News - AMD exec says NVIDIA neglecting gamers

[Elganja]

so.... NVIDIA writes the code, does the QA, etc.. for AA to work in Batman... and ATI and many of their followers are saying that NVIDIA should release the code out of the goodness of their heart? serisouly wtf?

why would anyone do that?
Why didn't ATI write their own code for AA to be shared with everyone?
How many companies out there do you know, will invest money and time into code then just give it away?
is this the first game this has happened in? bioshock? why care now?

[shaithis]

Originally Posted by Rollo

NVIDIA did the QA for Batman AA, NVIDIA bought the PhysX IP and spent the time and labor to bring it to market. If there's a problem with either, the customer will be calling Eidos and NVIDIA at their cost, not ATi. It looks to me like you want the benefit of NVIDIA's investment of resources, frankly, I don't see a reason they would accomodate.

Some of us even bought into nVidias IP by buying nVidia cards for Physx....explain why nVidia then decided we shouldn't be allowed to if we also have any other manufacturers video cards in our PCs?

Why is a spokensman(?) for nVidia telling us no nVidia IP is used in Batman AA?

There are issues on both sides of the fence, although it seems to me that only one camp is resorting to low blows the effectively make the experience worse for end-users.....and as more and more of this becomes public, there is only 1 company I see this hurting.....and with the limited number of Physx apps and the apparant shift towards OpenCL, that damage may happen sooner then anyone could predict.

[HEXUS]

Another twist in the public spat between AMD and NVIDIA representatives in the HEXUS.community forums.

Read more.

[matty-hodgson]

so basically.. nVidia made a deal with Batman to make his game only work with their AA?

[amdavies]

IIRC the main reason MS developed DirectX was that there were several different competing standards trying to gain dominance over PC gaming hardware and it was damaging sales. Different games would support different hardware and people were confused, this lead to many abandoning PC gaming in order to switch to consoles. DirectX brought a standardized model to interacting with a computer's hardware that allowed games developers to then concentrate on programing a game rather than having to directly program for hundreds of variations of sound, video and controller hardware.

We seem to be slipping back to what we had before, with specific games needing specific hardware in order to run at the standard envisioned by the programmers. If this continues then PC gaming will again schism and gamers will switch to consoles just so they know that there games will actually run.

While I am aware that both AMD and nVidia make money from console sales, do they really want to kill off PC gaming because of their bickering ?

[Hicks12]

Lol.... you say nvidia hasnt got greedy and is behind in the market? What was all this about renaming all of your products from 8 series to 9 series and now to gtx series.
Noobs

Low blows nvidia, very low and it shows in alot of games your bloody branding is everywhere. Just cause you paid the developer off doesnt mean you helped them develop the game!

Its anticompetitive to have the PhysX technology disabled when an ATI card is present, maybe the EU should jump in? Fair enough locking the tech but this shouldnt happen when you have an Nvidia card present as well.

[caveman-jim]

I wonder if this isn't going to turn out to be a misunderstanding on the abbreviation 'AA' - could be Arkham Asylum; could be Anti-Aliasing.

The full quote indicates the former, but inclusive of Anti-Aliasing:

“Batman AA is not our property. It is owned by Eidos. It is up to Eidos to decide the fate of a feature that AMD refused to contribute too and QA for their customers, not NVIDIA.”

However it doesn't state the nVidia software could be used on non-nVidia platforms. But that could also mean, "AMD need to provide the AA codepath for their cards, our software works on our hardware and we support it as such."

Which further extrapolated could become "If you open up our software, that we provided to you in good faith, to our competitor, then we might not have such good faith in the future."
- Thinking like a software company wanting to advance in the industry of providing a plaftorm for their IP to work on.

[Anaerin]

The way I'm reading this:

• NVidia wrote some "Glue" code for UE3, to enable AA on their cards, optimising it to enable the best capabilities on their cards that they know support it (Basically, saying "If GT280, enable everything, if 9600, enable most, if FX5900, or some other unknown card, disable everything", or something similar).
• NVidia tested, QA'd the code, and made sure it worked as intended on all their cards.
• NVidia gave the glue code to Rocksteady to use in Batman Arkham Asylum.
• AMD/ATI asked Rocksteady "You've got AA, look, it works with NVidia cards! Can't you just enable that code on our hardware too?"
• Rocksteady replied "No. That code belongs to NVidia, and we don't want to get into a legal tussle with them over who owns what part of what code. We don't have the time to write AA glue from scratch, but if you give us some code that makes it work, we'll gladly add it."
• AMD/ATI said "Oh.", and started slinging dirt, as they were unwilling/unable to write some glue code for their own hardware.

I agree the confusion of "Anti-Aliasing" and "Arkham Asylum" could be cause for confusion.

It could be that NVidia meant:

"Batman Arkham Asylum is not our property. It is owned by Eidos."

But AMD read:

"Batman's Anti-Aliasing is not our property. It is owned by Eidos."

[Anaerin]

Originally Posted by Hicks12

Low blows nvidia, very low and it shows in alot of games your bloody branding is everywhere. Just cause you paid the developer off doesnt mean you helped them develop the game!

I think you underestimate the scope of the "The Way It's Meant To Be Played" scheme:

Originally Posted by bit-tech.net/gaming/2005/03/08/interview_nvidia_dev

First, a quick backgrounder: The Way It's Meant To Be Played is a scheme that harnesses both NVIDIA's strong relationships with developers and its marketing muscle. Under the scheme, NVIDIA spends time with game developers helping them to code 3D engines on the PC, whether they are dedicated PC games or ports of console titles.

By providing comprehensive testing facilities to developers, NVIDIA aims to make sure than any game released with the badge on the box will run perfectly on NVIDIA graphics cards, preferably with suitable default settings programmed in. In this way, the consumer gets to have a no-nonsense out-of-the-box gaming experience, and NVIDIA gets to have its name associated with lots of top games - over 200 right now.

So that's comprehensive testing/QA, and development support the scheme provides, as well as a monetary incentive...

So, actually, it DOES mean they helped them develop the game.

I don't agree with turning off PhysX if there is a non-NVidia card in the system, though. Just so you know where I stand.

[Hicks12]

Thanks for clarifying, however it is normally done in favour of nvidia. Which is unfair but they do deserve it if they spent the time and EFFORT to help the developers, its still a difficult situation though.

[Paragon]

I also got the impression that nVIDIA's will was there to prevent ATi from being able to run Anti-aliasing after I read the first e-mail Richard Huddy posted which mentioned the Eidos legal department.

But after I read the e-mail chain Hexus posted later and updated their initial story, this part caught my attention.

We have worked closely with our local legal team today and we have been advised that we should not reuse or change the code written by nVidia. If ATI have robust sample code we can use it will accelerate any fix, if not Rocksteady will need to start from scratch.

Since UE3 doesn't support AA inherently as we all seen before additional code must be written to get proper AA running. nVIDIA worked with eidos on that and got AA on nV cards. Up to this point we all know and agree. But the general impression on ATi's side is that eidos legal is preventing ATi from getting AA in Batman.

What is stated in the part I quoted above is that eidos cannot (re)use the code written by nV to enable AA in this UE3 title in order to have AA on ATi too and if ATi has a swift solution (code) ready at hand to submit eidos can use it to enable AA on ATi which from this part forward it's unclear whether ATi provided eidos with solution or not. I am assuming not? since Batman shipped with no internal support for AA on ATi.

Though we must wait and see if there are any further e-mails. And whether ATi tried to send in the AA enabling code or not and if they tried to send in the code whether they have been denied or not.


I am under the impression that "we have been advised not to..." is refering to being advised not to make use of the code nV wrote to enable AA and re-use it for ATi (it makes sense since it's done by nV engineers and it's their code) not that we are advised to completely block off ATi from getting AA no matter what. Since they mention ATi can send in their code to enable AA.



If it was a game based on an engine that normally supports AA and ATi was blocked off from in-game AA, nV was malpracticing for sure imo, but since this game needs additional coding each company needed to do their own coding job imo.

It's one hell of a game though, it may not have in-game AA support fot ATi but it is a AAA title for sure. I have no problems running AA from CCC on my 4870X2. Though I know it could run faster if AA was set in-game than forcing it through CCC but it runs smooth even when forced perhaps cuz I am running a dual GPU card.

[aidanjt]

TBH, AA in Unreal Engine 3 is something Epic Megagames should be addressing, not GPU vendors. Edios should be in bed with Epic on fixing issues like this, not hardware partisanship, which is clearly hurting consumers.

[Rollo]

Originally Posted by HEXUS

Read more.

Reading this link I cannot believe how petty and unprofessional Mr. Huddy comes across.

I can appreciate that ATi does not have the resources to implement developer relations on the scale of the TWIMTBP program, and there is no crime in that. To go onto gaming forums after the game ATi obviously knew was in development launched, to whine about "We had no opportunity!" and take cheap FUD filled potshots at NVIDIA like "NVIDIA must be leaving gaming because they had a GPGPU conference!" is just sad and pathetic.

One of two things is likely true from where I sit:

a. ATi is so far out of touch with devs they had no idea Batman AA was an UE3 engine game they would likely have anti aliasing issues again.
b. They knew, but chose to do nothing and play this cheap card rather than spend the money on development and QA.

Either way, it doesn't look good for ATi.

Sort of like when Far Cry2, one of the biggest titles of the last holiday season, launched without Crossfire support and a bug (or optomization) that removed all the items laying on the ground.

It's pretty clear to me ATi's strategy is reactive rather than proactive, and that Mr. Huddy is waging a war of FUD to obfuscate the real issue here.

[aidanjt]

Yeah, let's get hardware vendors to fix game engine bugs. Why bother with DirectX and OpenGL at all?.. Every GPU vendor could have their own pet API. It would be awesome, just like the good old days.

The only software bugs hardware vendors should be concerned with, is with their own drivers (and that doesn't include spying on your system and crippling features if it doesn't like what it finds).

[Novo]

AMD received an email dated Sept 29th at 5:22pm from Mr. Lee Singleton General Manager at Eidos Game Studios who stated that Eidos’ legal department is preventing Eidos from allowing ATI cards to run in-game antialiasing in Batman Arkham Asylum due to NVIDIA IP ownership issues over the antialiasing code, and that they are not permitted to remove the vendor ID filter.

The Batman Anti Aliasing issue is caused by Eidos Interactive and Rocksteady Studios. Evidently the developers wanted AntiA for the game however a decision has been made to licence it from a third party source (nVidia). One of the caveats of that licence (it would appear) is that the AntiA code can only be used with nVidia cards.

The licencing terms are arguably unfair as AMD can now only compete by providing their own AntiA code.

The main reason this is unfair is the AntiA code in Batman appears to be be hardware neutral. i.e there is no direct access to the hardware but instead uses the standard Windows APIs which in general, any current graphics device drivers should be able to support in some way.

However it is Rocksteady Studios and in part Eidos Interactive who have agreed to the licencing terms. It is the developers who have short-changed ATI card users, not nVidia.

If the developers were really serious about providing Anti Aliasing for all PC gamers then they would have developed/licenced code that wasn't constrained to a particular hardware vendor.

[Jimbo75]

Originally Posted by Rollo

Reading this link I cannot believe how petty and unprofessional Mr. Huddy comes across.

I can appreciate that ATi does not have the resources to implement developer relations on the scale of the TWIMTBP program, and there is no crime in that. To go onto gaming forums after the game ATi obviously knew was in development launched, to whine about "We had no opportunity!" and take cheap FUD filled potshots at NVIDIA like "NVIDIA must be leaving gaming because they had a GPGPU conference!" is just sad and pathetic.

One of two things is likely true from where I sit:

a. ATi is so far out of touch with devs they had no idea Batman AA was an UE3 engine game they would likely have anti aliasing issues again.
b. They knew, but chose to do nothing and play this cheap card rather than spend the money on development and QA.

Either way, it doesn't look good for ATi.

Sort of like when Far Cry2, one of the biggest titles of the last holiday season, launched without Crossfire support and a bug (or optomization) that removed all the items laying on the ground.

It's pretty clear to me ATi's strategy is reactive rather than proactive, and that Mr. Huddy is waging a war of FUD to obfuscate the real issue here.

I have read a lot of garbage from nvidia apologists but this takes the biscuit. Are you really suggesting ATI didn't know it was UE3? Really? You need to take a long hard look at reality son because yours isnt matching anyone elses.