TWIMTBP defined

[nRollo]

I was in a discussion the other day about the nature of the TWIMTBP developer relations program, and ended up asking NVIDIA what they actually do.

Thought some here might be interested as well:

1. we examine the game engine and the developers and publishers objectives and suggest features that will look good and which will be fun, these are suggestions only, they are usually accepted where they make sense and are cost effective.
2. we provide details of what we have shipped and where so that the publisher/developers can see the installed base to judge whether enough people can enjoy the implemented features
3. we provide a wide range of tools to implement features include FXcomposer, texture tools, shader debugger, etc and then optimize them for performance such as PerfHUD, AGPerfMon, etc, see here; http://developer.nvidia.com/page/home.html
4. we provide technical support all thru this process both remote and on-site
5. we test the builds of the game at our Moscow labs, called GTL and provide documented feedback on bugs, perf and compatibility
6. we then promote games that have great features for GeForce owners to our Club SLI members, newsletter subscribers, and nzone.com visitors
7. we work with our AIC partners and OEM customers to also promote these games too

 

[cmdrdredd]

8. It's all really just marketing and TWIMTBP doesn't necessarily translate to extra performance.

Having said that I wonder if there's some incentive to do this. I see some companies always do, some haven't.

 

[LordGestle]

9. Money. We pay the publisher to promote our products and in exchange we subsidize part of the development.
Nothing wrong with that. AMD/ATI has done the same thing. Obviously not all developers receive TWIMTBP as they not top tier games and Nvidia does not find the value in investing in that title.

 

[cmdrdredd]

Originally posted by: LordGestle
9. Money. We pay the publisher to promote our products and in exchange we subsidize part of the development.
Nothing wrong with that. AMD/ATI has done the same thing. Obviously not all developers receive TWIMTBP as they not top tier games and Nvidia does not find the value in investing in that title.

nah they aren't paying them. Otherwise every game would be TWIMTBP. There has to be a reason some companies opt not to enter the program with Nvidia. That's what I'm wondering, what the downside is.

 

[LOUISSSSS]

marketing...

 

[thilanliyan]

Originally posted by: cmdrdredd

Originally posted by: LordGestle
9. Money. We pay the publisher to promote our products and in exchange we subsidize part of the development.
Nothing wrong with that. AMD/ATI has done the same thing. Obviously not all developers receive TWIMTBP as they not top tier games and Nvidia does not find the value in investing in that title.

nah they aren't paying them. Otherwise every game would be TWIMTBP. There has to be a reason some companies opt not to enter the program with Nvidia. That's what I'm wondering, what the downside is.

Maybe nV doesn't care to have every game under that banner?

 

[Genx87]

Originally posted by: cmdrdredd
8. It's all really just marketing and TWIMTBP doesn't necessarily translate to extra performance.

Having said that I wonder if there's some incentive to do this. I see some companies always do, some haven't.

Of course there is incentive. Nvidia will help optimize your code for no cost afaik.

 

[nRollo]

Originally posted by: Genx87

Originally posted by: cmdrdredd
8. It's all really just marketing and TWIMTBP doesn't necessarily translate to extra performance.

Having said that I wonder if there's some incentive to do this. I see some companies always do, some haven't.

Of course there is incentive. Nvidia will help optimize your code for no cost afaik.

As more points have been brought up, I asked NVIDIA to expand on their previous answers and got these two emails in response:

1. its not 'all marketing' and when they read that its actually very unfair to the engineers that spend so much time at BOTH the developers and on our team adding in great features to the games. Things like motion blur, depth of field, high dynamic range, soft shadows, particle effects, and PhysX don?t code themselves.

2. money, we don?t pay, if you look at the list of things that we do its extremely valuable, the testing alone is worth a great deal.

3. inclusion. The reason not all games are included in the program is that A. we don?t have infinite bandwidth, our team is large but we cant support everyone, B. not all games are created equal and some offer better opportunities for adding extra features than others and

and

1. performance, the developers and publishers concern on performance is to get the most from the least. What that means is that they want to fastest frames per second for any given spec to ensure that those with minimal systems still enjoy the game. Since most of 'our world' benchmarks NV against ati that?s what we see but from the publishers point of view their concern is that the game is enjoyable to the widest possible audience.

2. free tools, the tool suite may not mean much to the readers of the forums but they are hugely important to the developers and the fact we not only provide them free but we maintain them free does create enormous goodwill in the community. If readers really want to know the key to our success then this is one of the main contributors.

3. free engineers, well they aren?t free - we have to pay them and we pay for the best but having access to some of the worlds very bets 3D artists, architects and programmers is another huge plus for developing with us.

4. free testing, equivalent testing to that which we offer at GTL costs 100's of 1000's of $. The testing we include covers multiple chipsets, graphics options and CPU types, we test for bugs, artifacts, performance both standard and custom and we do this in a totally secure environment, so far, touch wood we have a 100% security record -this is another huge plus.

5. we do not ask for exclusivity, all games we work with also end up being tested by ati too but our program is bigger, more inclusive and wider ranging than theirs.

There you have it. TWIMTBP defined by the guys who run it.

 

[Tempered81]

IMO TWIMTBP =

1 excellent marketing for NV by plastering their name at the intro to a video game.

2 reminds all the gamers to go buy a green videocard

3 costs NV chunks of adv. budget $$$$

4 puts NV's greedy paws into game development early on (crysis & others) for performance advantage

5 gives them advantages when authoring drivers & software

6 invaluable partnerships & insight into game development alluring to stuff like physx, cuda, etc etc..

7 control!!!

 

[cmdrdredd]

Originally posted by: jaredpace
IMO TWIMTBP =

1 excellent marketing for NV by plastering their name at the intro to a video game.

2 reminds all the gamers to go buy a green videocard

3 costs NV chunks of adv. budget $$$$

4 puts NV's greedy paws into game development early on (crysis & others) for performance advantage

5 gives them advantages when authoring drivers & software

6 invaluable partnerships & insight into game development alluring to stuff like physx, cuda, etc etc..

7 control!!!

4) except the game sucks and is abyssimal all around. No matter how it looks.

6) goes along with this "Things like motion blur, depth of field, high dynamic range, soft shadows, particle effects, and PhysX don?t code themselves. "

Motion blur and all that other stuff have been in games that have no TWIMTBP logo anywhere. Half-Life is a good example and the source engine in general.

 

[vj8usa]

Originally posted by: cmdrdredd
4) except the game sucks and is abyssimal all around. No matter how it looks.

That's just uncalled for. There have been plenty of games with the TWIMTBP stamp that were excellent in most/all aspects.

As for my take on the matter, I don't mind TWIMTBP as long as it doesn't detract from the experience for ATI users (although Assassin's creed was a TWIMTBP game, and DX10.1 support was pulled... makes you wonder).

 

[nitromullet]

Originally posted by: cmdrdredd

Originally posted by: jaredpace
IMO TWIMTBP =

1 excellent marketing for NV by plastering their name at the intro to a video game.

2 reminds all the gamers to go buy a green videocard

3 costs NV chunks of adv. budget $$$$

4 puts NV's greedy paws into game development early on (crysis & others) for performance advantage

5 gives them advantages when authoring drivers & software

6 invaluable partnerships & insight into game development alluring to stuff like physx, cuda, etc etc..

7 control!!!

4) except the game sucks and is abyssimal all around. No matter how it looks.

6) goes along with this "Things like motion blur, depth of field, high dynamic range, soft shadows, particle effects, and PhysX don?t code themselves. "

Motion blur and all that other stuff have been in games that have no TWIMTBP logo anywhere. Half-Life is a good example and the source engine in general.

http://orange.half-life2.com/index.html

 

[cmdrdredd]

Originally posted by: nitromullet

Originally posted by: cmdrdredd

Originally posted by: jaredpace
IMO TWIMTBP =

1 excellent marketing for NV by plastering their name at the intro to a video game.

2 reminds all the gamers to go buy a green videocard

3 costs NV chunks of adv. budget $$$$

4 puts NV's greedy paws into game development early on (crysis & others) for performance advantage

5 gives them advantages when authoring drivers & software

6 invaluable partnerships & insight into game development alluring to stuff like physx, cuda, etc etc..

7 control!!!

4) except the game sucks and is abyssimal all around. No matter how it looks.

6) goes along with this "Things like motion blur, depth of field, high dynamic range, soft shadows, particle effects, and PhysX don?t code themselves. "

Motion blur and all that other stuff have been in games that have no TWIMTBP logo anywhere. Half-Life is a good example and the source engine in general.

http://orange.half-life2.com/index.html

Maybe you forgot that when HL2 was released ATI's logo was plastered all over it.

 

[cmdrdredd]

Originally posted by: vj8usa

Originally posted by: cmdrdredd
4) except the game sucks and is abyssimal all around. No matter how it looks.

That's just uncalled for. There have been plenty of games with the TWIMTBP stamp that were excellent in most/all aspects.

As for my take on the matter, I don't mind TWIMTBP as long as it doesn't detract from the experience for ATI users (although Assassin's creed was a TWIMTBP game, and DX10.1 support was pulled... makes you wonder).

It's true, Crysis is the epitome of failure for a game.

 

[vj8usa]

Originally posted by: cmdrdredd

Originally posted by: vj8usa

Originally posted by: cmdrdredd
4) except the game sucks and is abyssimal all around. No matter how it looks.

That's just uncalled for. There have been plenty of games with the TWIMTBP stamp that were excellent in most/all aspects.

As for my take on the matter, I don't mind TWIMTBP as long as it doesn't detract from the experience for ATI users (although Assassin's creed was a TWIMTBP game, and DX10.1 support was pulled... makes you wonder).

It's true, Crysis is the epitome of failure for a game.

Sorry, I'm not really sure what you're talking about anymore. I guess you were talking about just Crysis earlier, and not all TWIMTBP games. Are you sure you mean Crysis, and not some other game, though? Take a look at some screenshots/videos if you haven't actually played or seen it before - it's still one of the, if not THE best looking game on the market. There's no denying that it has good graphics, no matter how biased you may be.

 

[chizow]

No mention of being provided hardware during development? I've seen more than a few devs comment about it during beta tests and its plastered on most TWIMTBP manuals/documentation. Or is that considered a part of "engineering resources"?

 

[cmdrdredd]

Originally posted by: vj8usa

Originally posted by: cmdrdredd

Originally posted by: vj8usa

Originally posted by: cmdrdredd
4) except the game sucks and is abyssimal all around. No matter how it looks.

That's just uncalled for. There have been plenty of games with the TWIMTBP stamp that were excellent in most/all aspects.

As for my take on the matter, I don't mind TWIMTBP as long as it doesn't detract from the experience for ATI users (although Assassin's creed was a TWIMTBP game, and DX10.1 support was pulled... makes you wonder).

It's true, Crysis is the epitome of failure for a game.

Sorry, I'm not really sure what you're talking about anymore. I guess you were talking about just Crysis earlier, and not all TWIMTBP games. Are you sure you mean Crysis, and not some other game, though? Take a look at some screenshots/videos if you haven't actually played or seen it before - it's still one of the, if not THE best looking game on the market. There's no denying that it has good graphics, no matter how biased you may be.

Yes, I'm talking about crysis because crysis was used as the basis in the original quoted text. yes I own it, no I don't like it, yes I tried to get my money back for the garbage, and no I don't have it installed anymore lol.

 

[cmdrdredd]

Originally posted by: chizow
No mention of being provided hardware during development? I've seen more than a few devs comment about it during beta tests and its plastered on most TWIMTBP manuals/documentation. Or is that considered a part of "engineering resources"?

That could be it. I do remember readong something like that. getting free video cards to "test" their games. Yeah...more like some guy says "hey guys I got a free GTX260 for my PC...i'll see you on WoW later"

 

[solofly]

All this B.S. boils down to money... No money, no TWIMTBP support.

Somebody said something like this at some thread I came across...

"The way it's meant to be paid" campaign... (i laughed when I read that)... as matter of fact it's so good I'm gonna put in my sig from now on...

 

[krnmastersgt]

Originally posted by: vj8usa

Originally posted by: cmdrdredd

Originally posted by: vj8usa

Originally posted by: cmdrdredd
4) except the game sucks and is abyssimal all around. No matter how it looks.

That's just uncalled for. There have been plenty of games with the TWIMTBP stamp that were excellent in most/all aspects.

As for my take on the matter, I don't mind TWIMTBP as long as it doesn't detract from the experience for ATI users (although Assassin's creed was a TWIMTBP game, and DX10.1 support was pulled... makes you wonder).

It's true, Crysis is the epitome of failure for a game.

Sorry, I'm not really sure what you're talking about anymore. I guess you were talking about just Crysis earlier, and not all TWIMTBP games. Are you sure you mean Crysis, and not some other game, though? Take a look at some screenshots/videos if you haven't actually played or seen it before - it's still one of the, if not THE best looking game on the market. There's no denying that it has good graphics, no matter how biased you may be.

The posters from before would be agreeing with you on the visuals, but they're saying no matter how good it looks, the game itself isn't worth playing. Or at least that's my take on it? Gameplay didn't look all that grand to me so I never bothered picking it up.

 

[nRollo]

Originally posted by: cmdrdredd

Originally posted by: chizow
No mention of being provided hardware during development? I've seen more than a few devs comment about it during beta tests and its plastered on most TWIMTBP manuals/documentation. Or is that considered a part of "engineering resources"?

That could be it. I do remember readong something like that. getting free video cards to "test" their games. Yeah...more like some guy says "hey guys I got a free GTX260 for my PC...i'll see you on WoW later"

Something tells me you're not coding games.

While I imagine those guys like getting free video cards as much as anyone, I doubt they just say "Hahaha time to play WoW and wonder what the schmucks are doing...."

 

[nRollo]

Originally posted by: solofly
All this B.S. boils down to money... No money, no TWIMTBP support.

Somebody said something like this at some thread I came across...

"The way it's meant to be paid" campaign... (i laughed when I read that)... as matter of fact it's so good I'm gonna put in my sig from now on...

No, money has nothing to do with it. (even if you wish it did)

The value is in the labor provided by very well paid engineers, programmers, and the like.

In a way you're right though, because the services NVIDIA provides do have a very high cost and value. (so the devs benefit)

 

[nRollo]

Originally posted by: cmdrdredd

Originally posted by: vj8usa

Originally posted by: cmdrdredd
4) except the game sucks and is abyssimal all around. No matter how it looks.

That's just uncalled for. There have been plenty of games with the TWIMTBP stamp that were excellent in most/all aspects.

As for my take on the matter, I don't mind TWIMTBP as long as it doesn't detract from the experience for ATI users (although Assassin's creed was a TWIMTBP game, and DX10.1 support was pulled... makes you wonder).

It's true, Crysis is the epitome of failure for a game.

cmdredd saying "WoW sucks

Let's see: 11 million people PAY MONEY to play WoW every month and it "sucks".

Crysis is the "epitome of failure"?

Crysis sold over 1 million copies

Would be impressive to hear about what you do given your low opinion of the huge success of these people- must be fabulous and spectacular!

 

[krnmastersgt]

Originally posted by: nRollo

Originally posted by: cmdrdredd

Originally posted by: vj8usa

Originally posted by: cmdrdredd
4) except the game sucks and is abyssimal all around. No matter how it looks.

That's just uncalled for. There have been plenty of games with the TWIMTBP stamp that were excellent in most/all aspects.

As for my take on the matter, I don't mind TWIMTBP as long as it doesn't detract from the experience for ATI users (although Assassin's creed was a TWIMTBP game, and DX10.1 support was pulled... makes you wonder).

It's true, Crysis is the epitome of failure for a game.

cmdredd saying "WoW sucks

Let's see: 11 million people PAY MONEY to play WoW every month and it "sucks".

Crysis is the "epitome of failure"?

Crysis sold over 1 million copies

Would be impressive to hear about what you do given your low opinion of the huge success of these people- must be fabulous and spectacular!

I'd say that most of the copies sold was because of all the hype it got, and that it was supposed to bring any machine to its knees, so people would get the machine-killer game to see what its like furthering the chain.

 

[EnzoLT]

Originally posted by: nitromullet

Originally posted by: cmdrdredd

Originally posted by: jaredpace
IMO TWIMTBP =

1 excellent marketing for NV by plastering their name at the intro to a video game.

2 reminds all the gamers to go buy a green videocard

3 costs NV chunks of adv. budget $$$$

4 puts NV's greedy paws into game development early on (crysis & others) for performance advantage

5 gives them advantages when authoring drivers & software

6 invaluable partnerships & insight into game development alluring to stuff like physx, cuda, etc etc..

7 control!!!

4) except the game sucks and is abyssimal all around. No matter how it looks.

6) goes along with this "Things like motion blur, depth of field, high dynamic range, soft shadows, particle effects, and PhysX don?t code themselves. "

Motion blur and all that other stuff have been in games that have no TWIMTBP logo anywhere. Half-Life is a good example and the source engine in general.

http://orange.half-life2.com/index.html

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