PCGH asks Nvidia on Gameworks

[layte]

I think Huddy nuked his bridges.

With Nvidia I'd agree. But you never know where people within the company will end up.

I know somebody who used to work in dev relations for 3dLabs, then Nvidia, then he quit to work with some people in the industry, then onto AMD and now he is in a private company with people from both vendors.

If he had trash talked the personnel from previous employers he wouldn't be where he is now.

 

[James J]

AMD are actually very good these days, not perfect, there are glitches, but no more than Nvidia.

AMD are also getting to a point where they are providing all the features Nvidia do, and more, Other than PhysX, which i think makes games look like something from the 1990's.

One of those things, Mantle, is far more significant that anything Nvidia have, at the end of the day cartoon rubble falling out of the wall is one thing, having excellent performance consistently with unrivalled smoothness is quite another.

People just don't know it yet.

Yet they still don't offer a real shadowplay alternative and the third party one doesn't even work on most games and their 3D tech is years behind now. Unrivalled smoothness made me laugh as well, as you obviously haven't had a go with gsync yet on ANY game, not just the frostbite engine enabled mantle titles.

How the hell does physX make games look from the 90s? Need I remind you of how utterly different a game like ALICE is with it turned on instead of off?

The only thing I agree with you on in the entire post is that neither side are great from the bugs side of things, with both still suffering the usual driver related problems and hiccups in numerous titles, but that isn't anything that will ever change either as a perfect driver is a myth.

AMD make great graphics cards with some serious grunt to them, but in terms of other offerings that sweeten the deal, they are lagging behind playing catch up most of the time. A perfect example of when AMD got it right is with direct compute and Nvidia have paid sorely for that, especially with business users. For a gamer though, its a far harder choice to make.

 

[bru]

AMD are actually very good these days, not perfect, there are glitches, but no more than Nvidia.

Not going to disagree with this, but it is subjective, see below.

AMD are also getting to a point where they are providing all the features Nvidia do, and more, .

Unfortunately I have to disagree with this, it is not AMD who are getting to the point of providing all the features that Nvidia do, it is third parties that do all the work and AMD who seem to take all the credit.

One of those things, Mantle, is far more significant that anything Nvidia have, at the end of the day

Mantle being more significant than anything Nvidia have, again is purely subjective and down to each individual persons requirements. Me personally I'm not interested in the BF series or Thief for that matter, Plants vs Zombies might be fun, but Mantle does nothing for me, so for me it is definatley not more significant than anything Nvidia brings to the table.

Other than PhysX, which i think makes games look like something from the 1990's.........

cartoon rubble falling out of the wall is one thing, having excellent performance consistently with unrivalled smoothness is quite another.

People just don't know it yet.

Cartoon rubble falling out of the wall has nothing to PhysX as is the same for games looking like they are from the 90's. If you was to convert a version of super meat boy to ran Mantle, would it be Mantles fault that the game looks crap, no of course it wouldn't it would be the coders fault for not utilising the tools he has better. Or are you saying that PhysX can only do pathetic looking rubble, because we all know it is capable of so much more, if only the developers were to really utilise it.

 

[Rroff]

^^ Have to agree with that last bit, PhysX capabilities and how its actually put to use by developers (many of which don't have specialised knowledge of physics and get behaviour wrong, etc.) is another thing entirely.

 

[humbug]

Cartoon rubble falling out of the wall has nothing to PhysX as is the same for games looking like they are from the 90's. If you was to convert a version of super meat boy to ran Mantle, would it be Mantles fault that the game looks crap, no of course it wouldn't it would be the coders fault for not utilising the tools he has better. Or are you saying that PhysX can only do pathetic looking rubble, because we all know it is capable of so much more, if only the developers were to really utilise it.

regardless of whose fault it might be the trouble is they all look like that.

Other PhysX effects look good, sparks, smoke... and yet you don't need Nvidia PhysX for any of that.

 

[Final8y]

Unfortunately I have to disagree with this, it is not AMD who are getting to the point of providing all the features that Nvidia do, it is third parties that do all the work and AMD who seem to take all the credit.

If AMD is paying for those third party features then that still counts as providing features to the customer.

 

[PhysicsMan94]

An example of a good implementation of PhysX into a game is Metro: Last Light - the effects are great (especially from grenade explosions and such) and the performance hit is minimal.

 

[James J]

regardless of whose fault it might be the trouble is they all look like that.

Other PhysX effects look good, sparks, smoke... and yet you don't need Nvidia PhysX for any of that.

Such sweeping statements of utter tosh. Humbug strikes again. I don't see how or even why you'd blindly defend a company and tar the name of their competition when it's a sodding graphics card lol. Seriously!

 

[bru]

If AMD is paying for those third party features then that still counts as providing features to the customer.

Ok fair enough, your saying if a company is paying for certain features then it is down to them ?

 

[humbug]

AMD just have a different approach to it, its not always the best way i agree, i would prefer Recording and streaming as a part of AMD's own app.

But it also has its benefits, Adaptive-Sync or Free-Sync depending on what you know it as

Better to standardise the Display Port and have the GPU its self comunicating directly with the sceen instead of expensive add-in hardware acting as the middle man.

Just because Nvidia slap their name on everything and have their own standalone apps does not mean its any better. It just looks like they do more.

 

[Final8y]

Ok fair enough, your saying if a company is paying for certain features then it is down to them ?

If a feature would not be provided to the customers without the company paying then yes.
Made by and providing are 2 different things.

 

[bru]

But it also have its benefits, Adaptive-Sync or Free-Sync depending on what you know it as

You do realise that Adaptive-Sync and Free-Sync are actually different don't you?

Adaptive-Sync is part of the new Display port standard, where as Free-Sync is the proprietory hardware and software that AMD uses to allow them interface with the Adaptive-Sync monitors.

Just because Nvidia slap their name on everything and have their own standalone apps does not mean its any better. It just looks like they do more.

Company X does job A, job B and job C.
Company Z does job A, pays someone else to do job B and job C.

Company A has actually done more rather than farm it out to outsiders.

Which is better is again subjective.

 

[bru]

If a feature would not be provided to the customers without the company paying then yes.
Made by and providing are 2 different things.

Ok can you go into the 'It's Dice's fault not Mantle/AMD thread' then please and tell everyone that because AMD are the paying for the feature it is down to them that there are problems with it.

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18608723

 

[James J]

AMD just have a different approach to it, its not always the best way i agree, i would prefer Recording and streaming as a part of AMD's own app.

But it also has its benefits, Adaptive-Sync or Free-Sync depending on what you know it as

Better to standardise the Display Port and have the GPU its self comunicating directly with the sceen instead of expensive add-in hardware acting as the middle man.

Just because Nvidia slap their name on everything and have their own standalone apps does not mean its any better. It just looks like they do more.

Haha and you think that ALL monitor manufacturers won't do exactly the same thing when adaptive sync is rolled out across the board? If you think that a none adaptive sync monitor vs one that has it will be the same price as what you pay now, you are sorely mistaken. AMD have even said that it would raise the price of the monitor as they have no control of it either...

 

[humbug]

There are only, what? two G-Sync Monitors in a year of that. ^^^

You do realise that Adaptive-Sync and Free-Sync are actually different don't you?

Adaptive-Sync is part of the new Display port standard, where as Free-Sync is the proprietory hardware and software that AMD uses to allow them interface with the Adaptive-Sync monitors.

I'm just trying to get away from calling it Free-Sync, that name was dreamed up by Anand and its sort of stuck, thats not what it will be called

Company X does job A, job B and job C.
Company Z does job A, pays someone else to do job B and job C.

Company A has actually done more rather than farm it out to outsiders.

Which is better is again subjective.

If you read what i said you will see that i did not say it was better, i actually agree with you in that i think having Recording and Streaming would have been better in AMD's own app.

However, i do understand that; if they can get a better result by farming it out instead of doing it in house Then i would prefer they farm it out. DVR is still in BETA but having tested it its bloody brilliant, 'like game' recording quality with 0 performance loss and reasonable file size, it could not be any better and it is better than the best pay for stuff out there.

 

[Final8y]

Ok can you go into the 'It's Dice's fault not Mantle/AMD thread' then please and tell everyone that because AMD are the paying for the feature it is down to them that there are problems with it.

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18608723

AMD provided the API, how its implemented into a game is down to Dice.
Issues of the API itself are down to AMD, screw ups on implementations are not.

Ok fair enough, your saying if a company is paying for certain features then it is down to them ?

The existence of mantle is down to AMD and not how well or how badly it is used.

 

[PhysicsMan94]

AMD provided the API, how its implemented into a game is down to Dice.
Issues of the API itself are down to AMD, screw ups on implementations are not.

I very much doubt that AMD has no hand in helping with implementing Mantle into games, DICE (or, rather, the Frostbite team) would have had help from AMD in implementing the API into their engine.

 

[Final8y]

I very much doubt that AMD has no hand in helping with implementing Mantle into games, DICE (or, rather, the Frostbite team) would have had help from AMD in implementing the API into their engine.

Whether they helped or not is not the point.

 

[PhysicsMan94]

Whether they helped or not is not the point.

You claimed:

Issues of the API itself are down to AMD, screw ups on implementations are not.

Which implies that you think that any problems with the implementation are down to DICE (or any other arbitrary developer for a game using mantle), however given that it is highly likely that AMD must assist with the integration process one cannot exclude blame from AMD in this regard.

 

[bru]

AMD provided the API, how its implemented into a game is down to Dice.
Issues of the API itself are down to AMD, screw ups on implementations are not.



The existence of mantle is down to AMD and not how it is used.

Fine, in that case going back to the original point in humbugs post, it's fine for AMD to take the credit for the third parties work right up until there is a problem with it, then it the third parties fault.

Someone wants to have his cake and eat it too.