Why 'Watch Dogs' Is Bad News For AMD Users -- And Potentially The Entire PC Gaming Ecosystem

[andybird123]

Why do people keep bringing up Mantle?

Andy you have a tri-SLI rig you won't miss out by using DX over Mantle. Meanwhile Gameworks gimps the hardware of people paying almost as much as you did for their PCs.

Not the same thing at all in my mind.

The article does, I was just commenting on the article's usage of it, which matt deemed important enough to quote it here.

Also, as discussed, my view is that gameworks is not gimping performance on AMD hardware (I also have AMD hardware as well as Nvidia), but that the game is simply buggy and poorly optimised as well as needing new drivers, which nvidia were quicker to the punch on, same as with AMD and AMD sponsored titles.

It doesnt even work on nvidia hardware, so if that is down to gameworks then that would be a massive own goal by nvidia.

 

[drunkenmaster]

AMD just need to ensure that Mantle support is included in every Gameworks title, I doubt they will though as they will be unwilling to pay developers to add it (certainly in the long run) and the AMD fanboys will simply blame NVidia letting them off the hook as always.

You seem to miss the entire point, when Nvidia signs up a company, they pay the company, part of that contractual agreement is to NOT work with AMD on it. So they CAN'T sign up AMD and AMD can't pay anyone. Unless Ubisoft wanted to break their contract and be sued by Nvidia.

Nvidia is paying dev's to force an unoptimised rendering path down AMD users throats while forcing the dev's to refuse to work with AMD or offer an alternative path.

Nvidia is writing and providing a rendering path for AMD that they have to use via gameworks.

With Mantle, AMD does not write code that Nvidia has to use, it is not hiding any code, Mantle doesn't change or effect the DX11 code in any way shape or form.

There is nothing even remotely close to comparable between Mantle... code that DOES NOT RUN ON NVIDIA GPU's, nor does AMD pay the dev to force them to, and Gameworks being added which Nvidia is paying the dev's to force being used on AMD gpu's which negatively effects performance.

Nothing Mantle does negatively effects Nvidia in the slightest, and soon enough Mantle will be a pretty open platform(i'm talking in general, public sdk, dev's free to use it, meaning Nvidia can read and learn about it should they want to).

 

[andybird123]

No, there is nothing forcing AMD users to run gameworks libraries, the game works features can all be disabled in game

Also, check the techspot benches, all the cards are sitting roughly where they should, particularly considering they are using 337.50 and 14.4 drivers without any game specific optimisations

Surely writing code that CAN run on other vendors hardware is better than writing code that locks out the competition? Or is it ok now that the shoe is on the other foot?

 

[Rusty0611]

Why do people keep bringing up Mantle?

Andy you have a tri-SLI rig you won't miss out by using DX over Mantle. Meanwhile Gameworks gimps the hardware of people paying almost as much as you did for their PCs.

Not the same thing at all in my mind.

From what I understand the pattern is similar. Nobody stops nVidia optimising for DX11 where Mantle exists and similarly nobody stops AMD optimising for DX11 where Gameworks features exists but are not selected in the settings menu. Sure AMD can't optimise properly where those features are selected but what is forcing them to be used? My understanding is that anything GW is optional. But happy to be corrected if I'm wrong.

I completely understand that an API and a set of features are completely different things but to me where do you draw the line at just bad optimisation by AMD?

Ubisoft know full well what they're signing up for when they enroll.

 

[bru]

You seem to miss the entire point, when Nvidia signs up a company, they pay the company, part of that contractual agreement is to NOT work with AMD on it. So they CAN'T sign up AMD and AMD can't pay anyone. Unless Ubisoft wanted to break their contract and be sued by Nvidia.

Nvidia is paying dev's to force an unoptimised rendering path down AMD users throats while forcing the dev's to refuse to work with AMD or offer an alternative path.

Not trying to be funny or anything DM but can you show us some conclusive proof that this is what happens or is this just your opinion. Because the way you have written it, it kinda comes across as fact. If it is please show us the proof that that is the way things happened.

 

[GoogalyMoogaly]

So once all those 40 games studios roll out mantle games that we hear about, will that not be the same as gameworks? Buy amd or get less performance?

I do appreciate that Mantle is quite different from GameWorks in almost every way, but I do sorta agree with this.

The way they achieve it is different sure, but the end result is still that Mantle games will (or should) perform better on AMD cards than the same game running in DX on Nvidia. Gameworks games supposedly work better on Nvidia than AMD.

Whether one ups performs for their cards and the the other lowers performance for competitor cards (is there proof or is this speculation?) the end result is a performance gap between the different vendors in these games.

 

[drunkenmaster]

Not trying to be funny or anything DM but can you show us some conclusive proof that this is what happens or is this just your opinion. Because the way you have written it, it kinda comes across as fact. If it is please show us the proof that that is the way things happened.

Ubisoft have told us they aren't allowed to work with AMD, AMD have told us they aren't allowed to work with Nvidia, every article discussing gameworks is the same.

AFAIK AMD sponsored titles relatively speaking discourage(and maybe contractual required) working with nvidia hugely. Before gameworks this was always the case. Nvidia titles, AMD only get the chance to optimise very very late on, AMD titles, Nvidia probably not involved till very late.

But there is a huge difference between not helping and actively sabotaging. Ubisoft and everyone who has written anything about gameworks says the companies aren't allowed to help AMD make an alternative.

I have no problems with companies putting money/work into a game and getting preferential treatment... actually I do have a problem with it but not a HUGE problem with it. but when you go beyond just helping you optimise as best as possible to actively hurting the other side, that is where my problem comes from.


Googly, a performance gap is a performance gap, I don't care about that, how it is achieved is a very big deal though.

It's no different to if AMD just paid, lets say Dice to simply put in a bit of code that effectively says "if you detect an Nvidia card, set fps limiter to 20".

If you can help yourself, fine, but actively harming someone else is not at all on. The comparative situation here is if AMD added Mantle, but also made the game company use a sub par api for Nvidia. Lets say ME4 comes out with Mantle, and it has DX12, but AMD pays for only DX11 to be used if it detects Nvidia cards. That would absolutely not be on.

 

[Steampunk]

Not trying to be funny or anything DM but can you show us some conclusive proof that this is what happens or is this just your opinion. Because the way you have written it, it kinda comes across as fact. If it is please show us the proof that that is the way things happened.

Just google for the DX11 mode in AC2 and Batman Arkham Asyslum AA. Both patched out of the game after launch due to contracts with Nvidia.

Nvidia seem to offer a lot of free dev work to a publisher, but the strings attached are that Nvidia own all that work, get to decide who gets to use it (even if it's all standard stuff), and are happy to pull the lawyers out and wave their exclusivity contracts. Nvidia are also happy to hurt their own customers if it means that they can claim a halo benchmark win over AMD (see Crysis over-tessellation).

Nvidia aren't just pulling good performance out of their own products, they are making sure that any competitor product is locked out from making similar optimisations, both technically and contractually.

It's probably a hair's breath away from what Intel were doing when they would offer to pay for all a company's advertising as long as that company signed exclusivity with Intel. ie use any AMD in your products, and you'll lose millions of dollars of free marketing exposure. Or when Intel were enabling all compiling optimisations in their industry standard compiler for an Intel chip, and enabling none of them for any other chip, even whilst claiming it was a deficiency in their competitors, not their compiler.

 

[l2ez4m]

Not trying to be funny or anything DM but can you show us some conclusive proof that this is what happens or is this just your opinion. Because the way you have written it, it kinda comes across as fact. If it is please show us the proof that that is the way things happened.

It's kinda true if the game heavily utilizes - specially optimized proprietary libraries (in this case multiple Gameworks sdks) for various 3d effects - shadows/rays/tess/amb occ/glo ill; thus making practically impossible for AMD to integrate any application specific driver optimization.

 

[Final8y]

Googly, a performance gap is a performance gap, I don't care about that, how it is achieved is a very big deal though.

It's no different to if AMD just paid, lets say Dice to simply put in a bit of code that effectively says "if you detect an Nvidia card, set fps limiter to 20".

If you can help yourself, fine, but actively harming someone else is not at all on. The comparative situation here is if AMD added Mantle, but also made the game company use a sub par api for Nvidia. Lets say ME4 comes out with Mantle, and it has DX12, but AMD pays for only DX11 to be used if it detects Nvidia cards. That would absolutely not be on.

Indeed.

 

[LtMatt]

Indeed.

Nailed it.

 

[nashathedog]

People love to see what they want to see.

 

[Final8y]

Nailed it.

And to add on that context, Mantle helps AMD close the gap with some Intel CPUs in some games, but AMD does not do it by hindering Intel CPUs, AMD could go about it that way as handicapping someone is much easier than bettering yourself.

 

[ubersonic]

The comparative situation here is if AMD added Mantle, but also made the game company use a sub par api for Nvidia.

Nvidia left using a subpar API? Isn't that exactly how every Mantle/Direct3D game works?

 

[LtMatt]

And to add on that context, Mantle helps AMD close the gap with some Intel CPUs in some games, but AMD does not do it by hindering Intel CPUs, AMD could go about it that way as handicapping someone is much easier than bettering yourself.

They certainly don't. Mantle extracts a lot more performance from my Intel cpu.

 

[Ian Evey]

When i try bf4 mantle on my 780 its greyed out, am i locked out?

Just read a Hardocp review ( which seems to be a favorite on here )

On watchdogs and the 290x is beating the 780ti, Damn gameworks giving amd this performance win, As a 780 owner i demand more gimped library's

 

[GoogalyMoogaly]

Googly, a performance gap is a performance gap, I don't care about that, how it is achieved is a very big deal though.

It's no different to if AMD just paid, lets say Dice to simply put in a bit of code that effectively says "if you detect an Nvidia card, set fps limiter to 20".

If you can help yourself, fine, but actively harming someone else is not at all on. The comparative situation here is if AMD added Mantle, but also made the game company use a sub par api for Nvidia. Lets say ME4 comes out with Mantle, and it has DX12, but AMD pays for only DX11 to be used if it detects Nvidia cards. That would absolutely not be on.

Yeah, that's what I was saying, they do it in different way but the end result is basically the same, from a consumer point of view.

If I want the best card for playing Watch Dogs it seems like I should buy an Nvidia card.
If I want the best card to play BF4 then I'm probably better off getting an AMD card.
I try not to worry about the business ethics of every company on the planet that I may buy stuff from.

 

[_Alatar_]

Matt tweeting with a professional (do note, not an amateur blogger or an AMD PR guy unlike some other sources here).

This guy is an ex-nvidia engineer who actually worked on watch dogs:

I said this on OCN and I'll say it here. The whole basis for these articles and the claims made in them is that Nvidia's gameworks libraries are proprietary. And because they are proprietary people have collectively made the assumption that some AMD crippling must be happening. This is without any proof of this ever being offered anywhere.

So for the people who parrot the idea that there definitely is crippling going on I will quote the most commonly used phrase on Wikipedia:

[citation needed]

Provide proof before making claims. Otherwise from here on every Mantle game that releases is a result of child labor and AMD is killing 100 puppies for every endorsement from devs. Must be true because someone said it.

 

[LtMatt]

^ GameWorks didn't exist when he when he was there Alatar.

There's more to come on this though.

 

[_Alatar_]

The whole gameworks issue is still a huge case of [citation needed]. Making claims without proof is pointless unless the idea is to create bad publicity.

It's not like proprietary libraries are a new and evil thing that just recently happened in the gaming world.

Besides;