myself, I trust him far more than anyone else around. He's had his head -truly- in the game for years from the sound of it. He's not going to blindly fanboy it up for anyone, as he lives in reality with these chips.