Gameworks, Mantle and a pot calling a kettle black

[LtMatt]

Never? So how do they know it's so important if they never do it?
Also, there's an Nvidia quite earlier where they say that AMD can look at the source code (maybe not to GameWorks, but that's fair enough isn't it? I doubt Nvidia get to see Mantle source code). So maybe it's a case that AMD never bother to look at source code and just moan instead?

To me it seems normal that you don't get source code for API/Middleware/Libraries/Frameworks as a developer. If there's a bug in it then you tell it to the peopel that made it so they can fix it. If you don't like the library, then you don't use it and you do all its functionality (or what you need) yourself.
If you're being paid to use it then you need an agreement that states that if you have issues using it you will get a certain level of support for it.

Have a good read GM.
http://www.extremetech.com/gaming/1...opers-weigh-in-on-the-gameworks-controversy/2

For future GameWorks titles Nvidia say that the devs can licence and look at the source code to help AMD. But what about all the GameWorks titles prior to Watchdogs where this couldn't happen? Time will tell if this is really the case once the next wave of GW titles hits. Then this topic will no doubt resurface and we can continue this great longstanding debate lol.

 

[Gregster]

Have a good read GM.
http://www.extremetech.com/gaming/1...opers-weigh-in-on-the-gameworks-controversy/2

The question of whether GameWorks is a good or bad thing for AMD gamers will be answered by how future GameWorks titles run on AMD hardware. Arkham Origins was a poor brand ambassador for the GameWorks program, even if the performance delta between AMD and Nvidia in that title wasn’t linked to any particular GameWorks feature — the gap between the two companies was and is far larger than normal. Subsequent GameWorks-enabled titles, however, have hewn much more closely to expected performance levels.

From your pal that is....

So the bottom line is "GameWorks hasn't hurt AMD users at all and the whole GameWorks debacle is exactly FUD.

 

[Stanners]

But, but, but

 

[LtMatt]

From your pal that is....

So the bottom line is "GameWorks hasn't hurt AMD users at all and the whole GameWorks debacle is exactly FUD.

Yes as ive said no smoking gun has been found. GameWorks does not set out to deliberately harm AMD performance. But it has that effect anyway for the reasons already mentioned.

 

[TheRealDeal]

Yes as ive said no smoking gun has been found. GameWorks does not set out to deliberately harm AMD performance. But it has that effect anyway for the reasons already mentioned.

Plenty of criminals get away with there crimes as there is not enough evidence to convict them yet most know they are guilty. Does this make them innocent? Nvidia attract this crap all the time and just because no proof can be found does not make them innocent it just means they are good at what they do. It's funny how AMD do not have these articles floating around all the time. Anyhow i think you understand this.

 

[melmac]

The problem is Mantle is more a tool for AMD to make its CPUs look more competitive in games,then anything else. Hence all the 2GHZ FX8350 and Core i7 4770 bumpf they were talking about last year.

Nvidia themselves already started threading their DX11 drivers better,meaning they actually tend to performance relatively better on AMD CPUs than AMD's own cards!

Which is kind of ironic.

No, no, no, you keep saying this, but it's still wrong, no matter how often you say it. Mantle wasn't designed to make AMD CPU's more competitive in games. It was never about that at all. I don't why you would even think it was?

 

[Gregster]

Yes as ive said no smoking gun has been found. GameWorks does not set out to deliberately harm AMD performance. But it has that effect anyway for the reasons already mentioned.

So who's fault is that? AMD for not coding well for their users? nVidia for making these libraries to free up time for devs? Devs for using GW?

As for getting back to the original article, I still feel the OP of that has looked from outside the box and can see that both AMD and nVidia are out to take customers away from the other and can't blame them for that. In an ideal world, they would work together on DX/OpenGL/Mantle/nVapi (pick one) and that would be the API to use for all games but sadly, more fragmentation is the way forward.

 

[Rusty0611]

Plenty of criminals get away with there crimes as there is not enough evidence to convict them yet most know they are guilty. Does this make them innocent? Nvidia attract this crap all the time and just because no proof can be found does not make them innocent it just means they are good at what they do. It's funny how AMD do not have these articles floating around all the time. Anyhow i think you understand this.

There's a difference between a court of law and forum lawyers with unsubstantiated rumours.

 

[LtMatt]

So who's fault is that? AMD for not coding well for their users? nVidia for making these libraries to free up time for devs? Devs for using GW?

That's a whole can of worms that i don't want to get into.

At the end of the day AMD have not been able to look at the source code so there is not much they can do. Devs say that is vital and often mandaotry. Nvidia admit that you need to do that if there is a problem. Middleware (unoptimised) is buggy and problematic. If the dev is not willing to help them or modify things, there is absolutely nothing they can do. You see where this is leading? I think this is why you have these problems for AMD in GW titles.

With all that said and done, I now no longer think that Nvidia created GameWorks with a view to gimping AMD performance. I've changed my opinions a bit from previously thanks to article written by Joel but mainly due to words coming from the developers. They have no reason to lie to us, or tell half truths unlike AMD/Nvidia.

 

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

No, no, no, you keep saying this, but it's still wrong, no matter how often you say it. Mantle wasn't designed to make AMD CPU's more competitive in games. It was never about that at all. I don't why you would even think it was?

Really,you keep saying no,but every AMD presentation is about AMD making its CPUs look more competitive. A 2GHZ FX8350 equaling a Core i7 4770K. An A10 7850K having better performance,etc. You can ignore all you can,but AMD is business. Mantle is a business decision to increase sales of its CPUs and GPUs.

Its always has been about it,from the very start. You are so focused on one part,you cannot see the bigger picture.

AMD makes CPUs and GPUs,and most of its revenue is still from CPUs or SOCs with CPUs. Why don't you actually look at how AMD revenues have been spread out in the last few years??

Maybe you need to look at AMD CPU roadmaps. The FX range is not being updated until at least late 2015 maybe even 2016.

All AMD roadmaps show they are improving their low power cores,and their APUs. AMD Carrizo is still 28NM(might be improved though) and drops the TDP down.

Even then the node is not as optimised for high clockspeed,but power consumption and density.

Kaveri dropped clockspeeds.

The sweetspot seems to be under 65W TDP for the design. You can see this with the A8 7600 and even the mobile FX7600P.

Any IPC improvements with Carrizo will be used to increase performance/watt in mobile. Every leak says even the top SKU on desktop will be 65W TDP instead of 95W with Kaveri.

You fail to grasp all of this repeatedly,since you cannot see the bigger picture.

So,what do you think AMD is going to do?? They are falling behind Intel,and with many games still favouring under 4 cores,what is easier to do:
1.)Magically come up with a high performance core before 2016 and pray GF will have a competitive process node by then.

or

2.)Improve the software side,so that games can perform better on CPUs which have lower per core performace??

Do you even realise how expensive it is develop the kind of nodes AMD needs,ie,ones for CPUs which can hit high clockspeeds??

In fact AMD was the only customer for the GF 32NM SOI process,which last time I checked could clock higher than the 28NM bulk they are doing now. Unless GF does indeed get access to the IBM 22NM process node anytime soon due to their recent interactions(they might even buy the IBM fab part),I somewhat doubt they are going to continue to push high clockspeed capable process nodes,when literally AMD will be the only customer with any decent volume.

Yet,APUs and low power CPUs are what are the majority of AMD CPU sales ATM.

What do you think Mantle does??

What CPUs show the MOST improvement?

AMD ones??

Or Intel ones?

They are not a charity.

Edit!!

It gets better:

http://i.imgur.com/t61IBqO.jpg

What CPUs "lack" single threaded performance then?

Intel ones or AMD ones??

http://www.extremetech.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/AMD-CPUScaling-640x303.jpg

Oh wait!! They are comparing an APU with a Core i7 4770K.

http://i.imgur.com/zSbrNtU.png

2GHZ FX8350 matches a Core i7.

So they talk about improving multi-threading and reducing single thread bottlenecks.

Everything AMD has said about Mantle,is about their CPUs,and improving multi-threading helps AMD the most,even if it means not quite parity with Intel in a number of games.

It is in black and white on their own bumpf. If you and the others want to ignore it fine.

I will not argue anymore with any of you in this thread about it and I will just point you back to this post TBH,otherwise it will just go around in circles.

So,I will have to agree to disagree with you about it or anyone else.

 

[whyscotty]

With all that said and done, I now no longer think that Nvidia created GameWorks with a view to gimping AMD performance.

What a relief, you may be able to sleep at night

 

[LtMatt]

What a relief, you may be able to sleep at night

Lol. Never forget.

 

[Rusty0611]

Anyone else think that Matt feels like you do if you stop just before the end point?

 

[mmj_uk]

AMD's latest attempt to demonise GameWorks is no doubt just an attempt to get developers to adopt Mantle freely, because they will be too tight to pay developers to implement it. When Mantle inevitably fails due to lack of AMD investment they will just create a conspiracy involving NVidia as the bad guys to absolve themselves for being poor in supporting of their customers.

 

[LtMatt]

Anyone else think that Matt feels like you do if you stop just before the end point?

Haha nope not frustrated at all Rusty. I think others probably are mind you.

Overall i think this has led to better understandings of the problems and that is a good thing. It was also reassuring to hear that most of the developers he interviewed said they would not accept GameWorks code that did harm AMD performance. A satisfactory conclusion i think.

 

[smogsy]

so many good threads lately

 

[GoogalyMoogaly]

That's a whole can of worms that i don't want to get into.

At the end of the day AMD have not been able to look at the source code so there is not much they can do. Devs say that is vital and often mandaotry. Nvidia admit that you need to do that if there is a problem. Middleware (unoptimised) is buggy and problematic. If the dev is not willing to help them or modify things, there is absolutely nothing they can do. You see where this is leading? I think this is why you have these problems for AMD in GW titles.

With all that said and done, I now no longer think that Nvidia created GameWorks with a view to gimping AMD performance. I've changed my opinions a bit from previously thanks to article written by Joel but mainly due to words coming from the developers. They have no reason to lie to us, or tell half truths unlike AMD/Nvidia.

But then the quote from Nvidia in the article Greg posted says that AMD have been able to se the game source code, in the past as well.

It seems easier for AMD to point the finger at Nvidia than for them to do anything themselves. Sometimes the reason you can't find the smoking gun is because there isn't a smoking gun to be found.

There's also all this talk that Mantle doesn't harm Nvidia DX performance, how do we know that?
Surely we could just claim that it does but that AMD have covered it up. AMD paid developers to make DX performance worse in games that would get Mantle so that Mantle looks better.
There easy. I apparently don't need proof, I can also find some results that show Mantle performing better than DX. That could suggest that Mantle hurts DX performance.

 

[LtMatt]

But then the quote from Nvidia in the article Greg posted says that AMD have been able to se the game source code, in the past as well.

It seems easier for AMD to point the finger at Nvidia than for them to do anything themselves. Sometimes the reason you can't find the smoking gun is because there isn't a smoking gun to be found.

There's also all this talk that Mantle doesn't harm Nvidia DX performance, how do we know that?
Surely we could just claim that it does but that AMD have covered it up. AMD paid developers to make DX performance worse in games that would get Mantle so that Mantle looks better.
There easy. I apparently don't need proof, I can also find some results that show Mantle performing better than DX. That could suggest that Mantle hurts DX performance.

Lol typical GM post. This is going off information a neutral party has put forward, game developers that work and optimize for both sides. It holds a lot more weight than anything AMD or Nvidia have to say. See my previous posts for what the score is. Not going to explain it to you again mate lol.

Mantle is a different code path to DX. Come on even you can't be that daft.

 

[shankly1985]

But if true Gameworks does effect amd users, where mantle don't effect nvidia users at all.

So based on this alone they are completely different.

Am not saying it's true about Gameworks not read enough proof for me to say. But based on what I have said how can they be the same?

 

[Gregster]

Lol typical GM post. This is going off information a neutral party has put forward, game developers that work and optimize for both sides. It holds a lot more weight than anything AMD or Nvidia have to say. See my previous posts for what the score is. Not going to explain it to you again mate lol.

Mantle is a different code path to DX. Come on even you can't be that daft.

He does have a point though, as everything that Joel has posted has been based on nothing. Even when you rip what the AMD/nVidia/Devs have said apart, it boils down to GameWorks has not directly harmed AMD users.

So looking at Mantle performance in Thief CF vS SLI, I feel AMD have purposefully gimped DX performance to harm nVidia users