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

[gpuerrilla]

I hope you're going to run your Thief benchmarks again using the 14.6 driver mate, i think it had a bit of a boost. Certainly my fps on crossfire using Mantle went up by 52.5 fps vs directx at 1080P.

Remember guys, spare thief code -> my way

The advantage Mantle has over DirectX will be gone once DX12 is being used.

As A7F put, it's not even remotely close to being out. Once more, when it is out people will have shiny new hardware in their shopping baskets to try out.

A lot of people seem to be bitter about mantle, raving on about its demise due to something that wont even be available for a loooong while....
If dx 12 (when it eventually gets here) removes the need for mantle, all the better but until then there is nothing better for my minimums without having to go into my wallet.

 

[jamiehavok]

don't competition monopoly laws exist over this sort of thing?

 

[triss]

don't competition monopoly laws exist over this sort of thing?

Over what thing?
One company optimizing there drivers etc more then the other team does?
Or did you mean the slandering that proved to be false?

 

[LtMatt]

Just to clarify, you are saying that you are willing to bet that Mantle will be an open standard by the end of the year?
I'll take that bet, I am willing to bet that Mantle is not an open standard by the end of the year. No way no how.

even if there is a public SDK, mantle will still be controlled by AMD, so it would be suicide for a competitor support and promote it

I asked Thracks about your question and this is what he said.

We will open it up for broad adoption. I don’t know how simple this can be.

That's the end of it for now as far as im concerned. If you still don't believe that will happen well, we'll just have to wait and see.

 

[andybird123]

AMD controlling mantle but allowing people to use it is not the same as it being an open standard controlled by a 3rd party
People such as yourself keep calling mantle open, but even if someone else could write drivers, it being entirely controlled by AMD still makes it proprietary, it would be no different to gameworks effectively (DX is proprietary and weve all seen what happens when MS decide that xbox is competition fo pc gaming, they continue to hamstring pc performance to try to make the xbox more competetive)

 

[LtMatt]

Starts at 20:15. Great listen.

NVIDIA and AMD Fight over NVIDIA GameWorks Program: Devil in the Details

 

[whyscotty]

So , Gameworks could, maybe, possibly, not really affect Amd performance?

 

[ubersonic]

I asked Thracks about your question and this is what he said.

Political spin

That's the end of it for now as far as im concerned. If you still don't believe that will happen well, we'll just have to wait and see.

You do realise that implies it wont become an open standard right? It's just phrased to sound good.

 

[LtMatt]

So , Gameworks could, maybe, possibly, not really affect Amd performance?

GameWorks has affected AMD performance in titles before watchdogs, but the problem is its hard to prove. Doesn't affect performance in watchdogs.

GameWorks was locked out, until all those devs kicked up a fuss on twitter Nvidia changed their ways mid april. Game devs could not see source code (tho Nvidia says they could see a little bit) so game devs could not help AMD optimize.

TL : DR

AMD had a point, GameWorks was locked (at least partially), after complaints from devs, Nvidia change how it works and now it should not be an issue. Time will tell.

That is if we take what they said in the video as gospel. I can't believe Ryan actually said AMD have a point. I was expecting him to write it all off.

You do realise that implies it wont become an open standard right? It's just phrased to sound good.

Yep not playing this game again. Interpret or twist it how you see fit. I'm happy to wait and see. AMD are on record as saying they want to standardize it so lets see.

 

[ubersonic]

Yep not playing this game again. Interpret or twist it how you see fit.

No twisting necessary, you asked him a straight answer and he did some political bullet dodging, impressively I might add, had to read it twice to see what it actually meant as at first glance it looks like he's saying they are going to make it open.

 

[triss]

GameWorks has affected AMD performance in titles before watchdogs, but the problem is its hard to prove. Doesn't affect performance in watchdogs.

GameWorks was locked out, until all those devs kicked up a fuss on twitter Nvidia changed their ways mid april. Game devs could not see source code (tho Nvidia says they could see a little bit) so game devs could not help AMD optimize.

TL : DR

AMD had a point, GameWorks was locked (at least partially), after complaints from devs, Nvidia change how it works and now it should not be an issue. Time will tell.

That is if we take what they said in the video as gospel. I can't believe Ryan actually said AMD have a point. I was expecting him to write it all off.



Yep not playing this game again. Interpret or twist it how you see fit. I'm happy to wait and see. AMD are on record as saying they want to standardize it so lets see.

Actually You dont know if Amd performance was hampered or gameworks optimized Nvidia's performance instead

Amd have said Hairworks runs 6-7times slower then on Nvida cards iirc in the video u posted,unless hairworks was in what you mean ((and even the reporters didnt know how this was tested Since its not used in anygame_yet)Unless AMD have got source to try it with?) AMD havent been hampered
Do you have reports from these devs complaining before The policy change was Decided?
Glad they compared mantle to it like was done here ,, just a different idea form each vendor of how they wished to move Forward.
I know personaly since AMD went to the effort of mantle i would have liked to see effects used in it so far a bit like flameworks and opthere gameworks ideas

 

[LtMatt]

No twisting necessary, you asked him a straight answer and he did some political bullet dodging, impressively I might add, had to read it twice to see what it actually meant as at first glance it looks like he's saying they are going to make it open.

 

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Actually You dont know if Amd performance was hampered or gameworks optimized Nvidia's performance instead

Amd have said Hairworks runs 6-7times slower then on Nvida cards iirc in the video u posted,unless hairworks was in what you mean ((and even the reporters didnt know how this was tested Since its not used in anygame_yet)Unless AMD have got source to try it with?) AMD havent been hampered
Do you have reports from these devs complaining before The policy change was Decided?
Glad they compared mantle to it like was done here ,, just a different idea form each vendor of how they wished to move Forward.
I know personaly since AMD went to the effort of mantle i would have liked to see effects used in it so far a bit like flameworks and opthere gameworks ideas

What is ironic is they say that Nvidia was trying to push forward the adoption of certain effects with hairworks and flameworks,yet TressFX was there beforehand,and it works equally well on both companies hardware. My GTX660 ran it fine.

It took devs to badger Nvidia to start opening it up - yet games like AC4 and Batmark:AO launched before anything could be done.

PhysX won't run on AMD PC hardware,but ironically will work on the consoles which use AMD hardware.



Even with Mantle,its not even improving AMD graphics cards on decent CPUs,outside Crossfire scaling. Its improving AMD card performance on weaker CPUs,where Nvidia has tended to do much better as the AMD drivers don't tend to thread as well.

The thing is even at the Mantle presentations there were Nvidia people present.

Edit!!

Even the quip about DiRT:Showdown lighting effects was interesting:

http://uk.hardware.info/reviews/490...high-end-hawaii-gpu-dirt-showdown---5760x1080

The GK104 is a compute light GPU,unlike the GF110 and GK110,so it suffered when advanced lighting was enabled since it used the compute power of the GPU.

However,the GK110 based GPUs are much faster,as they have better compute performance.

If the GTX600 series had been like a normal Nvidia launch,the GTX680 would have been GK110 based,and be on parity with a HD7970GE,and only around 20% slower than the much later R9 290X. I suspect the GTX780TI would have closed the gap too.

Second Edit!!

In fact a lot of the lighting stuff was previewed in this demo launched months before the game:

http://developer.amd.com/resources/...deon-hd-7900-series-graphics-real-time-demos/

 

[humbug]

Starts at 20:15. Great listen.

NVIDIA and AMD Fight over NVIDIA GameWorks Program: Devil in the Details

Interesting, So according to them No game has hairworks, it does not exist so its impossible for AMD to justify claims, the performance difference on AC4 Batman ecte... is very small so proves nothing. And Nvidia say what developers are saying is wrong, that they do have access so they are basically lying and Pcper agree because seemingly anything nvidia say must be the truth and any independent voice is a lair.

And Josh in the background in laughing like a school girl at anything AMD has ever done, while the guy on the left can't stop himself from smirking.

 

[ashmanuk67]

If this has been awnsered already then sorry, why is the game looking so diffrent from all the preview videos that was floating around??

They build your hopes up then drop you like a rock lol nice one

 

[_Alatar_]

TressFX isn't open in the sense that AMD does not allow devs to post anything other than the AMD optimized versions. They do not allow them to post versions that have been modified to be more optimized for Nvidia.



Also AMD's claims have zero proof backing them up so I don't know why anyone would trust them.

All the arguments are pure speculation of what could possibly maybe in theory happen if Nvidia.

I mean the evidence is extremely poor to nonexistent. I could make a 100% better case that AMD is engaged in an illegal stealth marketing campaign and is targeting most hardware forums with it. That claim at least is backed up by some good proof.

 

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

TressFX isn't open in the sense that AMD does not allow devs to post anything other than the AMD optimized versions. They do not allow them to post versions that have been modified to be more optimized for Nvidia.



Also AMD's claims have zero proof backing them up so I don't know why anyone would trust them.

All the arguments are pure speculation of what could possibly maybe in theory happen if Nvidia.

Welcome to the forum alatar from overclock.net!

BTW,it works fine on my GTX660.

BTW,this is a the HardOCP review of TR:

http://i.imgur.com/oskJzVd.gif

http://i.imgur.com/C6sumW2.gif

The review was only two weeks after TR was launched.

I mean the evidence is extremely poor to nonexistent. I could make a 100% better case that AMD is engaged in an illegal stealth marketing campaign and is targeting most hardware forums with it. That claim at least is backed up by some good proof.

The claim came from some chap over on Anandtech forums in a thread,but he is as crazy anti-AMD as some of the crazy pro-AMD guys there,so I just ignore all of them. I think even the mods kind of had to weigh in at some point too IIRC(could be wrong there).

I know there was a US only programme where AMD would get user feedback on hardware,but Nvidia has done the same too. However,I believe there was a

Regarding Nvidia,it is/was called the Nvidia Focus Group?? It was a secret until one of the members decided to talk about it in 2006:

http://consumerist.com/2006/02/08/nvidia-focus-group-member-details-hidden-program/

We had one of them on another UK forum,and one guy called Rollo stood out.

He has been permabanned on multiple forums.

BTW,due to the events of the Google vs Oracle legal war with the paid bloggers,US companies need to disclose marketing sources now.

Edit!!

The chap behind this site was a Oracle paid blogger:

http://www.fosspatents.com/

He posted very pro-Apple articles and anti-Google ones,regarding the patent wars.

His website had been linked in many international articles regarding wars,and you can see why the changes needed to come.

 

[oldestgregg]

Interesting, So according to them No game has hairworks, it does not exist so its impossible for AMD to justify claims, the performance difference on AC4 Batman ecte... is very small so proves nothing. And Nvidia say what developers are saying is wrong, that they do have access so they are basically lying and Pcper agree because seemingly anything nvidia say must be the truth and any independent voice is a lair.

And Josh in the background in laughing like a school girl at anything AMD has ever done, while the guy on the left can't stop himself from smirking.

Say what you will about them as people but one is a staunch AMD supporter and owns AMD cards and the site they run started out with an AMD based name I think though I cant for the life of me remember what. Ive listened to them for years and they are the first to call BS and to give props where they are due

 

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

BTW,for those that have not seen it here is the official OcUK TR thread:

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18555357

See what cards are at the top of the leaderboards!

 

[uksoldierboy]

Got this downloaded yesterday and just had a 10 minute play, maxed the game out ultra textures, 4x MSAA @ 1080P, performance isn't amazing but it's perfectly playable, averages between 55-60fps, with dips to 45fps when driving, hasn't gone below that at all.

Enjoying it so far and the graphics i feel are great, maybe not "next gen", but very good none the less.