News - AMD exec says NVIDIA neglecting gamers

[kalniel]

Hmmmmm ok. My post was actually @ Richard Huddy as stated but what the hey.

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[nightkhaos]

Hmmmmm ok. My post was actually @ Richard Huddy as stated but what the hey. Can you give conclusive proof where Nvidia "dropped the ball" as you say?

They have yet to release a DX11 capable GPU. Their GPU chips are slower than the AMD counterparts, and finally, they used anti-competivite practices with the release of Batman AA.

The information about Dr Ruiz is totally relevant as he brokered the AMD/ ATI merger, led AMD into deep debt and was an integral part of the AMD fab spinoff. Any outcome will have an effect on AMD and/or GF whether you like it or not.

So just because the Dr Ruiz did a bad thing you feel you can tranish the name of the entire AMD brand? Look, Dr Ruiz did a bad thing, but he has nothing to do with the development teams who developed the 5 series graphics cards for AMD, nor would he bare any relationship within the organisation to Richard Huddy. I do not condone Dr Ruiz's actions, but they are not relevent to the issue being discussed.

Nvidia is still a richer company with good cash reserves from their successes during the 8800GTX era, so I think your hope of their early demise is rather premature...

When did I say I wanted them removed from the market? I am merely saying that their attempts to remain on the top of the market are failing because they are producing inferrior products, with the possible exception of the GTX 295, but that will change with the release of 5970. I like NVIDIA as a company, they have serve me and my friends well. But recently, they have turned sour, and greedy.

AMD have severe shortages of the Cypress GPU in the UK and the USA at this time. Well let me see. ATI Stream is certainly not open for Intel and Nvidia to use and CAL is proprietary. Heck even Direct X is proprietary! AMD's GPU business complain a little too much. If they support all games in future like they have supported Dirt 2 then maybe I will change my mind about AMD GPU support.

Unestimating the demand for a parcticlar product is a common trait with all electronics commons, take DRAM DDR3 modules, they have gone up in the past few months. Manufactures decides to slow production due to the recession, they did not expect a high uptake of DDR3 and Cypress based technology. You cannot call a shortage relevent when we are talking about technical specifications.

ATI Stream (CAL) as you rightly put is properity and closed, but it is also an outdated technolgy, as I understand it this technology has been superceeded by OpenCL which is an open technology.

Direct X is properity but the licensing rights are open to anyone to purchase. PhysX on the other hand is properity and NVIDIA is not selling the rights. I also don't understand your point about Dirt2, considering it is the only Direct X 11 title on the market as yet, and AMD producing the only Direct X 11 capable GPU, it is only natural they should market it.

The AMD CPU and chipset logic business I have nothing but admiration and respect, especially for my Semiconductor hero and inventor of Athlon 64, AMD CEO Dirk Meyer.

This I can understand, but I don't see how it is relevent. I never said you were being disrepsectful to the AMD CPU business, nor did I mean to infeer it.

[aidanjt]

Hmmmmm ok. My post was actually @ Richard Huddy as stated but what the hey. Can you give conclusive proof where Nvidia "dropped the ball" as you say? The information about Dr Ruiz is totally relevant as he brokered the AMD/ ATI merger, led AMD into deep debt and was an integral part of the AMD fab spinoff. Any outcome will have an effect on AMD and/or GF whether you like it or not. Nvidia is still a richer company with good cash reserves from their successes during the 8800GTX era, so I think your hope of their early demise is rather premature...

I don't see anyone 'hoping' for nVidia's demise, it's just leaning in that general direction, and people feel the need to voice their concerns with the direction nVidia is heading. And no, Dr. Ruiz is completely irrelevant to this line of discussion, stop using that red herring, please.

AMD have severe shortages of the Cypress GPU in the UK and the USA at this time.

No kidding?.. Brand new, cudding edge GPU is short on stock, further news at 11! It's still to have stock being bought up faster than you can supply, than to withhold stock to force prices up, artificially.

Well let me see. ATI Stream is certainly not open for Intel and Nvidia to use and CAL is proprietary. Heck even Direct X is proprietary! AMD's GPU business complain a little too much. If they support all games in future like they have supported Dirt 2 then maybe I will change my mind about AMD GPU support.

DX is proprietary, but it's a pesudo-standard. One which everyone has access to and can use (even if they can't modify it, which isn't much of a problem because modifying GPUs is far more difficult).

[Disturbedguy]

For me, I dont care who the GPU manufacturer is when it comes to buying a GFX card. I look at the money I have, look at the system I have and decide from there which card I want to buy. I have used both ATI and NVidia cards in various gaming PC's I have built and never really had a problem with any of the cards I have used.

I am building a new PC in the future (Not so near) and when the time comes I will no doubt either ask the community here which card to get, or just make my own mind up and buy what I like the look of, as that is one of the things I look for.

I think its good that the HEXUS community have rep's from two major companies here discussing something that actually means something and makes a difference to a large majority of this community.

[tejas84]

Really I think that users have to get away from this notion that companies like AMD, Intel and Nvidia are in business because they "like our faces" and that they are "doing us a favor". They are all businesses that need to make profit and are accountable to their shareholders.

That Nvidia has become supposedly "greedy" is a ridiculous notion. If that is the case then I proffer that we should include Intel and AMD as they are greedy as well with Intel Nehalem cornering the Server and Enthusiast market and AMD DX11 GPU's cornering the gaming market!

In truth Intel, AMD and Nvidia are all "greedy" by this notion and I have NO issue with this as they are so valuable to the US economy and to computing in general. Their contributions allow computing to grow and for the US to be strong, so as far as I am concerned more power to all companies concerned!

The EU can keep fining because clearly they need the money!

[kalniel]

Really I think that users have to get away from this notion that companies like AMD, Intel and Nvidia are in business because they "like our faces" and that they are "doing us a favor". They are all businesses that need to make profit and are accountable to their shareholders.

That Nvidia has become supposedly "greedy" is a ridiculous notion.

I think the main concern is that of nVidia's anti-competative actions in blocking PhysX in systems using ATI cards, and their anti-standards approach in promoting PhysX and other vendor specific coding directly with developers. There is room to innovate and create additional profit without these negative actions, which ultimately hurt them in the long run.

[aidanjt]

The point isn't whether the company has an element of greed, but whether that greed has become excessive, and is compromising their business, or worse, the market at large.

[Syllopsium]

Let's be clear here (although some may disagree), many of us do not think either ATI or NVidia are saints.

What we don't like is competition that unfairly penalises the consumer. Lots of people know that both SLI and crossfire are artificially limited for commercial reasons, but at least this has been something people have known in advance. Limiting PhysX from a configuration that was previously working for a considerable time is different.

It is fair to say Nvidia has been dragging its heels with DX10.1/DX11, which is hardly in line with their stated aim of pushing technology forward.

On the other hand, ATI has been fairly lax on non gaming technology. Their Linux drivers remain lacklustre, OpenCL is still in fairly early days, they have no real alternative to PhysX and 3D stereoscopy support is rather poor. The one exception is eyefinity - very welcome but probably a limited market purely due to desk space. The displayport requirement is annoying, too.

We need competition so that each manufacturer is forced to keep raising the bar, although when one of them gets it wrong these arguments will continue.

I don't think I'd call 3D stereoscopy 'a gimmick' and I applaud Nvidia for at least trying to move things forward. Time will tell whether the tradeoffs between active shutter glasses or special monitors with passive polarised glasses are best. AMD has supposedly teamed up with iz3d in this area, but this still isn't linked directly off game.amd.com and thus remains a rather embarassing effort (I have a Zalman Trimon, which shouts about Nvidia support, but there are third party drivers (IZ3D/Tridef) which work with both Nvidia/ATI).

As it stands, I've personally been very happy with a couple of 7600GTs, but fancy something low power, quiet and fast to replace at least one of the cards. ATI is therefore under consideration, as soon as they sort their drivers out..

If Nvidia suddenly stopped being stupid around PhysX, dragging its heels over DX11 and released a blinder of a card, my opinion might change.

PK

[nightkhaos]

I don't think I'd call 3D stereoscopy 'a gimmick' and I applaud Nvidia for at least trying to move things forward.

gimmick n. A clever ploy or strategy.

You placed false negative conotations with the word gimmick there Syllopsium. I meant that it is a very niche application at current, and that the implementation is a little costly. I did not say I would be uninterested in the technology when it matures but that is yet to happen.

Apart from that, good post, and you raised a few important points. Thank you.

For example, the mouse on the orignal Apple Lisa was a gimmick, and now it is an everyday technology.

[RichardHuddy]

Lars,

Many of the points you've come back with have been well dealt with by other people here, but there is one snippet that deserves a swift response from me.

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.

If it is relatively trivial, Mr. Huddy should have done it himself. The Unreal engine does not support in game AA, so we added it and QAed it for our customers. As Eidos confirmed (Not allowed to post links here, but check PCper for Eidos' statement) AMD refused the same opportunity to support gamers with AA on AMD GPUs. I'm sure Mr. Huddy knows how important QA is for game developers. I recommend AMD starts working with developers to make their HW work in a proper way. That's not our job. We added functionality for NVIDIA GPUs into the game. We did not lock anything out. AMD just did not do their work. This happened with previous UE3 engine titles before, where ATI owners had to rename the executable to make AA work on that title (Bioshock in example). It’s not NVIDIA to blame here.

...

Lars Weinand, NVIDIA

I’m surprised and pleased by authorised NVIDIA spokesperson Lars Weinand’s clarification that “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.”

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.

NVIDIA has done the right thing in bowing to public pressure to renounce anti-competitive sponsorship practices and given Eidos a clear mandate to remove the vendor ID detect code that is unfairly preventing many of Eidos’ customers from using in-game AA, as per Mr. Weinand’s comments. I would encourage Mr. Singleton at Eidos to move quickly and decisively to remove NVIDIA’s vendor ID detection.

It’s also worth noting here that AMD have made efforts both pre-release and post-release to allow Eidos to enable the in-game antialiasing code - there was no refusal on AMD’s part to enable in game AA IP in a timely manner.

I trust that you will also confirm that no similar activity will take place on any other games?


Richard Huddy, Worldwide Developer Relations Manager, AMD's GPU Division

[shaithis]

Now this is getting interesting!

[Perfectionist]

Trying to get hold of a direct contact number for Eidos to see what Mr Singleton has to say for himself on the issue, I'm getting American accented (so it's going to roughly the right place anyway!) "we're sorry, this number is no longer in use" messages for all the ones I've found so far.

Even the phone number on their website's WHOIS is incorrect, and I believe it's a legal/terms requirement for whois data to be correct.
http://private.dnsstuff.com/tools/wh...e.com&email=on

edit: Seems they changed their number without bothering to contact their domain registrar or the many business contact sites listing numbers for Eidos:
http://www.eidosinteractive.com/corporate/contacts.html

edit2: Left a message in the "main company voice box" @ US #650 421 7600 (just put 001 in front from UK) asking for Lee Singleton to take a look at this thread (via http://tinyurl.com/eidosaa ), as the other options were customer support or required ID numbers.

[Syllopsium]

Now this is getting interesting!

Very interesting. I hope that's sweet rather than savoury popcorn? Comfy sofa, this..

Fair enough re 'gimmick' - I agree. It's not necessarily radically expensive (from scratch it's a bit pricey, as if you're going for shutter glasses you need 120Hz due to the halving of refresh rate and reduced brightness, unless you have a dirt cheap CRT of course), but all of the ways of faking stereoscopy have disadvantages including the universal need to have additional eyewear.

The old shutter glass technology certainly had disadvantages - I've not tried Nvidia's latest implementation but would hope the increased brightness of TFT offset the old dimming issue. I like my Zalman Trimon, but it's definitely still a bit early adopter - you have to keep your head in the right position and the 3D affect depends on source material.

PK

[digitalwanderer]

Lars,

Many of the points you've come back with have been well dealt with by other people here, but there is one snippet that deserves a swift response from me.



I’m surprised and pleased by authorised NVIDIA spokesperson Lars Weinand’s clarification that “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.”

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.

NVIDIA has done the right thing in bowing to public pressure to renounce anti-competitive sponsorship practices and given Eidos a clear mandate to remove the vendor ID detect code that is unfairly preventing many of Eidos’ customers from using in-game AA, as per Mr. Weinand’s comments. I would encourage Mr. Singleton at Eidos to move quickly and decisively to remove NVIDIA’s vendor ID detection.

It’s also worth noting here that AMD have made efforts both pre-release and post-release to allow Eidos to enable the in-game antialiasing code - there was no refusal on AMD’s part to enable in game AA IP in a timely manner.

I trust that you will also confirm that no similar activity will take place on any other games?


Richard Huddy, Worldwide Developer Relations Manager, AMD's GPU Division

This post made my day, consider this thread under digiwatch!

[Perfectionist]

Twitter bit.ly/eidosaa ... this reminds me of the the Spore DRM backlash.

[Rollo]

Lars,

Many of the points you've come back with have been well dealt with by other people here, but there is one snippet that deserves a swift response from me.



I’m surprised and pleased by authorised NVIDIA spokesperson Lars Weinand’s clarification that “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.”

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.

NVIDIA has done the right thing in bowing to public pressure to renounce anti-competitive sponsorship practices and given Eidos a clear mandate to remove the vendor ID detect code that is unfairly preventing many of Eidos’ customers from using in-game AA, as per Mr. Weinand’s comments. I would encourage Mr. Singleton at Eidos to move quickly and decisively to remove NVIDIA’s vendor ID detection.

It’s also worth noting here that AMD have made efforts both pre-release and post-release to allow Eidos to enable the in-game antialiasing code - there was no refusal on AMD’s part to enable in game AA IP in a timely manner.

I trust that you will also confirm that no similar activity will take place on any other games?


Richard Huddy, Worldwide Developer Relations Manager, AMD's GPU Division

Richard-

Where was ATi before the game launched while NVIDIA was working with Eidos to develop the AA and PhysX IP?

It looks to me like NVIDIA was proactive in working on AA with Eidos like they did with Bioshock, and now that the game is a hit you're suddenly concerned after the fact. (speaking as an outside observer)

Personally I don't understand the controversy over proprietary IP, last I checked the point of business is to establish a competitive edge your opponent can't or won't match, and then sell to the market that desires it.

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.