Doesn't stop them pushing out awesome games, AMD have Battlefield and hopes for future on Mantle.
Meanwhile Nvidia have buddied up with the biggest franchises in gaming..
So with Battlefield on AMD hardware, you get no additional effects, and the promise of being able to run faster in the future using an new API. In contrast Nvidia can run Battlefield games even without needing Mantle now, and do offer unique effects in games. So overall an Nvidia card is still a better buy, if extra features and propriety gimmicks are your thing.
I hope that SteamOS unifies PC, would like to see the death of, Physx, Tress FX, and custom API's. A unified platform with all hardware running it's best would be so much better..
Some things you don't seem to get, TressFX works on Nvidia cards, AMD has a history of going open standard and not locked in where possible. It's simply not possible for AMD to make Mantle Nvidia compatible, its hardware dependant, it's very possible they will pass off Mantle(as they did HSA and other things) and Nvidia code can be added, but no one can expect AMD to write an API for Nvidia hardware, no one sensible anyway.
Nvidia have had a utility API for quite some time, nothing on the level of Mantle though. Third, you can't have a unified non custom API that will get the full performance out of completely different architectures, it's simply not possible. A full rewrite of DX or openGL for efficiency and latest hardware would get close but still not close enough if it has to support two entire different hardware types. So a custom API for each(while ditching everything else so there is only two) would be best.
As for relationships with game dev's. well while looking for a list this is one of the first hits I got.
https://forums.geforce.com/default/...its-meant-to-be-played-vs-amd-gaming-evolved/
Nvidia's own forums and users asking why Nvidia logo's seem to barely be on any games anymore. This is precisely what he was getting at, 2 years ago Gaming Evolved was literally just being born and the previous game dev relationship was there but not pushed as hard and certainly not in as marketed/direct a way as TWIMTBP.
Over the past two years Gaming Evolved has quite easily surpassed TWIMTBP because aside from better support in many cases, all the game dev's know their engines will HAVE to be optimised for GCN hardware on the consoles, they have worked with AMD on all things console for two years. The console domination is probably the biggest single reason their game dev relationships are now stronger than Nvidia's.
That is why consoles will make AMD stronger, it's meant they all, Ubisoft included, already optimised almost every game they make for AMD hardware by design, their engines will be designed to work great on AMD hardware, even PC only games using a usually standard engine will be preoptimised for AMD hardware. That is a huge advantage.
Physx is really the only effect Nvidia can have that AMD can't(gpu accelerated anyway) and Nvidia pretty much pay companies to use it.
Maxwell afaik is not remotely supposed to be 16x faster watt for watt than Kepler, Nvidia have a history of making up numbers and fudging the facts. If it's the REALLY old graph then 16x faster is compared to something WAY before Kepler, if it's a newer number than no doubt it will be compared to a compute crippled(yet still high power using) 680gtx. But Titan has massive massive improvement in power per watt in compute over the 680gtx, it doesn't mean much.
If you think Nvidia have an architecture ready to go that is 16x more efficient than Kepler...... lol.
Maxwell will offer 16 times the performance of the current Fermi chip, chief executive Jen-Hsun Huang said.
Oh look.
AMD don't have just Battlefield, they have dozens of huge titles and game devs, Nvidia have only a few now.
Also from that link, Nvidia users seem to think Nvidia 3d Vision support is dead and burried........
