AMD & nVidia at it again over Batman

[mmj_uk]

wait, there's a difference between not enabling something and making something worse. You have to decide what it is eidos are actually doing and that has not been proven.

Not when enabling that something makes something worse.

My point is that if NVidia added code which benefitted them but ran inefficiently on other hardware then vendors such as AMD would be up in arms if NVidia didn't restrict that code to their cards only, yet because NVidia's code is beneficial to them as well they're up in arms that NVidia have restricted it to their cards only.

It's not NVidia's responsibility to Q&A ATI cards which is why they would restrict such code to their cards via a vendor check mechanism.

The real issue is that Eidos aren't letting ATI modify NVidia's code but rather expecting AMD to make an effort themselves, perhaps they've been blackmailed not to modify it? perhaps they just don't want to risk breaking the good work that NVidia have done? who knows?

 

[Rroff]

The real issue is that Eidos aren't letting ATI modify NVidia's code but rather expecting AMD to make an effort themselves, perhaps they've been blackmailed not to modify it? perhaps they just don't want to risk breaking the good work that NVidia have done? who knows?

As far as editing the code goes... its standard practise when licensing code like this for the terms and conditions to state that you may not edit the code to do blah, blah, blah and you may not produce derivatives of the code. So Eidos's hands are tied.

Unfortunatly as far as an ATI multisampling path goes we don't have the information to work out whether its because ATI haven't been forthcoming or Eidos have for whatever reason made it hard for ATI to work with them... I'm betting on a bit of both... but that would be conjecture.

I do hope that if nVidia has indeed done some back room deal so that Eidos turn ATI away this comes to light as it does nothing to help PC gaming.

 

[errata]

Most people if they read the very limited comments made by Eidos on the H**** site and at ATI blogs should be able to see that Eidos are working to get ATI in game AA working just not by using nvida written code that they feel unable to reuse or change without specific consent.

ATI want to use the nvidia code because they say it works for them as well, though based on limited testing by ATI (is this reasonable its not part of standard DX calls).

There should be no real problem provided Eidos have sufficent rights to add in an ATI in game AA solution at the hardware filter code and ATI or Eidos supply some good code (ATI could supply the nvidia code if its not IP).


I started off think nvidia were the villians but the more I read orginal material the more i see the sense of nvidia's position and this is only likley to change if it becomes apparent that EIDOS / ATI cannot work around the the nvida code due to the way its been inserted into the game code.

Most of the blame should fall on eidos for not realising that acccepting nvidia help comes with some limitations. Their game now looks worse for ati users and they seem to have been tardy in getting this smallish feature (out of game AA works for ATI) implemented in the rush to release.

Maybe hardware reviews should also go back to checking image quality when they do ahrdware reviews. this kind of issue has come up many times before.

 

[BubbySoup]

After reading a lot more from this thread, I am still not happy with how nVidia have conducted themselves in this based on the information we have, but I have to admit my blame is swinging more & more over towards Eidos in all of this.

Ultimately they had the power of refusal and were under no duress to accept nVidia's help. If nVidia's terms did include sinking ATI's efforts as Roff states, Eidos could have just refused to accept it or only accepted it on the basis that the code was open for all cards to run.

I am still of the belief that if nVidia did want to be seen in a positive light by the gaming community, they could have simply put the code in without the lock, and insisted on a loading splash screen, "AA by nVidia". This way the PC community isn't fragmented and they still get their props.

 

[Rroff]

I agree - Eidos should have set out from the start to make sure that something as fundemental to a game in this day and age as anti-aliasing was adequatly catered for on all the likely hardware platforms.

I can't say nVidia come out of this looking too great either - plenty of justifiable suspicion that they may have been twising arms behind the scenes... and if they really cared about PC gaming they could have offered to open up their code.

None of this excuses ATI IMO - who seems to be all at 6s and 7s over the issue and are not in any way convincing that they've made as good an effort as they could have done.

 

[str]

The world knows the NVIDIA AA code works fine on ATI cards so it has to be politics causing NVIDIA to keep the block in place but surely someone over there will see some sense in removing it just so NVIDIA can save some face lol.