Why I'm excited about Zen/GCN + DX12

[Headfoot]

I can see Intel or AMD putting dollars on the table for devs to make use of their iGPUs since they have a profit motive to get games to use em

 

[Azix]

Sometimes I think developers aren't really owning their share of the burden. Why should intel and AMD pay them to make their games more compelling?

What the IHVs should be helping with are tools to make the it easier to take advantage of hardware features. I am now thinking openworks would be a huge help to us for gaming for this reason. Software is lagging down to the API level - At least that's being fixed

 

[BHZ-GTR]

Sorry friends

You mean what most of mGPU ?

 

[railven]

Sometimes I think developers aren't really owning their share of the burden. Why should intel and AMD pay them to make their games more compelling?

What the IHVs should be helping with are tools to make the it easier to take advantage of hardware features. I am now thinking openworks would be a huge help to us for gaming for this reason. Software is lagging down to the API level - At least that's being fixed

Probably because most publishers don't see incentives in the PC field. In consoles they get spoon fed by Sony/MSFT for partnerships and limited time exclusives (ie BIG BUCKS).

You can already see the back lash on PC from Gameworks, now imagine if Nvidia promoted itself with devs by basically locking out AMD users for a timed exclusive. Sure, the game would get better support (at least it's always that BS excuse "we couldn't have done it without X-Companies support" - case in point recent Witcher 3 "we couldn't have made this game without consoles" Bull Sh**!").

Where on the console side the incentives are promoting their locked systems, the PC side their incentives are just special effects. Because the lawsuits would fly if Nvidia or AMD or Intel (or anyone) pushed a product the same way they are pushed on consoles (timed exclusives, full exclusives, timed exclusive content, full exclusive content).

So, I don't see publishers putting up the money to keep a dev team on a project UNLESS the project is a flaming mess (Batman, how you doing?). They'll polish off some bugs, and move on.

EDIT: Look at current mGPU. Publishers don't care if mGPU works or not on AMD or Nvidia because they wouldn't see a cut of the profits if Nvidia or AMD sold another card. So that falls down to Nvidia or AMD to get working on their hardware. Some devs care, and build these functions into their engines, publishers don't give a flying squirrel unless it affects their bottom line. We've gotten so many bugged games that publishers shuttered studios instead of taking the time to fix them. And this goes to even top tier devs like Rockstar (have you played the Bully port for 360 at launch - woof!)

 

[Red Hawk]

The fact that this relies heavily on developer implementation takes the wind out of the sails for me. I doubt most developers will care enough to implement it well or at all.

I'm not sure just how heavily developer implementation matters. According to AMD in the recent presentation on Direct3D 12, mGPU in DirectX 12 is an engine-side issure. The guy says that as long as the engine supports it, it should just work. So as long as mGPU support is baked into Unreal 4, Frostbite, Unity, etc., any games that use those engines should support mGPU. I think it's more likely for big middleware providers to support mGPU than it would have been for each individual developer to have to support mGPU.

Probably because most publishers don't see incentives in the PC field. In consoles they get spoon fed by Sony/MSFT for partnerships and limited time exclusives (ie BIG BUCKS).

You can already see the back lash on PC from Gameworks, now imagine if Nvidia promoted itself with devs by basically locking out AMD users for a timed exclusive. Sure, the game would get better support (at least it's always that BS excuse "we couldn't have done it without X-Companies support" - case in point recent Witcher 3 "we couldn't have made this game without consoles" Bull Sh**!").

Where on the console side the incentives are promoting their locked systems, the PC side their incentives are just special effects. Because the lawsuits would fly if Nvidia or AMD or Intel (or anyone) pushed a product the same way they are pushed on consoles (timed exclusives, full exclusives, timed exclusive content, full exclusive content).

So, I don't see publishers putting up the money to keep a dev team on a project UNLESS the project is a flaming mess (Batman, how you doing?). They'll polish off some bugs, and move on.

EDIT: Look at current mGPU. Publishers don't care if mGPU works or not on AMD or Nvidia because they wouldn't see a cut of the profits if Nvidia or AMD sold another card. So that falls down to Nvidia or AMD to get working on their hardware. Some devs care, and build these functions into their engines, publishers don't give a flying squirrel unless it affects their bottom line. We've gotten so many bugged games that publishers shuttered studios instead of taking the time to fix them. And this goes to even top tier devs like Rockstar (have you played the Bully port for 360 at launch - woof!)

I think your point about console makers supporting developers is an interesting one. It makes sense that console makers do their best to support third party developers in getting games to run well and look good on their consoles. Nvidia and AMD developer programs can be seen as the same sort of thing, in principle.

 

[TheELF]

I'm not sure just how heavily developer implementation matters. According to AMD in the recent presentation on Direct3D 12, mGPU in DirectX 12 is an engine-side issure. The guy says that as long as the engine supports it, it should just work.

Yeah,the "If it runs correctly" that he adds at the end is where all the money is at...

 

[moonbogg]

I think people are wishing for way too much with DX12 and all this magical multi GPU support.

 

[tential]

I can see Intel or AMD putting dollars on the table for devs to make use of their iGPUs since they have a profit motive to get games to use em

Sorry I don't mean to laugh so hard at this comment but you expect amd to invest in getting devs to support this?
Amd has a billion things to work on software wise before even worrying about their igpus working with dgpus lol.

Don't be surprised if your green friend though gets mgpu working and locks amd out/makes sure it works for their partnership games at launch for only their gpus.

But it's lol worthy to expect and to get their igpus working with dgpus when they have so many other software issues and amd doesn't play this game the way other companies do.

 

[TheELF]

But it's lol worthy to expect and to get their igpus working with dgpus when they have so many other software issues and amd doesn't play this game the way other companies do.

It's a dx12 feature no company will need to do anything apart from releasing drivers so the os knows they are there, which they already do.

Game coders will have to partition the gpu load into packets that the different gpu tiers can handle,for them to do this the game engine will have to provide an easy way for this.

Since all the games are designed on and for the ps4 there is little incentive for the companies to throw money at it.

 

[Azix]

Sorry I don't mean to laugh so hard at this comment but you expect amd to invest in getting devs to support this?
Amd has a billion things to work on software wise before even worrying about their igpus working with dgpus lol.

Don't be surprised if your green friend though gets mgpu working and locks amd out/makes sure it works for their partnership games at launch for only their gpus.

But it's lol worthy to expect and to get their igpus working with dgpus when they have so many other software issues and amd doesn't play this game the way other companies do.

What software issues?

Also, huh? dGPU and dGPU will work for both, this is about iGPUs and dGPUs. Nvidia cannot lock AMD out of multi-dGPU unless the developer is going to break something. The green goblin also doesn't have iGPUs. They are in a worse position since their competition is the one with iGPUs and if they don't get their dGPUs working with intel and AMD, their performance would actually look worse on those systems. AMD should lock out geforce GPUs . driver detects nvidia card... noworks.

 

[TheELF]

AMD should lock out geforce GPUs . driver detects nvidia card... noworks.

That would hurt AMD so much more then nvidia.

 

[Silverforce11]

I'm not sure just how heavily developer implementation matters. According to AMD in the recent presentation on Direct3D 12, mGPU in DirectX 12 is an engine-side issure. The guy says that as long as the engine supports it, it should just work. So as long as mGPU support is baked into Unreal 4, Frostbite, Unity, etc., any games that use those engines should support mGPU. I think it's more likely for big middleware providers to support mGPU than it would have been for each individual developer to have to support mGPU.

This is true for a lot of dev studios that uses these engines, but some studios have their own engines, which is usually lagging behind current standards.

I fully expect the likes of DICE, Crytek, Squaresoft to push these advanced tech in their engines but other developers? Not so sure..

 

[Azix]

That would hurt AMD so much more then nvidia.

How?

 

[railven]

How?

If I had to guess, with the current crux on AMD APU's, adding another "warning" label to them is not a good marketing idea. IE "warning, if you buy an AMD APU it won't work with Nvidia GPUs in mGPU mode."

With GeForce having a much bigger dGPU market share, you're basically driving the buyers into Intel's arms if Intel simply goes "don't worry we work with any dGPU."

Reminds me of the huge fanfare Sony got just by saying "don't worry, you can let anyone borrow your games" during E3.

 

[Azix]

If it happens that better performance is to be had with an AMD iGPU and AMD dGPU, then it would be to their benefit in both GPU and CPU/APU. but ok it would be to intels benefit. Nvidia really would have no power in the situation.

 

[ShintaiDK]

Azix, you forget AMDs marketshare, or lack of same in your lockout dreams.

 

[Glo.]

Benefit for customers does not have anything in relation to market share.

In all fairness. If AMD Zen APU plus dGPU from AMD will end up better option than combination of Intel CPU with nVidia GPU - they will not need to lock up any option. Why? Because regardless of everything, people will choose AMD setup.

The question is. Will that be reality.

 

[ShintaiDK]

Benefit for customers does not have anything in relation to market share.

In all fairness. If AMD Zen APU plus dGPU from AMD will end up better option than combination of Intel CPU with nVidia GPU - they will not need to lock up any option. Why? Because regardless of everything, people will choose AMD setup.

The question is. Will that be reality.

Next to the VIA comeback?

What has history shown you so far. Plus AMDs CFO statements.

 

[NTMBK]

Regardless of AMD marketshare, Zen, or whatever, consider this- the majority of new gaming PCs have a highly capable integrated graphics processor which is sitting unused. Intel's IGP is perfectly capable of handling plenty of tasks. Given that Haswell and up all support DX12, that's a pretty big install base to target.

 

[AtenRa]

Regardless of AMD marketshare, Zen, or whatever, consider this- the majority of new gaming PCs have a highly capable integrated graphics processor which is sitting unused. Intel's IGP is perfectly capable of handling plenty of tasks. Given that Haswell and up all support DX12, that's a pretty big install base to target.

The compute capabilities of Haswell iGPU are not that much better than what you can do with extra 4 x86 cores.
You are a programmer, would you invest in more CPU scaling/performance (100% of the Gaming PC market has x86 CPUs) or would you be willing to venture with 3 different GPU architectures AMD/Intel/NVIDIA ??

 

[frozentundra123456]

Here's hoping Intel makes a very powerful iGPU in their next-gen to utilize ASYMMETRIC MULTI-GPU support in DX12.

I'm very annoyed at the current Intel CPU situation, in which they sell a tiny die at such a ripoff pricing, which HALF (iGPU) of that die is doing nothing in my gaming PC with a dGPU.

If a big Zen APU + dGPU combo gives great performance in DX12 games, it would spur Intel to give us more for our money.

The first Zen CPUs won't even have an igpu. It will be at least 2017 before a Zen apu , and I don't think they officially have said when they will get hbm.

As far as Intel, being able to sell a small die that crushes AMD in CPU performance and is getting ever closer in igpu performance is a result of the billions of dollars they have devoted to r and d and their fabs. I think prices are quite reasonable for the performance you get.

Edit: apparently they market does too, considering they have about what 85 or 90 percent of it.

 

[TheELF]

The compute capabilities of Haswell iGPU are not that much better than what you can do with extra 4 x86 cores.
You are a programmer, would you invest in more CPU scaling/performance (100% of the Gaming PC market has x86 CPUs) or would you be willing to venture with 3 different GPU architectures AMD/Intel/NVIDIA ??

Only a very small percentage of gaming PCs have 4 extra x86 cores...while a very large percentage has an igpu/second vga.

 

[NTMBK]

The compute capabilities of Haswell iGPU are not that much better than what you can do with extra 4 x86 cores.
You are a programmer, would you invest in more CPU scaling/performance (100% of the Gaming PC market has x86 CPUs) or would you be willing to venture with 3 different GPU architectures AMD/Intel/NVIDIA ??

I repeat- the majority of new gaming PCs have an idle IGP, and 4 highly stressed CPU cores. I would try to improve the situation for the majority of my user base.

 

[Spjut]

Only a very small percentage of gaming PCs have 4 extra x86 cores...while a very large percentage has an igpu/second vga.

Most systems probably don't have DX12 IGPs though

 

[ShintaiDK]

Most systems probably don't have DX12 IGPs though

Some 600 million systems the last 2 years got it via Haswell/Broadwell/Kaveri.