Derfnofred
Gawd
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Yeah, I don't get the conflation between buggy/not-so-great coding (pervasive, especially in this rush-to-publish world) and GameWorks.
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Just Cause 3 to feature GameWorks!
- Thread starter cageymaru
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TaintedSquirrel
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Both TXAA and PCSS work fine in GTA 5 and yet those same settings destroy AC Syndicate's performance. I'm not sure it's safe to compare the two games but if people are drawing connections between a game's performance and its use of GameWorks, I'd say it's also fair if we compare the features between games directly.
It's also worth mentioning that TXAA absolutely wrecks my performance in both AC Black Flag & Far Cry 4, which are also both Ubisoft games. At this point I have no idea what will happen when I enable a GameWorks feature on a per game basis.
DejaWiz
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Glad to see that JC3 will utilize GW. Will surely add some nice eye candy and other effects that everyone can benefit from...bigger key is that Avalanche seems to actually give a shit about their games working properly right out of the box, so I have faith that both NVidia and AMD GPU users will be taken care of with conscientious coding and optimizing of and within the game engine.
cageymaru
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Yes, they do seem to support their games LONG after release. Hopefully it will be the nice implementation and not the crap show that some developers have released this year.
Super OT, but I ran those Tomb Raider benches. It certainly shows a substantial drop in the benchmark. Difference TressFX on vs Off.
-46 Min
-70 max
-57 avg.
That was single GPU, 1100/1350.
I loaded up a save game, and found that it really didn't matter, I could hold my monitors max 60hz anywhere in the game at those settings. But, in the context of the benchmark, Araxie was correct.
-46 Min
-70 max
-57 avg.
That was single GPU, 1100/1350.
I loaded up a save game, and found that it really didn't matter, I could hold my monitors max 60hz anywhere in the game at those settings. But, in the context of the benchmark, Araxie was correct.
If this was the case I doubt we would see so many posts from you or anyone else for that matter.
Having said that I also disagree with the comment that without GW we would be experiencing horrible looking games as if GW really is required for any of the effects we experience with it. The way some people tell it we wouldn't have Doom, Crysis, Tomb Raider, Star Wars or any other game looking the way it does without Gameworks. While I'm no psychiatrist I'm pretty sure I can detect bullshit when I see it and making statements like that is exactly what it is. Hell name an effect that can't be done without it.
In fact my main problem is that GW seems to prevent the game from just working as it should more often than not. I would have bought Batman LOOOOONG ago had it not had problems at launch...and I'm an Nvidia card owner.
My main problem is that without competition GW will screw us (nvidia card owners) all. If you think that Nvidia wouldn't put up a wall between new and old video cards when it doesn't have competition then we all need to have a lesson on capitalism and stratification of service and what that means to consumers.
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AllBlackFan
Weaksauce
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Is this some sort performance art to you? PC games would be set back 5 years sans Gameworks? Fucken laughable, not even worth discussing. Also the phrase "AMD has poor support for Gameworks" shows your either ignorant or being intentionaly obtuse. Your deep emotional attachment to Nvidia has impared your ability to think clearly.
Factum
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It's actually a piss poor analogy if you know anything about the code.
GameWorks isnt made up of "ragu-code", quite the oppsite.
Some of the code is pretty damn lean!
Some of the code is actually way better than the code coming out of several AAA studios.
Again, this is the problem on tech-forums right now.
Someone makes a "analogy"...that sound "cool"...but is actually nothing but ignorance magnified.
It then get's parroted across several techforums...and suddenly you have a FUD claim, that you need to debunk in order to have a relevant and intelligent debate.
The "ragu" claim is one of such analogies.
Looks appealing to the masses...looks sadly ignorant to a coder.
(I fully intended the pun here).
If you are a delveoper, how will you allocate your resources?
A) We will do everything our selfes...and end up having to cut features (this happens in ALL games, feaures gets axed)
B) We will use this free GameWorks code...and allocate resources to some of the things we would have to cut out otherwise.
Not only do you free up resoruces...you also save time, not having to invent the wheel all over again.
"Ragu"-code for me is code aka LEGO-hair.
JustReason
razor1 is my Lover
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You make some good points however you missed the bigger picture with which the analogy works well. When a studio/developer has to make its own code, generally we are talking engines here, they are far more likely to code to the mass population and refine the code to a science if you will. It will be tailored to a specific set of outcomes, say like FPS or MMO or whatnot. Hence a chef. Now GW is like Ragu in the fact that it isn't tailored to any particular game or engine, although it is an engine in and of itself, but rather code applied to said game. Because of this it is more of a jack-of-all-trades, or as in the analogy Ragu. Doesn't mean it is bad or some shoddy coding but rather it wasn't tailor made to the specific game.
And as far as the coding is concerned, what doesn't help much is that it is without a doubt tailored almost specifically to its own architecture, Maxwell. This is an expected outcome as it wouldn't make a great deal of sense for them to code to a competitor at its own fault. Hence why it isn't necessarily the BEST engine. Doesn't matter that in a case or single scenario it runs superb with the most efficient code possible. Because it lacks alternatives it will never be the best solution or Chef made.
Besides it looks like these freed up resources are somewhat non-existent as it seems most all implementations are rather late in the process. FO4 didn't announce GW till about 1-2 months before release. Seems none of these games announce GW till near release. Games would probably run better at the outset had GW been added earlier or the intention made earlier. Of course we cant be certain when the decision was made. Or does someone know exactly when these games decided on GW? I haven't seen anything concrete.
cageymaru
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I don't think it's worthy of the Ragu analogy. GameWorks is more akin to the pink slime that they feed retirees through their naval when they are no longer able to eat on their own. There has always been broken games, but before the companies knew exactly what to do to fix it because they developed their own engines and libraries. Nowadays shit is broken and they walk away while throwing their hands up in disgust like Batman Arkham Knight.
Well as long as they clearly mark the packaging with the Nvidia GameWorks logo I know what to leave on the shelf until a later date. It's like trying to eat Hákarl fresh; you need to let it ferment for some months before you can consume it. That's the one good constant that has come out of the program; it's like having FDA labels for PC Gamers. My Steam wishlist is better than the bargain bin at Kay Bee Toy Stores when I was a kid. That's where all the GameWorks titles sit until they the magical $20 mark. Still debating Dying Light for $20. Might let it get a bit cheaper to minimize my headache to price ratio.
Well as long as they clearly mark the packaging with the Nvidia GameWorks logo I know what to leave on the shelf until a later date. It's like trying to eat Hákarl fresh; you need to let it ferment for some months before you can consume it. That's the one good constant that has come out of the program; it's like having FDA labels for PC Gamers. My Steam wishlist is better than the bargain bin at Kay Bee Toy Stores when I was a kid. That's where all the GameWorks titles sit until they the magical $20 mark. Still debating Dying Light for $20. Might let it get a bit cheaper to minimize my headache to price ratio.
TaintedSquirrel
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Remember when shitty ports were caused by devs/publishers not prioritizing the PC platform?
Now shitty ports are Nvidia's fault. As if these games would magically become perfectly optimized if GameWorks didn't exist.
And no, just because AMD associates themselves with quality developers doesn't mean there's any correlation between the two. If AMD had the resources to put the Gaming Evolved logo on every AAA game on the market, they would do it... Regardless of port quality.
The kinds of developers who make poorly optimized games are also the kinds of developers GameWorks appeals to. It's a dirty job, but somebody has to do it. Actually nobody has to do it, it just means the GameWorks features themselves wouldn't be in the game.
GTA V is a good example of GameWorks done right, and I'm sure there are others. You just never really hear about them because it goes against the popular narrative. Clearly there is some developer involvement with GameWorks' implementation, Rockstar proved it can be done. The real question is whether or not more developers will put the time and effort into their game as Rockstar did.
If Nvidia is using GameWorks as a trojan horse to sabotage AMD's performance, well that's a totally different problem entirely...
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I say just wait to see if a Gameworks enhanced title will work well with AMD before getting. The closed nature of Gameworks to me should be a turn off for any serious developer in the long run. If you see the source code or use it then now you work for Nvidia if you change it, also you are now stopped from generating your own code which maybe similar. I just think it is the wrong way to go for the industry. It is up to the developers if this is acceptable or not.
I also believe AMD has access to the source code anyways, Nvidia I think would be foolish to believe their code is uberly hidden. TressFx 3 puts HairWorks to shame in quality for at least human hair, Hairworks looks kinda nice on animals if you have multiple Titan X's in your rig, not real useful to the majority of gamers.
I also believe AMD has access to the source code anyways, Nvidia I think would be foolish to believe their code is uberly hidden. TressFx 3 puts HairWorks to shame in quality for at least human hair, Hairworks looks kinda nice on animals if you have multiple Titan X's in your rig, not real useful to the majority of gamers.
The closed nature of GW hasn't been a problem, if you bothered looking into it. Performance cost of GW for both sides' GPUs have been the same since the beginning.
^^^This^^^ And the review industry isn't immune either.
KickAssCop
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Preloaded and ready to go!
JustReason
razor1 is my Lover
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The closed nature of GW hasn't been a problem, if you bothered looking into it. Performance cost of GW for both sides' GPUs have been the same since the beginning.
Then you missed the facts at hand. It is a black box: Fact. The outcome of being difficult for both has no impact at all on that fact. Now AMD has done an admiral job of tweaking their drivers for it but being a black box made that driver improvement quick taxing and timely.
Factum
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If people still parrot the "black box" argument, it's time to dig up old threads:
http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1865193
http://hardforum.com/showpost.php?p=1041665842&postcount=246
http://hardforum.com/showpost.php?p=1041667111&postcount=251
http://hardforum.com/showpost.php?p=1041667479&postcount=254
http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1865193
http://hardforum.com/showpost.php?p=1041665842&postcount=246
http://hardforum.com/showpost.php?p=1041667111&postcount=251
http://hardforum.com/showpost.php?p=1041667479&postcount=254
It's not a black box. Developers are able to get their hand on the source code, under NDA. How's that a black box?
It's not a black box. Developers are able to get their hand on the source code, under NDA. How's that a black box?
It's presented as a black box by default, being able to get hands on the source code if you this and that does not change the fact.
Its like saying Just Cause 3 is free because it can be gotten by other means, putting aside that its not legal to do so, even if it was not illegal to do so, by default it is still a pay for game.
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Do you know how much it costs to license the libraries? Just a hint its much cheaper to license all the gameworks libraries than to purchase a top end graphics license, a factor of at least 10. They aren't that expensive, yeah for smaller indi developers it is but not to the main stream game developers. nV has priced them out so that the cost of developing ones own fx and physics would end being considerable more than licensing the source for the libs. I can't go into much more than that, but you should be able to figure out the rough cost based on that.
Factum
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Nane me ONE game where developers shipped the sourcecode to NVIDIA/AMD and not just binaries...if you cannot, your black box argument is dead on the spot, sorry to say.
WTF Who said anything about developers shipping the game sourcecode to NVIDIA/AMD, the game is not the middle ware.
And other user on the ignore list for twisting and diverting.
Ashes of the singularity,
Brad Wardell specifically said both amd and nvidia had the source code.
"Our code has been reviewed by Nvidia, Microsoft, AMD and Intel. It has passed the very thorough D3D12 validation system provided by Microsoft specifically designed to validate against incorrect usages. All IHVs have had access to our source code for over year,"
i doubt they are the atypical example.
However, as Final8ty pointed out, they are completely unrelated.
Brad Wardell specifically said both amd and nvidia had the source code.
"Our code has been reviewed by Nvidia, Microsoft, AMD and Intel. It has passed the very thorough D3D12 validation system provided by Microsoft specifically designed to validate against incorrect usages. All IHVs have had access to our source code for over year,"
i doubt they are the atypical example.
However, as Final8ty pointed out, they are completely unrelated.
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game dev's specially larger game dev's don't share their code with nV or AMD, they may give them code snippets, psuedo code or a binary which amd and nV can profile to get their information to make optimizations via drivers or tell the dev what would be best for the dev to do or proceed. Again you are trying to general and simplfy something in your mind without understanding the business of making a program which isn't the way things are done.
And smaller companies if they have licensed an engine and that engine company isn't a licensed partner with either of the IHV's those companies aren't allowed to share engine code with those IHV's.
I can go into more about this in depth but you don't want to hear it...... blind as a bat, and deaf is good for some people now only if he could keep his mouth shut, it would be perfect.
It is an atypical example, just because one company a small independent company that is going to license their engine is doing something like this, isn't what everyone else does. And it all comes down to resources. Oxide as a developer needs help (not really needs but comes in very handy for them and it cuts down cost/time for them) from IHV's and Microsoft to make their engine a viable sales tools, and this is where all those dev programs come in. But as a partner these companies still look for their best interest and timing is important.
At the time when Dx12 benchmark was sent out, was it important for nV to look at and optimize code for their card? How many months was the game released? Was the initial benchmark Dx12 that important?
Project management has a constraints star as below
now if we break this down about, each one of the points are in relationship with each other by derivatives in calculus.
Each part of this would have been looked into, or eyeballed at least before any of the companies would have helped. For AMD they needed a win any win and yes it was important to them. For nV not so much they knew they had time and they could wait.
After looking at all this you still have to look at value for the market.
Because of the outside consideration or constraints from other companies, the dynamics of the project management constraint star change a bit. Now the dev company has to value the other companies constraints based on their own constraints, if they don't align the dev company has to do whats in its best interest and of course that is to make money by viable sales for their engine.
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cageymaru
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Just bought Dying Light for $13 after playing the free demo on Steam to see how it ran. Since it ran fine in the sections of the game that the demo allowed me into, I figured that $13 was a good enough deal. I have a huge backlog of games anyways, so waiting for GameWorks games to be patched isn't a problem.
Now Star Wars Battlefront was running beautifully during the open beta. It was a day one purchase.
Good lord and there was i thinking that my games list was large.
Erm, set and forget is exactly the purpose of a middleware. Middlewares are supposed to be plug and play solutions, and by and large the companies who provide them do their best to allow the developers who use their middleware to not have to meddle with code while still getting what they want at a reasonable cost. Developers who need to deep dive into the code can still get it, it's not like it's impossible or illegal, so your analogy doesn't work.
Let's say you like to play games. So you go out and get a console. Done and done, plug and play, you get all your favorite games, and play them. You don't need to know or care about how the console works further than hooking it up, and put in the CD, maybe hook up internet so it can download patches. That's GameWorks. Simple and low cost.
If you need more customisation/power/flexibility than what the console can offer you, then you go out and buy your own PC. That's getting source code. You control everything, at the cost of higher complexity and more time consumed.
What I don't understand is that you're saying that it's bad for developers to not be able to see the source code. Can someone elaborate on why it's bad? Because in software development that's rather common.
There are many reasons why it can be bad if a developer doesn't have the code, specifically depending on what the developer is doing, if they are trying to sell a license for a product for other companies like an engine using 3rd party software without code can cause licensing issues. If they are creating a product for end users, if bugs are not noticed in that middleware which are noticed on different systems than what they have QCed for, they can't access it to fix it, and time to resolution is longer.
Optimization can't be done by them either again resolution is longer or not possible. And this is the crux of the issue of GW that AMD loves to point out which is valid but not the end all. AMD can do shader replacement, drop tessellation levels and what not in drivers before final compilation of driver code into machine language, and it takes them time to analyze the mid level language to do this. Most of the time its doable but sometimes its takes a lot of time. Its dependent on how embedded the code is, if its a just things like shaders that are being using outside of the rendering engine they are easy to do, but some of gameworks libs have to be fairly tight with the renderer these can't be done through drivers, and if they can it will take quite a bit of time.
The illegal or legal is totally irrelevant to the point the only reason why i even put that in there is so someone didn't come and say oh but that's illegal when that's not the point hence the term putting aside that its not legal to do so but you still didn't pick up on that and thought the point was about which is legal which it is not.
Its about the term and definition not the legalities and just because something can be gotten another why does not change the definition of what it is.
Just because i can get hold of opensource code and alter it and through other means and agreements get hold of closedsource code and alter it it does not mean that the closedsoruce code can now be defined as opensource because i could get hold of both and alter both so essentially they are now the same by definition when they are not.
I did not say anything about good or bad the fact is its a black box by default and if others are doing it still does not change the fact.
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Huh? As someone who used to participate in game software development we didn't give them "pseudo code" whatever the hell that is. Depending on when, or where the problem existed that would likely determine how much they saw, but more often than not we provided as much as we could at the time. During QA problems often manifested themselves in random areas especially if the engine was developed in house. That dictated more often that not what was presented.
The security attached to games under development is pretty extensive and where it doesn't help NDAs and legal provide the rest.
I would provide pseudo code if I was making a new type of bump mapping or effect along with programming steps to get more information on if the programming outline of steps are good for how the cache structure for a certain GPU. They don't need the code to tell you those things. And nV nore AMD talk about these things for their GPU.
not sure you are saying you don't know what pseudo code is, if not its the just the math broken down into steps.
Reality
[H]ard|Gawd
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i can confirm tfx does drop framerates by quite a bit. getting similar results on my system
Instructional code of what you are loading or even how is rarely enough. Then again it largely depends on the engine. I've never been asked for just that and not the object, maps, or scene. All sorts of issues can rarely be determined through instructional code alone.