All Frostbite 3 Titles From EA to Ship Optimized Exclusively for AMD

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BatJoe

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Amidst the fray of E3 reveals and gameplay demos, EA announced a new partnership with AMD that could tip the scales for the chip maker's Radeon graphics cards. Starting with the release of Battlefield 4, all current and future titles using the Frostbite 3 engine — Need for Speed Rivals, Mirror's Edge 2, etc. — will ship optimized exclusively for AMD GPUs and CPUs. While Nvidia-based systems will be supported, the company won't be able to develop and distribute updated drivers until after each game is released.
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http://ca.ign.com/articles/2013/06/18/all-frostbite-3-titles-to-ship-optimized-exclusively-for-amd
 
That's asinine, if true and followed through with. Still, Battlefield 3 was supposedly highly optimized for AMD, yet ran like shit on any Crossfire setup- their 'optimizations' sure sold a whole lot of Nvidia cards :).
 
IdiotInCharge said:
That's asinine, if true and followed through with. Still, Battlefield 3 was supposedly highly optimized for AMD, yet ran like shit on any Crossfire setup- their 'optimizations' sure sold a whole lot of Nvidia cards :).
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This kinda stuff isn't new, but if the article is true, this is the first time I can recall a public agreement saying one company won't be able to pre-release optimize their hardware for a large range of titles using a specific game engine.
 
What a surprise. New consoles use AMD APU's. Seems like a cost cutting measure to me ;)
Akin to normal EA shit.
 
Just wait a few weeks after the launch of a new game.
Bugs are likely to be ironed out and you will pay less for the game.
 
BatJoe said:
When Tomb Raider came out (AMD pro title), nVidia had lots of issues.
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ONE game out of how many new release titles that Nvidia had problems with. Name some more if you can. AMD has a list of games 2 1/2 miles long that they've had problems with at launch. I'm sure Nvidia is trembling over this announcement.
 
BatJoe said:
When Tomb Raider came out (AMD pro title), nVidia had lots of issues.
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Any developer that ships a game without working with the main GPU makers to get drivers functional before the ship date gets to stand tall before the community. Time and again this shit blows up in the developer's and publisher's faces very quickly while they're trying to claim 'but brand Y sucks and our brand X really is better'!

We know better, and they know we know better.

(Rule of thumb: DO NOT LET MARKETING WIN)
 
Outrageous, some of you say. EA is evil. Blah blah blah blah.

Dudes, come on. This is nothing new.

The sky isn't falling. Nvidia can and has done the same thing plenty of times with TWIMTBP, yet all of the titles still ran fine on all hardware in the end - There have been plenty of AMD evolved titles and just about all of them ran fine on all hardware, let's not get over-emotional.
 
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xoleras said:
No offense to anyone, but I just had a good laugh out of some of these posts. Outrageous, some of you say.:rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes: EA is evil. EA's president killed my family. Blah blah blah blah. Yet, nvidia has done the same thing with TWIMTBP. Yawn.

Who cares. The sky isn't falling. There have been plenty of AMD evolved titles and just about all of them ran fine on all hardware, let's not get over-emotional and act stupid here.
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I definitely overworded it. :D Not like it's going to convince me to buy either way, but at the end of the day - it would be great if they just built the damn games without any of the stupid corporate sponsorships. No more TWIMTBP or Gaming Evolved. Just good games. :)
 
jbltecnicspro said:
I definitely overworded it. :D Not like it's going to convince me to buy either way, but at the end of the day - it would be great if they just built the damn games without any of the stupid corporate sponsorships. No more TWIMTBP or Gaming Evolved. Just good games. :)
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I'd prefer that they were both TWIMTBP and Gaming Evolved, and sponsored by Intel.

And I don't mind them doing one of three, as long as they don't purposefully keep others from making decent drivers for their stuff. Maybe we can get some 'anti-competitive' class-actions going to get these asshats to back away from that shit.
 
So I'll have to wait a week for NVIDIA to release their drivers. Okay.
 
I'm 100% certain that nvidia will go the extra mile to ensure BF4 works great on their hardware, even if it is AMD gaming evolved. :) Just because a title is affiliated with one brand, doesn't mean that it's exclusive or anything like that - while there have been minor screwups like Tomb Raider, nvidia got that fixed in quick order. For all of the other AMD titles, they all ran great on nvidia hardware from day one.

I don't think this will be any different, i'm sure nvidia will run it just fine. That's all. ;)
 
IdiotInCharge said:
I'd prefer that they were both TWIMTBP and Gaming Evolved, and sponsored by Intel.

And I don't mind them doing one of three, as long as they don't purposefully keep others from making decent drivers for their stuff. Maybe we can get some 'anti-competitive' class-actions going to get these asshats to back away from that shit.
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Dude, no kidding. That's what I was thinking when I posted my original reaction. And honestly, I don't think the developers are advocating any of it. I'm pretty sure it's the publishers that do it, and the developers just pretty much have to work with whatever the boss wants.
 
I've been looking at AMD for my next video card upgrade solely because of things like this...I fear that with both next gen consoles using AMD cards that most titles will be optimized for AMD...I wish one of the consoles would have used Nvidia like the current gen...this will be something to keep an eye on with almost all AAA titles starting in late 2013

damn I remember when almost every AAA title was sponsored with the Way it's Meant to Be Played logo...my how times have changed
 
Nvidia has been doing this for what could be measured in DECADES. Unreal Tournament 2003 had a big ass "The way it's meant to be played" Nvidia logo rendered in-engine at startup. Why is it suddenly news when the other side starts fighting back?
 
KazeoHin said:
Nvidia has been doing this for what could be measured in DECADES. Unreal Tournament 2003 had a big ass "The way it's meant to be played" Nvidia logo rendered in-engine at startup. Why is it suddenly news when the other side starts fighting back?
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It's fine when a game is 'optimized' for a particular vendor (and I'm not acquitting Nvidia); it's wrong when another vendor is prevented from providing critical support it until after release at the same time.
 
IdiotInCharge said:
It's fine when a game is 'optimized' for a particular vendor (and I'm not acquitting Nvidia); it's wrong when another vendor is prevented from providing critical support it until after release at the same time.
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That's what "optimized" means, and has always meant. Though this is the first time anyone has stepped out and outright said it.
 
IdiotInCharge said:
It's fine when a game is 'optimized' for a particular vendor (and I'm not acquitting Nvidia); it's wrong when another vendor is prevented from providing critical support it until after release at the same time.
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It has happened to AMD as well. Will users still be outraged when Witcher 3 ships and it has nvidia exclusive features? And that AMD isn't allowed to interact with the developers? That AMD can't develop a driver set for it until after release? You can name off many TWIMTBP titles and the same thing happened - AMD was not allowed to develop drivers until post-release. It's unfortunate, but rarely has it been a "game breaking" issue.

This is nothing new and has been going on for the past 6-7 years. It's not a big deal as you suggest - 99% of these games run fine on day 1, look at all of the AMD gaming evolved titles and with the exception of 1 out of like 100, they were all fine on nvidia hardware from day 1. Remember: despite any brand affiliation it IS NOT IN THE INTEREST of the developer to deliver a broken game to half of their user base. They want it working for everyone, period. :) Remember, they want to sell the game - now, if the game is broken for half of the userbase, how will that affect sales? It won't be in a good way. Therefore they will attempt to make it a good experience for everyone, games like Tomb Raider are the exception and not the rule.
 
Business as usual. Nothing to see here.

If anything, Nv will be more aggressive with their driver improvements.
DICE tests Frostbite with AMD and Nv cards during development.
 
IdiotInCharge said:
It's only a big deal if they follow through with it. But if they do, I smell lawsuits (of the good, vindicating kind).
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As far as I know there haven't been any lawsuits for the last 10 years this shit has been going on. And contrary to popular belief, companies are allowed to sign exclusive deals in this country.
 
xoleras said:
It has happened to AMD as well. Will users still be outraged when Witcher 3 ships and it has nvidia exclusive features? And that AMD isn't allowed to interact with the developers? That AMD can't develop a driver set for it until after release? You can name off many TWIMTBP titles and the same thing happened - AMD was not allowed to develop drivers until post-release. It's unfortunate, but rarely has it been a "game breaking" issue.

This is nothing new and has been going on for the past 6-7 years. It's not a big deal as you suggest - 99% of these games run fine on day 1, look at all of the AMD gaming evolved titles and with the exception of 1 out of like 100, they were all fine on nvidia hardware from day 1. Remember: despite any brand affiliation it IS NOT IN THE INTEREST of the developer to deliver a broken game to half of their user base. They want it working for everyone, period. :) Remember, they want to sell the game - now, if the game is broken for half of the userbase, how will that affect sales? It won't be in a good way. Therefore they will attempt to make it a good experience for everyone, games like Tomb Raider are the exception and not the rule.
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qft.

You said it better than I could.
 
xoleras said:
It has happened to AMD as well. Will users still be outraged when Witcher 3 ships and it has nvidia exclusive features? And that AMD isn't allowed to interact with the developers? That AMD can't develop a driver set for it until after release?

This is nothing new and has been going on for the past 6-7 years. It's not a big deal as you suggest - 99% of these games run fine on day 1, look at all of the AMD gaming evolved titles and with the exception of 1 out of like 100, they were all fine on nvidia hardware from day 1.
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I'm aware of the history- note the '10.0 years' next to my name- it's douchy to point out, but it proves the point.

It's been going on longer than 6-7 years; it's actually been happening on the PC as long as we've had games on the PC. That's longer than I've been playing them.

But it's the 'run fine on day 1' thing that's standing out here. They're allowing for the eventuality that their games will not run fine on day 1 on anything other than AMD hardware, and that this is because they are preventing other hardware vendors from optimizing their drivers for their games beforehand by withholding whatever they'd need.

Sure, this has been done for decades- but they're declaring it. They might as well be declaring war, which is all fine and good, except that we have laws against that in the consumer market. It's anti-competitive, and Nvidia would likely have a strong court case, especially since it's likely not hard to prove that this behavior hurts the consumer.
 
With all due respect - By your tone, I really feel like you're applying a double standard here. You don't seem so upset that nvidia has done the same thing many times and has locked AMD out.

When nvidia does it with TWIMTBP, it's cool. Because TWIMTBP titles give nvidia exclusive access, and AMD is locked out. When nvidia does the same thing, it's all good. When AMD does it, it's anti consumer. Does that summarize your argument? I certainly hope that isn't what you're implying - As I said you can look at every AMD gaming evolved title and with the exception of 1 out of hundreds, they all ran great on nvidia hardware. In fact, some of them ran faster on nvidia hardware. So I feel like you're getting upset over nothing, this is business as usual. The game will run fine on nvidia hardware - it is in the best interest of DICE to ensure that it does, they want to sell their game. Delivering a broken game to half of their userbase won't help them sell it.

Just for the record, I'm not a fan of this practice at all. As others have said, I feel that all of these games should be optimized for all brands equally. Yet, it is business. These things happen - nvidia has their titles and AMD has theirs. Presumably nvidia will do the same thing with the Witcher 3.
 
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The argument is, again this is if EA fully follows through with it, their games will not run fine on Nvidia (or Intel, or whatever) upon release, and that this is intentional.

That's what makes it different. And yeah, it's retail suicide, but if I were Nvidia (or conversely AMD, or Intel, or...) I wouldn't take it lying down.
 
IdiotInCharge said:
The argument is, again this is if EA fully follows through with it, their games will not run fine on Nvidia (or Intel, or whatever) upon release, and that this is intentional.
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I just don't see things that way - as an example, crysis 3 performed fine on nvidia GPUs. And it was "AMD optimized". Just FYI, this change with regards to EA affiliating with AMD Gaming evolved happened last year. A brand affiliation doesn't mean that games will be out-right broken on nvidia hardware - again, it is never in the interest of a developer that this happens. As far as I can tell AMD is not intentionally breaking games for nvidia hardware, nor would it ever be in the interest of a developer to allow that to happen - remember, nvidia has a higher PC discrete marketshare than AMD therefore it never makes sense for a developer to allow that to happen. DICE wants to sell a game, not alienate 60% of their PC playerbase. :)
 
BatJoe said:
When Tomb Raider came out (AMD pro title), nVidia had lots of issues.
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They still do.
http://www.computerbase.de/news/2013-04/neuer-tomb-raider-patch-geforce-probleme-bleiben/
Crystal Dynamics said:
Unfortunately we do not yet have a resolution for the players that are experiencing crashes and major graphical corruption on NVIDIA hardware. Some progress has been made though, and we expect hope to have an update soon.
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Scenarios like GRID 2 will be repeating themselves more often. Token example:
grj7.jpg
k9vo.jpg
 
I see 'performs better on AMD hardware'. I do not see 'does not work on Nvidia hardware'

Are people complaining this much about Nvidia locking down PhysX? Can that be seen as Anti-Consumer? The original Mirror's Edge was optimized from the ground up for NVIDIA hardware, and featured extra PhysX features that could ONLY be enabled on Nvidia cards (even though PhysX can be run on the CPU if the developer allows it). The PhysX features even included flowing flags draped around the game with NVIDIA LOGOS printed all over them.


Where was your cry for justice then??
 
NinjaGnat said:
An optimized 7970 GE tying an unoptimized Titan, assuming the whole thing isn't CPU bound at upper levels.
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That actually looks fine to me- I'd be crying foul if this was a year ago when AMD's driver team still had their heads planted firmly up their asses (assuming they had a driver team), but with some hard work by a few renowned editors at the [H], TechReport, and Anandtech they have appeared to start putting their efforts where they're needed.

Nowadays the 7970GE is performing about where you would have expected it to upon release, and given the Titan's even greater emphasis on GPGPU AMD's big core should be close in performance in many situations. It'll be hotter and louder, sure, and don't bother putting two or more of them together, but it should run close in single-GPU configuration.
 
KazeoHin said:
I see 'performs better on AMD hardware'. I do not see 'does not work on Nvidia hardware'

Are people complaining this much about Nvidia locking down PhysX? Can that be seen as Anti-Consumer? The original Mirror's Edge was optimized from the ground up for NVIDIA hardware, and featured extra PhysX features that could ONLY be enabled on Nvidia cards (even though PhysX can be run on the CPU if the developer allows it). The PhysX features even included flowing flags draped around the game with NVIDIA LOGOS printed all over them.


Where was your cry for justice then??
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We were crying then, too. We took a collective moment of silence when Nvidia scooped up PhysX and sent game physics to the dark ages. I don't think anyone believes that Nvidia's move with PhysX was anything other than damaging to the industry.
 
Isn't this more due to the fact that the APU leaves room for consistent access to memory from both the CPU and GPU front?
 
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