AMD and NVIDIA Trade Allegations, Denials Over Shady Tactics

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AMD and NVIDIA Trade Allegations, Denials Over Shady Tactics

Posted by Soulskill on Wednesday May 28, 2014 @09:55AM from the can't-we-all-just-get-along dept.

crookedvulture writes "In an article published by Forbes earlier this week, AMD lashed out at NVIDIA's GameWorks program, which includes Watch Dogs and other popular titles, such as Call of Duty: Ghosts, Assassin's Creed IV, and Batman: Arkham Origins. Technical communications lead for PC graphics Robert Hallock alleged that GameWorks deliberately cripples performance on AMD hardware. He also claimed that developers are prevented from working with AMD on game optimizations. The Forbes piece was fairly incriminating, but it didn't include any commentary from the other side of the fence. NVIDIA has now responded to the allegations, and as one might expect, it denies them outright. Director of engineering for developer technology Cem Cebenoyan says NVIDIA has never barred developers from working with AMD. In fact, he claims that AMD's own developer relations efforts have prevented NVIDIA from getting its hands on early builds of some games. AMD has said in the past that it makes no effort to prevent developers from working with NVIDIA. So, we have another round of he said, she said, with gamers caught in the middle and performance in newer titles hanging in the balance."

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So what about the current consoles? by marsu_k · 2014-05-28 10:07 · Score: 1

Which are all AMD when it comes to graphics?
1. Re:So what about the current consoles? by Mashiki · 2014-05-28 11:11 · Score: 1
  
  Odd, I seem to remember Nvidia throwing a rather large hissy fit over the whole physx thing. When AMD brought out mantle, and a competing open physics package. And Nvidia went as far as to add timebombs and reverse the gravity of physx if you had a nvidia and amd card in the same machine.
  
  --
  Om, nomnomnom...
2. Re:So what about the current consoles? by Anonymous Coward · 2014-05-28 11:18 · Score: 0
  
  Why would nVidia go after Mantle? Mantle isn't a driver, its an alternative to OpenGL/DirectX that is optimized for AMD's hardware. No one is stopping nVidia from making their own version of Mantle, but the accusation is that nVidia is stopping developers from talking to AMD to optimize their code or allowing AMD to optimize their driver for new releases. That is a pretty significant charge and not good for anyone other than nVidia. Intel tried to do something similar to AMD and lost billions for it.
3. Re:So what about the current consoles? by asmkm22 · 2014-05-28 12:17 · Score: 1
  
  Developers have always had to handle consoles differently than PC's because the parts are all highly customized for the hardware. Besides, consoles are never really on the edge of graphics anyway. At least, not on the good edge.
4. Re:So what about the current consoles? by marsu_k · 2014-05-28 12:37 · Score: 1
  
  Previously I might have agreed with you, but isn't a PS4/Xbone just a bog-standard x64 with AMD graphics? (granted, the ESRAM on Xbox complicates things a bit, but still) Most of the customisations they make there should be pretty much portable to the PC realm as well. Not going to get into the "PC master race" pissing contest, sorry.
5. Re:So what about the current consoles? by asmkm22 · 2014-05-28 12:57 · Score: 1
  
  Nah, the consoles get their own specific drivers and stuff. Now, you are correct in that you could build a basic game for the x86/x64 platform, and have it working on a console with little trouble. However, the big studios are looking to do a lot more with that hardware, to eek out that extra 3 FPS, or hit the 1080p mark, or to enable the nicer shadows, etc.. Plus, they have to build the games for both DirectX and OpenGL, matching performance and fidelity as evenly as possible.
6. Re:So what about the current consoles? by Anonymous Coward · 2014-05-28 13:25 · Score: 0
  
  don't make more of that than it is... all that means is that both MS and Sony wanted 64b CPUs on the same die as their GPU solution, and they wanted to buy that from one vendor for cost reasons. other choices would have been intel, i guess maybe apple (though that'd be weird), or go license the CPU and.or GPU IP with ARM, POWER (or PowerPC), or maybe MIPS on the CPU and IMGTEC or ARM or Renesas, or NVidia on GPU. or i guess samsung or qualcomm, which would be neat but odd.... anyway, nothing super special about AMD here except they had all the IP in-house and were likely willing to do it cheap.
7. Re:So what about the current consoles? by Anonymous Coward · 2014-05-28 13:30 · Score: 0
  
  special, super optimized drivers? sure. but PS4 looks an awful lot like kaveri. don't pretend that it's dramatically different from an SOC arch perspective. different CPU cores, and GPU config, but that's not a huge deal at the system level.
8. Re:So what about the current consoles? by Anonymous Coward · 2014-05-28 14:25 · Score: 0
  
  but the accusation is that nVidia is stopping developers from talking to AMD to optimize their code or allowing AMD to optimize their driver for new releases.
  No they are saying "don't give our competitor our code", which is perfectly reasonable. If you're using nvidia's code then put it in a static lib so you are supplying a binary instead of code, simple.
9. Re:So what about the current consoles? by Narishma · 2014-05-28 22:46 · Score: 1
  
  Very few AAA developers have OpenGL builds of their games. If you're talking about consoles, then no console has ever used OpenGL as it's main API AFAIK.
  
  --
  Mada mada dane.
10. Re:So what about the current consoles? by Delwin · 2014-05-29 03:01 · Score: 1
  
  It's not always that easy to do - you still need the headers and those can be under the 'do not disclose' clause.
nVidia Being nVidia by sexconker · 2014-05-28 10:12 · Score: 5, Insightful

Lots of careful wording and dodging by nVidia.
Their focused on working with devs to get GameWorks shit integrated into the source code. nVidia can and does see dev source code, if the dev requests such hands-on help. Seeing source code is extremely beneficial for optimization, as is integrating GameWorks directly into the code. nVidia wouldn't be doing that if it wasn't.
Yet nVidia expects us to believe that AMD is not disadvantaged by now being unable to see source code. It's your typical nVidia anti-competitive bullshit. nVidia's new agreements forbid AMD from seeing code that has GameWorks shit integrated. So AMD gets screwed over because nVidia has the larger market share and the optimization stage is typically the last part of development. Devs are under the wire and don't have time to fork/merge/redact code all over the place in order to expose a GameWorks-sanitized path for AMD's review.
nVidia really pisses me off with this bullshit. They have great performance and features, but it's ultimately to the detriment of the industry as a whole because they lock shit up so hard that it becomes a novelty that it underutilized in a fractured market (see PhysX).
1. Re:nVidia Being nVidia by sexconker · 2014-05-28 10:13 · Score: 1
  
  They're.
  FUCK. I started with "Their focus on..." and later changed it, but didn't diddle the "Their".
2. Re:nVidia Being nVidia by arbiter1 · 2014-05-28 10:15 · Score: 1
  
  "In fact, he claims that AMD's own developer relations efforts have prevented NVIDIA from getting its hands on early builds of some games."
  Yea everyone forget about tomb raider? Nvidia never got early release of the game to optimize drivers they had to wait til game was officially released before they got one.
3. Re:nVidia Being nVidia by arbiter1 · 2014-05-28 10:18 · Score: 0, Flamebait
  
  If you want to talk about black box shit, look at mantle, AMD locked tech, amd claims its open yet you can't download the source any-fucking-where. They claim its closed cause its beta which is pure marketing bullshit. AMD is just as guilty even more so then nvidia for anything.
4. Re:nVidia Being nVidia by phorm · 2014-05-28 10:27 · Score: 1
  
  Indeed. Mantle came to mind for me as well. Vendor-specific lock-in.
  Also, how can Mantle be Beta when it's supposedly incorporated into games like BF4? I don't doubt that NVidia does things to encourage lock-in (I recall certain extensions for terrain/texture generation that didn't work correctly with AMD), but this is really a pot-and-kettle situation.
5. Re:nVidia Being nVidia by Anonymous Coward · 2014-05-28 10:39 · Score: 0
  
  Never forget PhysX.
6. Re:nVidia Being nVidia by exomondo · 2014-05-28 10:46 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  If you want to talk about black box shit, look at mantle, AMD locked tech, amd claims its open yet you can't download the source any-fucking-where. They claim its closed cause its beta which is pure marketing bullshit. AMD is just as guilty even more so then nvidia for anything.
  It's not just the source, you can't even get a binary or an API spec or API documentation anywhere.
7. Re:nVidia Being nVidia by exomondo · 2014-05-28 10:48 · Score: 2, Informative
  
  Their focused on working with devs to get GameWorks shit integrated into the source code.
  Just like AMD are doing with Mantle.
  
  Yet nVidia expects us to believe that AMD is not disadvantaged by now being unable to see source code. It's your typical nVidia anti-competitive bullshit.
  Obviously that's untrue but it's hard to have sympathy for AMD when they are doing exactly the same thing with their Mantle API.
8. Re:nVidia Being nVidia by Cealestis · 2014-05-28 10:50 · Score: 1
  
  I wouldn't say more so. https://developer.nvidia.com/c... Gaze on the list of proprietary technologies and libraries that lock a developer in from start to finish... Mantle is just an API like any other that has to be supported alongside directx, opengl or whatever.
9. Re:nVidia Being nVidia by arbiter1 · 2014-05-28 10:50 · Score: 0
  
  Nvidia offered to license to amd, amd refused their own fault no nvidia's
10. Re:nVidia Being nVidia by Anonymous Coward · 2014-05-28 11:08 · Score: 0
  
  It's your typical nVidia anti-competitive bullshit. nVidia's new agreements forbid AMD from seeing code that has GameWorks shit integrated.
  That is different from any other proprietary middleware how? Just because they cant share the GameWorks code, that doesnt mean they cant share code that uses the GameWorks libraries.
  So AMD gets screwed over because nVidia has the larger market share
  The marketshare is 60/40 in the PC market and AMD already has good relationships with developers due to their complete ownership of the console market.
  Devs are under the wire and don't have time to fork/merge/redact code all over the place in order to expose a GameWorks-sanitized path for AMD's review.
  So supply the GameWorks code as a statically linked binary and everything else as source code.
11. Re:nVidia Being nVidia by Anonymous Coward · 2014-05-28 11:39 · Score: 1
  
  actually mantle will be released as a open standard by the end of the year. but the standard isn't finished yet as AMD is now in the process of polishing it based on developer feedback (hence the developer-beta program). it would be extremely undesirable for AMD to release mantle half finished. that can only lead to confusing and compatibility issues in the future.
  further more AMD has a long and proven track record of picking, supporting and developing open standards.
  any objective assessment would conclude that AMD is NOT just as guilty as nVidia, and certainly not more so.
12. Re:nVidia Being nVidia by Anonymous Coward · 2014-05-28 11:42 · Score: 1
  
  "Just like AMD are doing with Mantle."
  actually no. AMD will release mantle as a open standard by the end of the year, but currently it isn't finished yet. releasing standards before they are finished is obviously a bad idea.
  the games being released with mantle are there to provide developer feedback for AMD to further polish the standard. the fact games are out doesn't means the standard is finished.
13. Re:nVidia Being nVidia by arbiter1 · 2014-05-28 11:48 · Score: 1
  
  Well its NOT open, NO API, NO SOURCE, NO DOCUMENTATION === closed standard. Til its released to public its closed no if's and's or but's.
14. Re: nVidia Being nVidia by Anonymous Coward · 2014-05-28 12:01 · Score: 0
  
  BF4 is a game in beta stage
15. Re:nVidia Being nVidia by exomondo · 2014-05-28 12:04 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  actually no. AMD will release mantle as a open standard by the end of the year, but currently it isn't finished yet.
  Actually yes, they are already working with developers and shipping games so at this stage it is in commercial production but is very much is closed and proprietary not to mention your claim of "by the end of the year" doesn't appear to be substantiated, in fact AMD have been even more vague with: It could be as early as sometime next year or maybe the year after.
  
  releasing standards before they are finished is obviously a bad idea.
  What sort of idiocy is that? Publicly releasing the spec for feedback is a good idea, but instead it is being kept closed despite it being in shipping games and drivers.
16. Re:nVidia Being nVidia by Anonymous Coward · 2014-05-28 12:06 · Score: 0
  
  despite not giving away or opening up TressFX, their version of GameWorks.
17. Re:nVidia Being nVidia by Anonymous Coward · 2014-05-28 12:17 · Score: 0
  
  It's not idiocy.
  The people who matter (professional game devs) have everything and can give necessary feedback. Plebs (like you) don't matter.
18. Re:nVidia Being nVidia by exomondo · 2014-05-28 12:23 · Score: 1
  
  The people who matter (professional game devs) have everything and can give necessary feedback.
  Yeah surely tool developers don't matter huh? And the only people who contribute anything to a 3D graphics API would be game developers because nobody else uses 3D graphics APIs right? Give it up, you have no idea about this subject, the more you say the stupider you look.
  
  Plebs (like you) don't matter.
  Nice try, butthurt much?
19. Re:nVidia Being nVidia by Anonymous Coward · 2014-05-28 12:31 · Score: 0
  
  Nice try, butthurt much?
  obvious shill is obvious. he is claiming mantle is not some closed proprietary middleware yet the undisputable, irrefutable fact is that is exactly what it is. it is even in production games and shipping drivers. he is clearly shill so it is you who should "give it up".
20. Re:nVidia Being nVidia by Anonymous Coward · 2014-05-28 12:37 · Score: 0
  
  There was probably something more evil in that deal, like replacing GAMING EVOLVED with an unskippable 40 second (or longer) "way it's meant to be played" video
21. Re:nVidia Being nVidia by Assmasher · 2014-05-28 12:52 · Score: 1
  
  Sadly this has been industry practice for both AMD and nVidia since at least the late 90's. Both AMD and nVidia would send developers over to literally optimize your code for you. It was, of course, a double edged sword as their guys were highly skilled at getting render pathing done for their hardware iterations but it was made very clear that they were mostly interested in maximizing performance for their devices.
  Don't recall them actively screwing things up, but I'm sure that some pipeline changes would easily benefit one vendor to the detriment of the other.
  
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  Loading...
22. Re:nVidia Being nVidia by chris200x9 · 2014-05-28 15:12 · Score: 1
  
  Not even comparable, mantle is an alternative renderer. Mantle might be closed but it doesn't keep nVidia from looking at the games source.
23. Re:nVidia Being nVidia by exomondo · 2014-05-28 15:41 · Score: 1
  
  Not even comparable, mantle is an alternative renderer.
  No it isn't, Mantle is a graphics API and for the game developers who are writing for it how do you expect nVidia to support that code path without a spec or reference implementation?
  
  Mantle might be closed but it doesn't keep nVidia from looking at the games source.
  Neither does GameWorks, just because you call into GameWorks libraries doesn't mean you need to distribute the code for those libraries. For example they even have samples that you can download the source code for that makes use of the GameWorks libraries.
24. Re:nVidia Being nVidia by Cealestis · 2014-05-28 16:36 · Score: 1
  
  The difference here is Mantle is shipping alongside other standard API's and AMD has publicly said they'll make it an open API when its ready. GameWorks on the other hand results in games being optimized or even dependent on nVidia specific libraries that will likely never be open. They cannot optimize drivers for it without nVidia's blessing.
25. Re:nVidia Being nVidia by tlhIngan · 2014-05-28 17:09 · Score: 1
  
  Yet nVidia expects us to believe that AMD is not disadvantaged by now being unable to see source code. It's your typical nVidia anti-competitive bullshit. nVidia's new agreements forbid AMD from seeing code that has GameWorks shit integrated. So AMD gets screwed over because nVidia has the larger market share and the optimization stage is typically the last part of development. Devs are under the wire and don't have time to fork/merge/redact code all over the place in order to expose a GameWorks-sanitized path for AMD's review.
  nVidia really pisses me off with this bullshit. They have great performance and features, but it's ultimately to the detriment of the industry as a whole because they lock shit up so hard that it becomes a novelty that it underutilized in a fractured market (see PhysX).
  Actually, the problem is nVidia has engineers to spare, and they willingly share them around to game devs. AMD doesn't have the resources to do that, so they don't have as much chances to do the optimizations that nVidia GameWorks can do.
  And those nVidia engineers know their stuff inside and out - they can rewrite shaders and calls they know result in performance improvements... on nVidia cards. They don't care about non-nVidia cards, and will not debug problems in other vendor drivers.
  Source: http://tech.slashdot.org/story... Original Source: http://richg42.blogspot.ca/201...
  In short, AMD can quote you word by word the OpenGL specs, while nVidia knows some of the specs don't make sense and try to figure out a more "what the OpenGL guys REALLY meant" API.
  Of course, this also means that other vendor's drivers don't work too well.
  Of course, AMD needs to do a GameWorks thing of their own, and to do so they need to know their drivers inside and out and cards inside and out to do it so the code flow through the driver are optimized.
26. Re:nVidia Being nVidia by exomondo · 2014-05-28 17:20 · Score: 1
  
  The difference here is Mantle is shipping alongside other standard API's and AMD has publicly said they'll make it an open API when its ready.
  It's already shipping in commercial games and drivers and available through their partner program so I'm not sure what you think their definition of "ready" is, seems pretty ready to me.
  
  GameWorks on the other hand results in games being optimized or even dependent on nVidia specific libraries that will likely never be open.
  How is that different from TressFX? If you find shipping a proprietary 3d graphics API alongside other standard APIs to be acceptable then I'm sure you can find shipping a say GameWorks HairWorks code path alongside a TressFX Hair code path to be acceptable.
27. Re:nVidia Being nVidia by exomondo · 2014-05-28 17:23 · Score: 1
  
  Of course, this also means that other vendor's drivers don't work too well.
  Of course, AMD needs to do a GameWorks thing of their own, and to do so they need to know their drivers inside and out and cards inside and out to do it so the code flow through the driver are optimized.
  They already do, it's called TressFX and is the reason the hair in Tomb Raider looked so realistic and ran so well on AMD cards but so poorly on nVidia ones.
28. Re:nVidia Being nVidia by Anonymous Coward · 2014-05-28 19:16 · Score: 0
  
  Why do you equate TressFX to gameworks? TressFX is a hair simulation program written in DirectX DirectCompute. It runs on any DirectX compliant GPU, including nvidia.
  It runs BADLY on nvidia GPUs mind you, but the fault is not AMD's. Nvidia has for some time been artificially crippling the high precision compute performance of their gaming chips in order to try and sell more un-crippled compute cards. Guess what kind of computations TressFX needs?
29. Re:nVidia Being nVidia by Anonymous Coward · 2014-05-28 21:31 · Score: 0
  
  further more AMD has a long and proven track record of picking, supporting and developing open standards.
  any objective assessment would conclude that AMD is NOT just as guilty as nVidia, and certainly not more so.
  Too bad AMD has a long and proven track record of poorly supporting the only open alternative to Direct3D, and thus contributing to Direct3D becoming a near 100% monopoly in Windows AAA gaming (which in turn locks out all other platforms since Direct3D is a Windows-only API). The last major OpenGL game was RAGE by id Software, and it was a failure partly due to the fact that it was initially almost unplayable on Radeon hardware because of the bad drivers. It is no wonder no sane game developer targets OpenGL any longer, when, in addition to various other issues, that decision would basically result in releasing an Nvidia-only product. Even Mantle is in fact currently closed, and exclusive to AMD and Windows. It is funny how much the above is ignored by Linux people who view AMD as "good" and Nvidia as "evil", despite the former helping Microsoft's API and OS monopolies.
30. Re:nVidia Being nVidia by Pinky's+Brain · 2014-05-29 01:51 · Score: 1
  
  TressFX actually is open source though.
  Mantle is the interesting one, we don't actually know if NVIDIA can see the source code of the EA games which support it (and for AAA games source code access is a lot more common than NVIDIA pretends, the big games get onsite devrel which doesn't make a whole lot of sense without source code access). You would think NVIDIA would be using it as an argument if they couldn't ...
31. Re:nVidia Being nVidia by Delwin · 2014-05-29 03:07 · Score: 1
  
  The last major OpenGL game was RAGE by id Software
  
  I suggest you look at the Steam Linux store for a laundry list of them.
32. Re:nVidia Being nVidia by Delwin · 2014-05-29 03:10 · Score: 1
  
  As a note this just bit us in the ass here where I work. There's a 20x difference in speed between single precision and double instead of the expected 2x-4x.
33. Re:nVidia Being nVidia by Anonymous Coward · 2014-05-29 03:18 · Score: 1
  
  nah this is more like AMD(/ATI) pulling their usual whiney bitch stunt.
  Let's see:
  AMD/ATI
  1. Low staffing levels check
  2. Shitty drivers check
  3. Possibly borked hardware (too hard to tell because of (2))
  4. Going lowball check
  5. Can't compete so we whine check
  nVidia
  1. Adequate staffing levels check
  2. Decent drivers check
  3. Hardware works check
  4. Charging what the market will bear check
  5. Pats AMD on the head check
  Seems pretty cut and dried to me...
34. Re:nVidia Being nVidia by sexconker · 2014-05-29 04:16 · Score: 1
  
  It's your typical nVidia anti-competitive bullshit. nVidia's new agreements forbid AMD from seeing code that has GameWorks shit integrated.
  That is different from any other proprietary middleware how? Just because they cant share the GameWorks code, that doesnt mean they cant share code that uses the GameWorks libraries.
  So AMD gets screwed over because nVidia has the larger market share
  The marketshare is 60/40 in the PC market and AMD already has good relationships with developers due to their complete ownership of the console market.
  Devs are under the wire and don't have time to fork/merge/redact code all over the place in order to expose a GameWorks-sanitized path for AMD's review.
  So supply the GameWorks code as a statically linked binary and everything else as source code.
  It's like you didn't read. If you use the GameWorks libraries in your code, you cannot show that code to AMD.
  It has nothing to do with showing GameWorks libraries or source code itself (devs likely don't have access to GameWorks source code, only the built libraries).
  If you have BigAssPage.cpp and it includes a call to a GameWorks library, you cannot share that file with AMD.
  You have to redact, fork, or selectively copy and paste other shit out to share with AMD. Since GameWorks calls will be interspersed all throughout BigAssPage.cpp, you're kind of fucked if you want AMD's input on your code.
  There's no reason for the restriction other than to screw over AMD.
35. Re:nVidia Being nVidia by sexconker · 2014-05-29 04:19 · Score: 1
  
  His fault for bullshitting. He didn't even work at nVidia when GameWorks was rolled out. Dude wears size 14 clown shoes.
36. Re:nVidia Being nVidia by exomondo · 2014-05-29 10:50 · Score: 1
  
  TressFX actually is open source though.
  The SDK is available but I haven't seen the source for TressFX.
  
  Mantle is the interesting one, we don't actually know if NVIDIA can see the source code of the EA games which support it (and for AAA games source code access is a lot more common than NVIDIA pretends, the big games get onsite devrel which doesn't make a whole lot of sense without source code access). You would think NVIDIA would be using it as an argument if they couldn't ...
  They probably can see the source of the games that support it just not source for Mantle itself, which is the same as for GameWorks.
37. Re:nVidia Being nVidia by Anonymous Coward · 2014-05-29 11:05 · Score: 1
  
  It's like you didn't read. If you use the GameWorks libraries in your code, you cannot show that code to AMD.
  It's like you believe everything you read. Show me the clause then because I certainly cannot find it, in fact I can use the GameWorks libraries in my code and share that with whoever I want, nVidia even does it themselves on their own samples page for god sake! How freaking dumb can you be? Not only is there factual proof that we can share code that uses GameWorks libraries and that nVidia themselves even does it but on top of that no devs are supporting this claim and nVidia denies the claim.
  If you have BigAssPage.cpp and it includes a call to a GameWorks library, you cannot share that file with AMD.
  False, there is no such clause. Go download the SDK and/or samples and show me where it says that I cannot do this or show me where it says that AMD is not allowed to download their code samples.
  You have to redact, fork, or selectively copy and paste other shit out to share with AMD. Since GameWorks calls will be interspersed all throughout BigAssPage.cpp, you're kind of fucked if you want AMD's input on your code.
  No you do not, go download the SDK and show me where in EULA it says this.
  There's no reason for the restriction other than to screw over AMD.
  The restriction does not exist.
38. Re:nVidia Being nVidia by Anonymous Coward · 2014-06-03 15:34 · Score: 0
  
  You don't create dependencies on direct competitors' products if you don't have to. Given time, PhysX, mantle, cuda, and all the other proprietary bullshit will be tossed to the curb like Glide.
  We need more competition in the GPU space. It's bad enough there's really only 2 players right now. If nvidia gets too far entrenched with their lock-in, it's game over, man.
Bad Summary by Anonymous Coward · 2014-05-28 10:25 · Score: 0

This is bullshit. There are no shady tactics here; only shady strategy.
NVidia's sin by Anonymous Coward · 2014-05-28 10:51 · Score: 0

NVidia's sin is optimizing the software of its drivers more successfully than AMD, despite AMD's superior hardware architecture.
AMD could be on top, but they continue to think that they only have to sell customers silicon wafers on PCBs instead of a total gaming experience.
The creation of the Mantle's simple API is as much for the benefit of AMD's software engineers as it is a benefit to gamers.
1. Re:NVidia's sin by arbiter1 · 2014-05-28 10:55 · Score: 0
  
  um i wouldn't say that, AMD uses more power and runs hotter just to get same performance nvidia has and still their card is slower. wouldn't say its superior.
2. Re:NVidia's sin by Anonymous Coward · 2014-05-28 12:34 · Score: 0
  
  it took nvidia about 3 generations to get to that point. and they still lose at most price points.
3. Re:NVidia's sin by Anonymous Coward · 2014-05-28 12:46 · Score: 1
  
  you are a little out of date there. power consumption is actually very similar between the two nowadays with the AMD cards using fractionally more and hence running fractionally hotter, though the AMD cards are also currently slightly ahead performance wise.
4. Re:NVidia's sin by Anonymous Coward · 2014-05-28 13:18 · Score: 0
  
  i'd say there are a number of things that AMD does superior to nVidia. but those do not include execution at the program level nor architecture. that's not to say the architecture is inferior, but rather they are on par with each other. and high level execution, AMD's trying to run with their pants around their ankles...
5. Re:NVidia's sin by Emetophobe · 2014-05-29 05:40 · Score: 1
  
  You're partially correct. AMD cards tend to draw more power and run hotter. You're wrong in thinking AMD cards are slower though.
  The R9 280x is comparable in performance to a GTX 770, but the 770 costs as much as an R9 290.
  The R9 290 is up to 40% faster than a GTX 770 but they cost the same.
  The R9 290 is also slightly faster than a GTX 780, but the 290 is $100-150 cheaper.
  Basically Nvidia cards are overpriced and need to come down to match the price/performance of AMD cards.
Nvidia taking a page out of Intel's and MS' book by Anonymous Coward · 2014-05-28 11:37 · Score: 1

What's a bit of vendor lock-in, proprietary technology and anti-competitive behavior among friends?
Never trust Nvidia by citizenr · 2014-05-28 14:13 · Score: 1

they pull shit like this world's greatest virtual concrete slab:
http://techreport.com/review/2...
or this
http://www.bit-tech.net/news/h...
>improvement was to the tune of 20 percent as a result of DirectX 10.1 on ATI cards.
>there was some co-marketing between Nvidia and Ubisoft
All just to make AMD look slower.

--
Who logs in to gdm? Not I, said the duck.
Re:Nvidia taking a page out of Intel's and MS' boo by Anonymous Coward · 2014-05-28 21:28 · Score: 1

You seem to need some psychiatric attention. That's like the third time you post this shit, repeating it over and over doesn't make it any more true; it only marks you as someone with mental problems.
Shady Tactics by Anonymous Coward · 2014-05-29 07:02 · Score: 0

I see what you did there.
A lot of people have been ignoring this.. by Anonymous Coward · 2014-05-30 01:39 · Score: 1

But the AMD 280/280x and 7950/7970 are actually *MUCH BETTER* than the 290's in regards to Double Precision for this exact sort of dumbassery.
If you're sure you only need single precision you get more bandwidth and 25 percent more flops from the 290, but if you need Double precision you get a similiar performance boost by remaining on the 280/79xx cards for Double Precision.
I'm still running an R700 series card for a similiar reason. GDDR5 and full speed Double Precision that has only been matched on 200 plus dollar cards in the intervening 5 years.
And even the budget cards are at best a 25 percent performance boost over it, and only if you get the GDDR5 versions. The only REAL benefit is you might be able to get 2x-8x the memory on some of the newer cards in that price range (AMD caps at either 2gb GDDR5 or 4gb GDDR3, whereas Nvidia apparently has 750 cards out with 4GB of GDDR5, the latter being a decent bet for future-proofing memory-wise if not performance.)
AMD APU by Anonymous Coward · 2014-05-31 01:50 · Score: 0

Personally I prefer Nvidia, but I think that AMD will win this time especially with its APU that will be released at 4th June.
The company launch a website that contain a countdown for that day.
You can read more on Netisia: http://thenetisia.blogspot.com/2014/05/if-it-can-reach-space-amd-will-announce-new-apu-4th-june.html