"The Saboteur" Not Working On ATI Cards

[stipalgl]

Here is the link:

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/gaming/2009/12/11/saboteur-pc-doesn-t-work-with-ati/1

Apparently, users are reporting that the game "The Saboteur" is only working on Nvidia cards, and no ATI hardware at all. Also worthy of mention is that the title is supported by Nvidia's "The Way It's Meant To Be Played" campaign.

In light of the former fiasco involving Batman: Arkhum Asylum, I find this truly fascinating but I'll reserve judgement for the time being.

 

[jvroig]

After reading the article and the comments, and trying to filter out blatant hysteria-inducing posts for more level-headed ones, it's not quite as clear cut as "not working on ATi cards". Perhaps "not working properly" is more apt, or better yet, "not working properly right now".

I don't have the game, don't want the game, and don't have an ATi card, so I can't test for myself, but some of the comments do say it works on some, doesn't work on others, some claim there's a workaround (run on just one core), some claim there might be a patch soon, etc.

 

[HalfCrazy]

If your currently using Vista or Windows7 as your OS. Also you are using a ATI graphics card. You just might see the game "The Saboteur" freeze up on you. There is few temporary workarounds posted on the net. Even then people say it don't help much.

The game will work on Windows XP without using the temporary workarounds. So if you got a legit copy of WinXP laying around. There is your chance to play the game right now. Plus you could wait for EA for a patch.

Only problem I'm finding is cant change the max resolution. No matter if I choose 1280x1024 or what ever. The game tends to want to run at 800x600.

Edit: I own the game and use ATI video card.

 

[akugami]

I think this is a case of EA being so lazy or wanting a payoff to do what they would normally be required to do (actual quality and bug testing) that they screw over their own customers with a crappy release.

Don't think this is a nVidia fault. It's all on EA. nVidia paid for support so they got a little extra from EA. ATI didn't so apparently EA decided to skip bug and quality testing on ATI card.

The only other explanation I can come up with is EA sucks so bad they can't code their way out of a wet paper bag and it's purely luck the game works better on nVidia cards.

 

[dguy6789]

I'd blame EA long before I'd blame Nvidia.

 

[VirtualLarry]

People still buy EA games? You would have thought that they would have learned by now.

 

[Ayah]

People still buy EA games? You would have thought that they would have learned by now.

^ That.

 

[Schmide]

This sounds seriously like a race condition. Woes to those who forget the semaphore and aren't beach lifeguards.

 

[Wreckage]

I'd blame EA long before I'd blame Nvidia.

It could just as easily be a driver issue.

 

[tviceman]

Here is the link:

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/gaming/2009/12/11/saboteur-pc-doesn-t-work-with-ati/1

Apparently, users are reporting that the game "The Saboteur" is only working on Nvidia cards, and no ATI hardware at all. Also worthy of mention is that the title is supported by Nvidia's "The Way It's Meant To Be Played" campaign.

In light of the former fiasco involving Batman: Arkhum Asylum, I find this truly fascinating but I'll reserve judgement for the time being.

Unless AMD comes out saying they're being sabotaged on this particular title, then I give credit to the Nvidia team for spending quality assurance resources on this title and not having this issue with their cards and this game.

I'm not saying the AA situation with Batman is right, (it's definitely "wrong" if there is a hardware check taking place to determine AA functionality) but I think nvidia's generally got a great thing going with TWIMTBP and if AMD were to have a q&a/marketing team to equal TWIMTBP (instead of whining about being undercut) then games would likely have less issues like this at launch.

 

[dguy6789]

It could just as easily be a driver issue.

Considering the quality of ATI's drivers and the fact that other games work fine on them(duh), it seems pretty silly for a developer to just now release a new game and then blame ATI that it doesn't work.

By that logic, someone could write a program and then blame the platform it is running on any time it has any kind of problem.

 

[Wreckage]

Considering the quality of ATI's drivers and the fact that other games work fine on them(duh), it seems pretty silly for a developer to just now release a new game and then blame ATI that it doesn't work.

Then why does ATI have to rush drivers out every month if they are so good and why do those drivers contain bug fixes for games, if it's the games fault?

I'm not blaming anybody here. NVIDIA has bug fixes for games in their drivers as well. You just seem quick to blame the game.

 

[Lonyo]

The best thing to do before apportioning blame is to wait and find out what the real cause of the problem is.

This isn't a Batman situation (however much people want it to be), and it makes more sense to say "Uh oh, there's a problem here" rather than saying "OMG this is all an NV conspiracy/OMG EA suck/OMG AMD suck at drivers".

When the responsible party is identified, then it makes sense to think up conspiracy theories/complain about how much company X sucks.

 

[HalfCrazy]

It could very well be the game it self. Here is a copy&paste of what the EA Community Manager posted on the EA forum. "The game was very much tested but unforeseen issues decided to appear. We are working on a fix for this issue."

 

[mmnno]

I think this is a case of EA being so lazy or wanting a payoff to do what they would normally be required to do (actual quality and bug testing) that they screw over their own customers with a crappy release.

It's not so much laziness (having the ability to do the work but not doing it) and more that the studio that made the game got sliced up before the game was released.

 

[Voo]

It's not so much laziness (having the ability to do the work but not doing it) and more that the studio that made the game got sliced up before the game was released.

Which falls directly into category two "wanting a payoff"


Yeah it could be a ATI driver issue, but if they tested with ATI cards they would've noticed that long before publishing the game (ok, you need really special hardware and software to get that bug.. I mean, how many people would run Vista/7 with an ATI card - who'd ever do that? [I'm sure Wreckage loves to agree] ).

So even if it is a driver issue, that's still - at least partly - EAs fault..

 

[Mem]

Ignore this one double post.

 

[Mem]

Then why does ATI have to rush drivers out every month if they are so good and why do those drivers contain bug fixes for games, if it's the games fault?

I'm not blaming anybody here. NVIDIA has bug fixes for games in their drivers as well. You just seem quick to blame the game.

You are wrong as usual,did you bother to read the link in the first post?...

The Saboteur apparently doesn't work with any ATI cards at all - only Nvidia hardware.

The PC version of Pandemic's The Saboteur is apparently having some significant stability problems with certain types of PC hardware. Namely, it doesn't seem to work on any ATI graphics cards. At all.

Did they even bother to test the game with ATi card for any length of time?.....There's a big difference between a bug or two and game not working at all,for the record I would say its EA's fault since they should of tested it on an ATI card at the very least for a decent time.I don't think I have owned any game over the years that has never worked on either Nvidia or ATI for the record.

Tell me how this got past EA/ Pandemic QA testing?

 

[Schmide]

This brings up something that would be nice to see.

I put my money on nVidia doing a driver tweak to avoid deadlock. Since the issue only arises when more than one core is involved, it is most likely when the programmers were implementing multi-threading to their system, someone forgot unlock an object. They probably detected a call to LockDevice with fBlock=true while the device was already locked. Artificially unlocking the device with a possible very small delay would quickly prevent the deadlock. Or, more doubtful, nVidia's drivers ignore the fBlock while ATI's implement it.

If someone with the game could prevent nVidia's drivers from loading it's optimization, I wonder if the game would lock up?

 

[thilanliyan]

nm

 

[T2k]

Well, this thread tells me I was dead on when I decided to cancel my preorder after I heard that 1. no MP and 2. Pandemic as been disbanded - I won't support a publisher that has no respect for its devs and artists, period.

 

[T2k]

People still buy EA games? You would have thought that they would have learned by now.

^ That.

Since its crazy-greedy, insane-harping, super-pigheaded CEO's numerous shockingly stupid comments throughout this Fall Activision officially became the new EA, right when they pretty much killed the entire Modern Warfare 2+ franchise for PC by removing modding, dedicated servers etc (DLC sales, anyone?)

Tried MW2, while it looked pretty, it wasn't anything I would expect from a game debuting along with DX11 and gameplay was really dumbed down, exactly like bad a console port - rather unimpressive game altogether.

As much as I hate EA for its disgusting old DRM tricks it seems they are getting the message: no more limited, rootkit-based activation and full dedicated server support (incl. mods etc) in Bad Company 2...