Batman AA Nvidia block removed?

Tamlin_WSGF

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As some might recall, Ian McNaughton managed to enable in-game AA in Batman for ATI users by changing vendor-id over to Nvidia. Turns out it was a vendor block from Nvidia preventing this and Nvidia legally refused Eidos to remove the vendor block at first. Now it seems this have changed and a patch will remove the vendor-id check. :)




AMD received an email dated Sept 29th at 5:22pm from Mr. Lee Singleton General Manager at Eidos Game Studios who stated that Eidos’ legal department is preventing Eidos from allowing ATI cards to run in-game antialiasing in Batman Arkham Asylum due to NVIDIA IP ownership issues over the antialiasing code, and that they are not permitted to remove the vendor ID filter.

NVIDIA has done the right thing in bowing to public pressure to renounce anti-competitive sponsorship practices and given Eidos a clear mandate to remove the vendor ID detect code that is unfairly preventing many of Eidos’ customers from using in-game AA, as per Mr. Weinand’s comments. I would encourage Mr. Singleton at Eidos to move quickly and decisively to remove NVIDIA’s vendor ID detection.

It’s also worth noting here that AMD have made efforts both pre-release and post-release to allow Eidos to enable the in-game antialiasing code - there was no refusal on AMD’s part to enable in game AA IP in a timely manner.
http://www.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=20991

Yay to public pressure :D

Kudos to Tempered81@anandtech for finding this:
http://forums.anandtech.com/showpost.php?p=28857358&postcount=362
 
Awesome news but I can't believe this happened in the first place. :/ This is like middle-school shenanigans. Shame on Nvidia.
 
Yeah this is why TWIMTBP program isn't entirely as fantastic for gamers as it first seems. Batman is just one massive advert for Nvidia because of it, eugh.
 
Yes, its amazing what they can do. As a company, I would believe that they use any advantage/angle they can, but morally I find such actions disgusting.

When you buy a game, you would expect that the developers would do their best to make it run as good as possible on all hardware. When a hardware vendor starts meddeling to push hardware with the game, it often screws consumers in the process unfortuately. The most important thing for us consumers then, is to raise our voice and not let them get away with it.
 
It wouldn't suprice me if ATI did such stunts either unfortunately. They also have their skeletons in their closets.

Its a shame though, because I can't help but wonder the extent of this. Did it only happen in Batman or are there more "the way its ment to be crippled" games out there? How much can we trust the reviews of such games?

These actions spoils much for us end users. Worst part is that there is always someone trying to defend this and smooth over such actions, so that the companies gets away with it and does it again. :(

At least Eidos should have gone out and told the community that their in-game AA has been intentionally crippled by Nvidia's vendor-id. I don't believe for a second that Eidos needed Nvidia to write a DirectX AA path in their game. Especially since it works perfectly on ATI cards, once you fake the vendor-id.
 
Sounds like a patch or driver update is coming. Forcing AA through CCC hasn't been a problem for me though.
 
It wouldn't suprice me if ATI did such stunts either unfortunately. They also have their skeletons in their closets.

Its a shame though, because I can't help but wonder the extent of this. Did it only happen in Batman or are there more "the way its ment to be crippled" games out there? How much can we trust the reviews of such games?

Isn't resident evil 5 "the way its ment to be crippled" as well? Man, this sure brings light to a lot of reviews, lol. People some times blame ati drivers but it's nvidia having control over these game developers...:eek:

Take game reviews and video card reviews as a grain of salt. And definitely look at a lot of review sites and also user opinions. These are billion dollar companies that basically could have review sites, game developers, etc. in their back pocket easily.
 
Wow, I knew about Physx being turned off, but didn't know it was AA too, that certain sours me on nvidia. Glad I bought a 5870 now. :p
 
Physx I can understand, but manipulating something that is basically industry standard is disgusting. I don't think ATI would get away with blocking DX11 paths from Fermi if they tried. (DX11 they QA'd)
 
Thread over at Rage3D, Will Eidos patch Batman:AA to remove the Vendor ID check?

Actually, the situation, if you remove the relevant PR drama, is quite simple. For whatever reason, nVIDIA worked with Eidos and provided code which properly enables AA in the game. Since that code is property of nVIDIA (and as a programmer I respect that), it cannot be altered by Eidos to make it run on ATI cards as well, even though from what I gather that would definitely work.

Nobody is preventing ATI from submitting its own code though. So, ideally, all ATI would have to do is to create code of their own, submit it to Eidos, so that this code will run whenever Radeon cards are present. So basically you'd have two functions in the code doing the same thing, one written by nVIDIA and one written by ATI, which is of course totally stupid, but it would solve our little drama here.

So i basically see these conclusions:

-Epic games is retarded for making a broken/half working AA system that relies on others to get working rather than having it work out of the box. So they get some of the blame for making things more complicated than it should.

-Nvidia has such awesome PR and dev relations that they are able to leverage that and kind of spin it to their advantage. They get into the good wll of others and at times seem to be able to toss in a few benefits for themselves. They get some of the blame for trying to unfairly work things to their advantage. They can be the big friendly giant that everyone loves but they seem to want to be the big controlling giant that only choose who to love.

-Eidos is dumb enough to let others do their work for them and they just kinda sit in the middle and pretend they're not at fault. They sit back and try to justify their actions while letting everyon else sling dirt at each other. They get some of the blame for not even bothering to create a standardized AA code that would avoid this whole batmangate.

-AMD/ATI doesnt sit back and watch their dev relations blow up. They do stuff, but they seem to be lazy and/or resource starved that they only do what is required. If its just sending cards out, they'll just do that. Their dev relations just do enough to get by, and its something thats starting to bite them in the ass. Then they cry foul when things dont go their way. So AMD/ATI gets some of the blame for being lazy or slow on the dev side of things and being whiny little brats. They need to step up their dev relations and STFU.

All in all, everyone is to blame for this whole mess.

IF i was to choose the order of blame (1 being who gets the most blame) it'd be:
1.) Epic games (For their UE3 which is the primary source of this whole mess)
2.) Eidos (For not making the AA code themselves)
3 and 4 i dunno...do u blame nvidia for the vendor ID check for somewhat trivial (if true) AA code that anyone could have made up for UE3? Or do you blame AMD/ATI for not doing anything prior to the game's launch? Chickenn and Egg scenario between these 2 imo.
 
why does this come as a surprise to anyone? ati has only themselves to blame for not aggressively courting game developers as nvidia. like any profit making enterprise nvidia will explore the boundaries legal business practice at every opportunity. no one in 2003 though twimtbp would become anything more than an attempt to soften the fx driver fiasco, but look how far they've come. no amount of hand wringing by users will do any good if ati continues to sit idle.
 
ATI and Nvidia shouldn't have to court game developers in order to make them implement standard features. Game developers should even refuse "help" that implies that standard features is being artificially blocked on hardware they advertise their game to work on.

If Nvidia is asking developers if they want help to run directx AA on their games (which is in almost every game these days) in return for blocking it on competing hardware, they should say no. Developers shouldn't play along with such morally low actions and rather focus on making the gaming experience as good as possible for those that buy their games.
 
The blame lays squarely on Eidos's head. Those lazy shits made a decision to screw half their customers and allow code they don't own into their own project. Any idiot knows that you don't want to license code that screws half your customers then try to pretend you didn't. Hopefully they'll get the message that it doesn't help them, and hopefully Nvidia will get the message that it doesn't help them either because we find out

We can only surmise that if Nvidia really believed that their cards were superior to ATI's then they wouldn't need to cripple the competition secretly to look better.
 
I put the blame equally on Eidos and Nvidia.

Nvidia for offering consumer blocks (which is basically what it is for us).
Eidos for accepting it.
 
Is it just me, or does it seem like Nvidia is heading down the wrong road?

Or are continuing down a road already taken:
According to Richard, who was the former European head of Developer Relations at nVidia [it is little known that Richard Huddy was nVidia's Employee #94 and he stayed for years until he departed from the company 'on moral grounds']
"When I was at nVidia, I was instructed to do these kinds of things. It is very much a style they tend to be involved in.
http://www.brightsideofnews.com/new...-nvidia-vs-eidos-fight-analyzed.aspx?pageid=1

Its time they stop and us consumers scream up. We are the ones getting screwed in the end, regardless which company that does this.
 
The blame lays squarely on Eidos's head. Those lazy shits made a decision to screw half their customers and allow code they don't own into their own project. Any idiot knows that you don't want to license code that screws half your customers then try to pretend you didn't. Hopefully they'll get the message that it doesn't help them, and hopefully Nvidia will get the message that it doesn't help them either because we find out

We can only surmise that if Nvidia really believed that their cards were superior to ATI's then they wouldn't need to cripple the competition secretly to look better.

There's a lot of code that goes into games that the devs don't actually own. The problem here is that they allowed code from one vendor to block their competition.

It would be like having havoc code in a game (Intel owned) not running on AMD processors or something along those lines.
 
NVIDIA has done no such thing. Huddy is framing his statements to make things up that NVIDIA never said. The vendor check is not going anywhere.

AMD needs to supply their own AA solution for AMD customers to get access to AA. If they had just done this from the get go instead of crying we wouldn't even be having this discussion.
 
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NVIDIA has done no such thing. Huddy is framing his statements to make things up that NVIDIA never said. The vendor check is not going anywhere.

AMD needs to supply their own AA solution for AMD customers to get access to AA. If they had just done this from the get go instead of crying we wouldn't even be having this discussion.

I didn't know that ATI got the message about vendor-id block? Couldn't find a "crippled by Nvidia" on the game box or in the reviews either?

As you can see, ATI worked with them both pre-release and after release:
http://www.brightsideofnews.com/new...-nvidia-vs-eidos-fight-analyzed.aspx?pageid=1

I would do a correction to you. We are not talking about AMD's customer, we are talking about Eidos customers. Us consumers, you know (if you are a consumer defending such practise and all).
 
I didn't know that ATI got the message about vendor-id block? Couldn't find a "crippled by Nvidia" on the game box or in the reviews either?

As you can see, ATI worked with them both pre-release and after release:
http://www.brightsideofnews.com/new...-nvidia-vs-eidos-fight-analyzed.aspx?pageid=1

I would do a correction to you. We are not talking about AMD's customer, we are talking about Eidos customers. Us consumers, you know (if you are a consumer defending such practise and all).

Yes the blame here does not fall on AMD. You can add AA to Batman through the CCC so AMD in my opinion did their part.

The issue is that if it wasn't for the vendor lock we wouldn't have to force AA through CCC and AMD wouldn't have had to figure out a way to force it via CCC. This type of vendor lockout should NEVER be allowed by anybody.

NV and Eidos should be ashamed of themselves. NV for adding in the vendor lockout and Eidos for accepting it. NV needs to get their head out of their ass and realize that the bullshit with PhysX not working with AMD cards as the rendering card and this vendor lockout are detrimental to the gaming industry and their profit margins.
 
NVIDIA has done no such thing. Huddy is framing his statements to make things up that NVIDIA never said. The vendor check is not going anywhere.

AMD needs to supply their own AA solution for AMD customers to get access to AA. If they had just done this from the get go instead of crying we wouldn't even be having this discussion.

You fail at reading comprehension.
 
NVIDIA has done no such thing. Huddy is framing his statements to make things up that NVIDIA never said. The vendor check is not going anywhere.

AMD needs to supply their own AA solution for AMD customers to get access to AA. If they had just done this from the get go instead of crying we wouldn't even be having this discussion.

as far as the look.
even if AMD provide the AA solution, it still under the same code path, which nVidia's vendor filter still present and blocking it from working.
 
Question is how much Nvidia is paying Eidos to block AMD.

Pretty soon there are going to be a bunch of games that block certain settings with ati cards...and eventually certain games will only run with certain cards...man these pcs are slowly turning into consoles, and we can thank IW for starting the fire :(
 
I was wrong, it's not really Eidos's fault. My thoughts, from the other thread about this:

http://www.hardforum.com/showpost.php?p=1034862376&postcount=8

Earley said:
After reading the article three things are clear to me:

1. The supposedly trademarked special 'Nvidia-only' implementation of the MSAA was 100% industry standard work the way any experienced programmer would have done it for either platform.

2. Nvidia delivered the code as late as possible and then lied about locking out ATI.

3. ATI worked with Eidos at all stages of that project and had a dedicated engineer working with them to see how it would work on DX9, DX10 and DX11. The MSAA implementation was a trivial piece of programming and they did not imagine that it would be any problem until they saw the built going to Golden Master that had their hardware locked out.

The rest is a bit of he-said she-said but clearly Nvidia wanted to pull a fast one and it was Eidos who got caught in the middle. I mean, criticize ATI all you like for being aloof, but at least they're transparent about it.
 
Question is how much Nvidia is paying Eidos to block AMD.

Pretty soon there are going to be a bunch of games that block certain settings with ati cards...and eventually certain games will only run with certain cards...man these pcs are slowly turning into consoles, and we can thank IW for starting the fire :(

its possible that in some instances, money isn't on the table at all (though i'm sure its part of the equation some where), offering up plenty of test samples of new silicon for game makers to play with. its something ati is doing now, by plying devs with dx11 capable hardware. they just need to start doing this as aggressively as nvidia was.
 
its possible that in some instances, money isn't on the table at all (though i'm sure its part of the equation some where), offering up plenty of test samples of new silicon for game makers to play with. its something ati is doing now, by plying devs with dx11 capable hardware. they just need to start doing this as aggressively as nvidia was.

Except there's a HUGE difference in what we're talking about and what you said. Offering up DX11 hardware to get them to code for DX11 which currently only AMD supports is a great idea by AMD. Those same DX11 games will run on DX11 NV hardware just fine. NV wrote DX9/10 code to allow AA in Batman on the UT3 engine and then artificially blocked other hardware from using said code.

Personally I lay more fault on Eidos for actually excepting and using that code in their game. As soon as they saw a vendor lockout they should have said F U but money talks and bullshit walks.
 
what i'm saying is that nvidia parlayed its twimtbp to gain enough influence to do something this underhanded. business doesn't exist in a vacuum, so unless ati gets real serious about pushing its way into those dev meeting rooms, there is little to stop nvidia from trying something like this again.
 
IIts a shame though, because I can't help but wonder the extent of this. Did it only happen in Batman or are there more "the way its ment to be crippled" games out there? How much can we trust the reviews of such games?

What about assassins creed and the dx10.1 path that was yanked out as it gave ATI cards a bid advantage? Did ubisoft every put dx10.1 back in? Seems if there some artifacts then a patch or driver update could have fixed it. Yanking out an entire path seems extreme.

I am sure AMD/ATI has done some..."less than friendly moves" in the past too. It seems this is the game we have to play now...
 
what i'm saying is that nvidia parlayed its twimtbp to gain enough influence to do something this underhanded. business doesn't exist in a vacuum, so unless ati gets real serious about pushing its way into those dev meeting rooms, there is little to stop nvidia from trying something like this again.

Problem is that if ATI is going to start doing the same crap as Nvidia does, customers only get more screwed. I buy Nvidia cards and I buy ATI cards, perhaps soon I'll buy an Intel card.

What we need to do, is to take a stand against such despicable practises as consumers. If ATI starts blocking Nvidia, consumers gets screwed, if Nvidia continues to block ATI, consumers gets screwed, if Intel starts blocking Nvidia/ATI consumers gets screwed. Do you see the picture? Its not Nvidia vs. ATI, its Nvidia vs. consumers (or ATI vs. consumers if they start with this).

You buy a game from Eidos and expect them to have done their best to run it on the hardware they advertise that they support. Then, you get it home and wonder where the heck AA is, which is a standard feature in almost all games these days. Turns out, Eidos made a deal with Nvidia to screw you (as Eidos customer) and not telling you about it. AA works fine on our machine and would contribute to your gaming pleasure. Eidos would rather cripple AA support on your machine to please Nvidia, then to give you value for the money you paid Eidos for the game. Thats what they did in Batman when accepting Nvidia's "help".
 
i think you don't get the picture. once again its this life in a vacuum thinking. do you really expect nvidia will just shy away and allow ati to usurp all of its influence with developers? no, that would be fucking idiotic. ati has done nothing significantly to change its relationship with developers except lie on its belly and get fucked in the ass. if ati can bring itself to insist upon having more influence with developers then they may be able to nullify nvidia's rapacious practices.
 
i think you don't get the picture. once again its this life in a vacuum thinking. do you really expect nvidia will just shy away and allow ati to usurp all of its influence with developers? no, that would be fucking idiotic. ati has done nothing significantly to change its relationship with developers except lie on its belly and get fucked in the ass. if ati can bring itself to insist upon having more influence with developers then they may be able to nullify nvidia's rapacious practices.

So basically you're saying to beat Nvidia, ATi has to resort to the same shenanigans that Nvidia employs :rolleyes:.

How about coming out with good performing cards that don't cost an arm and a leg that conform to standards ie the DirectX API be it DX10, 11 - standard specifications that preclude the need for vendor specific code in order to use certain features.

Standards are there for a reason - to be completely vendor neutral so consumers can make their own purchase decisions based on its features (which are implemented by following those standards),price, performance and not because a certain card is locked out while another isn't because one company happens to pay a developer more $$.

If my game supports DX10 as it says on the box, and I have a card that is fully DX10 compliant then I should be able to enjoy the game's DX10 features while I'm playing it.
If those features are locked out by a competing company then what's the point of having the DirectX standard?

Instead of telling ATi they should play the same dirty game as Nvidia, how about Nvidia come out with their own proprietary API and use their TWIMTBP program to get developers to support it? They own all rights to it and since it's theirs , it'll only run on Nvidia cards providing features only their cards have and there's nothing ATi can do about it because there'll be no need for vendor lockouts. It's not gonna happen because MS will not allow it but there's nothing stopping them from doing it for Linux - a completely untapped gaming platform all there for Nvidia to take advantage of but that'll screw over Windows users. So Nvidia is going to do what they do best to stay competitive - leverage their TWIMTBP program even if it meant screwing over the consumers.
 
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Couldn't the solution be to not buy a game that is discriminating against customers based on their GPU manufacturer? I know that isn't a solution for those that really want to play it, but when is enough, enough? Hell, the game developers sure picked a shitty moment to pull a stunt like this. Tons of the enthusiasts are moving to the 5000 series, and are going to be disgusted with this kind of bullshit. I have an Nvidia card (until 5970) and I am not going to be playing this game because of this shit.
 
Wow completely Shady.

But it doesn't shock me since they havent been doing so well lately. "Nvidia"
 
So basically you're saying to beat Nvidia, ATi has to resort to the same shenanigans that Nvidia employs :rolleyes:.

How about coming out with good performing cards that don't cost an arm and a leg that conform to standards ie the DirectX API be it DX10, 11 - standard specifications that preclude the need for vendor specific code in order to use certain features.

Standards are there for a reason - to be completely vendor neutral so consumers can make their own purchase decisions based on its features (which are implemented by following those standards),price, performance and not because a certain card is locked out while another isn't because one company happens to pay a developer more $$.

If my game supports DX10 as it says on the box, and I have a card that is fully DX10 compliant then I should be able to enjoy the game's DX10 features while I'm playing it.
If those features are locked out by a competing company then what's the point of having the DirectX standard?

Instead of telling ATi they should play the same dirty game as Nvidia, how about Nvidia come out with their own proprietary API and use their TWIMTBP program to get developers to support it? They own all rights to it and since it's theirs , it'll only run on Nvidia cards providing features only their cards have and there's nothing ATi can do about it because there'll be no need for vendor lockouts. It's not gonna happen because MS will not allow it but there's nothing stopping them from doing it for Linux - a completely untapped gaming platform all there for Nvidia to take advantage of but that'll screw over Windows users. So Nvidia is going to do what they do best to stay competitive - leverage their TWIMTBP program even if it meant screwing over the consumers.

what are you people retarded? no, ati needs to do a better job at engaging the developers as a preventative measure to keep nvidia from blatantly engaging in these kinds of shenanigans. its not a black and white issue. ati is exerting the absolute minimum level of effort to get support for its hardware. if ati all of sudden becomes more aggressive with devs, they don't automatically become the new 'evil empire.' but being more aggressive is what ati needs to do to keep nvidia in check. its childish, comic book inspired thinking to assume ati needs to become the new bad guy to beat the old bad guy. the real world is built upon nuanced relationships. right now nvidia is in the ear of the developer while ati is sitting at the other end of the table trying to be heard. ati needs to get off its ass, pull its seat closer so it can equally participate in the conversation. ati has a fabulous product in the new 5xxx series cards. i own two 5870's, two 5770's, and one 5850. we as consumers certainly must pay our due diligence and speak with our dollars. that is not an issue of dispute, and in no single post on this matter have i advocated giving nvidia a pass, but ati must also pay its own due diligence by being more proactive; this is their responsibility. we consumers cannot be the only ones to act on this matter. i'm surpised that so many of you doinks don't understand my argument.
 
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what are you people retarded? no, ati needs to do a better job at engaging the developers as a preventative measure to keep nvidia from blatantly engaging in these kinds of shenanigans. its not a black and white issue. ati is exerting the absolute minimum level of effort to get support for its hardware. if ati all of sudden becomes more aggressive with devs, they don't automatically become the new 'evil empire.' but this is what ati needs to do to keep nvidia in check. its childish, comic book inspired thinking to assume ati needs to become the new bad guy to beat the old bad guy. the real world is built upon nuanced relationships. right now nvidia is in the ear of the developer while ati is sitting at the other end of the table trying to be heard. ati needs to get off its ass, pull its seat closer so it can equally participate in the conversation. ati has a fabulous product in the new 5xxx series cards. i own two 5870's, two 5770's, and one 5850. we as consumers certainly must pay our due diligence and speak with our dollars. that is not an issue of dispute, and in no single post on this matter have i advocated giving nvidia a pass, but ati must also pay its own due diligence by being more proactive; this is their responsibility. we consumers cannot be the only ones to act on this matter. i'm surpised that so many of you doinks don't understand my argument.

They did fix it though, You can force AA with CCC.

So ATI did fix the problem that Nvidia/eidos caused.
 
They did fix it though, You can force AA with CCC.

So ATI did fix the problem that Nvidia/eidos caused.

i know aa works in batman through catalyst. what i'm saying is that ati needs to better engage developers moving forward. i don't think batman is the only game where nvidia will try to pull a fast one.
 
Surely there is a governing body that should be looking into unfair practices of this nature?
 
i'm sure if nvidia held a larger stake in the discrete graphics market, trade commissions around the world would be looking into this.
 
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