AMD’s Gaming Evolved Gets a Shot of Adrenaline

Final8ty

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Like NVIDIA’s The Way It’s Meant to Be Played program, AMD’s Gaming Evolved initiative focuses upon promoting PC game development by ensuring enhanced PC-exclusive features are included in certain titles.

Multi monitor support, DX11 implementation, advanced anti aliasing methods and other items all fall under these programs’ purview. In many cases, Gaming Evolved and TWIMTBP have allowed AMD and NVIDIA to promote new technologies offered by their respective GPU architectures, positively (and in some cases negatively) affecting several big-name titles. These tactics have come under scrutiny but there is no denying their impact upon the PC gaming landscape.

In the past, Gaming Evolved always seemed to play second fiddle to its well funded, popular and sometimes controversial competitor but if AMD has their way, that’s about to change. They’ve recently expanded the Gaming Evolved program in an effort to encompass additional titles and more developers. And this time it actually seems to be attracting more attention from within the games industry.

Previously, AMD seemed to be playing second fiddle to NVIDIA when it came to directly supporting developers but that is quickly changing as more triple-A titles make their way towards the “red” team. We’ve already seen games like Shogun 2: Total War, Dirt 3 and some others garner benefits from Gaming Evolved while Sniper Elite V2, Dirt Showdown and Nexuiz are just the latest additions.

However, the real push comes within the next few months where AMD is claiming ownership of many premier titles. Sleeping Dogs, which may prove to be an instant GTA-like classic was just released and it incorporates several advanced DX11 features like SSAO and SuperSample AA. This will be followed by other DX11 games like Medal of Honor: Warfighter (which uses DICE’s versatile Frostbite 2 engine), Hitman: Absolution, BioShock Infinite and the newest incarnation of Tomb Raider. All of these will incorporate features which AMD helped implement.

While “sponsored” gaming titles may initially mean performance offsets favor one manufacturer’s GPUs over the other, if history is any indication, drivers adapt in quick fashion so everyone will eventually benefit from the advanced visuals these games bring to the table. In addition, programs like TWIMTBP and Gaming Evolved do tend to help ensure DX11 implementation within games that may not have supported the API due to the console-centric focus in many parts of the development community. For end users buying the latest graphics technologies and the companies selling them, that’s extremely important.

If AMD can keep this momentum, everyone should have a much larger selection of DX11 games to choose from in the coming year.
http://www./news/games-news/amds-gaming-evolved-gets-a-shot-of-adrenaline/



AMD’s Gaming Evolved Program Snags ‘Far Cry 3′
With addition of Far Cry 3 to its stable of games, AMD’s Gaming Evolved initiative is receiving yet another huge boost. In the past, this program wasn’t particularly popular but with many triple-A titles like Bioshock Infinite, Tomb Raider, Hitman: Absolution and Medal of Honor: Warfighter now jumping onto the Gaming Evolved bandwagon, things are rapidly changing for AMD and its customers.

Hardware Canucks has already covered the steady evolution of AMD’s developer relation program. However, with the inclusion of what promises to be an ultra popular game alongside several other highly anticipated titles, Gaming Evolved could be morphing into a juggernaut to rival NVIDIA’s competing The Way It’s Meant to be Played.

So what will Gaming Evolved bring to Far Cry 3? Due to the secrecy surrounding most big name titles before launch, details concerning this relationship are slim to none. However, if past collaborations are any indication, AMD could work closely with the developers to integrate native multi monitor support via Eyefinity, open source physics / stereoscopic 3D, compute-based anti aliasing options and several other Radeon-exclusive features. Most importantly, gamers can be assured that advanced DX11 image enhancements will surely be integrated into the second iteration of Ubisoft’s Dunia engine, likely making for one of the best looking games on the market. Consumers with AMD’s Radeon graphics cards will be particularly happy since great performance and working Crossfire profiles from day one are virtually assured in this case.

There’s quite a bit of time between now and Far Cry 3’s December 4th North American launch date (the EU should see it on November 29th) so additional details should trickle in at some point. As a side note, it isn’t known whether or not Ubisoft will address the well-deserved criticism over their draconian DRM practices but for the time being, everyone should keep their fingers crossed.
http://www./news/games-news/amds-gaming-evolved-program-snags-far-cry-3/
 
This is really good news, and I hope this brings greater adoption of OpenCL for physics calculations on the GPU on games. I'm not too fond of the idea of games having physics-based effects be exclusive to Nvidia and PhysX. I'm not rich and I'm not wiling to spend more money on an Nvidia card. I don't upgrade my computer that often.

I'm happy to see AMD actually putting more investment into this. This is a good change from the company for once, one of many good changes so far.
 
This is really good news, and I hope this brings greater adoption of OpenCL for physics calculations on the GPU on games. I'm not too fond of the idea of games having physics-based effects be exclusive to Nvidia and PhysX. I'm not rich and I'm not wiling to spend more money on an Nvidia card. I don't upgrade my computer that often.

I'm happy to see AMD actually putting more investment into this. This is a good change from the company for once, one of many good changes so far.

Isn't it more difficult to code their own physics engine that utilizes Open CL? As opposed to using Havok or Physx
 
Isn't it more difficult to code their own physics engine that utilizes Open CL? As opposed to using Havok or Physx

I don't think it should be any more difficult than a ready-made API/SDK like Havok or PhysX.

There are SDKs readily available from AMD-- Accelerated Parallel Processing (APP).

Here's Havok and OpenCL cloth simulation (2009):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xfrM973spw0

Here's Nvidia's APEX for EVE Online's cloth simulation (2010):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OdbYsHbGYmU

Not much difference really. There is definitely room for improvement, but OpenCL can do what Nvidia has been doing with PhysX and CUDA.

The SDK is there, it's just that the developers have to start using it. OpenCL is generally meant for GPGPU, or compute applications, but adapting it for use in games shouldn't be any more difficult.

If AMD's recent increase in investment and involvement with developers mentioned above is an indication, then it's a good thing not only for developers but for gamers. It means if there are more games using OpenCL-based physics effects, it also means many consumers who decide to go with an AMD GPU don't have to resort to an Nvidia card or some sort of hack to get Physx-based effects. In other words, more choices for the consumer. There may be greater adoption and support for it in the future.
 
Since when were Sniper Elite V2 and Nexuiz triple AAA titles? :p

Lots of popular engines have Apex/Physx built in (especially UE), and all the consoles can use it, whereas OpenCL based physics would have to be added. If you made a game with Physx it would take much much less effort, time and money. It can be simple as drag in a few materials and assign physx attributes. So it comes on the low end of the time/benefit scale, OpenCL is on the other, bad end.

Plus it doesn't have any real performance benefit, or any other benefit, it's not as easy to do, etc. etc. Nvidia has a bigger marketshare too, so for an optional feature (look at all the people complaining that "Nvidia suuucks!!! It's just flapping cloth and particles, I don't caaaare!!!"), which a large number of players wouldn't use, or have the ability to use anyway, there isn't any huge incentive to spend time making your own in an "open" standard (unless sponsored to do so). :D
 
Hopefully this is just a name branding and AMD working closer with dev teams to make their drivers better. If it is limiting certain graphics features to AMD only cards that would be a step backwards.
 
Hopefully this is just a name branding and AMD working closer with dev teams to make their drivers better. If it is limiting certain graphics features to AMD only cards that would be a step backwards.

Ha ha like Nvidia does. I agree with you as there shouldn't be like that.
 
Since when were Sniper Elite V2 and Nexuiz triple AAA titles? :p

Lots of popular engines have Apex/Physx built in (especially UE), and all the consoles can use it, whereas OpenCL based physics would have to be added. If you made a game with Physx it would take much much less effort, time and money. It can be simple as drag in a few materials and assign physx attributes. So it comes on the low end of the time/benefit scale, OpenCL is on the other, bad end.

Plus it doesn't have any real performance benefit, or any other benefit, it's not as easy to do, etc. etc. Nvidia has a bigger marketshare too, so for an optional feature (look at all the people complaining that "Nvidia suuucks!!! It's just flapping cloth and particles, I don't caaaare!!!"), which a large number of players wouldn't use, or have the ability to use anyway, there isn't any huge incentive to spend time making your own in an "open" standard (unless sponsored to do so). :D

Then why don't devs do that like Batman creators?
 
I heard from someone, who heard from someone, who heard from someone...

AMD is working with practically ALL game developers because... their GPUs might be in ALL the upcoming gaming consoles...

PCs get a nice boost from it too...


shhh.....

;)
 
Ha ha like Nvidia does. I agree with you as there shouldn't be like that.

Agreed. I have Nvidia but don't like that AMD users can't get full graphics options in some games. I would hate for it to get even more complicated/selective.
 
I am defintely exited about this! We need more DX11 games and i hope this game is as punshing as sleeping dogs is made out to be.

Does anybody know if the upcoming games from gaming evolved will focus heavily on direct compute. I would think it would be an easy way for amd to drop 6xx series cards performance while making their own look better.
 
I do not think AMD pushing OpenCL has anything to do nvidia...

AMD is pushing OpenCL across their entire line of products, which explains the pains AMD goes through in die size concessions for the 7970 for example. Would only make sense for consoles also... (in some form or other)
 
Interesting, looks like all EA games for the foreseeable future will be with the Gaming Evolved program. That should take care of those games, and it makes sense with the new consoles shaping up.
 
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