D3D12 articles - so much misunderstandings and miscommunications

[BS Dave]

Do you optimise a game for a brand that bas only a quarter market share?

I guess it depends on how much of a ball ache it is

 

[humbug]

Do you optimise a game for a brand that bas only a quarter market share?

Actually GCN is in both the Xbox One and PS4, its not about 'PC market share' Game Developer have to optimise for GCN because by far the most hardware their products will run on is AMD.
In fact for the largest proportion of Game Developers market its only AMD.

So if a question like that is to be asked its actually the other way round, do you optimise for a brand that is a minority of your products user base? IE Nvidia.

 

[ubersonic]

Yes and im quite happy to live with that because other factors are more important.

If you want to dismiss all that was said because you dont know who he is then that's your prerogative.

To provide balance I have also got a quote from an anonymous source in the industry, it's no more credible than yours, but no less either

I'm like, a programmer and stuff, I was involved in nine out of the top ten selling games of all time, and having worked quite a bit with D3D12 I thought I would provide some info.

Firstly AMD, Nvidia and Intel GPUs all seem to work just as well, so there's no need to buy a 290X or a 980 when you can get performance as good from the iGPU on any i7!

Secondly due to the way the API works, 3DFX cards have a massive advantage, the Voodoo 5 6000 seems to average roughly 147x the FPS of a 295X2/Titan-Z.

Third and finally, playing games built using the D3D12 API causes erectile dysfunction, but a patch is in the pipeline.

 

[shankly1985]

Actually GCN is in both the Xbox One and PS4, its not about 'PC market share' Game Developer have to optimise for GCN because by far the most hardware their products will run on is AMD.
In fact for the largest proportion of Game Developers market its only AMD.

So if a question like that is to be asked its actually the other way round, do you optimise for a brand that is a minority of your products user base? IE Nvidia.

Very strong point!

 

[bru]

Actually GCN is in both the Xbox One and PS4, its not about 'PC market share' Game Developer have to optimise for GCN because by far the most hardware their products will run on is AMD.
In fact for the largest proportion of Game Developers market its only AMD.

So if a question like that is to be asked its actually the other way round, do you optimise for a brand that is a minority of your products user base? IE Nvidia.

That is actually a good point most of the GPU's these game will be targeting are indeed GCN based, We can only hope that the NVidia architecture and indeed the Intel APU's are not left out completely optimisation wise.
Hopefully the way the API is written will make things an open playing field rather than optimisations making a lot of difference.

 

[andybird123]

Actually GCN is in both the Xbox One and PS4, its not about 'PC market share' Game Developer have to optimise for GCN because by far the most hardware their products will run on is AMD.
In fact for the largest proportion of Game Developers market its only AMD.

So if a question like that is to be asked its actually the other way round, do you optimise for a brand that is a minority of your products user base? IE Nvidia.

Xbox and ps4 have both sold around 20 million units, so 40 million total... nvidia have been selling 6-10 million units per quarter for 3 years, so around 100 million units, but its cute that you think console gaming is bigger than PC gaming.

Add to that the ps4 API is in no way similar to DX12 which is on both PC and Xbox...

 

[Squink]

nvidia have been selling 6-10 million units per quarter for 3 years, so around 100 million units

It's cute that you think all of those cards see any sort of gaming action instead of sitting in an office PC doing low end graphics work, or in a home PC owned by someone who does nothing more than surf.

 

[madindehead]

Delete.

 

[andybird123]

It's cute that you think all of those cards see any sort of gaming action instead of sitting in an office PC doing low end graphics work, or in a home PC owned by someone who does nothing more than surf.

Business machines dont usually have graphics cards as they use APU's. The recent surge in sales and market share for nvidia show that the top end cards dominate discrete sales.

It isnt 1999 anymore.

 

[Martini1991]

I think it's cute how people are making a big deal out of who's getting optimised more, because we all know the talk will amount to nothing. It always does. Hierarchy will be as it should be due to the end performance of the cards, not because AMD are in consoles (because that's probably not going to do as much as people seem to think it will for pc performance) etc

 

[Squink]

Business machines dont usually have graphics cards as they use APU's. The recent surge in sales and market share for nvidia show that the top end cards dominate discrete sales.

It isnt 1999 anymore.

There are a lot of business machines that do have graphics cards in them. I'm sat in front of one now and am surrounded by other business machines which all have graphics cards in them. None of them will ever play a game. It may actually be the case that "top end cards" dominate sales (I'm curious to know how you derived this conclusion), but I'd have thought it more likely that the majority of sales are of low end GPUs found in PC World machines and suchlike. The sorts of PCs that sit neglected in the corner of your granny's spare bedroom.

Perhaps a better comparison would be games sales on console vs PC. Also, why is all the talk about poor ports from consoles to PC? This suggests that consoles are where the majority of gaming development work takes place and that this is where the money lies.

 

[BS Dave]

Aren't most big titles roughly a 3 way split? Which with a 25% AMD share in the PC market would make their overall share 75% to Nvidia's 25%

 

[andybird123]

Anecdotal evidence is anecdotal. When I last had a job, there were over over a thousand machines, none of which had a discrete card, lol.

According to Jpr, the pc gaming hardware market is worth double what the console market is
http://www.mcvuk.com/news/read/pc-gaming-hardware-worth-21-5bn-twice-that-of-console-market/0135289

Software sales are very difficult to get figures for as Pc sales tend to only track boxed game sales, when a large portion of the pc gaming market is not single game sales like that, and console figures tend to lump all hardware and software under a single number, so extracting ps4 and xbone game sales from that would be impossible.

Edit;
According to this, video game sales was 13bn for 2014 not including digital sales, according to other sources PC games sales totals 25bn
http://www.polygon.com/2015/1/15/75...rfare-top-selling-game-of-2014-destiny-number

 

[SiDeards73]

Going into any high street game selling store will show you how much consoles dominate the gaming market, fact.

Walls and isles full of console games, tons of them and hordes of people buying them. Then check the PC game section, usually a dusty cobwebbed corner with a half dozen boxes, no one goes there.

Sure online sales for PC is where its at, but you have to be naive to think that people dont buy console games online as well, fact.

Console market far outweighs the PC gaming market, and its only likely to increase in consoles favour as they become more like PC's

 

[tommybhoy]

Anecdotal evidence is anecdotal.

The clue is in the lead development platform andy.

Rockstar Games is proud to announce that Grand Theft Auto V will arrive on the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One on November 18, 2014 with the PC version to follow January 27

March 24

April 14 2015.

Going into any high street game selling store will show you how much consoles dominate the gaming market, fact.

Walls and isles full of console games, tons of them and hordes of people buying them. Then check the PC game section, usually a dusty cobwebbed corner with a half dozen boxes, no one goes there.

Exactly.

 

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Most of the popular PC titles are things like wow,d3,lol,dota and Minecraft which have 10s of million s of players and are more CPU bound anyway. Any £150 card would run them fine for yonks.

Plus has anyone actually announced a dx12 game yet?

ATI had dx11 cards for yonks before Nvidia but in reality it did not make much difference since it took ages for titles to use it and by then there were faster cards from both sides.

 

[Gregster]

Most of the popular PC titles are things like wow,d3,lol,dota and Minecraft which have 10s of million s of players and are more CPU bound anyway. Any £150 card would run them fine for yonks.

Plus has anyone actually announced a dx12 game yet?

ATI had dx11 cards for yonks before Nvidia but in reality it did not make much difference since it took ages for titles to use it and by then there were faster cards from both sides.

Fable is DX12 - No idea if it is an Xbox exclusive though.

 

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Fable is DX12 - No idea if it is an Xbox exclusive though.

Ah,OK, missed that one - looks interesting.

That's the thing though it does appear to be a MS game which they are pushing to highlight DX12 and yes its on the XBox One and PC but it appears to be some way off still.

I think next year is when we will see more dx12 games bring announced and released and by then there should be dx12 cards released on new nodes.

Hopefully this means a big performance jump over this generation especially in the midrange!

 

[tommybhoy]

 

[Gregster]

Ah,OK, missed that one - looks interesting.

That's the thing though it does appear to be a MS game which they are pushing to highlight DX12 and yes its on the XBox One and PC but it appears to be some way off still.

I think next year is when we will see more dx12 games bring announced and released and by then there should be dx12 cards released on new nodes.

Hopefully this means a big performance jump over this generation especially in the midrange!

Yep and if anyone thinks that DX12 games will come flooding out, they will be mistaken. With the Xbone using DX12 as well, this should help speed up DX12 releases for PC, as it should be a simpler way of porting (not that I would have a clue).

By the time DX12 is the norm, I fully expect to be 2 generations of cards in.