Nvidia making GameWorks Source Code Publicly available

[Klo]

Apologies if this has been posted elsewhere.

Just noticed this article from OC3D.

Now it seems that with the Release of GameWorks 3.1 Nvidia is moving to become more Open with GameWorks, having announced that PhysX, PhysX Clothing, PhysX Destruction, Volumetric Lighting and Nvidia's FaceWorks Demo are now all available with Source Code on Github, with HairWorks, HBAO+ and WaveWorks being added at a later date. This move makes Nvidia's GameWorks a lot more similar to AMD's GPUOpen, though all of Nvidia's Tools and libraries will not be available to the public with souce code from the start, though Nvidia do say that they intend to release the source code for "most or all technologies over time".

Good news for Nvidia and AMD gamers generally hopefully, inspired I imagine by GPUOpen.

 

[VincentHanna]

I wonder how much this has to do with DX12 and the onus more on developers rather than drivers.

 

[D.P.]

I wonder how much this has to do with DX12 and the onus more on developers rather than drivers.

Likely, it also completely Kill's AMD's PR tactic with GPUOpen (although we can thank AMD for helping make Nvidia do this).

Nvidia was getting completely unwarranted negativity about gamesworks with all sorts of conspiracy nutter proclaiming how they purposely damage performance on AMD or that its terribly optimized etc., all without a shred of evidence (in fact quite the opposite according to developers and actual real world benchmarks).

By doing this Nvidia can completely discredit all these claims. Nvidia were always willing to give the source code away to developers that wanted it, just under careful licensing terms to prevent the developer exploiting the code or passing it on to AMD (either accidentally or on purpose). Seems like nvida are no longer worried about that so will follow AMD.




This is great new, we should finally be able to read these forums without morons going on about "gimpworks" and proclaiming all sorts of conspiracy onse.

 

[Klo]

Likely, it also completely Kill's AMD's PR tactic with GPUOpen (although we can thank AMD for helping make Nvidia do this).

Nvidia was getting completely unwarranted negativity about gamesworks with all sorts of conspiracy nutter proclaiming how they purposely damage performance on AMD or that its terribly optimized etc., all without a shred of evidence (in fact quite the opposite according to developers and actual real world benchmarks).

By doing this Nvidia can completely discredit all these claims. Nvidia were always willing to give the source code away to developers that wanted it, just under careful licensing terms to prevent the developer exploiting the code or passing it on to AMD (either accidentally or on purpose). Seems like nvida are no longer worried about that so will follow AMD.




This is great new, we should finally be able to read these forums without morons going on about "gimpworks" and proclaiming all sorts of conspiracy onse.

It will be interesting to see if AMD can now optimise their drivers for titles that used Gameworks, and if that increases performance in any way.

 

[TwsT]

AMD optimise drivers what ever next xfire profile for elite?

 

[D.P.]

It will be interesting to see if AMD can now optimise their drivers for titles that used Gameworks, and if that increases performance in any way.

They could optimize drivers without the source code, they just preferred cheap PR stunts. Optimizing drivers without viewing the games source code is the standard approach used by both AMD and NVidia.

AMD will have to move on to some new marketing strategy.

 

[Confused Stu]

Excellent news - I can't see any way a tech being open for for everyone to view can be anything other than a good thing for us end-users. Good job Nvidia!

It's disappointing to see that it's only taken three posts for someone to turn a good news story about Nvidia into a rant/attack on AMD but regrettably still par for the course for this sub-forum. I really wish we could all focus on the common ground we all have (we all love PCs, gaming, graphics cards, new technologies, better graphics, more performance, etc) and less on the differences (who designed the GPU we bought this time around).

 

[KillBoY_UK]

Likely, it also completely Kill's AMD's PR tactic with GPUOpen (although we can thank AMD for helping make Nvidia do this).

Nvidia was getting completely unwarranted negativity about gamesworks with all sorts of conspiracy nutter proclaiming how they purposely damage performance on AMD or that its terribly optimized etc., all without a shred of evidence (in fact quite the opposite according to developers and actual real world benchmarks).

By doing this Nvidia can completely discredit all these claims. Nvidia were always willing to give the source code away to developers that wanted it, just under careful licensing terms to prevent the developer exploiting the code or passing it on to AMD (either accidentally or on purpose). Seems like nvida are no longer worried about that so will follow AMD.




This is great new, we should finally be able to read these forums without morons going on about "gimpworks" and proclaiming all sorts of conspiracy onse.

This, you should see Facebook comments on ANY story that mentions gameworks and 95% is some sort of hate fill gimpwork or worse like language. If you try and display some facts they get very angry with you lol.

 

[thebennyboy]

So much hate in this thread already, says a lot tbh.

On topic: Good news i guess, there was a lot of bad press behind gameworks particularly because the source code was locked down.

 

[nashathedog]

They could optimize drivers without the source code, they just preferred cheap PR stunts. Optimizing drivers without viewing the games source code is the standard approach used by both AMD and NVidia.

AMD will have to move on to some new marketing strategy.

That's actually funny coming from someone who just one post earlier was moaning about others making claims without a shred of evidence. Unless of course your tin foil theories are somehow different.

 

[D.P.]

That's actually funny coming from someone who just one post earlier was moaning about others making claims without a shred of evidence. Unless of course your tin foil theories are somehow different.

There is no evidence required, this is just how the wold works. Game developers don't send Nvidia or AMD source code every week, instead they profile the game and API calls and look at the shader code being sent to the API etc to understand any potential performance issues.

Nvidia and to lesser extent AMD will try to work with developers to work directly at the games source code but that isn't universal at all, they simply don't have the resources to do that. And some developers don't want to be sharing source code with them anyway.

http://www.dsogaming.com/news/ex-nv...-every-triple-a-games-ship-broken-multi-gpus/

Nearly every game ships broken. We’re talking major AAA titles from vendors who are everyday names in the industry. In some cases, we’re talking about blatant violations of API rules – one D3D9 game never even called BeginFrame/EndFrame. Some are mistakes or oversights – one shipped bad shaders that heavily impacted performance on NV drivers. These things were day to day occurrences that went into a bug tracker. Then somebody would go in, find out what the game screwed up, and patch the driver to deal with it. There are lots of optional patches already in the driver that are simply toggled on or off as per-game settings, and then hacks that are more specific to games – up to and including total replacement of the shipping shaders with custom versions by the driver team. Ever wondered why nearly every major game release is accompanied by a matching driver release from AMD and/or NVIDIA? There you go.”

 

[humbug]

Likely, it also completely Kill's AMD's PR tactic with GPUOpen (although we can thank AMD for helping make Nvidia do this).

Nvidia was getting completely unwarranted negativity about gamesworks with all sorts of conspiracy nutter proclaiming how they purposely damage performance on AMD or that its terribly optimized etc., all without a shred of evidence (in fact quite the opposite according to developers and actual real world benchmarks).

By doing this Nvidia can completely discredit all these claims. Nvidia were always willing to give the source code away to developers that wanted it, just under careful licensing terms to prevent the developer exploiting the code or passing it on to AMD (either accidentally or on purpose). Seems like nvida are no longer worried about that so will follow AMD.




This is great new, we should finally be able to read these forums without morons going on about "gimpworks" and proclaiming all sorts of conspiracy onse.

What a load of hyperbolic old crap. You sound like someone whose more than a little miffed at nvidia's discsion to go open source with game works, is it because AMD now get the source code?

Anyway, good move nvidia, good for developer's and gamers

 

[D.P.]

What a load of hyperbolic old crap. You sound like someone whose more than a little miffed at nvidia's discsion to go open source with game works, is it because AMD now get the source code?

Anyway, good move nvidia, good for developer's and gamers

I'm not miffed int he slightest, I think it is great news, why woudn't I.


i'm especially glad the conspiracy theorists will have 1 less thing to spew out on these forums.

 

[nashathedog]

snip
http://www.dsogaming.com/news/ex-nv...-every-triple-a-games-ship-broken-multi-gpus/

Yay, That gave me another laugh.

Ever wondered why nearly every major game release is accompanied by a matching driver release from AMD and/or NVIDIA?

Clearly not written by someone who watches both sides releases

Anyway, good move nvidia, good for developer's and gamers

+1
Great news.
Let's hope some they all take advantage of this.

 

[thesmokingman]

Ha. Nvidia forced to show their hand.

 

[jakspyder]

Perhaps we'll see games with the whole suite of AMD and Nvidia advanced features. That would be wonderful where we can chose what ones we want, argue over whos hair system is better etc

 

[humbug]

This on the back of Nvidia and AMD sharing a stage when talking about DX12 development.

Maybe they have reconciled some differences and are going to start working more collaboratively, wishful thinking I know but Microsoft need to be kept in check, only the two / three main hardware vendors can do that, but not when so devided.

 

[Orcvader]

Am I reading this right? Some of Nvidia's tech is becoming open source?

 

[D.P.]

This on the back of Nvidia and AMD sharing a stage when talking about DX12 development.

Maybe they have reconciled some differences and are going to start working more collaboratively, wishful thinking I know but Microsoft need to be kept in check, only the two / three main hardware vendors can do that, but not when so devided.

I think you are reading too much in to this. Nvidia have a long history of sharing source code and putting example programs on their website. They present a lot of their stuff at conferences and provide source code for other researchers and developers (for many conferences it is a requirement). Last year they released the source code for CPU PhysX and they have always offered the course code for Gamesworks under special licensing.

With AMD marketing GPUOpen and getting positive feedback it probably made sense for Nvidia to do the same and preempt any further criticism.

 

[humbug]

Am I reading this right? Some of Nvidia's tech is becoming open source?

Yeah, most if not all the game works stuff.