ATI and OpenGL

[Framerate]

Would someone please explain to me why ATI doesn't improve their OpenGL? I personally like ATI cards better than Nvidia cards (although my ti4200 never let me down), and I am frustrated that I can't play a game like Doom 3 with anything near decent performance.

 

[tornadotsunamilife]

i think the only people who can answer that is someone who works on the ati driver team or hardware architecture. and i don't think they will be on this forum

 

[turmania]

the problem is that ati in my opinion decided not to venture a lot into open gl. as well most games are now direct x. and not gl. the 2 i can think of most popular open gl games are doom3 and call of duty.i never been a big fan of doom3. but i like call of duty.i guess ati doesnt see much future in open gl

 

[tornadotsunamilife]

well the doom 3 engine is going to be used with a few blockbusters (SoF3, Quake 4, RtCW2) so i think the future is still bright with ogl. plus isn't KoTOR 2 ogl ?

 

[Framerate]

Yeah Tom that's what I was thinking. The id engines are always licensed out to many developers. These games are normally such games that I would buy. And the D3 expansion pack will most likely have all of the problems fixed (such as demons' AI not kicking in until after they finish their animations, demons not being able to use scripted animations in AI routines, etc.) that kind of ruined the game experience.

 

[Dan_D]

Well over the years we've seen alot of games that were OpenGL, look at all the Quake III engine based games? Theres a frickin lot of them. Theres fewer UT, Havoc and other engine based games out there, but when totalled up theres a few more Direct X titles than OpenGL when you combine ALL engines.

However the problem is, Nvidia isn't as bad at Direct X as ATi is at OpenGL. Theres the difference.

 

[Tigerblade]

and I am frustrated that I can't play a game like Doom 3 with anything near decent performance.

What cpu and gpu are u using for such a crap performance? A 1ghz Tbird and a Radeon 7000? Cos I gotta say, Doom 3 ran and looked sweet last time I played it....albeit a crap over rated game...

 

[this1tear]

Havoc and other engine based games out there

isn't havoc just a physics engine? :x

 

[MetalStorm]

isn't havoc just a physics engine? :x

Yes.

Also, nVidia does not "suck" at Dx9 based games, the reason they actually lose in quite a lot of the Dx9 benchmarks is that their top card is only at 400Mhz, where as the x800XT PE is like 525MHz or something. That's not to say that ATi cards are slower, because they aren't due to their considerable clockspeed advantage, but if you were to look at work per cycle, i think nVidia would be on top.

 

[coz]

the reason they actually lose in quite a lot of the Dx9 benchmarks is that their top card is only at 400Mhz, where as the x800XT PE is like 525MHz or something.

The fill-rate advantage enjoyed by the high-end ATi card (X850XT-PE) over the high-end NV card (6800U) is the same as the total fill-rate of the ATi 9500 Pro!! ATi has 35% more raw horsepower - it's like comparing a P4 2.8GHz and a P4 3.8GHz. So NV does a pretty good job of keeping fairly close to ATi's performance level in DX stuff when you think about it.

 

[^eMpTy^]

I think the deal is that ATi got the ArtX tech for the r300 and that tech was designed to run dx over opengl...cuz if you think about it...the 8500s ran Q3 just fine...and since ATi is still working with derivatives of that same tech...they are still at a disadvantage ...

That and Nvidia puts a lot more time and energy into OpenGL because they put so much more into Linux and Professional apps than ATi...I've said it before and I'll say it again...ATi cards are built to play dx games first...and everything else is an afterthought...

 

[fallguy]

i think the only people who can answer that is someone who works on the ati driver team or hardware architecture. and i don't think they will be on this forum

Incorrect. The driver team leader did post in this forum, and he still may some day. Until some people acted childish (the usual anti-ATi people), trolled and flamed him till he left.

 

[Scali]

The fill-rate advantage enjoyed by the high-end ATi card (X850XT-PE) over the high-end NV card (6800U) is the same as the total fill-rate of the ATi 9500 Pro!! ATi has 35% more raw horsepower - it's like comparing a P4 2.8GHz and a P4 3.8GHz. So NV does a pretty good job of keeping fairly close to ATi's performance level in DX stuff when you think about it.

That's not the right comparison. NVIDIA has a different architecture from ATi's. A P4 at 2.8 GHz is the same as one at 3.8 GHz, except for the clockspeed.
This is more like an Athlon at 2.8 GHz vs a P4 at 3.8 GHz. Some architectures just reach the same level of performance at a lower clockspeed (but the usual catch is that they cannot scale up to the higher clockspeeds of other architectures).

With the last generation (Radeon 9700/GeForce FX) it was actually the other way around. ATi had the lower clockspeeds and the higher performance.
Indeed, NVIDIA recovered quite nicely with their completely newly designed 6800 series.

Anyway, my brother played Doom 3 on his Radeon 8500 before he upgraded to a 6800LE. It was actually quite playable on the 8500. Worked okay on my 9600Pro aswell. I don't see any problems with ATi's OpenGL drivers, at least not for the Doom 3 engine.

And I too believe that OpenGL is a dead end in the long run. If it wasn't for Doom 3, it would probably have been a thing of the past by now. You can't really blame ATi for not constantly developing their OpenGL drivers (at least not in the gaming market segment)... there's only one or two engines coming out every few years, just doing engine-specific optimizations works well enough.

 

[tornadotsunamilife]

Incorrect. The driver team leader did post in this forum, and he still may some day. Until some people acted childish (the usual anti-ATi people), trolled and flamed him till he left.

until s/he returns this question won't be truly answered