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

[humbug]

Also interesting that only 5 developers are dissing Nvidia.
I'm pretty sure there are more than 5 developers in the world. Percentage-wise this may be insignificant.

5 developers? i didn't even know it was that many. 5 is significant.

Thats what we are debating here, here we also have UbiSoft programmers, IE those using GW saying the have lost respect for Nvidia for locking them out.

Its not just AMD saying it, its the very people who have to work with the GW software saying it.

 

[BubbySoup]

I think a far more pertinent question would be;

In a zombie apocalypse, which card would you prefer to use as a head-beating weapon?

My 290 definitely feels heavier than my 780, but I'm not sure which would fall apart quicker tbh. This genuinely concerns me.

 

[Marine-RX179]

That's exactly the way it is GoogalyMoogaly, in recent years AMD fanboys have taken fanboyism to a whole new level of fanaticism.

AMD = The force of good.
NVidia = The force of evil.

It's like GPU Jihad.

I sometimes wonder if they even play games or just like to spend all day making AMD look good and NVidia look bad.

Funny, consider the general trend seem to be:
Mantle...an API that's not yet public minding their only business doesn't have adverse effects on dx performance for Nvidia users, and Nvidia users cannot use Mantle (yet)= evil

GameWorks...directly standing in the way between AMD and optimisation for dx, which the dx API does not belong solely to Nvidia= AMD making a big thus out of nothing being a crybaby



dx is like free water available to everyone, however what GameWorks has done is Nvidia has taken control of it, and if AMD was to get this free water, it would have to be to Nvidia's terms (for better or for worse).

 

[LtMatt]

I think a far more pertinent question would be;

In a zombie apocalypse, which card would you prefer to use as a head-beating weapon?

My 290 definitely feels heavier than my 780, but I'm not sure which would fall apart quicker tbh. This genuinely concerns me.

 

[llamadal]

5 is not significant at all out of the thousands that have worked for them.

I know 5 people that would slate the company I work for even though its pretty great - but why you ask? Because they were fired/thought the grass was greener/want to work their own way....etc.... not because the company is the devil.

All I see is 1 group of fanboys against another, being very selective on what to address.

AMD have the consoles lockedin, so obviously will be working with developers to maximise performance on lesser hardware, so in no way is either company going to screw one another to the level implied here. Each will have pros and cons and no doubt this will be rehashed for years to come but instead of gameworks or mantle or will be some other trick.

 

[LtMatt]

5 is not significant at all out of the thousands that have worked for them.

I know 5 people that would slate the company I work for even though its pretty great - but why you ask? Because they were fired/thought the grass was greener/want to work their own way....etc.... not because the company is the devil.

GameWorks has not been about for very long and it's only in a handful of games so far so that probably explains it.

 

[humbug]

GameWorks has not been about for very long and it's only in a handful of games so far so that probably explains it.

By the looks of it its not something that is going to be wide spread, IMO its not going to get beyond where its at now.

I think even UbiSoft are silently regretting signing upto to it, look at their only two GW games, AC4 and now this, both games run like a bucket of rusty nails on all GPU's, its worse than FC3 ever was.

I suspect UbiSofts programmers are moaning about GW because they are finding that they are locked out of optimising their own creation, or parts of it that are compiled inside the GW Software.

Its good that Game Developers are talking amongst themselves about their experiences, those with experience don't seem at all happy.

 

[andybird123]

The only gameworks feature they are using is HBAO+
Turning on/off HBAO+ nets the same difference in fps on AMD hardware as it does on nvidia

The game has many issues, it runs like dog dirt on nvidia hardware, gameworks is not the problem, unless nvidia have gone out of their way to help ubisoft make a game that can only run on low settings at 4K

 

[PhysicsMan94]

I hope GW is implemented more, I love PhysX in Black Flag and HBAO+ makes a huge difference to the lighting too. Really great technologies which I want to see in more games, Nvidia and the relevant game developers just need to work a bit more on optimising PhysX as it can knock performance a bit too much from my experience. It's implemented perfectly in Metro: Last Light though, I get great performance at 1440p with everything (except AA) maxed out in that game with advanced PhysX on; plus the explosions look brilliant

 

[Gregster]

16 pages of wild speculation and AMD fanboys wanting there to be an issue where there isn't.

Good work fella's

 

[LtMatt]

By the looks of it its not something that is going to be wide spread, IMO its not going to get beyond where its at now.

I think even UbiSoft are silently regretting signing upto to it, look at their only two GW games, AC4 and now this, both games run like a bucket of rusty nails on all GPU's, its worse than FC3 ever was.

I suspect UbiSofts programmers are moaning about GW because they are finding that they are locked out of optimising their own creation, or parts of it that are compiled inside the GW Software.

Its good that Game Developers are talking amongst themselves about their experiences, those with experience don't seem at all happy.

I think Ubisoft need Mantle. They've had a ton of problems optimizing their DirectX games, all of their GameWorks titles, hell even Farcry 3 (gaming evolved) was poorly optimized.

Lets hope this works out.

 

[nashathedog]

16 pages of wild speculation and AMD fanboys wanting there to be an issue where there isn't.

Good work fella's

As we see now it was all based on I think, I reckon, I suspect or If you ask me proclamations.

At the end of the day Nvidia have allowed access since mid april, Quoting things from before that have no relevance to the here and now or future developments because things have changed. They also stated that they keep things in-house until there out of beta and then there made available. Is that really that unusual?

 

[heighnub]

Well Nvidia have already admitted to the lock out, they say so in the interview i linked to a few pages back. Even Ryan Shrout agreed that AMD had a case not to mention other tech journalists that have reported on this. That's good enough for me. The good thing is because of this pressure from the community, from AMD and tech journalists GameWorks is changing how they do things. I see this as a good thing going forward and hopefully we can all move on. Time will tell. That's my final say on it, rightly or wrongly (i will let others debate this until the cows come home ) for now anyway.

Tech journalists may have covered the story but it was only game developers that succeeded in getting nVidia to open up GameWorks via internal processes, not an internet publicity war.

This sudden fascination by the PC hardware/gaming press (and readers) on Mantle, Gameworks, and other APIs really boggles my mind.
Most journalists don't truly understand what these things provide, how they work, what the disadvantages and advantages are to them. Instead they form opinions from the marketing materials and PR given to them by the providers of these APIs.
Then we get the readers on tech/gaming websites and forums like this who then think they have a valid opinion based upon this limited marketing information.
At the end of the day, the opinions of non-developers have absolutely no influence on the low-level implementation details of a game engine/game.

Thus, it is a waste of time and resources to have articles like this thread mentions or forum arguments over Mantle vs DX vs OpenGL as we can only put our trust in game developers to make the right decisions when it comes to these things.

 

[humbug]

I think Ubisoft need Mantle. They've had a ton of problems optimizing their DirectX games, all of their GameWorks titles, hell even Farcry 3 (gaming evolved) was poorly optimized.

Lets hope this works out.

I'm glad Roy said it in Twitter, he prommised to keep us apprised of that meeting, i will hold him to that and you do the same. lets see what happens

 

[LtMatt]

Tech journalists may have covered the story but it was only game developers that succeeded in getting nVidia to open up GameWorks via internal processes, not an internet publicity war.

This sudden fascination by the PC hardware/gaming press (and readers) on Mantle, Gameworks, and other APIs really boggles my mind.
Most journalists don't truly understand what these things provide, how they work, what the disadvantages and advantages are to them. Instead they form opinions from the marketing materials and PR given to them by the providers of these APIs.
Then we get the readers on tech/gaming websites and forums like this who then think they have a valid opinion based upon this limited marketing information.
At the end of the day, the opinions of non-developers have absolutely no influence on the low-level implementation details of a game engine/game.

Thus, it is a waste of time and resources to have articles like this thread mentions or forum arguments over Mantle vs DX vs OpenGL as we can only put our trust in game developers to make the right decisions when it comes to these things.

That may be the case, but regardless how it happened it's a good thing i hope think. One thing we can be sure of, Nvidia does not like the negative press GameWorks gets. If developers didn't throw some weight behind those claims (even if they did it unknowingly via twitter) then im sure this would not be getting as much coverage as it did.

Interesting take on things though. Some of us like to debate these things and others just like to come in and moan and say 'lock the thread', Lock it all. Lock the forum as well, rar rar.

 

[PhysicsMan94]

One thing we can be sure of, Nvidia does not like the negative press GameWorks gets.

 

[LtMatt]

Lol good retort PM.

 

[Gregster]

Just been playing for an hour and the game looks pretty good to me at 4K and runs nice and smooth with ultra settings and 2xTXAA.

I can see me enjoying this game

 

[Orangey]

 

[smilertoo]

Name me one game please were amd have went out and hurt nvidia. Don't spread junk.

TressFX ?