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AMD Wants to Standardize PC Gaming
Vigile writes "Even though PC gaming has a very devout fan-base, it is impossible to not see the many benefits that console gaming offers: faster loads, better compatibility and more games that fully utilize the hardware to name a few. AMD just launched a new initiative called AMD GAME! that attempts to bring some of these benefits to PC games as well. AMD will be certifying hardware for two different levels of PC gaming standards, testing compatibility with a host of current and future PC titles as well as offering up AMD GAME! ready components or pre-built systems from partners."
This will get abused/misused just like the "Vista Capable" mark. Find a way to technically be compliant but in reality be quite sub-par to what the consumer expectations are.
Dumb everything down so that everyone with the infrastructure to make crap can enter the marketplace regardless of the quality and merits of their product. Those that make the cheapest shit that just barely conforms to the standard will capture the market.
Hey, it worked great for the PC market; didn't it?!?
It's either that or PC makers/buyers wise up and tell Intel graphics to shove off and buy whatever is in the $50-100 range from Nvidia or ATI or one of their integrated solutions they've been talking about.
Looking at Valve's hardware survey that's about where the majority of PC gamers reside. Give it another year or two and Crysis level graphics will run nicely at that price point. Maybe then the PC gaming renaissance can commence.
One, AMD might shoot itself in the foot by targeting gamers especially (or not; I think gamers actually like to run AMD's top offerings on desktops so it might sense to concentrate on that market, but it's kind of sad).
Two, I think neither Intel nor Nvidia will ever want to get any of their hardware certified with their biggest competitor's logo. So if it's by component, it's dead in the water. If it's by system, it might have a little potential, but unless it gets the big shots (Sony, Dell, etc.) on board, it will be limited to the much smaller market of small run custom builders - and those are exactly the ones whose customers already know which systems run games well.
First thing is first, if you really want to bring an even remotely viable standard to the industry, it can't have your brand on it. Not even if your processors didn't suck. So, AMDGame!, AMDGame Ultra, ect.: meet trashbin.
Second, if you base your standard on qualitative metrics today like regular, extreme, venti, extra loco, etc. they're all going to be in the sucks, super-sucks, sucks more dick than an intern at a political convention, range of categories in little over a year. That means you have to keep coming up with new, confusing, and retarded new names every product cycle or, alternatively, redefine the existing names each cycle so that last years Ultra is this years suck. How is this going to reduce confusion?
My suggestion is to slap a number on your standards. e.g. PC Gaming Score: 710 for this years Ultra, and 920 for next years. Every last mouth breather out there knows that higher numbers are usually better and will assume so, even when they aren't.
Now, it's important to note that these numbers aren't quite like a benchmark. Having one really fast component shouldn't quality a system for a number high enough to play a game when it has other components that will make that game unplayable. These numbers can't be mindless metrics that come out of a benchmark. It has to take all components into consideration, especially the bottlenecks. The goal is to provide a single number that a user can look at and say: Okay, the required number on gameX is lower, so I can play it. No worries.
It's that simple. No worrying about whether uber-awesome is greater than mega-extreme, or whether it's last years mega-extreme or this year's mega-extreme. It's, "is the number on the box of this game less than the number on my machine".
Seriously, it's about time companies like AMD realized that the same slice from a bigger pie still equals greater profits. If they want to increase the PC gaming market they really need to put their brand promotion on the back burner.