Wondering How To Get A Job As A Gaming Scientist? Ask Richard Huddy from AMD!

Rusty0611 · 3 Oct 2014 at 17:36

5UB said:
Please keep this thread on topic, otherwise your posts will be deleted and users possibly banned. Thanks.

Roger boss. Apologies.

Orangey · 3 Oct 2014 at 17:38

_Alatar_ said:
Someone has got to ask the hard questions I guess so here goes...

1) According to you Nvidia is "too proud" to adopt mantle. Does this mean that AMD was too proud to adopt CUDA? (CUDA is just about as open as AMD claims mantle will be in the future)

2) How is AMD going to deal with its dwindling R&D funds in an industry where more and more money is required to push the envelope?

4) In the long(er) term how is AMD going to deal with the added costs of interposers, TSVs, and other tricks required to get HBM working? And in addition how will these upcoming new techniques (along with watercooling) affect future card pricing?

1) Thinly-veiled smashes aren't legit questions there pal

2) Are you referring to those charts that were posted recently? They showed spend, not available funds. Also, see 4)

4) They just entered into a massive deal with Synopsis for IP all the way down to 10nm and they have Hynix as a partner on HBM

_Alatar_ · 3 Oct 2014 at 17:55

Orangey said:
1) Thinly-veiled smashes aren't legit questions there pal

It's a perfectly legit comparison and the point of the question is to ask them what makes mantle any different and how do they justify their comments about adoption.

2) Are you referring to those charts that were posted recently? They showed spend, not available funds. Also, see 4)

Yes I'm talking about lower R&D spending. And referring to your #4 point, no the question wasn't only about tape outs and die layouts (which is what synopsis does), it was actually more about future architecture developments as well as the hardware side. The tapeout side can be done either by AMD or someone else they transfer engineers to (as happened with 150 peeps in the synopsis deal). And money they could spend matters very little if they don't actually spend it. Lower R&D is lower R&D.

4) They just entered into a massive deal with Synopsis for IP all the way down to 10nm and they have Hynix as a partner on HBM

this doesn't address any of the issues I raised in my question. It was specifically about rising BOM costs due to the new and expensive technologies required in using HBM and AMD's rising TDPs.

James J · 3 Oct 2014 at 18:03

Alright I'll have a more serious question seen as the "humour" part isn't actually possible lol.

New question:

It's becoming increasingly important to manage the TDP whilst having a sound level that doesn't become irritating to the consumer. AMD managed this superbly with the 5850/5870 series of cards, but everything after it has been far louder. What steps have AMD taken to improve the thermal dynamics and acoustics on GPU products?

Silent_Scone · 3 Oct 2014 at 18:48

Orangey said:
1) Thinly-veiled smashes aren't legit questions there pal

It was a comment that was-actually made so unless you're saying he didn't say it, it's a perfectly valid question.

Final one from me. Is it Toronto where most of your driver work is carried out? I've dealt with them there and was just wondering if this was the base of operations for software development. Also where does a lot of the Mantle API development happen?

Thanks

Bluelion · 3 Oct 2014 at 20:27

Hello Richard,

Thank you for taking the time out of your busy schedule to consider responding to our questions.

I'm a big Linux fan (and a gamer), its the only OS I have in my household. With the potential for significant Linux growth over the coming months with the adoption of Steam systems, and Apple's ever increasing dominance in the PC market place I forsee that the future of the PC Industry will no longer be dominated by one main player.

AMD's graphics hardware is every bit as competent as the competition. However when it comes to the software on non-Microsoft platforms, AMD appears to be trailing by quite a margin. Consider for example the Borderlands 2 release on Linux earlier this week - which the developer is only providing support for nVidia based systems at present.

The approach taken by both companies with respect to driver development has been quite different in the open source world - nVidia sticking rigourously to closed source drivers which perform well but don't offer the same level of function as their Windows counterparts (SLI support is virtually non-existent), whereas AMD have taken the approach of being much more open - but also left the community to develop the drivers themselves.

As good as the open source community it - it can't hope to reach the same level of performance as your dedicated team of developers, especially considering the rate of advancement in the graphics card sector.

What plans do AMD have to address this inbalance moving forward?

tommybhoy · 3 Oct 2014 at 21:16

Silent_Scone said:
It was a comment that was-actually made so unless you're saying he didn't say it, it's a perfectly valid question.

Alatar/orangey both have valid points, we shall await and see if it garners response.

triss · 3 Oct 2014 at 22:26

Does AMD have any idea what sort of time frame in that a single GPU will be released thats capable of running 4k at high end settings (not a dual card and not one that needs to have stuff dropped due to fps drops or Vram limitations)
So much talk of 4k but really atm to get the best from it you do need a multiple card setup atm imo

Gerard · 3 Oct 2014 at 22:29

Do you foresee amd dual gpu boards continuing to use "hydra" cooling instead of going back to air coolers?

cjph · 3 Oct 2014 at 22:54

Hi
My 11 year son is desperate to get into the gaming industry and is currently a blank canvas, but does not know what to specialize in. What would you advise him to study and aim at, ie what (qualifications and experience) would you look for in someone you would employ ?

From a technical standpoint, what gaming peripheral do you think has the most future gaming potential ?

And many thanks for taking the time to answer our questions.

cj

gareth170 · 3 Oct 2014 at 23:36

Richard, will amd ever do a 3 or 4 gpu's on one PCB or would the be issues with the PCI-E lane bottlenecking and power? and/or offer graphic card bundles?

also, as for Mantle, it's a great api for users that have low to mid end systems but do you think it can be improved so high end systems would see more benefits?

Combat squirrel · 4 Oct 2014 at 02:01

Bluelion said:
Hello Richard,

Thank you for taking the time out of your busy schedule to consider responding to our questions.

I'm a big Linux fan (and a gamer), its the only OS I have in my household. With the potential for significant Linux growth over the coming months with the adoption of Steam systems, and Apple's ever increasing dominance in the PC market place I forsee that the future of the PC Industry will no longer be dominated by one main player.

AMD's graphics hardware is every bit as competent as the competition. However when it comes to the software on non-Microsoft platforms, AMD appears to be trailing by quite a margin. Consider for example the Borderlands 2 release on Linux earlier this week - which the developer is only providing support for nVidia based systems at present.

The approach taken by both companies with respect to driver development has been quite different in the open source world - nVidia sticking rigourously to closed source drivers which perform well but don't offer the same level of function as their Windows counterparts (SLI support is virtually non-existent), whereas AMD have taken the approach of being much more open - but also left the community to develop the drivers themselves.

As good as the open source community it - it can't hope to reach the same level of performance as your dedicated team of developers, especially considering the rate of advancement in the graphics card sector.

What plans do AMD have to address this inbalance moving forward?

This, great question

humbug · 4 Oct 2014 at 02:06

Combat squirrel said:
This, great question

It is

Orangey · 4 Oct 2014 at 03:26

cjph said:
Hi
My 11 year son is desperate to get into the gaming industry and is currently a blank canvas, but does not know what to specialize in. What would you advise him to study and aim at, ie what (qualifications and experience) would you look for in someone you would employ ?

From a technical standpoint, what gaming peripheral do you think has the most future gaming potential ?

And many thanks for taking the time to answer our questions.

cj

Play the classics and learn a little of everything. Give him a Dremel and The C Programming Language.

11 is too young to get tied into 1 specific thing IMHO.

gareth170 said:
Richard, will amd ever do a 3 or 4 gpu's on one PCB or would the be issues with the PCI-E lane bottlenecking and power?

I would like to know if AMD has an answer to NVLink.

tommybhoy · 4 Oct 2014 at 15:09

In light of Nvidia exposing CrossFire's frame output with Fcat(type) testing for the better, AMD rectified the problem to the point that they improved frame output across the board in single/multi gpu setups.

Now that we are seeing comments like this from Nvidia users:

Credit to AMD for sorting out the smoothness/frame times, and not just fixing it but beating Nvidia in the process.

Has Nvidia's Fcat(type) tools developed a fault?

Silent_Scone · 6 Oct 2014 at 19:53

Being in the limelight at the moment, how do you deal with so many people aspiring to be you on message boards?

Neil79 · 6 Oct 2014 at 21:11

Meh edited!

Freddie1980 · 6 Oct 2014 at 21:52

Combat squirrel said:
This, great question

I disagree I think it's a poor question as it only has appeal to a minority audience of tech enthusiasts who are in themselves a minority. Standalone Linux represents maybe 2% to 4% of the PC OS market, Steam OS is still in Beta and an unknown quantity and the Mac just isn't a gaming platform and will most likely never will be.

I would much rather AMD concentrate it's resources on developing better software for the majority of it's customers that buy it's consumer grade hardware (in this case video cards) rather then diverting them to a platform that only appeals to very small core hardcore enthusiasts.

smogsy · 7 Oct 2014 at 07:19

Freddie1980 said:
I disagree I think it's a poor question as it only has appeal to a minority audience of tech enthusiasts who are in themselves a minority. Standalone Linux represents maybe 2% to 4% of the PC OS market, Steam OS is still in Beta and an unknown quantity and the Mac just isn't a gaming platform and will most likely never will be.

I would much rather AMD concentrate it's resources on developing better software for the majority of it's customers that buy it's consumer grade hardware (in this case video cards) rather then diverting them to a platform that only appeals to very small core hardcore enthusiasts.

I believe that's AMD decision. They do need better support in other areas windows "could" be a dieing breed if and does nothing nvidia has no competition

You need to see and Linux support first hand to understand how bad it is sometimes even for desktop use

Silent_Scone · 7 Oct 2014 at 12:44

Thought given recent events I'd ask a few more direct questions

1) Do you not think AMDs PR tactics have been very underhand lately, and in some cases come across as rather bitter in regards to Nvidia products?

2) During the 30 Years event, I found it out of place that there wasn’t much talk about the evolution of AMDs Athlon and progression of the FX CPU?

3) Why did AMD make the decision to drastically overhaul their CPU design process after Athlon X2? Would you agree spinning off your fab division was perhaps bold, but still the wrong move? Would you do anything differently personally?

4) What drove AMD to approach Extreme Tech with an internal affair regarding WB Studios and GameWorks, and why exactly is GameWorks bad for gaming when it offers effects libraries that you do not, isn’t it more a case of GameWorks is bad for AMD customers, thus bad for AMD?

5) Did you not have this conversation back in your previous role at AMD with Bit-Tech regarding the state of DirectX? Which I might add has another aptly named title.
http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/graphics/2011/03/16/farewell-to-directx/1

'It's funny,' says AMD's worldwide developer relations manager of its GPU division, Richard Huddy. 'We often have at least ten times as much horsepower as an Xbox 360 or a PS3 in a high-end graphics card, yet it's very clear that the games don't look ten times as good. To a significant extent, that's because, one way or another, for good reasons and bad - mostly good, DirectX is getting in the way.' Huddy says that one of the most common requests he gets from game developers is: 'Make the API go away.

I take it you’re obviously shifting your position on the fence now that Microsoft are fast forwarding their development timeline?

6) Do you agree that it is slightly prudent of AMD to make such bold claims regarding adaptive v-sync capabilities, when the technology has been there since the acquisition of ATi. What was the reason for not applying for VESA spec in that time frame? Maybe channel relations weren't as good back then for you to push a project like this through?

7) With regards to driver development and troubleshooting, why is it when there was an issue with certain 4K panels – AMD Toronto took almost 2 months to take delivery of a single model of the panel in question to resolve the issue? Given the large number of users experiencing the issue including myself, I found this somewhat slack considering.

8) What do you think in your own views is the core focus of AMDs recent work with the community, and what was it that induced this spark to open out to the gaming community in the last two or three years?