AMD ramps up its Gaming Evolved program

Final8y · 27 Oct 2012 at 03:55

Last weekend, we traveled to AMD's offices in Markham, Ontario and spoke to Gaming Evolved marketing chief Peter Ross, who gave us some idea of what's been going on behind the scenes.

The program's growing profile is evidently no accident. According to Ross, AMD has increased the size of its developer relations team, on both the marketing and the engineering sides. Part of the recent push has involved giving the developer relations program a name and marketing it explicitly, just has Nvidia has been doing. That effort began a couple of years ago with the introduction of the Gaming Evolved label. AMD has endeavored to work more closely with both developers and publishers, as well.

Interestingly, Ross told us AMD's recent executive changes have been beneficial to the program. He said the new executive team better appreciates the importance of gaming. Ross also pointed out with some exultation that Rory Read, AMD's new CEO, has made public statements about the company's commitment to gaming. Given AMD's precarious financial situation as of late, it's telling that the company has seen fit to increase funding for the Gaming Evolved program.

The future looks bright, too. The aforementioned changes all took place more than a year ago. Ross said we're only just now seeing them produce results, and those changes represent a continued commitment on AMD's part. This is "not something that just flamed up and will go away," Ross stressed. Things "will only get better from here."

What do game developers think about all this? Jorjen Katsman was also there in Markham, and he spoke to us about his company's collaboration with AMD. Katsman is President of Nixxes, a Dutch firm that's developed the PC versions of Deus Ex: Human Revolution, Kane and Lynch 2: Dog Days, and several Tomb Raider games. The firm is currently working on the PC versions of Hitman: Absolution and the upcoming Tomb Raider reboot—both Gaming Evolved titles, just as Human Revolution was.

Top: Hitman: Absolution. Bottom: the new Tomb Raider. Sources: Steam, Square Enix.

Katsman made it clear that his company has ongoing relationships with both AMD and Nvidia. The folks at Nixxes "always have a good time" working with both firms, he said, and with Human Revolution, Nixxes was "just as much in touch" with Nvidia as with AMD. Katsman pointed out that engaging both companies is necessary to ensure players get the best experience. Nobody wants their message boards flooded with bug reports and complaints, after all.

Nevertheless, Nixxes seems to favor Gaming Evolved over Nvidia's developer program. According to Katsman, what AMD brings to the table is simply more compelling, and he views the AMD team as more dedicated. While he didn't delve too deeply into specifics, he mentioned that AMD engineers helped Nixxes implement not just Radeon-specific functionality in their games, but also MSAA antialiasing support and general DirectX 11 features. The two companies collaborate sometimes over Skype and sometimes in person, when AMD engineers visit the Nixxes offices in Utrecht, Holland.

Read More Here.
http://techreport.com/review/23779/amd-ramps-up-its-gaming-evolved-program

humbug · 27 Oct 2012 at 04:12

Things just keep getting better and better for us.....

Its been a long time coming that AMD users get something exclusive like the Nvidia camp has had for years, personally i would rather it not be so that you need a specific brand of GPU to get this of that perk, but its how its been made now and all AMD can do is compete in that.
Its good to see them finally taking that very seriously.

If they can also keep up the performance and price advantage they now have the future is bright

I'm looking forward to a future gaming with AMD.

Now they just need to build some more on the Improvements of Bulldozers replacement; they and healthy competition will be A-ok

james_2k · 27 Oct 2012 at 10:44

ok subject change then:

i think its bad that games are created with one gpu manufacturer. doesnt help matters. and thats both sides not just amd.

by all means have unique features such as physx, but the core performance of games shouldnt be dependant on the company you bought your gpu from. limiting choice for us, the consumer, is never good.

Gregster · 27 Oct 2012 at 10:46

I think it is great to see. AMD for some reason are giving themselves a good name. I am hoping they keep it up for the next gen (not the refresh) as I will be looking at team red for my next GPU purchases.

spoffle · 27 Oct 2012 at 10:49

james_2k said:
ok subject change then:

i think its bad that games are created with one gpu manufacturer. doesnt help matters. and thats both sides not just amd.

by all means have unique features such as physx, but the core performance of games shouldnt be dependant on the company you bought your gpu from. limiting choice for us, the consumer, is never good.

PhysX does exactly what you're complaining about.

Outside of that, regardless of how you want to see it, nVidia sponsored games tend to have an adverse effect on the competition's hardware (purposefully probably) where as AMD's sponsored games don't.

It could all be a clever marketing move by AMD because they know people can't stand that, but regardless if you buy an "AMD Evolved" game you know it's not gonna be gimped if you've got an nVidia card.

flopper · 27 Oct 2012 at 10:57

spoffle said:
PhysX does exactly what you're complaining about.

Outside of that, regardless of how you want to see it, nVidia sponsored games tend to have an adverse effect on the competition's hardware (purposefully probably) where as AMD's sponsored games don't.

It could all be a clever marketing move by AMD because they know people can't stand that, but regardless if you buy an "AMD Evolved" game you know it's not gonna be gimped if you've got an nVidia card.

I assume that with a PhysX path for Planetside 2 it will be about FX which dont affect gameplay as those effects will be the same across brands.
Its also likely a Nvidia user then might have a drop if fps due to the extra path.
so not sure of the benefit as you can look at the light when the bullet hit you

I say the beta still runs fine on my machine.
just a lot of bugs in game still.

psychodil · 27 Oct 2012 at 10:57

Don't be silly Spoffle. There's a reason nearly all new gaming evolved titles have unnecessary GPU compute based features. Its so nvidias performance is gimped. Both companies do it.

james_2k · 27 Oct 2012 at 10:58

really? i wasnt aware of that, either way, it should be about having choice, not removing it and needing to have a certain card to play a certain game.

true enough, physx is limiting choice too.

either way,lets hope amd can deliver some decent CPU performance at last, because the intel monopoly isnt boding well.

i think the gpu world is a lot more vibrant, so to say

Final8y · 27 Oct 2012 at 11:02

psychodil said:
Don't be silly Spoffle. There's a reason nearly all new gaming evolved titles have unnecessary GPU compute based features. Its so nvidias performance is gimped. Both companies do it.

While that is true to a degree at least NV can put the Compute performance back into there next cards where AMD cards do not run PhysX at all, compute is not exclusive to a brand.

spoffle · 27 Oct 2012 at 11:04

psychodil said:
Don't be silly Spoffle. There's a reason nearly all new gaming evolved titles have unnecessary GPU compute based features. Its so nvidias performance is gimped. Both companies do it.

I don't think so really. GPU compute was all the rage from nVidia when their GPUs were competant at it, plus it's not really a "feature" limited to AMD the way PhysX is.

More things being offloaded to GPU compute is the way forward, it's where we want things to be going. Look at the way FXAA works compared to old traditional bruteforce AA methods, years ago AMD tried to push shader based AA methods with the 2900s but it's only just properly picking up now.

This is very different to the whole "let's shove everything full of tessellated geometry that doesn't improve IQ at all and just drags down performance" like nVidia were trying to do in the past.

flopper · 27 Oct 2012 at 11:08

Final8y said:
While that is true to a degree at least NV can put the Compute performance back into there next cards where AMD cards do not run PhysX at all, compute is not exclusive to a brand.

yea, not exclusive but the choice of nvidia or amd to add it in.

james_2k · 27 Oct 2012 at 11:10

that's only legit if the things that are made to use compute actually benefit from using it. because im not convinced it is. just put there to rule out the 6 series cards.

Final8y · 27 Oct 2012 at 11:16

Give it time for the auto switching comparisons to load.
http://blogs.amd.com/play/2012/07/03/dirt-showdown-amd-benchmark-guide/

And mid way down the Advantages.
http://blogs.amd.com/play/2012/06/20/dirt-showdown-on-gcn/

james_2k · 27 Oct 2012 at 11:22

hmm, pinch of salt as its direct from AMD, just as it would if direct from NV.

these PR guys are paid a lot to spin this stuff. doesnt answer whether the same could be achieved by non compute methods.

flopper · 27 Oct 2012 at 11:28

compute shader dx11
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/ff476331(v=vs.85).aspx

amd examples,
http://blogs.amd.com/play/directx-11/

james_2k · 27 Oct 2012 at 11:34

im not sure where in all that it says that doing it traditionally is not possible. the only game ive played with compute functions limiting nv hardware so far is sleeping dogs. and i cant tell the difference between the Ati mode (ultra) and nv (v high)

Final8y · 27 Oct 2012 at 11:41

james_2k said:
im not sure where in all that it says that doing it traditionally is not possible. the only game ive played with compute functions limiting nv hardware so far is sleeping dogs. and i cant tell the difference between the Ati mode (ultra) and nv (v high)

Because its not about if its not possible the traditional way, its about which is the most efficient way.

spoffle · 27 Oct 2012 at 11:48

james_2k said:
im not sure where in all that it says that doing it traditionally is not possible. the only game ive played with compute functions limiting nv hardware so far is sleeping dogs. and i cant tell the difference between the Ati mode (ultra) and nv (v high)

The point is that Microsoft have included it in the DX11 spec for a reason, it's about getting the most from the available hardware.

DX11 Compute's whole intention is to make stuff like that more efficient.

flopper · 27 Oct 2012 at 11:48

Final8y said:
Because its not about if its not possible the traditional way, its about which is the most efficient way.

yea same feature less/more fps for the same effect depending on dx9/dx10/dx11/dx11.1 etc...
amd shows it thier way here
http://blogs.amd.com/play/2012/06/20/dirt-showdown-on-gcn/

james_2k · 27 Oct 2012 at 11:50

Final8y said:
Because its not about if its not possible the traditional way, its about which is the most efficient way.

but its only the most efficient way for half of the market. similar to physx on amd cards. it can be done with the cpu, but gimps performance.

i dont agree with using compute because it gimps performance on nv hardware. and to balance, i dont agree with physx on ati because its gimped there too. on consideration