AMD AGAIN? no Xfire for Tomb raider

Threepwood · 31 Jan 2016 at 05:06

V F said:

Quoted for truth and justice.

Freddie1980 · 31 Jan 2016 at 07:36

Ayahuasca said:
Scaling isn't great on nVidia either in SLI by the sounds of it, still inexcusable to not have day one drivers for massive titles though.

I don't think I'll ever go multi GPU again unless something is done about the issues it's had for years.

It is excusable actually imo (that goes fpr both companies). The driver teams only have a finite amount resources and it should be used to get the drivers optimised for as many users as possible so given that sli/crossfire makes up a tiny % of the market those users come 2nd.

JediFragger · 31 Jan 2016 at 08:41

Freddie1980 said:
It is excusable actually imo (that goes fpr both companies). The driver teams only have a finite amount resources and it should be used to get the drivers optimised for as many users as possible so given that sli/crossfire makes up a tiny % of the market those users come 2nd.

Yeah!!! Give the AMD driver guy a break ffs, he's doing his best!! Probably even roped Matt in again to give him a hand/make his brews

nashathedog · 31 Jan 2016 at 09:01

triss said:
The thing is Nvidia are bad and are responsible for everything bad in the world
We all know this
IMO Both Nvidia/AMD do some things wrong. More fault often lies with the Devs than the gpu vendors yet often we see Some AMD users blame Nvidia and Nvida users blame AMD when tbh its out of there control

@tommy , Not a go at you, what happened to you seems to be what happens to most that try and suggest amd should do more

I don't see how anyone can disagree about AMD needing to do more, From what I see on this side of the fence they're practically sitting on their hands a lot of the time instead of pro-actively taking Nvidia on on all fronts.

However it also seems that we have a situation where Nvidia are actively kicking someone while they are down. They're in a commanding situation and clearly have control of the industry yet they continue to use every dirty tactic at there disposal.
It's not enough to kick him, let's spit at him too and while I'm here my bladder is kinda full.....

They seem to want to take things one step further and run them into the ground so there's no competition whatsoever and that will be bad for us all. The situation is becoming desperate, Not for AMD but for us because once they're gone Nvidia have full reign and there track record doesn't promise a rosy future.

ICDP · 31 Jan 2016 at 10:20

nashathedog said:
I don't see how anyone can disagree about AMD needing to do more, From what I see on this side of the fence they're practically sitting on their hands a lot of the time instead of pro-actively taking Nvidia on on all fronts.

However it also seems that we have a situation where Nvidia are actively kicking someone while they are down. They're in a commanding situation and clearly have control of the industry yet they continue to use every dirty tactic at there disposal.
It's not enough to kick him, let's spit at him too and while I'm here my bladder is kinda full.....

They seem to want to take things one step further and run them into the ground so there's no competition whatsoever and that will be bad for us all. The situation is becoming desperate, Not for AMD but for us because once they're gone Nvidia have full reign and there track record doesn't promise a rosy future.

I see this kind of analogy a lot but the truth is they are both businesses out for our money. Nvidia are just far more ruthless right to the point they will deliberately shaft their own customers just to get at AMD and their customers bend over and take it and in fact will defend these actions. AMD on the other hand also shaft their own customers, not deliberately but through utter ineptitude.

Watching AMD and their pathetic efforts at marketing and even their ineptly handled hardware releases is like watching Groundhog day without the funny bits.

V F · 31 Jan 2016 at 10:45

Orangey · 31 Jan 2016 at 12:28

Despite what low-info forumites might think, marketing costs money.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_expensive_video_games_to_develop

CAT-THE-FIFTH · 31 Jan 2016 at 12:35

Orangey said:
Despite what low-info forumites might think, marketing costs money.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_expensive_video_games_to_develop

Yes,and how much money did it cost AMD in R and D dollars and manhours to do all the coding for TressFX and then testing it,etc and then advertising it beforehand?

It basically means AMD has thrown away loads of money when and all the PR time they spent on saying Gameworks is negative(in terms of slides and talk from their own people which is company time),when Purehair fits the ideals of what they professed for a long time - a vendor and platform agnostic solution,which performs with a low performance hit and with AMD freely sharing the code without "black boxes" meaning devs can freely optimise for it on competitors hardware.

Then Nvidia trolls AMD on their on website by giving CD a pat on the back and not even mentioning its based on AMD technology.

Not a single noise from AMD apart for a vague statement on twitter after the game launches that hardly anybody will pick up on.

But it still does not change the fact that simply releasing a PR piece on their website about TressFX and Purehair or updating their bloody website,or even releasing a statement to that effect of a few lines of bumpf as a "info-byte" is a minisucle cost operation in comparison to actually having to sponsor some gameand AMD is still a company which is nearly 10000 people and makes sales of a few billion dollars a year.

Nvidia seems a far more effective company when it comes to PR/marketing what they do.

fs123 · 31 Jan 2016 at 12:40

CAT-THE-FIFTH said:
Yes,and how much money did it cost AMD in R and D dollars and manhours to do all the coding for TressFX and then testing it,etc and then advertising it beforehand?

But it still does not change the fact that simply releasing a PR piece on their website about TressFX and Purehair or updating their bloody website,or even releasing a statement to that effect of a few lines of bumpf as a "info-byte" is a minisucle cost operartion in comparison and AMD is still a company which is nearly 10000 people and makes sales of a few billion dollars a year.

All AMD really need to do is make it a requirement to credit GPUOpen if any of the source code is used. It's not going to cost the devs anything to do that. Nvidia had their logo in the loading screen of ROTTR and they only have HBAO+ in the game AFAIK.

CAT-THE-FIFTH · 31 Jan 2016 at 12:56

fs123 said:
All AMD really need to do is make it a requirement to credit GPUOpen if any of the source code is used. It's not going to cost the devs anything to do that. Nvidia had their logo in the loading screen of ROTTR and they only have HBAO+ in the game AFAIK.

But I can even understand if CD does not say anything since Nvidia stumped up dollars to sponsor the game.

But there should be nothing stopping AMD from updating their blasted site:

http://www.amd.com/en-us/innovations/software-technologies/technologies-gaming/tressfx

Its stuck in time. Nothing has been updated since Tombraider. They should be updating the site about the new versions of the tech,games which incorporate its tech and the improvements to the newer versions.

There is this little PR piece about MHO:

http://www.amd.com/en-us/press-releases/Pages/amd-radeon-to-2016jan12.aspx

Then,when a MAJOR game incorporates there tech,is barely even a whimper from them.

But no updates on the TressFX site or even mention of the latest TR,or even the fact the next Deus Ex is having the tech.

Its all over the place.

AMD might not be in the best financial situation now,but seriously how much does it cost for them to keep their website up to date?

Then even if you ignore the website,why are they are not even releasing a small PR puff piece like the following:

"As part of our commitment to vendor neutral,GPU effects,Crystal Dynamics,who we worked with on Tombraider on the TressFX hair technology, is using TressFX3.0 source code,as part of our Open GPU initiative, as a base for their new Purehair technology,which is not only cross platform,but shows massive performance improvements accross platforms,enabling fluid animation of Lara's hair on console....and so on....and shows our continued comitment to vendor neutral effects which benefit all gamers whether console or PC" or something more PR statement like.

maonayze · 31 Jan 2016 at 13:01

CAT-THE-FIFTH said:
But it still does not change the fact that simply releasing a PR piece on their website about TressFX and Purehair or updating their bloody website,or even releasing a statement to that effect of a few lines of bumpf as a "info-byte" is a minisucle cost operation in comparison to actually having to sponsor some gameand AMD is still a company which is nearly 10000 people and makes sales of a few billion dollars a year.

Nvidia seems a far more effective company when it comes to PR/marketing what they do.

But we dont actually know the absolute level of control that the exclusive TWIMTBP deal has over this title. The fact that TressFX isnt even seen in the logos suggests that Nvidia have full control over this.

Also it is a damn sight easier to be better at marketing when you have a hell of a lot of money at your disposal. It's also easier if the opposition are financially restricted and more often than not...shoot themselves in the foot. However, I do think that AMD should do their utmost to combat this as I am sure there are things that could be done that don't really cost anything or at least very little. A lot of people have said that Robert Hallock's tweet was an unprofessional act, but maybe that was the only thing he could have done to make people aware of the TressFX/Purehair code without Nvidia coming down on them. Maybe we ought to tweet and ask him.

I am worried about the fact that Nvidia seem to want to completely destroy AMD as a GPU company and get that last 20% so far as to even dent their own users performance to do it. That is quite worrying IMHO.

maonayze · 31 Jan 2016 at 13:06

CAT-THE-FIFTH said:
Then even if you ignore the website,why are they are not even releasing a small PR puff piece like the following:

"As part of our commitment to vendor neutral,GPU effects,Crystal Dynamics,who we worked with on Tombraider on the TressFX hair technology, is using TressFX3.0 source code,as part of our Open GPU initiative, as a base for their new Purehair technology,which is not only cross platform,but shows massive performance improvements accross platforms,enabling fluid animation of Lara's hair on console....and so on....and shows our continued comitment to vendor neutral effects which benefit all gamers whether console or PC" or something more PR statement like.

Congrats the job is yours

drunkenmaster · 31 Jan 2016 at 13:21

hyperseven said:
there are no full release retail DX12 games out yet, are they?

So how can comparisons be made yet?

This specific game supports DX12, it was supposed to come to PC with DX12.... Nvidia stump up loads of money and suddenly one of the first full DX12 games on Xbox has DX12 removed from the PC version.

Why do you think Nvidia later on through the process suddenly spent big to nick the title from AMD, removed DX12 and now it doesn't support async shaders on PC, which afaik, every single GCN card supports while nothing Nvidia side supports it yet? Do you think it's because the performance difference in DX12 would be better or worse for Nvidia? Hint, if Nvidia had same or larger advantage in DX12 this game would launch with DX12 support.

As before, nothing like spending upwards of £500 for a GPU for Nvidia to take that money and pay devs to remove performance enhancing features.

fs123 · 31 Jan 2016 at 13:35

drunkenmaster said:
This specific game supports DX12, it was supposed to come to PC with DX12.... Nvidia stump up loads of money and suddenly one of the first full DX12 games on Xbox has DX12 removed from the PC version.

Why do you think Nvidia later on through the process suddenly spent big to nick the title from AMD, removed DX12 and now it doesn't support async shaders on PC, which afaik, every single GCN card supports while nothing Nvidia side supports it yet? Do you think it's because the performance difference in DX12 would be better or worse for Nvidia? Hint, if Nvidia had same or larger advantage in DX12 this game would launch with DX12 support.

As before, nothing like spending upwards of £500 for a GPU for Nvidia to take that money and pay devs to remove performance enhancing features.

It's a shady tactic but Nvidia is doing it's utmost to kill AMD. We all know ROTTR is going to have TressFX in there and maybe even DX12 but what a surprise that all of a sudden the game is TWIMTBP and adds a HBAO+ effect which is really negligible when the game already had an AO option.

The tactic to divert away from AMD tech is working to a degree. Rather than compete fairly they are employing dirty tactics designed to eliminate competition which we desperately need.

Gregster · 31 Jan 2016 at 13:51

I love a good conspiracy theory.

hyperseven · 31 Jan 2016 at 13:53

drunkenmaster said:
This specific game supports DX12, it was supposed to come to PC with DX12.... Nvidia stump up loads of money and suddenly one of the first full DX12 games on Xbox has DX12 removed from the PC version.

Why do you think Nvidia later on through the process suddenly spent big to nick the title from AMD, removed DX12 and now it doesn't support async shaders on PC, which afaik, every single GCN card supports while nothing Nvidia side supports it yet? Do you think it's because the performance difference in DX12 would be better or worse for Nvidia? Hint, if Nvidia had same or larger advantage in DX12 this game would launch with DX12 support.

As before, nothing like spending upwards of £500 for a GPU for Nvidia to take that money and pay devs to remove performance enhancing features.

So of course you have definitive proof for all of this, links please.

Ayahuasca · 31 Jan 2016 at 13:59

We're running out of tinfoil :eek:

Final8y · 31 Jan 2016 at 14:09

drunkenmaster said:
This specific game supports DX12, it was supposed to come to PC with DX12.... Nvidia stump up loads of money and suddenly one of the first full DX12 games on Xbox has DX12 removed from the PC version.

Why do you think Nvidia later on through the process suddenly spent big to nick the title from AMD, removed DX12 and now it doesn't support async shaders on PC, which afaik, every single GCN card supports while nothing Nvidia side supports it yet? Do you think it's because the performance difference in DX12 would be better or worse for Nvidia? Hint, if Nvidia had same or larger advantage in DX12 this game would launch with DX12 support.

As before, nothing like spending upwards of £500 for a GPU for Nvidia to take that money and pay devs to remove performance enhancing features.

And notice the Recommend specs on steam has no mention of AMD cards.

Blackjack Davy · 31 Jan 2016 at 14:24

maonayze said:
I am worried about the fact that Nvidia seem to want to completely destroy AMD as a GPU company and get that last 20% so far as to even dent their own users performance to do it. That is quite worrying IMHO.

Theres nothing new in this. Destroy the competition so you have the market to yourself and then hike the prices up accordingly to rake in even more cash. Standard business practise imo.

Everyone does it Microsoft especially are best known hence the anti-competitive lawsuits against it in the EU courts, etc.

CAT-THE-FIFTH · 31 Jan 2016 at 14:51

maonayze said:
But we dont actually know the absolute level of control that the exclusive TWIMTBP deal has over this title. The fact that TressFX isnt even seen in the logos suggests that Nvidia have full control over this.

Also it is a damn sight easier to be better at marketing when you have a hell of a lot of money at your disposal. It's also easier if the opposition are financially restricted and more often than not...shoot themselves in the foot. However, I do think that AMD should do their utmost to combat this as I am sure there are things that could be done that don't really cost anything or at least very little. A lot of people have said that Robert Hallock's tweet was an unprofessional act, but maybe that was the only thing he could have done to make people aware of the TressFX/Purehair code without Nvidia coming down on them. Maybe we ought to tweet and ask him.

I am worried about the fact that Nvidia seem to want to completely destroy AMD as a GPU company and get that last 20% so far as to even dent their own users performance to do it. That is quite worrying IMHO.

Yes,like I have said I can understand if CD does not say anything. But what stops AMD from saying its TressFX technology is in Purehair or has some statement?

Plus are AMD that weak sauce they give tech to a dev and can't even say two lines on how it is based on their own tech. What sort of crap agreement have they signed with devs then??

FFS,do people realise Crystal Dynamics and Eidos are OWNED by Square Enix which is publishing the next Deus Ex(made by Eidos) which uses AMD technologies too and is an AMD Gaming Evolved title?

Crystal Dynamics is essentially the arm of Square Enix dealing with the Tombraider games.

So does the next Deus Ex mean AMD is not going to be able to talk about the Purehair technology in that too??

Because,if modded/renamed TressFX 2.0/3.0 is being used by one studio which is owned by Square Enix,it wouldn't surprise me if other studios use it too.