[WCCF tech] Both Nvidia And AMD Sides of The GameWorks Story, part I...

[tential]

Are you giving your cat hundreds of dollars? Do you give your employer hundreds of dollars for pissing you off? I think not 🙄

Lol I know this was directed at railven but I'll bite as well.

I'm about to get a puppy. It'll cry and piss me off. I'll buy her a designer dog bed afterwards to sleep on when she's passed her puppy phase...

Keysplayr addressed the other point more elegantly than I could ever possibly do.

 

[Arachnotronic]

I don't know why everyone just doesn't do this. Buy what suits them and not care what others do.

:thumbsup:

 

[Keysplayr]

You can take your ball where ever you want. Why keep purchasing the top of the line graphics card if your pissed off about that last one? Seems to me he was rewarding Nvidia with purchasing the next one when the last one pissed him off. When this happens it doesn't give much incentive for Nvidia to make a better card because Nvidia knows there are schmucks out there that keep buying them up.
Win Win for Nvidia, not so much for the purchaser.

If you don't understand that then so be it.

Point missed.

He is saying, for this round at least, that even though he got pissed off, he still went what he felt was the better option for him. This means, he found that AMD's offering in his category was the lesser option, even with whatever headaches (real or imagined) befall him with Nvidia. Next time might be the reverse. Who knows.

You cannot have such "my way or the highway" arguments in here. Look at all sides and don't be so FINAL in your thought process.

 

[tential]

Look, I think people are confusing 2 things here as well. Just because you get an Nvidia card, doesn't mean you have to support Gameworks? I'll NEVER purchase a gameworks game with poor performance. EVER.

But I need a graphics card to play games, and I won't buy a slower card... I just won't buy poor performing games. Luckily, I don't usually want to play a poorly performing game anyway so why do I care again about Gameworks? It doesn't effect me because I don't play those games...

If people see that consumers don't purchase gameworks games, Nvidia will STOP THE PROGRAM. Stop blaming GTX owners for Gameworks. Blame the consumers on BOTH SIDES that purchase games that have gameworks on them. Gameworks isn't just supported by GTX owners, that's AN INSANE ASSUMPTION TO MAKE. Many of you Radeon owners are Gameworks supporters because you PURCHASED THE GAME.

So stop complaining about Gameworks if you own games with Gameworks because you're part of the problem.

 

[railven]

Regardless of how you want to try and spin it if you keep purchasing those top cards and are pissed off about it then you're rewarding them for doing it again regardless if its Nvidia or AMD.

I'm a little confused. I bought a refurbished 780 Lightning for $425, new it was $550 [which I RMA'd for a brand new sealed in box replacement], I made out like a bandit. It served it's purpose for a whole year before my upgrade window rolled around again. I got annoyed at the Kepler optimization issue. I think I was mad for a week? Two, tops? Now my girlfriend is enjoying it and she has no issues playing the games she likes. I don't even think she knows about the optimization issues, and by the time she did she'd be rocking my 980 Ti.

Then I bought a GTX 980 Ti and I'm as happy as can be 😀

 

[railven]

Point missed.

He is saying, for this round at least, that even though he got pissed off, he still went what he felt was the better option for him. This means, he found that AMD's offering in his category was the lesser option, even with whatever headaches (real or imagined) befall him with Nvidia. Next time might be the reverse. Who knows.

You cannot have such "my way or the highway" arguments in here. Look at all sides and don't be so FINAL in your thought process.

This post pretty much nails it. I think in one of my post I even said if AMD hits it out of the park (and that doesn't mean win the crown back, but more so the things I focus on) I would flip flop so fast/hard you'd think I were a politician.

 

[Ma_Deuce]

if AMD hits it out of the park (and that doesn't mean win the crown back, but more so the things I focus on) I would flip flop so fast/hard you'd think I were a politician.

My name is Joe, and I approve this message. 🙂

For me, unless something changes in the next few months I'll be flip flopping from Nvidia back to AMD. Gameworks doesn't play a huge role in that decision, AMD just has what suits me better.

I think that for most people, it's hard to hold convictions so deeply that it would force them to give up much. im in this group when it comes to the AMD vs NV at this point. I don't like it, but meh

 

[tential]

My name is Joe, and I approve this message. 🙂

For me, unless something changes in the next few months I'll be flip flopping from Nvidia back to AMD. Gameworks doesn't play a huge role in that decision, AMD just has what suits me better.

I think that for most people, it's hard to hold convictions so deeply that it would force them to give up much. im in this group when it comes to the AMD vs NV at this point. I don't like it, but meh

Since you're the opposite side of me, what card do you have from Nvidia, and what card do you want to go to from AMD, and why? What features are enticing you.

For me, I've already talked enough about downsampling to probably make you all want to kill yourselves so you know that's why I want to go Nvidia.
I'm an HD7950 owner considering going to a GTX 980(Or the equivalent of that if I can stomach not having 4K downsampling til next year).

What's your situation?

 

[Ma_Deuce]

I have a zotac 780 amp edition. Great card imo, it runs very cool and quiet and clocks stay at 1163/6400. When I bought it, I bought it over a 290x because it was cooler and quieter even though it had a little less performance.

This time I think I am going to grab a Fury X over a 980 or ti. It's cool and quiet and the AIO cooler is a big plus for me. It's also seemed like the 290x has aged much better than my 780. I'm expecting the same thing to happen with the fury x, maybe to an even bigger degree as they seem to be still working out kinks.

I'm also going to grab a freesync monitor. I like the choices of 1440p freesync monitors right now and I factor the lower price vs gsync into the cost when it's all said and done. Freesync/gsync is an absolute must for me.

I don't know of any gameworks titles that really interest me and most of the time I wait until a game has been out long enough to scoop up a GOTY edition for a decent price, better performance on both sides, less bugs and more mods available. If there is anything in the gameworks code that really cripples AMD, they have plenty of time to find a work around.

 

[Gikaseixas]

I'm very undecided myself, i have a 4k monitor coming and i could choose either a GTX 980 ti or a Fury X to play at that res. What makes my decision so hard is that both cards perform similarly at 4k res but has water cooling and if i add a second card, crossfire scales much better which i want bad BUT the other has that incredible OC headroom... decisions decisions.

Also i bought Project Cars and my 7970 struggles with high settings but i don't mind or care who made the game or who sponsored it, as long as the gameplay is great. I love racing simulations so i had to get it so for me GW or not i would have bought it 100 times again.

In the end i understand both sides, i think people are different and have different goals and perspectives so lets respect each others opinions.
Oh and everybody here knows that i'm a Radeon fan too 🙂

 

[tential]

I have a zotac 780 amp edition. Great card imo, it runs very cool and quiet and clocks stay at 1163/6400. When I bought it, I bought it over a 290x because it was cooler and quieter even though it had a little less performance.

This time I think I am going to grab a Fury X over a 980 or ti. It's cool and quiet and the AIO cooler is a big plus for me. It's also seemed like the 290x has aged much better than my 780. I'm expecting the same thing to happen with the fury x, maybe to an even bigger degree as they seem to be still working out kinks.

I'm also going to grab a freesync monitor. I like the choices of 1440p freesync monitors right now and I factor the lower price vs gsync into the cost when it's all said and done. Freesync/gsync is an absolute must for me.

I don't know of any gameworks titles that really interest me and most of the time I wait until a game has been out long enough to scoop up a GOTY edition for a decent price, better performance on both sides, less bugs and more mods available. If there is anything in the gameworks code that really cripples AMD, they have plenty of time to find a work around.

Makes sense to me. Really depends on what you're using the cards for. If I was desktop gaming on new games my purchasing choice would probably have a bit more thought in it as I'd be trying to drive new games vs older games. At that point, if I'm going to do it, I'm going to go and actually get the job done. So I'll probably go CF, and CF 390 would be my thought with OC on a 1440p freesync monitor (it downsamples from a ratio that works right? I still can't help but need some downsampling even if I was going to be playing modern games I just love the featurelol).

But I lay down in bed and game and on a 1080p screen so I want 4K downsampling since I play old games and AMD only supports that on the Fury line and if I'm paying that much I want to actually get performance so I'd get a GTX 980 and OC it and play old games downsampled from 4k, maybe higher. Maybe even get a GTX 980Ti.

But, I think I'll get a dog instead lol. I had really expected the Fury to be the same on every level of the GTX 980Ti performance wise (even with higher power consumption), but with a watercooler and that was the main appeal of going flagship was to get the first reference aio watercooled card but the performanec just doesn't make me happy enough to own it. I almost want a GTX 980Ti just because I can see how happy people are with the purchase and I can even maybe just play the Witcher 3 right after the Witcher 2 (something I'd never do! PLay a new game? Nooooo my backlog so big!)

 

[tential]

I'm very undecided myself, i have a 4k monitor coming and i could choose either a GTX 980 ti or a Fury X to play at that res. What makes my decision so hard is that both cards perform similarly at 4k res but has water cooling and if i add a second card, crossfire scales much better which i want bad BUT the other has that incredible OC headroom... decisions decisions.

Also i bought Project Cars and my 7970 struggles with high settings but i don't mind or care who made the game or who sponsored it, as long as the gameplay is great. I love racing simulations so i had to get it so for me GW or not i would have bought it 100 times again.

In the end i understand both sides, i think people are different and have different goals and perspectives so lets respect each others opinions.
Oh and everybody here knows that i'm a Radeon fan too 🙂

It HONESTLY depends on how in love with Project Cars are you. There is that other Racing game "AC". It also depends on how long you think you'll play it. Are you going to play it 3 months? 1 yeaR? 3 years? There will be newer better racing sims. Finally, depends on just how much performance you need. Look at the performance of the Fury X and GTX 980Ti custom models. The Fury X is $650, but lets extend our budget to $690 on the GTX 980Ti. Lets be real, an extra $40 to ensure you get a great cooler that's nice and quiet and allows great OCs is FAR worth it. The cards have actually been quiet close to the $650 pricetag while offering AMAZING value. The GTX 980Ti AIBs have done a great job in this regard.
Pick a card with a decent cooler, go see it's review. It'll be faster than a GTX Titan usually. Then, look at the clocks and see they are NO WHERE NEAR where the max OC clocks can get to. SO ya, I'd get a GTX 980Ti if I wanted to seriously game at 4K in your situation. Now, if you needed MORE performance than that, then I'd go to the Fury X and just ignore project cars. I like quiet though, CF Performance scaling is nice, but I wouldn't rule out GTX 980Ti Sli.

Pretty hard to ignore the GTX 980Ti's stellar performance. You just have to hope it doesn't Titan on you.

 

[monstercameron]

why are you guys discussing gfx cards? I thought this was a gameworks good or bad thread?

 

[railven]

why are you guys discussing gfx cards? I thought this was a gameworks good or bad thread?

This is like the 10th or so "Gameworks, is it the devil" thread I've seen in the last month or so. Pretty much every opinion on the subject has been discussed and the article doesn't really shed much new info.

I hope part 2 sheds a little more info such as what plans Nvidia may have with it (if there is such a backlash will they continue to pursue it, or do they have a DX12 plan - since I've noticed NV has been rather hush hush on DX12 where as AMD is staking it's livelihood on it).

Also, what will AMD do differently with DX12. Will they not fall behind (such as DX11 where NV designed good multi-threading drivers where AMD was handicapped by their driver which it seems they only really fixed with 15.7 at the development end of DX11 [and I'm not saying this is completely bad, more so this is rather late]) or will they use it as a means to promote their own strengths more?

Find out on the next ATF "Is Gameworks destroying my sex life" thread!

 

[iiiankiii]

GameWorks is poorly implemented. That's the real problem. If it wasn't so bad at what it wants to do, that negativity stigma might slowly fades. But, as of right now, more problems than its worth. Turned off indefinitely.

 

[sontin]

"Poorly"? The Witcher has less problems with Hairworks than Tomb Raider with TressFX. Or the broken AMD shadows in GTA5. :|

 

[showb1z]

Continuing to repeat this in every GW thread that pops up won't make it true.

 

[Creig]

"Poorly"? The Witcher has less problems with Hairworks than Tomb Raider with TressFX. Or the broken AMD shadows in GTA5. :|

No only was TressFX 9 times faster than HairWorks on AMD’s hardware but it was also faster than HairWorks running on Nvidia’s own hardware. In fact AMD states that the performance hit of TressFX is identical on both Nvidia and AMD hardware. All the while HairWorks clearly favors Nvidia’s hardware by a significant margin yet it is still slower.
AMD attributes this performance lead to the open nature of the source code, allowing both game developers and Nvidia to optimize it to their needs.

http://wccftech.com/tressfx-hair-20-detailed-improved-visuals-performance-multiplatform-support/

 

[Gikaseixas]

Pretty hard to ignore the GTX 980Ti's stellar performance. You just have to hope it doesn't Titan on you.

This is part of the concern going NV this round but i'm close to a decision 🙂

 

[tential]

This is part of the concern going NV this round but i'm close to a decision 🙂

Ya I don't game enough to take the risk so I'll wait til pascal. If maxwell performance doesn't drop off a cliff then nvidia will stay as a consideration.

Will also want to see how amds next hbm gen performs. If it's a dud too that would suck.

 

[VulgarDisplay]

"Poorly"? The Witcher has less problems with Hairworks than Tomb Raider with TressFX. Or the broken AMD shadows in GTA5. :|

How do you come to this conclusion?

TressFX worked poorly on Nvidia GPU's for like 1 week and then they released drivers to fix the issues.

Hairworks to this day has a massive performance hit on Nvidia and AMD gpu's.

Tress FX looked better too from what I remember. The hair was more wispy and realistic while Geralt has dreadlocks in Witcher 3.

 

[tviceman]

How do you come to this conclusion?

TressFX worked poorly on Nvidia GPU's for like 1 week and then they released drivers to fix the issues.

Hairworks to this day has a massive performance hit on Nvidia and AMD gpu's.

Tress FX looked better too from what I remember. The hair was more wispy and realistic while Geralt has dreadlocks in Witcher 3.

I can't compare to Witcher 3 fidelity, but TressFx in Tomb Raider looked pretty terrible IMO. Hair response was extremely erratic, hair strands were huge, each individual strand cast it's own shadow which looked liked spaghetti, and on top of that, there was constant clipping with Lara's neck and shoulders. I thought it looked like crap. Nvidia went way overboard with hairworks in Witcher 3 from what I've read. It didn't need 8x MSAA and it didn't need a tessellation factor of 64. Thankfully all of these options, hairworks and tressfx, can be disabled.

 

[railven]

I can't compare to Witcher 3 fidelity, but TressFx in Tomb Raider looked pretty terrible IMO. Hair response was extremely erratic, hair strands were huge, each individual strand cast it's own shadow which looked liked spaghetti, and on top of that, there was constant clipping with Lara's neck and shoulders. I thought it looked like crap. Nvidia went way overboard with hairworks in Witcher 3 from what I've read. It didn't need 8x MSAA and it didn't need a tessellation factor of 64. Thankfully all of these options, hairworks and tressfx, can be disabled.

The hair looked a little off until it got patched. Prior to the patch it would float a few inches above Laura's shoulders.


The topic of TressFX vs Hairworks, at least in Witcher 3 vs Tomb Raider to me is just not a good comparative. It would make more sense to compare Tomb Raider to CoD: Ghosts. In those situations only one object in each game got the treatment - Laura's hair and the dog's fur (forgot the stupid dog's name that I had to save a few time).

Witcher 3 applies hairworks to multiple objects. I haven't tested it myself, but I wonder if the game would tank if you were in an area with tons of animals.

Eitherway, I found both implementations acceptable. I need to revisit Witcher 3 with my 980 TI and with the new slider option.