Nvidia responds to Batman:AA

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Originally Posted by SimBy

It's naive to think ATi does not approach game devs and try and help them making the game run well on their hardware.
I think it was ATis Richard Huddy that once said in an interview what happened when they tried approaching one TWIMTBP game dev to help them out in any way possible. What they got was a middle finger. Yep game dev told them to fsck off cause they already have help from nV.

But most game devs gladly accept any help.

Here is an interview on this topic. Start watching at 10:00.

http://tv.hexus.net/show/2008/09/Int...Richard_Huddy/

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very good interview,clears things up.:)

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Originally Posted by To(V)bo Co(V)bo

I see nvidia attempting to monopolize the pc game market with these tactics. Being a PC game it should have some sorta standards in place. What if Nvidia dumped money into windows 7 development and made their own API, they could call it NVX. It would only work on nvidia hardware since nvidia bribed, sorry, implemented this feature. We could then make two versions of windows too while were at it for intel and amd.This would be totally awesome, I then could play only the pc games with NVX. If I owned a ati card then id only have half of the already small list of games released for PC, maybe Ati could create their own API called ATX. This sounds so great I cant believe it hasnt been done sooner.

PC gaming has been on life support for AGES, just kill it off and give up and buy a wii for 200$, these kind of tactics only hurt the PC community and gamers, with you and me both deprived. PC gamers are what fuels the PC market, who really needs a computer with more than 2 cores.

It is false advertisement when you say a game runs with standard PC hardware but only half the game works. There should be a warning label on this game saying full game only Nvidia compatable, (Ati version not validated).

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It would seem strange that a PC games developer would not have at least one card from both vendors, its not like it would break the bank.

Maybe the help from NV was with installing the card.

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Originally Posted by AbelJemka

Again that ATI did nothing, etc...
You don't even know if they don't come and say :'Will you need help?' and get answered : 'No need Nvidia is already here!' :shrug:

Recall : AMD pretends Nvidia prevent them for working with TWIMTBP games.

Who's lying? Who's telling the truth? Only Rocksteady knows.

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Tapping on the shoulder of a company busy creating a game isn't going to get anything done. Nvidia has an entire marketing strategy and department based on this single thing called "The way its meant to be played" ATI has, hmm........idk....

Example: Me and you have the same product. You go out all over the place displaying the product talking about it, working closely with other companies pushing it. and I just
sit with my development team, doing nothing, still making decent money cause the product is just as good. But for some reason (wonder what that is) im just not making as much as you.
So I blame you completely for sabotaging me, cause these other companies you have made connections with are helping your product make more money than me. So i throw a fit and say your
sabotaging me cause these companies wont come ask me to do the same thing as they are doing with you. (when you had to bust your but to get them to do this)Basically I want something for nothing.

That is my complaint. Not saying its right what happened, and theres no excuse for AA not to work with Batman on ATI hardware. But to be honest. This probably would haven't happened if
ATI made more of an effort to counter Nvidia's "The way its meant to be played"

We dont know whats happening behind the curtain. But even if Nvidia is bullying their way into the development of games and pushing ATI out. Its ATI's own fault
for not paying attention and being on top of their game with the marketing of their hardware.

I'm not a game developer so I don't know anything about that process. I also don't know much about the relationships they have with amd and nvidia and the making of their games. So if there are any real game developers that can explain it plainly, that would be awesome; I will add that knowledge to my brag folder.

All I know is I have a gaming PC with a gtx 285 that will soon be replaced with the amd 5870 and I am hopeful that it will work and run the games I play and the drivers work well better than my last card.

Hoping this post isn't off-topic. It is so hard to tell what is on or off topic in the news section here.

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Originally Posted by Decami

if ATI would have actually done something about it before hand, not only with this game but others as well, it would have never happened anyway. Not that it makes it ok for Nvidia to disable AA though

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This is AA we're talking about. Not some obscure feature. The developers should be shot! I'm pretty sure ATI builds cards that any other capable developer can make AA run on :rolleyes:! AA running on cards from both of the two biggest cards should be mandatory. And nvidia should pretend it knew nothing about not being enabled for ati (whether it did or not is not a necessary assumption)

If they published the game, and instead AA ran on radeon only, I'd still be jacked off with the programmers for laziness. I'd still call it unacceptable.

I don't care whether TWIMTBP and or alleged dodgy nv tactics were involved in this at all. The programmers should never have done this.

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Originally Posted by gumballguy

This is AA we're talking about. Not some obscure feature.

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For a deferred rendering engine, it is almost obscure.

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Originally Posted by randomizer

For a deferred rendering engine, it is almost obscure.

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I'm interested to hear?

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Originally Posted by Decami

Tapping on the shoulder of a company busy creating a game isn't going to get anything done. Nvidia has an entire marketing strategy and department based on this single thing called "The way its meant to be played" ATI has, hmm........idk....

Example: Me and you have the same product. You go out all over the place displaying the product talking about it, working closely with other companies pushing it. and I just
sit with my development team, doing nothing, still making decent money cause the product is just as good. But for some reason (wonder what that is) im just not making as much as you.
So I blame you completely for sabotaging me, cause these other companies you have made connections with are helping your product make more money than me. So i throw a fit and say your
sabotaging me cause these companies wont come ask me to do the same thing as they are doing with you. (when you had to bust your but to get them to do this)Basically I want something for nothing.

That is my complaint. Not saying its right what happened, and theres no excuse for AA not to work with Batman on ATI hardware. But to be honest. This probably would haven't happened if
ATI made more of an effort to counter Nvidia's "The way its meant to be played"

We dont know whats happening behind the curtain. But even if Nvidia is bullying their way into the development of games and pushing ATI out. Its ATI's own fault
for not paying attention and being on top of their game with the marketing of their hardware.

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Its one thing to invest in a game and make it a better game, and another to selectively improve the game.
Nvidia is just rigging these games to fail on ATI hardware basically, only letting Ati have what they only allow them to have. This is just the same as political lobbying, rub my back rub yours bueracracy. Each company should have the same advantages to be a fair market. What isnt fair is when this activity becomes a standard practice and forces game developers to EXTORT hardware companies to fully support thier hardware. This is just the beginning and we can see this crap for what it is.
When I buy a game I expect and demand it to run great on any hardware, not just on Nvidas. Anything less is comprimising your standards.

Eidos and Rocksteady just lost all respect from me as a gamer. It only matters if your willing to take a stand against these practices, if your not then your just naive and deserve to lose your freedom as a gamer and a patriot. :shakes:

Hmmm

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Originally Posted by Decami

Example: Me and you have the same product. You go out all over the place displaying the product talking about it, working closely with other companies pushing it. and I just sit with my development team, waiting companies in need of help to call me, still making decent money cause the product is just as good. But for ethical reason (knowing what is ethic) im just not making as much as you and i don't pay companies to hurt you.
So I blame you completely for sabotaging me , cause that the truth these other companies you have payed so much are helping your product make more money than me. So i throw a fit and say your
sabotaging me cause these companies wont come ask me to do the same thing as they are doing with you because you give them more money to shut their mouth. (although you had to bust your but to go to the bank to get money because those suckers don't take credit card!)Basically I want something but you come before and you throw too much money. It's fair i's call aggressive marketing here and corruption there.

That is my complaint. Not saying its right what happened, and theres no excuse for AA not to work with Batman on ATI hardware. But to be honest. This probably would haven't happened if
ATI use more money to counter Nvidia's "The way its meant to be played" by renaming 5 times the same cards : they would have save a bunch of money to corrupt..er...help developper.

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:D

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Originally Posted by gumballguy

I'm interested to hear?

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To be more specific, it's MSAA that is the problem. You can still supersample but nobody really wants to do that because of the performance hit. Have a read of this, it's old but explains the problem somewhat:

http://http.download.nvidia.com/deve...ed_Shading.pdf

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It would seem strange that a PC games developer would not have at least one card from both vendors, its not like it would break the bank.

Maybe the help from NV was with installing the card.

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:rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl:

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Originally Posted by Mads321

:rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl:

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Come on now.
Not everyone one who knows how to drive knows how to fill the tank.

Oh, wait a moment. I had decided not to write more on this topic (I think is fairly obvious that at this point everyone here has form an opinion about it, and it's not going to change it) but come on, there are some strange ideas around here.

Some of you are sounding like if the developpers were some guys who put the hand palm up waiting for ATI/NVIDIA to do the games for the them and then selling them or something. Let's clear some aspects:

GAME DEVELOPERS AND IHV's SUPPORT

*The developers (the name comes from the fact that they are the ones who develope the software) are some nice guys who make software through a process that includes an analisis and design of the project, its implementation (including coding and creating artwork), and testing and debugging, before the project is commercialized. Everything related to the product, and each and every of these phases is complete responsability of the developer.

*Developers are supposed to make their games without any external help. They have all the means to do that. PCs are shaped in a way that you can work over standards that have to be follow by side one (software) and the other side (hardware) so what a developer has to know, is how to develope over those standards. Once they have learned (studying, practicing...), they can start doing software.

*Hardware vendors are not needed across the process. Testing the software to not be buggy on the platforms advertised as compatible (every PC with usually some restrictions usually because OS and because of performance, known as "minimal requirements") is the developers responsability, like everything else regarding the game/sw (it's their game, heck, and they're getting money from this!). You don't need a hw vendor to teach you how to install a videocard to test your game (and you don't need a hw vendor to teach you how to install or run your game). You may need someone to teach you how to test sistematically and debug a program, or how to optimize or even develope a sw project, but that's not the hardware vendors affair. For example, I learnt at university.

*Hardware vendors (both ATI and NVIDIA in this case, even though NVIDIA advertises more to the public this fact) started a practice consisting in "supporting" the most known and influent software titles offering the developpers help to finish the titles. Why? Because sponsorings, because this way they could be sure that the most known and influent software, which is called to be the reference to test and compare the hw with, it was not horribly unoptimized for their hw, or had any bug specific to their hw, and so on, because this way they have early access to the software so they can address any issue with the hardware in drivers or develope profiles specific to the game to optimize the hw driver behaviour when running that sw since the moment of the release, making their hw look like better than competitors... image and media value, mainly.

That deal between the most influent games developers and the IHVs bring a secondary effect to the consumer: main titles and most influent sw comes to the market less buggy, more optimized and with hw more prepared than it would be without. So come on, great idea, no one's losing, everybody wins.

The reason why I tell all that is to finish with an obvious conclusion: even when that (interested) "help" that, potentially, a hw vendor may be giving you (as a developer), is being given, every responsability about the product you are selling is yours. If the game doesn't work properly with certain hw, you are the one who had made and are selling a defective product. If the game lacks some features that competitors have, you are the one who had made and are selling a 2nd line product. You can have the privilege of being helped by an IHV (if they're somewhat interested) but if not, it should be the normal situation, and if they do, the product continues being your product, not theirs.

Stop saying that "if X refuses to help, then it's their fault if XX things in a game don't work or aren't present". You are giving too much weight to a question that is merely image and advertising. The IHVs make hw, not games. And the developers make the games, not only ask a price for them (actually, who ask the price usually are the distributors, but oh well...).

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Originally Posted by Farinorco

So, what we knew:

>UE3 has not any AA method implemented, and Batman:AA is coded over UE3.

>NVIDIA has helped the developers of B:AA to implement a custom AA filter.

>That custom AA filter developed in colaboration with Eidos is nothing exclusive to NVIDIA, since it's been proven to work with other D3D cards.

>Since NVIDIA has helped to implement (or completely implemented) that AA filter, they feel with the right to not allow people with hw of other IHVs to run their code, and "encourage" other vendors to implement their own code if they want that feature running on their hw, even when that code is perfectly compatible with any standard hw.

That bring us again to the main point of the discussion until now: is that right? Where those practices lead us, the consumers?

It would be the same thing if DIRT2 DX11 features (or part of them) don't work on NVIDIA DX11 hw when they release any, since AMD has supported the developement of that features.

It would be the same thing if OpenCL acceleration of Havok only works on AMD and Intel hw for the same reason.

The same for OpenCL acceleration in Bullet Physics.

Great for all consumers. There was a time where software coded over standard interfaces could be run on any hardware compliant with those standards. That was the whole point of those standards. There was a time... thanks, NVIDIA.


And I would like to add something to the discussion. I see lots of the people who are defending both NVIDIA and Eidos basing their arguments on the fact of UE3 not having AA:

A game engine is nothing else than a library (code implementing functions) to pack some of the work of doing a game. It includes some work generalizable to games in general, and then you (the developer) write the rest of the code of the game over (or under, or in) the game engine. That's one of the things about programming. You got some code, then you can use that code as a part of other programs, that can add code over, under or in it.

Saying that UE3 don't support AA may be true (it was when it was launched, I don't know now, I assume it's the same). But the UE3 don't support the Batman 3D model too. Or probably other shaders used specifically on that game. I'm sure that the developers have written other code apart from the UE3. Heck, I'm so sure that if you try to run the UE3 directly without any more code, you won't be playing Batman AA.

What I try to say, it's that there's no difference between the custom AA, the models used, any custom shader, or any game specific logic. It's all additional code that didn't came in the engine.

If you think that helping a sw company to develope some code, and then not allowing compatible hw of other vendors to run that code is fine, then it's your respectable opinion. But saying that "this is a special case because it didn't came in the engine", it's saying nothing.

I simply don't like a world where some sw is special to NVIDIA, some sw is special to ATI, some sw is special to Intel, some sw is special to AMD, and depending on the brands you chose you can run some things or some others.

Supposedly, standardization was introduced to avoid this. And it was a great benefit for all consumers. We are getting back to a time we had left behind long ago. It's only my opinion, though.

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Some people are ONLY NVIDIA consumers so I guess they don't care. I believe if AMD would start using the same tactics, the same people would be screaming bloody murder.

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Originally Posted by DilTech

The engine doesn't natively support it... Just check the menu for UT3.

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I use AA on my HD4830s fine with UT3, pretty sure the option is even in the game settings dont need to use ccc

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Originally Posted by Sly Fox

Well PhysX is just pure unadulterated crap imo. I'm just past the point of caring about it, Nvidia knows it's a scam, we all know it's a scam. Just that there's nothing that can be done about it.

I just don't see Nvidia telling the devs, "btw you'd better not enable AA for ATI or we'll stop giving you checks."

That would cause such a *censor*storm, and for what? So they could have "exclusive" rights to AA in Batman? All my friends who play PC games daily don't even understand what AA is, they're not going to care either way franky. And I suspect that's pretty representative of the general population.

Seems like the simplest explanation is Nvidia made sure AA worked on their hardware so the devs enabled it. ATI didn't (to no fault of their own, they shouldn't have to babysit the developers), so they devs decided to be lazy buggers and disable it by default.

Could be wrong, but I just don't see what Nvidia could gain by this.

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2 words: "Market Share". Nvidia will do anything for that. They have already sold their soul to the devil, and their grannys soul.

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Originally Posted by 003

Regardless, it probably doesn't work exactly as it would with an ATI card. It's no secret that Unreal Engine 3 does not natively support AA (it uses deferred lighting) and the claim that being TWIMTBP certified locks out ATI from working with the developers is completely untrue.

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I wouldn't say that.. who do you think the devs are going to work hardest for? The side that throws them the most money. From this standpoint, ATi can't compete. They have never had as much money as nvidia. Its one thing to have a legitimate advantage, and its quite another having unfair competition. I can understand why ATi are calling unfair, but at the same time I would stop whining about it and just do what they have done before - Add the support for AA into their drivers.

ED - To make it clear, when I say add AA support I'm talking about a invisible bit of code that detects if said game is being launched, and autmatically applies a ATI optimised AA path built into the driver.

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Originally Posted by marten_larsson

Well, then ATI should just tell Codemasters to disable DX11 on Nvidia hardware then? And DX10.1 support in HAWX? This is nothing that is beneficial to consumers and therefore NOT something we should accept!

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Not to mention GDDR5, BC6/BC7 texture compression, GPU tesselation

since the developers probably didn't plan for ati owners to play the game
just pirate it

they probably don't need for ati gpu users to buy it since nvidia probably covered the overheads well.

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Originally Posted by Apokalipse

Not to mention GDDR5, BC6/BC7 texture compression, GPU tesselation

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Exactly.. !!

quoting myself from another thread: "Looks like Nvidia is trying to gain a foothold in the CPU market, somewhat conceding on the gaming end of the business."

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In the demo directory there is a file named BaseEngine.ini. I found these lines:
[Engine.ISVHacks]
bInitializeShadersOnDemand=False
DisableATITextureFilterOptimizationChecks=True
UseMinimalNVIDIADriverShaderOptimization=True
PumpWindowMessagesWhenRenderThreadStalled=False

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Don't touch them.
The DisableATITextureFilterOptimizationChecks if enabled by putting False, runs a inbuilt OCCT GPU subroutine.

It's a joke. And it seems to me that anyone defending NV's actions either has something to gain, directly or indirectly, or hasn't thought it through very well. It seems pretty simple I'm not sure why it's necessary to complicate the hlel out of it, unless of course the goal is to seed a little FUD.
And they are no doubt grateful for this kind of discussion, because even though it's clear to see that their actions are blatantly wrong, a little FUD goes a looooong way to muddy the water.
But all that needs to be remembered are: Assasin's Creed, Futuremark Vantage, and now Batman. And those are just the titles that we know about because they are so obviously skewed in nv's favor.

Yeah, TWIMTBP is such a benefit to consumers, but as long as the sheep keep blindly following along, nv will milk them for all they're worth.

Mmmm.. waffles. I'm hungry now :p:

But the thing is & the points which some seem to over look & not for reasons of comprehension is that the so called Nvidia specific implementation does work on ATI cards but has been deliberately disabled.

There is no such things as guaranteed to work on everything on the PC because of its open platform nature & the only time features or SW is stopped from working is if it is known not to work.

Many games when installing on vista64 pop up a warning that it has only been tested on windows 32bit & never does it deliberately stop you installing unless it is known not to work which i have yet to come across besides 16bit installers.

So the guaranteed excuse does not cut it.

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Originally Posted by Decami

Tapping on the shoulder of a company busy creating a game isn't going to get anything done. Nvidia has an entire marketing strategy and department based on this single thing called "The way its meant to be played" ATI has, hmm........idk....

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Its called AMD Game :rolleyes: http://game.amd.com/us-en/

So, the game doesn't support AA (which is not required of the game but a nice to have) because of this deferred rendering issue. NVIDIA volunteers to spend time and money to implement such a feature, which they test on their cards. Since they know this works on their cards, they enable a check to see whether an NVIDIA card is installed, in which case enable (because you know it'll work) otherwise disable (because you don't know whether it'll work, might use the NVIDIA hardware in a specialized way for all we know). Now everyone is upset because the developers didn't enable it across the board? Would you have NVIDIA spend more money buying hardware made by other manufacturers, test the code, if it works enable it for them and effectively lose the advantage gained by whatever time and effort was spent?

ATI/AMD, go to the developer, devote some time and money to work with the developer to ensure that there is a form of AA which works 100% on your cards (even if it's the same code that NVIDIA helped develop) and test it on your cards if you want said feature to be available to your clients. Be proactive if there's a feature that you want which a developer can't/won't include on their own.

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Originally Posted by flippin_waffles

Yeah, TWIMTBP is such a benefit to consumers, but as long as the sheep keep blindly following along, nv will milk them for all they're worth.

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No amount of marketing & promotion is going to keep the sheep blindly following if the consumer in the end doesn't get what they want or feel done wrong.

I personally don't see nothing wrong with a company pushing value added services to cater to their customer base.

EDIT: This debate should really be taken to the developer of the game, if you want AA take the fight to ATI/AMD and the developer to add the support.