Richard Huddy - Gaming Scientist Interviewed

Marine-RX179 · 19 Jun 2014 at 14:28

I got a strong feeling that even after 10 more future GameWorks titles released with AMD's cards underperform to even a graphic card of Nvidia 1 tier below it, people will still have the same argument one side calling AMD being useless in support, and the other insisting AMD will always underperform on early days of release due to the nature of simply being GameWorks titles (the cause no longer matters, and is accepted as the way things is).

Here's a simple solution...AMD users should vote with their wallet and just stop pre-ordering or buying GameWorks titles on day 1 at full retail price £40+, instead, buy them when they hit rock bottom price £5-£7 or just don't buy them altogether. Once the developers see the poor sales, and they would have no choice but to do something about it, regardless of who is truly responsible for the poor AMD performance in GameWorks title

Deceptor · 19 Jun 2014 at 14:32

So we should do the same for Gaming Evolved titles too?

LtMatt · 19 Jun 2014 at 14:35

Marine-RX179 said:
Here's a simple solution...AMD users should vote with their wallet and just stop pre-ordering or buying GameWorks titles on day 1 at full retail price £40+, instead, buy them when they hit rock bottom price £5-£7 or just don't buy them altogether. Once the developers see the poor sales, and they would have no choice but to do something about it, regardless of who is truly responsible for the poor AMD performance in GameWorks title

Theres a lot on social media already doing that. Regardless of which side of the fence you sit on, the GameWorks name has been associated with a lot of negative press recently. Can't imagine there is a line of devs queueing up to use it. Have to wait and see if it grows and more dev studios sign up to it. I expect Nvidia will keep pushing it hard and I'm sure we'll see articles pop up when and if more sign up.

I'm not going that far yet, but i am boycotting any Ubisoft games. Not going to support developers that produce broken games over and over and never make any attempt to fix them. The recent debacle about the next gen consoles getting the best possible experience they can ship, rather than the consoles was the final nail in a coffin full of nails. At least attempt to fix your games Ubisoft and don't insult pc users in the process.

Marine-RX179 · 19 Jun 2014 at 14:35

Deceptor said:
So we should do the same for Gaming Evolved titles too?

Up to the individuals to decide. AMD might have small performance advantage when comparing same tier cards, but I don't exactly see 7950/7970 beating GTX780 in BF4 or Sleeping Dogs or Thief etc.

opethdisciple · 19 Jun 2014 at 14:38

Richard Huddy 'Gaming scientist', implies he is a neutral. Which just isn’t true.

LtMatt · 19 Jun 2014 at 14:40

Marine-RX179 said:
Up to the individuals to decide. AMD might have performance advantage when comparing same tier cards, but I don't exactly see 7950/7970 beating GTX780 in BF4 or Sleeping Dogs or Thief etc.

Gaming evolved titles should always run well on Nvidia hardware. The source code for all AMD tech is available to download on their website. Huddy confirmed in the video they are free to modify the source code to improve the gaming experience for their users. The code probably will need optimizing for it to perform optimally on a different architecture. The good thing is AMD allow that, so it benefits everyone. Nvidia do most of their optimization through the drivers anyway according to game devs, so whilst they may not have good drivers at launch (Tomb Raider) over time they can improve their drivers and get great performance by optimizing the source code in question, in this example TressFX.

GoogalyMoogaly · 19 Jun 2014 at 14:40

LtMatt said:
Nvidia don't fully support DX11.2 Sin.

LtMatt said:
Did you actually spend time making that just for some point scoring?

Can we get back on topic now please. Why give the dons unnecessary work.

I like how LtMatt joined in to have a pop at Nvidia, then when it became clear that it was having a pop at AMD users it was "let's get back on topic shall we?"

If AMD users stopped buying GameWorks games and Nvidia users stopped buying Mantle games then maybe developers would stop using both and we could all be happy?

Ayahuasca · 19 Jun 2014 at 14:42

How about AMD users try boycotting EA with their shocker that was BF4, mantle or not it's an absolute terrible piece of development from Electronic Farts, or do you still go on it every now and again so you can show off your mantle benchmarks after every driver update. Don't know about you but I'd rather have worse performance, with nice effects and gameplay than some shoddy regurgitated title running over 100fps.

LtMatt · 19 Jun 2014 at 14:42

Not really GM i was trying to clear up the thread from the incessant point scoring but seeing as Sin went to the effort to troll Bug (surprising how many in here do that and get away with it) i thought i'd mention that as a bit of fun. I should've know it would be twisted to suit an agenda though, so my fault on that one.

Rusty0611 · 19 Jun 2014 at 14:43

Jesus Matt, it wasn't trolling it was a bit of banter.

LtMatt · 19 Jun 2014 at 14:45

Rusty0611 said:
Jesus Matt, it wasn't trolling it was a bit of banter.

Difference of opinion i guess. He admitted it was for point scoring to me that suggests trolling but i guess YMMV.

Marine-RX179 · 19 Jun 2014 at 14:51

Ayahuasca said:
How about AMD users try boycotting EA with their shocker that was BF4, mantle or not it's an absolute terrible piece of development from Electronic Farts, or do you still go on it every now and again so you can show off your mantle benchmarks after every driver update. Don't know about you but I'd rather have worse performance, with nice effects and gameplay than some shoddy regurgitated title running over 100fps.

You are missing fundamental point...if AMD hardware underperforming on GameWorks titles on launch becomes the norm, then's there's no logic or incentive to rush to buy the games on release. Buy the games months later not only would save them money, but with game bugs and performance issues being (hopefully) ironed out, that way they would be paying less money for the game AND with a better gaming experience for that title.

Sometime I just do see the need of rushing to buy games at full price on release day that could potentially be buggy especially for single-player games (ahem Ubisoft); if the core element of the game is multiplayer/online play, then that's different.

Ayahuasca · 19 Jun 2014 at 14:55

Marine-RX179 said:
You are missing fundamental point...if AMD hardware underperforming on GameWorks titles on launch becomes the norm, then's there's no logic or incentive to rush to buy the games on release. Buy the games months later not only would save them money, but with game bugs and performance issues being (hopefully) ironed out, that way they would be paying less money for the game AND with a better gaming experience for that title.

It's already been proven previously in the thread the under performance on launch wasn't from gameworks itself, a driver was released by AMD that rectified that.

Until I see these technologies used in games that are actually worth my time it won't ever sway my purchase decision anyway.

With Watch Dogs it's the users fault if you experience poor launch performance, who in the right mind pre purchases a Ubisoft title?

TheRealDeal · 19 Jun 2014 at 14:57

Ayahuasca said:
who in the right mind pre purchases a Ubisoft title?

Console users lol. Yep that's right Ubisoft are a capable company when they support a platform properly.

_Alatar_ · 19 Jun 2014 at 15:02

LtMatt said:
Nvidia don't fully support DX11.2 Sin.

They're missing some random 2d features that have nothing to do with gaming. So in the end it doesn't matter at all.

Marine-RX179 said:
I got a strong feeling that even after 10 more future GameWorks titles released with AMD's cards underperform to even a graphic card of Nvidia 1 tier below it, people will still have the same argument one side calling AMD being useless in support, and the other insisting AMD will always underperform on early days of release due to the nature of simply being GameWorks titles (the cause no longer matters, and is accepted as the way things is).

After 10 slightly NV optimized NV sponsored titles AMD users will continue to scream for bias and intentional crippling while after 10 slightly AMD optimized AMD sponsored titles (cough dirt, sleeping dogs, hitman absolution etc.) NV fans just realize that it's the way the world is. The company paying more money is going to get more support.

And Gameworks titles so far haven't even performed badly on AMD hardware due to gameworks. Since you've been able to disable the features to check.

LtMatt said:
Theres a lot on social media already doing that. Regardless of which side of the fence you sit on, the GameWorks name has been associated with a lot of negative press recently.

I wonder why?

Could it possibly be the utterly false fud that AMD's PR team put out and that the couple of press members on extremetech and forbes parroted like crazy?

Yes AMD's PR campaign was quite successful. But that's not a good thing since they were lying to everyone's face.

If anything the guys who posted the articles should be screaming back at AMD for feeding them with false info.

E: and I claim superiority in the sig race. Look at mah boxes.

LtMatt · 19 Jun 2014 at 15:43

As a follow up to the video, pcper have taken all the interesting bits from the video and gone through it piece by piece and given a good writeup.

AMD Planning Open Source GameWorks Competitor, Mantle for Linux

First and foremost, a huge thanks to Richard Huddy for making time to stop by the offices and talk with us. And especially for allowing us to live stream it to our fans and readers. I have had the privilege to have access to some of the most interesting minds in the industry, but they are very rarely open to having our talks broadcast to the world without editing and without a precompiled list of questions. For allowing it, both AMD and Mr. Huddy have gained some respect!

There is plenty more discussed in the interview including AMD's push to a non-PC based revenue split, whether DX12 will undermine the use of the Mantle API, and how code like TressFX compares to NVIDIA GameWorks. If you haven't watched it yet I think you'll find the full 90 minutes to be quite informative and worth your time.

Full Article
http://www.pcper.com/news/Graphics-Cards/AMD-Planning-Open-Source-GameWorks-Competitor-Mantle-Linux?

Sin_Chase · 19 Jun 2014 at 15:54

LtMatt said:
Difference of opinion i guess. He admitted it was for point scoring to me that suggests trolling but i guess YMMV.

Oh come on Matt. 'Point Scoring' as in a bit of banter yes. Even tommybhoy, one of AMDs biggest fans, admits he has an AMD sig...but you would NEVER know he did unless he told you. It's a bit red and has a single AMD logo.....even that pales in the face of humbugs sig

LtMatt · 19 Jun 2014 at 16:03

Sin_Chase said:
Oh come on Matt. 'Point Scoring' as in a bit of banter yes. Even tommybhoy, one of AMDs biggest fans, admits he has an AMD sig...but you would NEVER know he did unless he told you. It's a bit red and has a single AMD logo.....even that pales in the face of humbugs sig

Fair enough, was just trying to steer the thread back on topic.

Marine-RX179 · 19 Jun 2014 at 16:04

_Alatar_ said:
After 10 slightly NV optimized NV sponsored titles AMD users will continue to scream for bias and intentional crippling while after 10 slightly AMD optimized AMD sponsored titles (cough dirt, sleeping dogs, hitman absolution etc.) NV fans just realize that it's the way the world is. The company paying more money is going to get more support.

And Gameworks titles so far haven't even performed badly on AMD hardware due to gameworks. Since you've been able to disable the features to check.

This post deserve double if not triple facepalm, with the claim and belief of one side has the capability to see things more objectively than the other :rolleyes:

GameWorks can be "disabled" or not is unimportant that's been argued to death. What matters is not about whether GW can be disabled or not...what matter is the simply truth of how well (or poor) does AMD hardware run on those titles. People are not interested in if GameWorks is the cause of the poor performance on AMD hardware if it happens, all they care or concern about is whether or not AMD hardware would run poorly on the said GameWorks titles (as in as bad as slower than Nvidia's card that's 1-2 teirs below, rather than just slower than Nvidia in the same teir) on launch, and how long will the graphic card be back up to the level as it should be (if ever).

As long as AMD cards is not going to get proper performance on GameWorks titles around the times of the release, regardless of who's responsible, from a users point of view it is more logically to not buy that game at full retail price on launch. There's no need to rush to buy the game on release.

pmc25 · 19 Jun 2014 at 16:08

_Alatar_ said:
So much blatant PR with tons of stupid talking points.

2)
Complaining about overtesselation is extremely petty. It's not like AMD backed teams don't go out of their way to play to the strengths of AMD software/hardware at the moment.

Take star swarm for example, it has an extremely inflated amount of draw calls purely to make mantle look better. And absolutely nothing is stopping devs from doing this exact same thing in games just to trump up mantle.

But you know what Nvidia did about it? They didn't complain but instead came out with DX11 improvements that have allowed NV to tie/surpass AMD in thief, surpass then in star swarm and come close in BF games. Not to mention getting improvements in tons of other titles that don't even have mantle. Maybe AMD should just improve their tesselation instead of complaining about batman's cape being too hard to render.

Not a hint of irony - your opening statement and 2 (or the rest of the post for that matter).

Over tesselation achieves absolutely nothing whatsoever, either in gameplay or visuals .. all it does is lower peformance, but crucially it lowers performance more on AMD than NVIDIA, hence why it's done. Having signifcantly (massively) more draw calls available and making use of them allows you to do a great deal more from a gameplay and visual perspective. You're spewing the crap that you accuse Huddy of spewing.