[Nvidia.com] Nvidia GameWorks unleashed at GDC.

[destrekor]

This competition is necessary, and has been sorely missed in the last few generations. It was a status quo because competition was light from AMD; Nvidia was holding back on budget significantly, in an effort to get higher margins from less (they skipped big-chip models in the consumer market for awhile, and simply focused on a slightly limited design marketplace presence, iirc).

We only win, at least in the long-term, from these periods of earnest competition. When all competitors throw significant capital into the competition, that's when the great things happen.
There might be some disruption, and some compatibility/performance issues based on which platform you have... but that is nothing new to the marketplace, and it forced competition to up their game.

 

[3DVagabond]

Example of this practice? Or what you perceive it to be?

AMD features like TressFX, forward+ rendering, display port, variable vsync through the eDP standard being added to DP1.3, I think 1.3 without looking it up. That's just off the top of my head.

Unless AMD buys a license.

There's a problem with licensing tech that's controlled by your main competitor. They can do whatever they want to maintain a performance advantage. Assuming this is an option of course.

 

[vasdrakken]

Open Compute has a lot of bloated libs. Cuda does not. Cuda has access to bare metal Open Compute is an api that has some optimizations. As long as those stay true Cuda will always be faster and produce less errors. I can't see the scientific community giving up Cuda.

Mantle is the same thing but I don't see AMD fans saying well we should move to direct X because it is more open or fair to both companies. Bare Metal will always be faster. It is just usually harder to code for.

 

[Keysplayr]

AMD features like TressFX, forward+ rendering, display port, variable vsync through the eDP standard being added to DP1.3, I think 1.3 without looking it up. That's just off the top of my head.

Why do you think these are examples of giving and taking?

And just in case you missed my previous post:

Why isn't it understood that these companies do these things to stand out over their competitors. To offer something the other doesn't have, or offer something better? To bring greater value to their products and those that hold their products?

 

[3DVagabond]

Why do you think these are examples of giving and taking?

And just in case you missed my previous post:

Why isn't it understood that these companies do these things to stand out over their competitors. To offer something the other doesn't have, or offer something better? To bring greater value to their products and those that hold their products?

I think they are examples because they are added to everyone's experience not just the ones that paid the developer. As far as missing your post? No, I saw it. IMO though that's just marketing BS.

 

[Keysplayr]

I think they are examples because they are added to everyone's experience not just the ones that paid the developer. As far as missing your post? No, I saw it. IMO though that's just marketing BS.

Sorry man, I just can't get my mind around your line of thinking.
So you "don't" think these companies do these things to make their products stand out over their respective competition then. Got it. They do it for fun.

 

[thilanliyan]

Why isn't it understood that these companies do these things to stand out over their competitors. To offer something the other doesn't have, or offer something better? To bring greater value to their products and those that hold their products?

I very much agree. Unfortunately it leads to fragmentation but I can't say it is all bad as added features can be good. TBH I don't mind having both a nV and an AMD comp and I may do that eventually. However, it cannot be fun for someone who does not want to spend money on 2 different systems just to have good performance in GE and TWIMTBP games.

 

[destrekor]

I very much agree. Unfortunately it leads to fragmentation but I can't say it is all bad as added features can be good. TBH I don't mind having both a nV and an AMD comp and I may do that eventually. However, it cannot be fun for someone who does not want to spend money on 2 different systems just to have good performance in GE and TWIMTBP games.

It sucks, but it's always been that way - and most people never thought of having both platforms... you just make your choice and deal with it for that generation, and eventually things work out to be less fragmented.

Before DirectX, the different GPUs and APIs were maddening, and you really had to pick your platform. Aside from a few unique hardware-level features, it hasn't been as cut-throat as it used to be. And our market has stagnated - new hardware generations are not nearly the leaps forward they could be, if the two companies put serious capital behind their next move.


Yes, such bold moves lead to fragmentation of the market and make us put up with some stupid realities, like some games not performing nearly as well, or missing half their eye-candy. But it won't last forever, and it basically means the next generation or two after that will at least bring a major leap from one of the competitors, which means we win in the end.

But that's computing and hardware in a nutshell. They has actually been a seriously stagnant market in all of computing. AMD in whole has dragged their feat and simply accepted the bottom market, instead of out-maneuvering Intel (or Nvidia). Both Intel and AMD had had unique hardware and "exclusive" features, to a certain degree they still do. Getting developers to code for those unique execution paths, or licensing tech to the competitor (both AMD and Intel license certain chip-architecture tech from each other).

The same thing is also what led to unique chipsets/controllers, like only motherboards with chipsets from Nivida could even support SLI. In time, those chipset features were boiled down to universal compatibility and got featured in the chipsets from almost everyone, including the main Intel and AMD platforms - so you can use Crossfire or SLI on the same system these days. Back when such was new, it was a pain in the ass system-building, because if you were trying to future-proof a system to handle a few upgrades, you had to lock yourself into certain manufacturers/brands.

 

[SirPauly]

Imho,

Why can't someone have a good experience with an AMD platform with a few nVidia centric features that may add some fidelity? Why can't someone have a good experience with a nVidia platform with a few AMD centric features?

I enjoyed and had great experiences with an AMD/ATI platforn with titles that had a few nVidia centric features.

I enjoyed and had great experiences with a nVidia platform with titles that had a few AMD centric features!

Personally applaud AMD or nVidia spending resources to try to differentiate their brands, promote and bring awareness to the PC platform as a whole and try to improve their customers' gaming experiences. May not be ideal for all but a lot of good and personally don't allow idealism to be the enemy of good!

 

[Raghu]

Gameworks coming to Warface

http://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/2014/03/19/crytek/

 

[ShintaiDK]

Personally applaud AMD or nVidia spending resources to try to differentiate their brands, promote and bring awareness to the PC platform as a whole and try to improve their customers' gaming experiences. May not be ideal for all but a lot of good and personally don't allow idealism to be the enemy of good!

Problem is both companies actually work against whats best for the PC platform. Having a set featureset that only works on one or the other niche segment that AMD and nVidia actually only is in the greater scheme is simply not good. And if we look on dGPUs alone its really not making it any better. You could almost replace AMD and nVidia with Xbox One or PS4.

What makes the PC strong is standards and compability. Its not all these fragmentation attempts to sell more cards than the other, on the expense of unity. We already tried that in the past, huge failure.

 

[SirPauly]

The titles are using open or industry standards over-all though --- these are mainly fidelity enhancements over-all.

 

[ocre]

But the Gameworks feature set works on AMD hardware, does it not?

 

[Erenhardt]

As far as i know, gameworks works on all hardware.

But as we know, the libraries are all Nvidia's creation. Its free for developers to use and could save the a lot of time and money. Since its designed by nvidia it will most likely run great on their HW from the start. I would imagine anyway.

AMD may have to spend some time optimizing performance on their cards with their drivers. But the beautiful part is that once AMD optimizes for gameworks in one game, the work is done if it is used in another. And if you dont already know, this software is already in some big titles out today. Ghost, AC IV, and Origins use some of parts of gameworks. AMD has already been working with games that use gameworks. So i think that its not something that will totally blind side them. And as they optimize on the driver side for one game, they have a lot of the work done for any other game that may use the code.

This is actually not a bad thing, not at all.

Ohh. Its only one half of the story - the bright one. The other half is that AMD can't optimize for gameworks libraries.
http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/...surps-power-from-developers-end-users-and-amd

Update (1/3/2014): According to Nvidia, developers can, under certain licensing circumstances, gain access to (and optimize) the GameWorks code, but cannot share that code with AMD for optimization purposes.

And even if they find a way to improve their performance:

But the beautiful part is that once AMD optimizes for gameworks in one game, the work is done if it is used in another.

But because AMD cant optimize the "blackbox" in one game, they are done in another. They surely will have a lot less work to do - no optimizations for gameworks games from AMD.

 

[ShintaiDK]

The titles are using open or industry standards over-all though --- these are mainly fidelity enhancements over-all.

But they dont come for free. Its money, resources, time, QA etc to serve the selected niche. So it question everytime what was sacrificed to add x niche enhancement. So the overall experience actually turns out worse.

Plus the enhancement can only be so much not to break the game for everyone else. Not to mention the issue of direct competitor sabotage as we see from both sides over and over again.

 

[SirPauly]

Was there anything sacrificed or simply added?

 

[ShintaiDK]

Was there anything sacrificed or simply added?

There is always something sacrificed. I bet you the dev team, dev time, QA etc didnt expand at the same size, or at all, in proportion with the added features. So the resources, QA and time is now more thin spread to cover more.

We dont exactly lack examples on how heavy vendor feature titles have fallen flat on their face lately.

 

[OCGuy]

What AMD and NV are doing by pumping money into PC gaming studios is unbelievably important for the advancement of PC gaming.

The one qualifier on that is that the money is being used to increase graphics and post-processing quality, which most of Gaming Evolved does.

 

[sontin]

But because AMD cant optimize the "blackbox" in one game, they are done in another. They surely will have a lot less work to do - no optimizations for gameworks games from AMD.

nVidia is not allowed to change any code of AMD's feature implementation.
At least they dont whine about it unlike AMD.

 

[SirPauly]

There is always something sacrificed. I bet you the dev team, dev time, QA etc didnt expand at the same size, or at all, in proportion with the added features. So the resources, QA and time is now more thin spread to cover more.

imho,

I agree with that to some levels and why IHV developer relations, tools and their resources help with support and QA!

 

[Erenhardt]

nVidia is not allowed to change any code of AMD's feature implementation.
At least they dont whine about it unlike AMD.

Those were optimizations to the game code, not nv libraries.

Do you remember a quick patch fixing performance issues with new Tomb Raider that nv users had.

I think the console's design is invading PC gaming market, not other way around. Soon we will have GPU brand exclusive games - just like on the consoles.

We had exclusive tech demos.
Now we have exclusive features in games.
Soon we will have exclusive mini-games.
In the future there will be AAA exclusive games.

Gamers will have to have both (or 3 if intel joins the party) graphics cards, or miss part of the titles.

So much for the "PC master race" BS...

 

[Keysplayr]

Erenhardt this really isn't about AMD you know.

 

[sontin]

Those were optimizations to the game code, not nv libraries.

And? AMD partners wont change the code for nVidia. They will not use their samples or techniques. Forward+, TressFX, Mantle... will only benefit AMD user.

Do you remember a quick patch fixing performance issues with new Tomb Raider that nv users had.

And i remember a driver update for Batman:AO which fixed the performance on AMD hardware. :sneaky:

 

[VulgarDisplay]

And? AMD partners wont change the code for nVidia. They will not use their samples or techniques. Forward+, TressFX, Mantle... will only benefit AMD user.

And i remember a driver update for Batman:AO which fixed the performance on AMD hardware. :sneaky:

How do tressfx and forward+ not benefit nvidia users? They work on their hardware and increase image quality. As for mantle we do not know what is coming of it yet, if rumors are to be believed Microsoft will come out and say, surprise dx12 is actually mantle and it was our idea all along. Then nvidia users can enjoy drastically better minimum frame rates and absolutely smooth frame times.

 

[Keysplayr]

How do tressfx and forward+ not benefit nvidia users? They work on their hardware and increase image quality. As for mantle we do not know what is coming of it yet, if rumors are to be believed Microsoft will come out and say, surprise dx12 is actually mantle and it was our idea all along. Then nvidia users can enjoy drastically better minimum frame rates and absolutely smooth frame times.

Where? In what game(s)?
By the way, this thread is pretty much about Nvidia Gameworks. Just FYI. I kinda would like all participants to remember that and stay on track and don't let yourselves get drawn into the usual thread locking off topic posting.