PCGH asks Nvidia on Gameworks

[Rusty0611]

Waffling?

HW's is part of GW's, the same as the other libraries that are part of GW's.

http://i.imgur.com/TWDEDYq.png[IMG]

C2=track record example-but you knew that.

The core of the thread is AMD-Nvidia GW's argument, in part response to huddy's words=on topic valid discussion.[/QUOTE]

Yes waffling.

The discussion is in general OK but you keep veering off topic to point score about C2 years ago when it doesn't have any relevance to GW.

Suggest you re-read layte's post.

There's no point debating anything with you because you don't listen to anything anybody says so I shan't bother responding.

 

[GoogalyMoogaly]

Maybe the reason the Hairworks stuff works better on Nvidia is that some part of it is done using their CUDA cores, which AMD don't have so have to run it on the CPU?
Because AMD can't see the GameWorks source code (which seems perfectly reasonable to me) maybe they're assuming it's just tessellation?
If you believe what was said in the quote in the OP (I'm always a little sceptical of anything that comes from AMD or Nvidia as they're both going to be biased), then I don't think it seems unreasonable that developers (with licenses, depending on how hard they are to get) are allowed to see and change the the GameWorks source code but that AMD aren't.

And even if it is, could it be argued that AMD are holding back effects and IQ by refusing to improve it's tessellation performance and then blaming Nvidia for encouraging developers to use tessellation?

I'm a little unsure why Crysis 2 an the cape in BAO is being discussed in a GameWorks threads if they're just related to tessellation?

 

[Imdur]

Hopefully this won't be seen as bashing - I'm going back to AMD after Nvidia's cards do not provide the full colour range via Displayport or HDMI. Note: the latter can be fixed with a 3rd party patch...

 

[tommybhoy]

Derogatory as per, again, arguing semantics over what is/isn't in the core library of GW's, here it is yet again, another reference by Nvidia of what libraries are under the umbrella of GW's, the link speaks volumes rusty :

https://developer.nvidia.com/what-is-gameworks

1 video, 2 screenies all from Nvidia informing the masses HW's IS part of GW's.

Which doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things regarding one vendor gimping competitors performance or not.

 

[Gregster]

What some people seem to miss is, tessellation is done by the game developer and not nVidia. I am still seeing fingers being pointed at nVidia for things that happened years ago and yet, still no proof. EA was in charge of Crytek then and maybe dev time was short and tessellation was something new, so it seems all too convenient to point the finger at nVidia to suit an argument that really has nothing to do with GameWorks. GameWorks isn't directly affecting AMD performance and that has been admitted by AMD themselves but the original argument was "It could".

 

[tommybhoy]

Of course there's been proof, there's multiple articles from different sources, wireframe tessalation shots don't lie.

 

[Martini1991]

Over tessellation has definitely been proven, definitively proven.
Crysis 2 for example (Then again, it was a crap game)

 

[Gregster]

Of course there's been proof, there's multiple articles from different sources, wireframe tessalation shots don't lie.

I don't disagree with that but is there proof that it was nVidia who engorced it? The same with any of this?

 

[james.miller]

There isnt any proof and there is unlikely to be any. It's just comically convenient that an nvidia sponsored game over-used tessellation, far beyond the point where it made any visual difference, when nvidia hardware at the time was geared for doing that and AMD's wasn't. Tessellation wasn't new at the time, far from it, so that's not really a decent reason. The current incarnation of hardware tessellation was first seen on the xbox 360's gpu, and before that ATi first supported hardware tess, albeit a rather less advanced version of it, in 2001.

also strange that they never bothered to fix it? Consider Crysis 2 launched with no dx11 whatsoever (so no tessellation) and it took them i think 8 months-ish to get it in? at which point they added dx11, higher resolution textures, tess. etc. They did all that after launch but they never bothered to fix the over-tessellation?

massively convenient.

 

[Silent_Scone]

Tommy, something is broken in your system.

One way of putting it

 

[Gerard]

There isnt any proof and there is unlikely to be any. It's just comically convenient that an nvidia sponsored game over-used tessellation, far beyond the point where it made any visual difference, when nvidia hardware at the time was geared for doing that and AMD's wasn't. Tessellation wasn't new at the time, far from it, so that's not really a decent reason. The current incarnation of hardware tessellation was first seen on the xbox 360's gpu, and before that ATi first supported hardware tess, albeit a rather less advanced version of it, in 2001.

also strange that they never bothered to fix it? Consider Crysis 2 launched with no dx11 whatsoever (so no tessellation) and it took them i think 8 months-ish to get it in? at which point they added dx11, higher resolution textures, tess. etc. They did all that after launch but they never bothered to fix the over-tessellation?

massively convenient.

Pretty much that, not hard to put 2+2 together. Its not as if NVidia or Crytek are going to admit to it, just have to look at the pics with tons of triangles being added to flat objects and providing zero image improvement to see that "something" dodgy was obviously being done.

 

[Silent_Scone]

Xbox 360 tess is so crude and inflexible it may as well not have had it, but agree with the post, James
..

Well apart from 90% of it with the conspiracy talk.

 

[Gerard]

Xbox 360 tess is so crude and inflexible it may as well not have had it, but agree with the post, James
..

Well apart from 90% of it with the conspiracy talk.

Ninja edit ftw.

 

[Gregster]

The funniest part of all this is that Batman runs faster on AMD HW than it does on nVidia I think nVidia have gimped it for the wrong people

 

[Orangey]

Mass Effect used the tessellator on 360, I think.

 

[Rroff]

I don't disagree with that but is there proof that it was nVidia who engorced it? The same with any of this?

Problem is people just take the face value information and run with the agenda.

In most games large bodies of water are always drawn as in many games it is basically a flat plane (sometimes a basic grid with animated vertices to give some vague wavey motion) and mostly far more costly to do occlusion testing on it than to just render it all the time.

You then have the knock on effect that if someone slaps tessellation into the game haphazardly you end up with a crazy amount of stuff being drawn, without any actual intentional agenda performance wise (if incompetence was a crime and all that).

Same with many of the other problems with tessellation in the game - sometimes preserving the smaller details correctly results in an excessive amount in areas that don't need the same level of detail and its a fairly complex procedure to make that work with optimised tessellation while not resulting in unintended geometry deformations i.e. being able to see through parts of an object that you shouldn't again could be down to as much laziness, lack of time or incompetence as anything malicious.

None of which proves there wasn't an agenda but doesn't necessarily mean there was one either.

Same problem with gameworks a general lack of understanding of the normal state of these things in development leads people to seeing smoking guns in things which might look incriminating at face value but are far less clear cut or even not a smoking gun at all when you really know how things normally are from a development perspective and unfortunatly AMD plays this for all it can to score points off nVidia whether its merited or not.

EDIT:

Pretty much that, not hard to put 2+2 together. Its not as if NVidia or Crytek are going to admit to it, just have to look at the pics with tons of triangles being added to flat objects and providing zero image improvement to see that "something" dodgy was obviously being done.

See my comments above heh, pretty much illustrates what I'm talking about.

 

[Gerard]

See my comments above heh, pretty much illustrates what I'm talking about.

Right so we're just all meant to buy into the notion that it was all just a massive coincidence that a NVidia sponsored game "just happened" to go totally OTT on the buzzword effect at the time that NVidia hardware was better at....

 

[Silent_Scone]

Ninja edit ftw.

I am on my iPhone, premature enteraculation. Flattered you noticed

 

[james.miller]

Problem is people just take the face value information and run with the agenda.

In most games large bodies of water are always drawn as in many games it is basically a flat plane (sometimes a basic grid with animated vertices to give some vague wavey motion) and mostly far more costly to do occlusion testing on it than to just render it all the time.

I don't buy it that it's more costly to do occasioning testing and remove the water than it is to render the water with this amount of tessellation whenever an ounce of water is on screen:

but anyway, water was only one part of it and that doesnt explain the ludicrous amounts of tess on the barriers lol

Xbox 360 tess is so crude and inflexible it may as well not have had it, but agree with the post, James
..

Well apart from 90% of it with the conspiracy talk.

you don't agree that it's extremely convenient? what's your explanation then?

 

[Gerard]

I am on my iPhone, premature enteraculation. Flattered you noticed

Took you 5 minutes to add that one line? I was in and out of this section a few times in the interim before it showed up.