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A "Perspective" on Nvidia's GameWorks

So kinda what we already knew: a whole bunch of fuss over nothing. AMD really sounds desperate. They know they're on the ropes.

Why don't they just polish up their resumes and try to get in at nvidia? They're hiring, after all.
 
jwcalla said:
So kinda what we already knew: a whole bunch of fuss over nothing. AMD really sounds desperate. They know they're on the ropes.

Why don't they just polish up their resumes and try to get in at nvidia? They're hiring, after all.
Click to expand...

Really? I mean fucking really? Limiting a competitors access to code, which fucks over gamers as a whole, is a "whole bunch of fuss over nothing"???

I am starting to think most of Nvidias budget goes to paying people to fall on their knees and open wide for them.
 
jwcalla said:
So kinda what we already knew: a whole bunch of fuss over nothing. AMD really sounds desperate. They know they're on the ropes.

Why don't they just polish up their resumes and try to get in at nvidia? They're hiring, after all.
Click to expand...

Did you read the write up?

"The obvious concern is that by integrating GameWorks with this “black box” development style, NVIDIA could take the opportunity to artificially deflate performance of AMD graphics cards in favor of GeForce options. That would be bad for AMD, bad for AMD users and bad for the community as a whole; I think we can all agree on that. AMD points to Watch_Dogs, and previous GameWorks titles Batman: Arkham Origins, Call of Duty: Ghosts and Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag as evidence. More interestingly though, AMD was able to cite a specific comparison between its own TressFX hair library and HairWorks, part of the library set of GameWorks. When using TressFX both AMD and NVIDIA hardware perform nearly identically, even though the code was built and developed by AMD. Using HairWorks though, according to numbers that AMD provided, AMD hardware performs 6-7x slower than comparable NVIDIA hardware. AMD says that because TressFX was publicly posted and could be optimized by developers and by NVIDIA, its solution provides a better result for the gaming community as a whole. Keep in mind this testing was done not in a real-world game but in internal testing."
 
Seems to me that the simple solution is for developers not to use Gameworks. I don't understand the hate towards Nvidia for this. What do you people want? They're a BUSINESS that sells a solution for game developers to quickly develop games and push them out. Not only that, but they're trying to sell graphics cards in the process. I hate to say it, but of course they won't push something out that paints their cards in a bad light. It's just bad business. Clearly, the Watch Dogs developers took the easy route on this one and used a proprietary "black box" from Nvidia. If anyone deserves to be put in the hotseat - it's Ubisoft - for knowingly going with a development platform that has a questionable history of gimping AMD cards.

As a side note, should we be mad at AMD for making an entire API that only works on GCN (for the moment, at least)? Are they evil because none of the Nvidia gamers (or VLIW AMD cards, for that matter) can run with less CPU overhead? Give me a break. [H] has already proven this shit is all FUD with Watch Dogs anyways.

Personally, I think that people should just STFU and play their games on whatever card works best for them - regardless if it's AMD, Intel, Nvidia, Matrox, 3DFX or otherwise. In the end, aren't we all just enthusiasts?
 
jbltecnicspro said:
Personally, I think that people should just STFU and play their games on whatever card works best for them - regardless if it's AMD, Intel, Nvidia, Matrox, 3DFX or otherwise. In the end, aren't we all just enthusiasts?
Click to expand...

But I think the big picture point is you don't want a vendor locking out the other vendor. I love hardware, but I don't think my wife will let me have 2 systems to play games. Hopefully it never comes to that. And that goes both ways.
 
trick0502 said:
Did you read the write up?
Click to expand...

Yeah, did you?

"In the case of Watch_Dogs, only HBAO+ was integrated from GameWorks and runs on both AMD and NVIDIA hardware and as we have mentioned before, the performance difference between the two GPU vendors in that feature is close to zero. Thus, we can state that the performance differences between AMD and NVIDIA hardware on Watch_Dogs today is not due to the implementation of GameWorks technology."


So a whooooooole lot of fuss over nothing.

It's like you skipped over the whole second page, which pretty much tears down the myth AMD was spreading.

Just waiting on the Forbes guy to offer his follow-up now.
 
darkstarcow said:
Really? I mean fucking really? Limiting a competitors access to code, which fucks over gamers as a whole, is a "whole bunch of fuss over nothing"???

I am starting to think most of Nvidias budget goes to paying people to fall on their knees and open wide for them.
Click to expand...

Nvidia didn't deny anything, amd just didn't bother with developer relations or licensing. What are you on about again? Amd is at fault here and keeps falling down, no wonder nvidia has twice the marketshare now. I wish amd made better products with their time instead of spending it whining with pr fud.
 
I will say the same thing I said in the other thread:
I'd like, for once, to just play a game that performs and is optimized for my computer regardless what the underlying hardware I have.

That's how it should be.
 
octoberasian said:
I will say the same thing I said in the other thread:
I'd like, for once, to just play a game that performs and is optimized for my computer regardless what the underlying hardware I have.

That's how it should be.
Click to expand...

Can't optimize a modern 3d engine for a 286! :p

Seriously though it is all economics and gameworks runs well for hbao on all solutions as pcper says. There is no one at fault here but amd for how their cards do and don't perform.
 
octoberasian said:
I will say the same thing I said in the other thread:
I'd like, for once, to just play a game that performs and is optimized for my computer regardless what the underlying hardware I have.

That's how it should be.
Click to expand...

I think it's just getting to the point where I see the word Nvidia on the box art and I'll just skip the game.
 
GoldenTiger said:
Can't optimize a modern 3d engine for a 286! :p

Seriously though it is all economics and gameworks runs well for hbao on all solutions as pcper says. There is no one at fault here but amd for how their cards do and don't perform.
Click to expand...
Well, I agree.

What I mean is that if I have a mid-range card, the game runs at its best and performs its best regardless if that mid-range card is from AMD or Nvidia.

If I have a high-end card and I max the settings and play at 1440p or so, the game runs at its best and performs its best no matter if it's a 780 Ti or a 290X.

It's unfortunate that wishful thinking doesn't apply to reality. Games perform differently depending on the video card installed and what processor I have. If I have a 270X, it'll perform differently from a 760. If I have a 290X, it'll perform differently from a 780 Ti, and so on.
cageymaru said:
I think it's just getting to the point where I see the word Nvidia on the box art and I'll just skip the game.
Click to expand...
At one point I was like that, but games I can't avoid playing because I enjoy the franchise or something similar, I end up buying it regardless. Having been more of an AMD card user longer than Nvidia, I just hope I don't run into performance issues running a game with the "The Way It's Meant to be Played" moniker splotched across the game art.

That's why I said above: I'd prefer the game to run and perform its best regardless what brand of video card I have in my computer.
 
The fanvoyism is strong in this thread, have people been drinking the PRIME1 coolaid? Closed source is bad all around for gaming, AMD's tressfx is open for anyone to look at, and mantle is an open API. I don't get how anyone can think closed source is good. For you nvidia dedicated people, coming from someone who couldn't care less about either brand, you really need to evaluate what's good for you in the end. Consumers need AMD and nvidia both, or else the company that would "win" would charge outlandish amounts for their cards (the first company with new gen cards out ALWAYS does).

Open things are good, no matter who makes your graphics you can benefit from optimizations for anything open.
 
Mantle is an open API? Where can I find it then?

GameWorks source is available... if you're willing to pay the license fee.

I agree that competition is good for the consumer, but we don't have that because AMD has been phoning it in for years now. Not because nvidia is a big meaniehead.

But hey, they got the consoles at least. Where's that guy who used to post here that would remind us every day that nvidia was officially done for now that AMD had the consoles? I mean, there was absolutely no way nvidia could even compete anymore because of AMD's console monopoly, and nvidia should just fold the company now to avoid any further embarrassment. Where's that guy again?
 
Pylor said:
The fanvoyism is strong in this thread, have people been drinking the PRIME1 coolaid? Closed source is bad all around for gaming, AMD's tressfx is open for anyone to look at, and mantle is an open API. I don't get how anyone can think closed source is good. For you nvidia dedicated people, coming from someone who couldn't care less about either brand, you really need to evaluate what's good for you in the end. Consumers need AMD and nvidia both, or else the company that would "win" would charge outlandish amounts for their cards (the first company with new gen cards out ALWAYS does).

Open things are good, no matter who makes your graphics you can benefit from optimizations for anything open.
Click to expand...

Indeed.
 
If TressFX was an Nvidia technology, it would have been locked to GeForce cards. (See: Witcher 3 "PhysX Fur")
Enough said.
 
Pylor said:
and mantle is an open API.
Click to expand...

Since when?

AMD has only allowed Mantle on GCN hardware and has never made an official statement that Mantle has been released to any other GPU developer. Because game devs said theoretically it could work on NV / Intel and AMD announced they may open it up doesn't make it open.

Claiming Mantle is open would be like claiming PhysX is open. Until other GPU devs get access, which by all accounts will not happen, then its not open. Quit believing press fluff by PR guys.

Both companies create proprietary tech to give themselves the advantage. Its business 101. Does it suck for the consumers? Occasionally it does. THAT'S LIFE!
 
Ahh, all this actually made me actually read a pcper article. For even pcper to say something neutral instead of promoting green it has to be pretty bad.

TaintedSquirrel said:
If TressFX was an Nvidia technology, it would have been locked to GeForce cards. (See: Witcher 3 "PhysX Fur")
Enough said.
Click to expand...

Actually here :

More interestingly though, AMD was able to cite a specific comparison between its own TressFX hair library and HairWorks, part of the library set of GameWorks. When using TressFX both AMD and NVIDIA hardware perform nearly identically, even though the code was built and developed by AMD. Using HairWorks though, according to numbers that AMD provided, AMD hardware performs 6-7x slower than comparable NVIDIA hardware. AMD says that because TressFX was publicly posted and could be optimized by developers and by NVIDIA, its solution provides a better result for the gaming community as a whole. Keep in mind this testing was done not in a real-world game but in internal testing.
Click to expand...

I'd like to see open testing of this, oh but wait, a programmer probably couldn't because of NDAs and such...
 
Cr4ckm0nk3y said:
Since when?

AMD has only allowed Mantle on GCN hardware and has never made an official statement that Mantle has been released to any other GPU developer. Because game devs said theoretically it could work on NV / Intel and AMD announced they may open it up doesn't make it open.

Claiming Mantle is open would be like claiming PhysX is open. Until other GPU devs get access, which by all accounts will not happen, then its not open. Quit believing press fluff by PR guys.

Both companies create proprietary tech to give themselves the advantage. Its business 101. Does it suck for the consumers? Occasionally it does. THAT'S LIFE!
Click to expand...

http://support.amd.com/en-us/search/faq/184

They're releasing a public SDK and are planning on publishing specifications later in 2014. They want it to become mainstream and it will never become mainstream if other manufacturers don't pick it up, and I can't imagine nvidia ever picking up something they can't see every detail of.

As for physx, no one (to my knowledge) has ever claimed it was open. The very first sentence in the wikipedia article is "proprietary realtime physics engine middleware SDK." I'm not attacking anyone for proprietary, I can understand wanting to have a "leg up" on the competitor, but as consumers we should support open development as much as possible.

Instead of proprietary technologies that impact game performance or capabilities, companies should focus on other things imo. Nvidia's shadowplay is a great example of this, I wholeheartedly think it's a great idea, as well as that adaptive vsync setting that I played around with on my old laptop. But closed source code giving a performance leg up one way or the other for EITHER company is bad news.
 
Why are people still comparing DX to Mantle? It's like comparing DX to Cuda.
 
Pylor said:
http://support.amd.com/en-us/search/faq/184

They're releasing a public SDK and are planning on publishing specifications later in 2014. They want it to become mainstream and it will never become mainstream if other manufacturers don't pick it up, and I can't imagine nvidia ever picking up something they can't see every detail of.
Click to expand...
Key point in that link above:
Our intention is for Mantle, or something that looks very much like it, to eventually become an industry standard applicable to multiple graphics architectures and platforms.​
Click to expand...
It's going to be up to both Intel and Nvidia whether or not they want to adopt and adapt it to their own hardware and graphics card architecture or not.

With the eventual release of DirectX 12, that may not happen at all. Seeing Mantle run across AMD, Nvidia and Intel graphics chips would have honestly been great to see in the future.

An alternative to DirectX besides OpenGL that is accessible and usable regardless of the video card maker, would have probably push for more competition and better games, technology and graphics cards from both sides of the industry. It would also mean having Microsoft to continue to improve DirectX and get more performance out of its API.

It's just a matter of time and waiting to see how this all turns out.
 
Hell will freeze over before Nvidia does anything with Mantle, let alone adopt it as a standard.
Nope nope nope.
 
TaintedSquirrel said:
Hell will freeze over before Nvidia does anything with Mantle, let alone adopt it as a standard.
Nope nope nope.
Click to expand...
Haha, very likely.

World War III, ozone depletion, robot wars, zombie apocalypse, second ice age, or rising sea levels will likely happen before Nvidia lets Mantle touch its graphics card. :D
 
octoberasian said:
Haha, very likely.

World War III, ozone depletion, robot wars, zombie apocalypse, second ice age, or rising sea levels will likely happen before Nvidia lets Mantle touch its graphics card. :D
Click to expand...

Just as amd won't license or use physx. It's business.
 
Mantle is a closed API. Go read PCPer's story today, they confirmed with AMD that Mantle is, in fact, a totally closed API and will not be available to anyone except developers using it.

Their marketing department and software departments tell two different stories. Their FOS marketing says, "Mantle is open!" while their software dev side will not let other hardware IHVs use it. Verified by PCper. Today. It is a closed API. AMD claims that because of DX12 they decided to close it. Right.

I can say that Robert Hallock is a marketing scumbag who in my view, is lying through his teeth to create marketing spin to put AMD in a good light. Watch dogs uses NOTHING except HBAO+ which runs at the same performance levels on both AMD and NV. Ubisoft also is not prevented from working with AMD for optimizations. AMD simply chose not to. Forbes in fact contacted Ubisoft to verify this. What will that story be? Now THAT will truly be an enlightening story. The one that verifies AMD's marketing, and Robert Hallock, is full of shit.

The truly hilarious part is that despite the dishonest marketing on the part of AMD, they're still at 35% market share and can't gain despite all of the constant spin they put on these things. About nvidia being evil. The bad guys. Excuse me while I roll my eyes.
 
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TaintedSquirrel said:
Are you saying AMD would actively decline PhysX even if Nvidia offered it to them?
Boy, that would be stupid.

Also "won't" and "can't" are not interchangable.
Click to expand...

The only common denominator Gameworks feature being used in Watch Dogs is HBAO+ which in fact works on both NV and AMD. Funny how that works huh.

The only thing closed is physx and TXAA. Just like Mantle is in fact, closed (again, verified by PCPer today). Bottom line is, robert hallock is full of shit. He is complaining about nothing since HBAO+ was the only gameworks feature in watch dogs. Further, AMD was not denied access to optimizations with UBI as per his claim, and NV did not do anything to cripple Radeons. I mean. The only feature from gameworks in the game is freakin HBAO+. The HBAO+ feature apparently works at similar performance levels on both AMD and NV. Because it isn't "closed". This is aside from the fact that Ubi is in fact in the business of selling games. Would excluding 35% of your customer base help you sell games? Obvious answer anyone?

Just another week of AMD's marketing being scumbags and lying through their teeth to make themselves look like the good guys. They've been doing that shit for years and their fanbase eats it up, but it doesn't help their market share which continues to stagnate, apparently. Maybe they should do the smart thing and stop spending millions on dishonest marketing and instead increase their software development staff.
 
Last edited:
TaintedSquirrel said:
Are you saying AMD would actively decline PhysX even if Nvidia offered it to them?
Boy, that would be stupid.

Also "won't" and "can't" are not interchangable.
Click to expand...

Actually, they WERE offered it years and years ago but like most of their moves, marketed it off and blame nvidia for making good tech. Google is your friend.
 
xoleras said:
The only common denominator Gameworks feature being used in Watch Dogs is HBAO+ which in fact works on both NV and AMD. Funny how that works huh.
(snip)

Just another week of AMD's marketing being scumbags and lying through their teeth to make themselves look like the good guys. They've been doing that shit for years and their fanbase eats it up, but it doesn't help their market share which continues to stagnate, apparently. Maybe they should do the smart thing and stop spending millions on dishonest marketing and instead increase their software development staff.
Click to expand...

Quoted for emphasis. And yeah, the market share statistics prove that people are voting with their wallets for quality, and that means nVidia: they now have twice as much discrete GPU share as AMD does. Maybe if AMD stopped spending their time and money on shill marketing and bullshit PR fabrications they could spend more time producing a better product.
 
Pylor said:
The fanvoyism is strong in this thread, have people been drinking the PRIME1 coolaid? Closed source is bad all around for gaming...
Click to expand...

No one is drinking the PRIME1 coolaid. Like I said before, Gameworks is a product that Nvidia offers, take it or leave it. From a business standpoint, it makes sense. Help developers get their games out quicker, and optimize for your graphics cards. Of course closed source is bad around for gaming... which is why the folks at Ubisoft should be reprimanded for it, not Nvidia. Tell Ubisoft with your dollars that you won't stand for this shit.
 
HBAO+ - the gameworks feature used in Watch dogs IS in fact not closed and works on AMD. The only "closed" but licensable features that NV has in gameworks is physx and TXAA. PCPer discussed this on their podcast yesterday.

Watchdogs ONLY uses HBAO+ as a common denominator feature and it works on AMD hardware without a performance penalty compared to NV.. This feature is gameworks, is open, and works on AMD, and performs similarly on AMD.

Meanwhile, AMD has confirmed that Mantle is a closed API not available to other IHV's. *cough*

Moral of the story? The entire thing was a marketing fabrication by Robert Hallock.
 
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GoldenTiger said:
Actually, they WERE offered it years and years ago but like most of their moves, marketed it off and blame nvidia for making good tech. Google is your friend.
Click to expand...

I found something about a third party software called "physx for radeon" in which supposedly nvidia offered their support while AMD didn't fully engage, possibly fearing legal recourse as the software makers had reverse engineered drivers and AMD was actively pursuing using Havoc. Is this what you're referring to?

xoleras said:
Just like Mantle is in fact, closed (again, verified by PCPer today)
Click to expand...

Do you have a link to this? I just looked at the front page of pcper (not usually a site I visit tbh) but I didn't see anything in their articles except a few mentions in the comments sections. All of the AMD + other sites I've looked at make it sound like it's still being tested and specifications are still being developed.
 
Last edited:
GoldenTiger said:
Actually, they WERE offered it years and years ago but like most of their moves, marketed it off and blame nvidia for making good tech. Google is your friend.
Click to expand...

Yes NVIDIA offered PhysX, but on the condition that AMD stop developing its own drivers, NVIDIA wanted to be the ones making AMD drives.

So no shit AMD refused.
 
Spazturtle said:
Yes NVIDIA offered PhysX, but on the condition that AMD stop developing its own drivers, NVIDIA wanted to be the ones making AMD drives.

So no shit AMD refused.
Click to expand...

You know what's ironic. Physx is supported on the PS4 and Mantle is not. That makes Physx far more open than Mantle. AMD is destroying their reputation with a lot of their recent blunders.
 
Pylor said:
I found something about a third party software called "physx for radeon" in which supposedly nvidia offered their support while AMD didn't fully engage, possibly fearing legal recourse as the software makers had reverse engineered drivers and AMD was actively pursuing using Havoc. Is this what you're referring to?



Do you have a link to this? I just looked at the front page of pcper (not usually a site I visit tbh) but I didn't see anything in their articles except a few mentions in the comments sections. All of the AMD + other sites I've looked at make it sound like it's still being tested and specifications are still being developed.
Click to expand...

They talked about it on their podcast yesterday. It was nearly a 60 minute long portion with discussions on both sides of the story, they have it recorded on their youtube I believe. Or will soon if not already. I also think it's in their front page story, i'd have to check again.

The short version is, Mantle is closed to other IHV's. Microsoft's head of software development also commented on this on beyond3d, you can search his post history and he stated outright that Mantle is closed, and that what AMD tells through marketing and what really happens are two different things. I can try to find that later, but I did see it. His name (head dev at MS) is Andrew something. Can't remember the last name. Also check out PCPer's podcast from yesterday.

That is, essentially, AMD's entire marketing strategy. They're not shy about lying to the press and trying to make themselves seem like the "stand up good guys" and they have done this for years, they proclaimed that Mantle would be "open" for this very reason, to fit in with their "good guy" marketing strategy. However the truth of the matter is far different. AMD is very protective of Mantle and has not allowed other IHV's to use it, and they did in fact confirm that Mantle is closed as of yesterday. Now their explanation yesterday was because of the recent announcement of DX12, they decided to close it. Yeah, whatever they say. In the end this is nothing new.

AMD has done this for years. They intentionally through social media marketing try to mis-align the character of their competitors as being "evil" and "unjust". They do this to nvidia and they do it especially to intel, since they will never win on performance versus intel. But what they can do is create a social media marketing program designed to tell half truths and attempt to mis-align the character of both NV and intel. You see it constantly. AMD fans eat it up. They hate intel and constantly come up with conspiracy theories of how intel and nvidia are evil empires. AMD also has their social media program called AMD advocates and AMD test drive where random people on the internet get "points" towards AMD rewards for posting blogs and links on forums about this sort of thing. So when you see the same suspects posting AMD press releases across 27 forums? I won't say what's going on there, but anyone with a brain would know.

Amusingly enough, there were a couple of guys in this social media program outed on another forum and banned after posting fake benchmarks for their AMD GPUs. Maybe nvidia does this sort of thing as well, I don't know. But I haven't seen egregious examples of such. Usually it's obvious. The same guy posting an AMD press release on 30 forums. I frequent here, OCN, TPU, and sometimes AT. Seeing the same user, googling their name and seeing them make the same post across the entire internet is quite amusing. Or someone newly registered, first post, and it's looking for a GPU recommendation conspicuously aligned to be AMD tilted. Anyway, these social media guys, they perpetuate this same "good vs bad" misalignment marketing strategy that AMD apparently uses.

Of course anyone with common sense would realize that AMD, intel and nvidia are all for profit corporations and there is no evil or good. None are better than others, although these companies use different tacts for marketing. I simply find AMD's marketing to be particularly distasteful in this instance, because their entire spiel about Watch Dogs was a lie. HBAO+ from gameworks is open and usable on AMD. That is the ONLY common denominator feature used in watch dogs, and HBAO+ runs at similar performance on AMD as it does on NV. So the real question is, why is AMD's head marketer, robert hallock, lying? Now that's the real question.
 
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Spazturtle said:
Yes NVIDIA offered PhysX, but on the condition that AMD stop developing its own drivers, NVIDIA wanted to be the ones making AMD drives.

So no shit AMD refused.
Click to expand...

I can't find any reference to that offer outside of the one Nv PR guy and the various forums, and unofficial bloggers taking off with it. You have a link to that, that is not a forum, or unofficial blogger?

I still have not forgiven Nv for the Core2 SLI lock out, then the disabling of my 9800GT for PhysX because I was using a 4870 for rendering, and then claiming both times that it was for my own good because it does not work correctly, when the hacked drivers did in fact work just fine. I can't find similar actions by AMD.
 
PRIME1 said:
You know what's ironic. Physx is supported on the PS4 and Mantle is not. That makes Physx far more open than Mantle. AMD is destroying their reputation with a lot of their recent blunders.
Click to expand...

You don't need Mantle for a closed box where you're already programming closer to the metal. Duh.

As for PhysX on the PS4, there's no word in nVidia's press release if it's GPU-accelerated. If it isn't, that's not very open of them.
 
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