[techreport] AMD ramps up its Gaming Evolved program

[Final8ty]

Last weekend, we traveled to AMD's offices in Markham, Ontario and spoke to Gaming Evolved marketing chief Peter Ross, who gave us some idea of what's been going on behind the scenes.

The program's growing profile is evidently no accident. According to Ross, AMD has increased the size of its developer relations team, on both the marketing and the engineering sides. Part of the recent push has involved giving the developer relations program a name and marketing it explicitly, just has Nvidia has been doing. That effort began a couple of years ago with the introduction of the Gaming Evolved label. AMD has endeavored to work more closely with both developers and publishers, as well.

Interestingly, Ross told us AMD's recent executive changes have been beneficial to the program. He said the new executive team better appreciates the importance of gaming. Ross also pointed out with some exultation that Rory Read, AMD's new CEO, has made public statements about the company's commitment to gaming. Given AMD's precarious financial situation as of late, it's telling that the company has seen fit to increase funding for the Gaming Evolved program.

The future looks bright, too. The aforementioned changes all took place more than a year ago. Ross said we're only just now seeing them produce results, and those changes represent a continued commitment on AMD's part. This is "not something that just flamed up and will go away," Ross stressed. Things "will only get better from here."

What do game developers think about all this? Jorjen Katsman was also there in Markham, and he spoke to us about his company's collaboration with AMD. Katsman is President of Nixxes, a Dutch firm that's developed the PC versions of Deus Ex: Human Revolution, Kane and Lynch 2: Dog Days, and several Tomb Raider games. The firm is currently working on the PC versions of Hitman: Absolution and the upcoming Tomb Raider reboot—both Gaming Evolved titles, just as Human Revolution was.

Top: Hitman: Absolution. Bottom: the new Tomb Raider. Sources: Steam, Square Enix.

Katsman made it clear that his company has ongoing relationships with both AMD and Nvidia. The folks at Nixxes "always have a good time" working with both firms, he said, and with Human Revolution, Nixxes was "just as much in touch" with Nvidia as with AMD. Katsman pointed out that engaging both companies is necessary to ensure players get the best experience. Nobody wants their message boards flooded with bug reports and complaints, after all.

Nevertheless, Nixxes seems to favor Gaming Evolved over Nvidia's developer program. According to Katsman, what AMD brings to the table is simply more compelling, and he views the AMD team as more dedicated. While he didn't delve too deeply into specifics, he mentioned that AMD engineers helped Nixxes implement not just Radeon-specific functionality in their games, but also MSAA antialiasing support and general DirectX 11 features. The two companies collaborate sometimes over Skype and sometimes in person, when AMD engineers visit the Nixxes offices in Utrecht, Holland.

Read More Here.
http://techreport.com/review/23779/amd-ramps-up-its-gaming-evolved-program

 

[Blitzvogel]

Good to hear, and good to see. lol

Whereas Nvidia has in the past focused way too much on PhysX and ridiculous amounts of tessellation to "show off" what their cards can do, AMD seems to be much more focused on delivering an excellent experience across their range of available graphics. Hopefully my old 5850 won't have much trouble running Far Cry 3 maxed or close to it at 1080p :awe:

Hardware pushing titles are great and all, but such titles shouldn't make the best available graphics flat out obsolete. I wonder how well these titles are capable of running on Trinity.

 

[thilanliyan]

"While he didn't delve too deeply into specifics, he mentioned that AMD engineers helped Nixxes implement not just Radeon-specific functionality in their games, but also MSAA antialiasing support and general DirectX 11 features."

If true, that is a really good thing, and everyone should praise this. I don't want to have two computers to play games as they were intended...I would prefer if all graphical features (even things like PhysX) were implemented in both camps.

 

[SirPauly]

Development is always welcomed but AMD HD3d native support is for Radeon cards.

 

[wand3r3r]

As is nvidias 3D vision and physx. I wish they would combine resources and make a respectable 3D solution that would work on both.

 

[VulgarDisplay]

AMD ramped it's program up 2 years ago. Those games are just now starting to be released.

 

[Ibra]

Good to hear, and good to see. lol

Whereas Nvidia has in the past focused way too much on PhysX and ridiculous amounts of tessellation to "show off" what their cards can do, AMD seems to be much more focused on delivering an excellent experience across their range of available graphics. Hopefully my old 5850 won't have much trouble running Far Cry 3 maxed or close to it at 1080p :awe:

Hardware pushing titles are great and all, but such titles shouldn't make the best available graphics flat out obsolete. I wonder how well these titles are capable of running on Trinity.

http://maldotex.blogspot.com/2011/09/tesselation-myth-in-crysis-2-el-mito-de.html

AMD engineers helped Nixxes implement not just Radeon-specific functionality in their games, but also MSAA antialiasing support and general DirectX 11 features.

Also keyboard and mouse support.

 

[Anarchist420]

Too bad AMD's hardware sucks like that of intel and nv and that DX11.0 sucks also. DX11.1 is okay, but it's not good overall because it won't be good in the future.

I'd really like it if they'd bin their products better or simply not bin them at all. Just because the multipliers are unlocked doesn't mean they should've been marked "K" or "Black Edition"... Intel will probably abandon the K soon, but they'll just recycle the same old bad s*** like I do. IP is the problem, but there isn't anything I could ever do about that unfortunately.

Selling based upon vcore, stock clock, and number of working cores doesn't work. They then get to say it can be overclocked if it meets their own arbitrary binning tests, but any two products of the same SKU tend to vary wildly from each other. They could also quit offering warranties and simply let the retailer and the consumer have the decision but here in National Socialist/Hamiltonian America the corporate giant gets some choices but no one else gets any choice.

 

[NTMBK]

Too bad AMD's hardware sucks like that of intel and nv and that DX11.0 sucks also. DX11.1 is okay, but it's not good overall because it won't be good in the future.

I'd really like it if they'd bin their products better or simply not bin them at all. Just because the multipliers are unlocked doesn't mean they should've been marked "K" or "Black Edition"... Intel will probably abandon the K soon, but they'll just recycle the same old bad s*** like I do. IP is the problem, but there isn't anything I could ever do about that unfortunately.

Selling based upon vcore, stock clock, and number of working cores doesn't work. They then get to say it can be overclocked if it meets their own arbitrary binning tests, but any two products of the same SKU tend to vary wildly from each other. They could also quit offering warranties and simply let the retailer and the consumer have the decision but here in National Socialist/Hamiltonian America the corporate giant gets some choices but no one else gets any choice.

D:

 

[Jaydip]

Too bad AMD's hardware sucks like that of intel and nv and that DX11.0 sucks also. DX11.1 is okay, but it's not good overall because it won't be good in the future.

I'd really like it if they'd bin their products better or simply not bin them at all. Just because the multipliers are unlocked doesn't mean they should've been marked "K" or "Black Edition"... Intel will probably abandon the K soon, but they'll just recycle the same old bad s*** like I do. IP is the problem, but there isn't anything I could ever do about that unfortunately.

Selling based upon vcore, stock clock, and number of working cores doesn't work. They then get to say it can be overclocked if it meets their own arbitrary binning tests, but any two products of the same SKU tend to vary wildly from each other. They could also quit offering warranties and simply let the retailer and the consumer have the decision but here in National Socialist/Hamiltonian America the corporate giant gets some choices but no one else gets any choice.

Having a hallucination Man? :biggrin:

 

[chimaxi83]

Too bad AMD's hardware sucks like that of intel and nv and that DX11.0 sucks also. DX11.1 is okay, but it's not good overall because it won't be good in the future.

I'd really like it if they'd bin their products better or simply not bin them at all. Just because the multipliers are unlocked doesn't mean they should've been marked "K" or "Black Edition"... Intel will probably abandon the K soon, but they'll just recycle the same old bad s*** like I do. IP is the problem, but there isn't anything I could ever do about that unfortunately.

Selling based upon vcore, stock clock, and number of working cores doesn't work. They then get to say it can be overclocked if it meets their own arbitrary binning tests, but any two products of the same SKU tend to vary wildly from each other. They could also quit offering warranties and simply let the retailer and the consumer have the decision but here in National Socialist/Hamiltonian America the corporate giant gets some choices but no one else gets any choice.

CPUs/P&N is that way ->

 

[SirPauly]

As is nvidias 3D vision and physx. I wish they would combine resources and make a respectable 3D solution that would work on both.

Hopefully, DirectX 11.1/WDDM 1.2 will improve upon the situation for Stereo3d.

 

[hyrule4927]

Too bad AMD's hardware sucks like that of intel and nv and that DX11.0 sucks also. DX11.1 is okay, but it's not good overall because it won't be good in the future.

I'd really like it if they'd bin their products better or simply not bin them at all. Just because the multipliers are unlocked doesn't mean they should've been marked "K" or "Black Edition"... Intel will probably abandon the K soon, but they'll just recycle the same old bad s*** like I do. IP is the problem, but there isn't anything I could ever do about that unfortunately.

Selling based upon vcore, stock clock, and number of working cores doesn't work. They then get to say it can be overclocked if it meets their own arbitrary binning tests, but any two products of the same SKU tend to vary wildly from each other. They could also quit offering warranties and simply let the retailer and the consumer have the decision but here in National Socialist/Hamiltonian America the corporate giant gets some choices but no one else gets any choice.

Drugs are bad, m'kay?