How about the game developers just stand up to the Green Goblin for once and demand open standards?
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Nvidia’s GameWorks program usurps power from developers, end-users, and AMD
- Thread starter LtMatt
- Start date
How about the game developers just stand up to the Green Goblin for once and demand open standards?
Like Dice you mean?
I'm suggesting Nvidia allow AMD to optimise. This is how its always worked...until now.
The article is wrong. AMD cannot optimise for GW HBAO. They can still use it they just can't optimise for it, unlike Nvidia.
If im wrong on this Joel please correct me.
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Its a difficult one to draw the line, in many respects using GW's ambient occlusion system, etc. isn't much different from what would happen if a company decided to use for instance enlighten if a company doesn't have the resources or budget to implement a feature like that from scratch but they can get it from another source free or cheaper than doing it all for themselves then they are likely to do so and unless the full source is licensed neither the developer or GPU vendors can see inside the library code easily.
Though as Andy pointed out nVidia and AMD can profile their drivers in debug mode and work out enough to do 99% of optimisations it just requires a bit more effort on their part.
The difference between Gaming Evolved / TWIMTBP and GameWorks is that in the former programs (including TressFX), games that launched with preferential support for one program did not preclude eventual optimization for the other vendor.
GW does preclude this by using NV libraries under license that AMD cannot see and cannot optimize in the same fashion. It may be that a developer that wants AMD optimizations can work with the company to get some of that work in. AMD may be able to do some fine-tuning via ultra low-level driver tuning. But the developer cannot hand AMD the HLSL code and say: "Here, have a look." In the past, they could. That's the difference. And because any developer cooperation with AMD to try to get some kind of code optimization in is going to operate under a legal gray area, that's going to be difficult and time consuming.
Each library is specific, not broad. So a library for HBAO+ is a library for that function. A library for tessellation (if one existed) is a library for tessellation. A game that incorporates five GW libraries for five separate functions does not prevent AMD from optimizing for a sixth function that is not covered by a GW library.
It's a simple distinction.
GW does preclude this by using NV libraries under license that AMD cannot see and cannot optimize in the same fashion. It may be that a developer that wants AMD optimizations can work with the company to get some of that work in. AMD may be able to do some fine-tuning via ultra low-level driver tuning. But the developer cannot hand AMD the HLSL code and say: "Here, have a look." In the past, they could. That's the difference. And because any developer cooperation with AMD to try to get some kind of code optimization in is going to operate under a legal gray area, that's going to be difficult and time consuming.
Each library is specific, not broad. So a library for HBAO+ is a library for that function. A library for tessellation (if one existed) is a library for tessellation. A game that incorporates five GW libraries for five separate functions does not prevent AMD from optimizing for a sixth function that is not covered by a GW library.
It's a simple distinction.
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Soldato
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Not sure if its been released bur flex will have a full directcompute version in physx 3.4 sdk
Caporegime
So if this is the case, the article is because AMD can't optimize for this nVidia tech? This is getting more and more like Mantle the more this goes on but Mantle is cool and GameWorks is bad?
Soldato
Well put.
Soldato
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It is nonsense to say AMD can only do assembler level optimisation. The drivers will be written in C or more likely C++.
If you can profile your own c++ code you can intercept and redirect the c++ calls, it really is that simple.
It is marginally more time consuming to have to do it that way, but it is absolutely not impossible.
If you can profile your own c++ code you can intercept and redirect the c++ calls, it really is that simple.
It is marginally more time consuming to have to do it that way, but it is absolutely not impossible.
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Soldato
No its not like Mantel because AMD cards still going through some of GameWorks= nVidia tech while with Mantel=AMD tech, nVidia cards dont go through any of it so are not hampered by it or restricted by it at any level.
Its like saying that AMD cards are hampered by CUDA which is wrong because AMD cards dont run CUDA so cant be hammered by it even if NV cards get twice the performance running CUDA, that's still not hampering AMD cards.
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It doesn't matter how many times you say it or explain it. They choose not to listen. You're Just wasting your time. If they can't understand the very basic difference by now, you'll never get them to understand it. It comes down to their gpu preference and they won't hear anything said against it.
Caporegime
But at least GameWorks is working on AMD cards, whereas Mantle isn't working on nVidia cards. I am not even sure what is what, as not one AMD owner (except Martini) has said how Batman AO runs (and Martini said it was great on his 290).
As to tessellation, AMD should have improved from the 6 series but sadly they didn't, so should we cut out tessellation because MAD cards can't cope with it?
Caporegime
Pot, Kettle, black?
Soldato
Totally besides the point and the rest is strawman.
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Soldato
Indeed.
Soldato
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Personally I think there are 2 issues with this subject that need to be seperated more (atleast until more information comes to light) a lot of things thread is a bit of a mess of confusing the 2 aspects.
On the one hand GameWorks itself has the whole potential issue of it potentially being used by nVidia to subversively undermine the competition which doesn't benefit anyone - the incidental nature of the libraries I think is a bit of a red herring as while it potentially allows nVidia to abuse them to marginalise AMD its not in itself any different from other libraries where neither the developer or the GPU vendors have access to the full source which isn't an unusual case at all with game development. That nVidia can in this case influence the library code is really a footnote to the bigger potential issue.
Then you have Batman AO - where I believe your article showed much of the performance bias stems from the tessellation implementation and the real interesting bit there is why AMD didn't get to include their optimsations - as you said tessellation as used in the game shouldn't be tied in any way to GameWorks so that raises concerns - especially if it comes to light GameWorks was used as a tool to shutout AMD's efforts to optimise - but at this point thats conjecture.
Had to laugh
I hear and see plenty said against AMD on these forums and have no problem with it. Doesn't always work the same way though. At this stage Nvidia could release a press conference saying the libraries are locked and they will not allow AMD to optimize its own performance/drivers. Yet still you'd have a few people in this thread saying but what about Mantle?
Caporegime
From nVidias history, surely AMD owners would be pleased at least to get the same effects in games as nVidia owners or am I missing something?