Intel is a monopoly, and what they were doing was clearly illegal.
They are still doing it too.
look at their chipset tactics... pulling all the licenses of their competitors.
Intel is a monopoly, and what they were doing was clearly illegal.
I second that, I don't know how's possible that fanboys like golem, actually applauds such tactics which will only split the gaming market taking away even standard stuff like anti aliasing. How in in hell GPU will have to involve in developers to add features that are a standard in the DX API, Batman AA isn't part of the spec but if GPU vendors has to make their job right, how are we gonna end? Talk about lazyness...
A developer want to reach everybody so they can maximize its profits, not locking its game or features to a single vendor, specially AMD which has a strong presence in the DX11 market with their cards. Hopefully, RockSteady will be more steady this time in the next game they release.
Yes, but then why didn't AMD insist that the devs include a vendor ID lockout for any non-ATi card in return for their assistance? After all, that's exactly what Nvidia did with Batman:AA. Nvidia was bound to release a DX11 card of their own, eventually. Why not force Nvidia cards to use the DX10/9 path and keep the DX11 features exclusive to their own hardware? Because AMD is not Nvidia and has (as far as I know) refused to stoop to that level of tactics.
Personally, I wish AMD were more like Nvidia in pushing/supporting new features and I wish Nvidia were more like AMD as far as their business ethics are concerned.
You're equating locking out an added feature to locking out a whole DirectX generation.. Not the same thing at all. Not to mention the fact that ALL of the MSAA code was made by Nvidia (or at least most). Is ATI ASSISTING in the the directx11 code path or writing all of it? Are they even writing half the code? A quarter? Nvidia could insist on lockout because it was basically all or most of their code. Could ATI say the same?
According to linked article, ATI is assisting in 9 directx11 games. Nvidia was helping on several dozen (doesn't mention if it has to do with directx 11 or not). Forcing lockout on 9 games (if ATI could) vs facing possible retaliation of lock out on several dozen (if Nvidia could) would be suicide.
I have no idea how accurate the article is, but would it surprise anyone that Nvidia is assisting more developers than ATI?
http://www.brightsideofnews.com/new...-nvidia-vs-eidos-fight-analyzed.aspx?pageid=3
You're basically giving ATI credit for something they either couldn't do or would be stupid for them do to.
From your own article, what you do think about this?
With their engineering resources spread on DirectX 11 titles, it is natural that AMD could not dedicate themselves on making Batman: AA code. But what is unforgiveable for both sides is the fact that Unreal Engine 3 is out for four years now and nor AMD nor nVidia didn't develop a way for in-game AA selection for engine itself. Ultimately, the responsibility for FSAA doesn't lie neither with nVidia nor AMD. For a feature that became a standard in 2000, i.e. nearly 10 years ago, it is irresponsible that Epic Games didn't offer built-in AA support as the new versions of Unreal Engine rolled out. Being forced to develop multi-platform titles to survive, developers such as Rocksteady have thin resources to spend additional time on developing PC-only features, especially in a recession year when so many great studios closed their doors.
So its AMD's fault for not having Anti Aliasing support in the game? nVidia did right in regards of giving a fix that the developers was supposed to fix, but their tactic and DeviceID lock out are dirty no matter the reason you state or your brand loyalism. What would happen if AMD locks up the DX11 features in current games, or at least, the optimized path? So it could run slower on nVidia hardware? Like Metro's 2033 anti aliasing?
game producers are fools to lock their games to one brand of GPU. AMD/ATI having the majority of the discreet GPU market, and the market being about evenly split, should mean we dont have idiot desicions aka Batman AA by the game producers/distributors.
which I still believe is entirely within their rights
Sure it's not illegal, but it's not a good practice, and one of the reasons why I won't buy their products when having a choice. I also chose not to buy this game also. A developer who allows something like this to happen doesn't get my money.
The argument of ATI locking out directx11 is a strawman argument at best! ATI just doesn't have the power to demand this unless they actually write the game themself.
They don't even at that. If they were to lock out Nvidia from DirextX 11 functions, they do not have a DirectX 11 compliant game.
MSAA and PhysX in Batman AA are not DirectX features. They're in addition to the DirectX feature set. So they're allowed to be vendor specific, unlike DirectX features which are vendor agnostic.
ATi fanboys should get over their entitlement complex.
You don't get MSAA or PhysX.
You don't get EAX.
You don't get telepathy over USB 3.0.
You don't get invisibility over SVGA.
You don't get omnipotence over 802.11n.
