BATMANGATE - Nvidia bows to public pressure over AA

[Rroff]

Graphics card manufacturers should NOT be supplying code for games - coding is the responsibility of the developers. Don't give us any of this "developers shouldn't have to develop stuff" nonsense. As this situation demonstrates, when developers cut corners and outsource development to graphics manufacturers it's gamers that suffer. The end result is nVidia paying off developers to damage the competition - whether that's direct (financial aid) or indirect (supplying code) is irrelevant. Both the developer and nVidia are to blame for this situation - the developer for cutting corners and selling out; nVidia for acting like sleazy scumbags.

It strikes me as unreasonable to attack ATi for being unwilling to resort to dirty tactics like these. Can you HONESTLY not understand what nVidia has doen wrong? Your denial is absolutely astounding. It just beggars belief.

In an ideal world... sure... please see my earlier post tho for more details...

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showpost.php?p=15290295&postcount=37

I'm not attacking ATI for being unwilling to resort to dirty tactics... please show me these "dirty tactics" (in relation to Batman AA).

Please believe me... as the saying goes you can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink... I am NOT the one who is blind to whats actually going on here...

 

[kylew]

In an ideal world... sure... please see my earlier post tho for more details...

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showpost.php?p=15290295&postcount=37

I'm not attacking ATI for being unwilling to resort to dirty tactics... please show me these "dirty tactics"...

Please believe me... as the saying goes you can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink... I am NOT the one who is blind to whats actually going on here...

No one is saying you're blind to it, they're saying that you think it's fine, and that's thier issue.

 

[Rroff]

I would say "Can you HONESTLY not understand what nVidia has doen wrong? Your denial is absolutely astounding. It just beggars belief." is calling me blind...

The truth is most people in here have never had any video game development experience and are unable to comprehend through no fault of their own whats going on here... even when spelt out they can't understand the concepts so resort to petty attacks on the people who do understand it...

 

[kylew]

I would say "Can you HONESTLY not understand what nVidia has doen wrong? Your denial is absolutely astounding. It just beggars belief." is calling me blind...

The truth is most people in here have never had any video game development experience and are unable to comprehend through no fault of their own whats going on here... even when spelt out they can't understand the concepts so resort to petty attacks on the people who do understand it...

No, he's saying you're in denial that what nVidia has done is wrong.

 

[Rroff]

Which could also indicate being blind to the truth... don't you actually have something substantial to argue about?

 

[kylew]

What? You mean just like you?

 

[james.miller]

Graphics card manufacturers should NOT be supplying code for games - coding is the responsibility of the developers. Don't give us any of this "developers shouldn't have to develop stuff" nonsense.

absolutely, just as microsoft shouldnt be helping people with windows or office software in any way, shape or form..right?

 

[kylew]

absolutely, just as microsoft shouldnt be helping people with windows or office software in any way, shape or form..right?

Microsoft made windows? nVidia or ATi didn't make all the games that run on their hardware.

 

[Rroff]

You can't expect a game developer to have indepth knowledge of the specifics of the cards from each vendor - obviously they need a working knowledge of GPUs in general - as we can see from the earlier quote the UE3 branch that is given to licensees does not have any multisampling in any shape or form and to implement it is beyond the capabilities of standard DX functionality... so... to implement an effective custom multisampling path you really need indepth knowledge of the workings of each GPU your code will be running on... who better to provide that than the people who developed the GPU.

 

[Rroff]

And back to my original point... people need to ask ATI and Eidos exactly what is going on here - before they start pointing the finger at nVidia.

 

[james.miller]

Microsoft made windows? nVidia or ATi didn't make all the games that run on their hardware.

and? same difference. You have two companies that make products but you'd expect one to help with coding and the other not to? if nvidia and ati shouldnt be helping dev's with coding for the cards, the microsoft shouldnt be helping dev's with coding for windows. I mean come on, thats what you and tac4u are saying right?

 

[TAC4U]

You can't expect a game developer to have indepth knowledge of the specifics of the cards from each vendor - obviously they need a working knowledge of GPUs in general - as we can see from the earlier quote the UE3 branch that is given to licensees does not have any multisampling in any shape or form and to implement it is beyond the capabilities of standard DX functionality... so... to implement an effective custom multisampling path you really need indepth knowledge of the workings of each GPU your code will be running on... who better to provide that than the people who developed the GPU.

None of that is at all relevant to the discussion. This is about developers accepting code that disadvantages the competition because it saves them time. The end result is the developer being paid off. Why even develop anything at all? What happens when nVidia offers a free game engine that only works properly on their cards? You're completely oblivious to the issues here and any "debate" is completely futile. Everyone else can see your obvious bias and yet you seem to deny it.

 

[Calabi]

You can't expect a game developer to have indepth knowledge of the specifics of the cards from each vendor - obviously they need a working knowledge of GPUs in general - as we can see from the earlier quote the UE3 branch that is given to licensees does not have any multisampling in any shape or form and to implement it is beyond the capabilities of standard DX functionality... so... to implement an effective custom multisampling path you really need indepth knowledge of the workings of each GPU your code will be running on... who better to provide that than the people who developed the GPU.

Thats the whole point of windows though I thought, the hardware specifics are irrelevant as long as they build there hardware to some standard defined by whomever. Otherwise we would be back at the DOS days.

No developer needs to know the specifics of the hardware just to use functionality(surely documentation would be easily available to this effect). They might need to know it for specific performance enhancements, if some card has some quirky manner in which it handles something but not to enable that functionality on that card. I think it would take a long time for them to code specifically for each gpu.

 

[Rroff]

None of that is at all relevant to the discussion. This is about developers accepting code that disadvantages the competition because it saves them time. The end result is the developer being paid off. Why even develop anything at all? What happens when nVidia offers a free game engine that only works properly on their cards? You're completely oblivious to the issues here and any "debate" is completely futile. Everyone else can see your obvious bias and yet you seem to deny it.

Its completely relevant - thats why your way off target here.

Thats the whole point of windows though I thought, the hardware specifics are irrelevant as long as they build there hardware to some standard defined by whomever. Otherwise we would be back at the DOS days.

No developer needs to know the specifics of the hardware just to use functionality(surely documentation would be easily available to this effect). They might need to know it for specific performance enhancements, if some card has some quirky manner in which it handles something but not to enable that functionality on that card. I think it would take a long time for them to code specifically for each gpu.

In a roundabout way your reinforcing my point - to implement multisampling AA in the UE3 engine requires taking it to a level outside of the normal safe zone of windows and directx functionality... its probably not beyond the abilities of industry leading game engine developers like sweeney and carmack - we are talking about a commercial studio here (rocksteady) who licensed a game engine in the first place rather than creating one from the ground up - its realistically beyond their scope and mandate (from Eidos).

 

[Lightnix]

Its completely relevant - thats why your way off target here.

I think you're missing the deeper issue of how this sort of event affects the industry as a whole rather than who's right over some petty licensing agreement. Ultimately, Nvidia got this code in this game to make their products look good, irrespective of whether it's a real 'advantage' of their products. It's all about marketing and relations over actual hardware, but that's become a bit of a theme with Nvidia lately, hasn't it?

 

[Rroff]

I'm not oblivious to the issues - but unless nVidia did infact prohibited or interfere with ATI, Rocksteady or anyone else implementing alternative multisampling routines - and there is no evidence that they did other than the general populance's misunderstanding of the nature of the nVidia code - they are moot as far as this particular instance is concerned.


Now if we do infact find that nVidia was twisting Eidos' arm to get an unfair edge on the competition then it is a concern.

 

[drunkenmaster]

In an ideal world... sure... please see my earlier post tho for more details...

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showpost.php?p=15290295&postcount=37



Please believe me... as the saying goes you can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink... I am NOT the one who is blind to whats actually going on here...

the post you linked to, yet again, its this I'll post something 3 pages back thats total nonsense and claim it as fact later on and for all eternity. What you quoted, and what you extracted from that quote, have no bearing on each other, what you've determined from that quote contains nothing about the conclusions you've made and its really that simple. Every one of your posts is based on this logic, tenuous links between quotes, or like this one, no link whatsoever, but because you've stated it, we all have to except this as factual knowledge.

Its a joke frankly.

And back to my original point... people need to ask ATI and Eidos exactly what is going on here - before they start pointing the finger at nVidia.

No, Nvidia have officially backed down over this, if they did no wrong, there would be no where to back down, can you not see this.

They could should they want, release the exact agreement between them and Eidos, claiming the copyright for the code, holding a press conference WITH Eidos, officially for the world to see where Eidos, infront of the worlds press agree its Nvidia's code they've used and ATi have refused to write their own.

Infact, ATI would look terrible if they did this, Nvidia would get more sales, look like the pro gamer company, get support from everyone over this issue by proving ATi are in the wrong. But they didn't, they backed down, you do not do this, no one in the history or future of this planet would "back down" in this situation when you only stand to gain by being truthful and standing up for yourselves. How you seem to be completely blind to that little fact I can't possibly understand.

Is there any proof of ANYTHING in this whole situation, no not really, however Nvidia did back down, thats the only real fact we know. No possible logical conclusion could possibly come up with any explanation other than Nvidia did indeed do something wrong.

 

[Rroff]

I see nothing but conjecture and jumping to conclusions in your post - there is not a single fact in anything you've said...

EVERYTHING I have stated on this matter can be backed up.

 

[Rroff]

Oh and please explain to me whats totally nonsense about:

"Tim Sweeney: Unreal Engine 3 uses deferred shading to accelerate dynamic lighting and shadowing. Integrating this feature with multisampling requires lower-level control over FSAA than the DirectX9 API provides."

Which is what I linked to.

 

[str]

The rendering code has ATI specific optimisations written or directed by ATI engineers and of course it also has NVIDIA specific optimisations written or directed by NVIDIA engineers. These vendor specific optimisations aren't an issue since there is nothing untoward about allowing such optimisations.

The NVIDIA AA code should not be considered a NVIDIA specific optimisation especially because it's been proven to work as-is on ATI graphics cards?

It's been mentioned that someone at NVIDIA suggested ATI should duplicate the AA code but surely that isn't necessary now that we know the NVIDIA AA code is not a vendor specific optimisation lol?