Nvidia responds to Batman:AA

[eric66]

so they enabled aa with nvidia and were lazy to test if it works with ati cards also lol what kinda retarded defense is that. damn gaming was much better back in nineties no logos no bull support things every company made games that didn't require for some patch to work with specific brand

[SamHughe]

Link to response? Or was it an email/pm?

Again, what are you implying? Fugger lies to everyone and fabricates a response from NVidia because he's a NVidia fan?

So far people implied:

1- NVidia paid money to Eidos, the makers of Batman:AA to deliberately cripple ATI graphics cards' performances by not enabling in game AA option for ATI cards.
2- Eidos who is depended on gamers with any brand graphics cards said: "Wow! What a great idea! Let's abandon half of our customers and risk ourselves to be exposed, boycotted and possibly sued" and took the deal. Because as we all know, only the xtreme people like the ones in this forum can uncover such a dastartly pilot and realize there is whole option missing for one brand of graphics card. Eidos was sure that no one will ever notice.
3- There is absolutely no other technical (or at least sensible) explanation why the developers disabled AA in game for ATI cards but to damage their performance. So no driver issues, no AA malfuction for ATI cards so leaving AA to CCC is a better option or any other explanation. The only reason is to be pure evil and kill ATI.
4- AMD knew this, but being the poor sissy boys constantly bullied by the evil giant NVidia, could not do anything about it . People who sue each other for the color of their pants, just bent over and took it. No contacting Eidos and threatening to expose them, no filling complaints, nothing. Just a mere mention in a blog. So there is a new game being developed and ATI has no idea (never get to view the code or test the game on their cards) that the AA option is disabled for their cards until that game hits the stores.

Did you guys really really think that NVidia could possibly get away with something like this?

[Power5]

Lets not forget that Nvidia purposely forces CPU PhysX to only work on 1 core as to demonstrate how pathetically slow it is and how you NEED a gpu to do PhysX and thus need to buy nvidia cards.

However there is a hack out there that properly distributes PhysX to additional cores, the ones that are 95% unused in most games, and it flows beautifully, regardless of whether you have ati or nvidia.

Get the hack, enjoy physx and give nvidia a big finger.

I can probably find it in search, but do you have a link to the physx hack?

[highoctane]

what I do care is dont make a game run half of its potential just because Im not using Nvidia , samething if ati did the same . Consumer wise is not good and not fair for our pockets .

Nvidia worked with the developer for AA support on their hardware, ATI/AMD can do the same.

The lack of initiative on ATI/AMD's part is what is proving to be unfair to their customer base in this case if anything. By ATI/AMD not stepping up and taking the initiative to better insure proper integration of their features by working closer with game developers their customers in this case are feeling left out and are blaming Nvidia for it.

[Clairvoyant129]

It's not Nvidia's fault that AMD is sitting on their asses twiddling their thumbs while giving developers no support.

[Manicdan]

my opinion is that this case is being over hated and is really not that big of an issue.

i do however feel that physx being stuck on GPU and can run on multi core cpus just fine but is not, is a bit mean to consumers. im sure game developers would hate the idea of trying to put in alot of nice details, knowing only half its customers can enjoy it. i think they should just make extremely beautiful physics and let those who dont have an nvidia card couldnt enjoy it to its full, but can still have a taste. but so far that has yet to happen and no game yet makes me want it so bad ill buy a new gpu for it.

[eric66]

It's not Nvidia's fault that AMD is sitting on their asses twiddling their thumbs while giving developers no support.

its developer problem to try to get support from every brand not atis business to invest money for lazy developers to enable aa feature in game. i am sure when eidos contacted amd they said go to hell we don't need aa in game

[Chumbucket843]

Honestly Im just worried this will end up in a huge game titles auction house.

Wanted to try Batman 2? Sorry buddy you have an ATI Radeon card, this game runs only on GeForce. Are you interested in Dirt 3 or Alien Vs Predator 2... Sorry game works only on ATI Radeon.

While both companies will survive this is very bad for consumers.

Someone has to make it clear to Nvidia to not use and set such business practices before others adapt it and things start going downhill...

please chill with the anti-nvidia trolling. i think people get your point. what really concerns me is people somehow think ATi is some perfect company coming to save us from the evils of nvidia. its video card specious.

[Ursus]

NVIDIA statement on Batman AA
A representative of AMD recently claimed that NVIDIA interfered with anti-aliasing (AA) support for Batman: Arkham Asylum on AMD cards. They also claimed that NVIDIA’s The Way It’s Meant to be Played Program prevents AMD from working with developers for those games.
Both of these claims are NOT true. Batman is based on Unreal Engine 3, which does not natively support anti-aliasing. We worked closely with Eidos to add AA and QA the feature on GeForce. Nothing prevented AMD from doing the same thing.
Games in The Way It’s Meant to be Played are not exclusive to NVIDIA. AMD can also contact developers and work with them.
We are proud of the work we do in The Way It’s Meant to be Played. We work hard to deliver kickass, game-changing features in PC games like PhysX, AA, and 3D Vision for games like Batman. If AMD wants to deliver innovation for PC games then we encourage them to roll up their sleeves and do the same.

NVIDIA Developer Relations

What a load of crap.
Where did ati claim that the TWIMTBP program prevents ati from working with developers?

Nvidia helped this developer getting AA to work, does this mean that even though this feature works on all cards, it should only be enabled on nvidia cards?

What is the next step? That ATI helps a developer getting HQ AF to work, and then only allow this feature on ATI cards?

I am not sure who is to blame, the developer or nvidia, but I do know this kind of bull only hurts the consumer in the end.

[Cuthalu]

It's something called initiative, its a part of everyday life. You can sit back and wait for people to cater to you or you can go out and "make" things happen by taking the initiative.

Don't blame the people putting forth effort and taking the initiative to make something happen because others may not think they need to put forth the same initiative to make things happen, as if everyone is entitled.

Yes, but I recall that AMD DID put the effort to make it right, yet no results. Se AMD is not the one to blame.

[FischOderAal]

my opinion is that this case is being over hated and is really not that big of an issue.

i do however feel that physx being stuck on GPU and can run on multi core cpus just fine but is not, is a bit mean to consumers. im sure game developers would hate the idea of trying to put in alot of nice details, knowing only half its customers can enjoy it. i think they should just make extremely beautiful physics and let those who dont have an nvidia card couldnt enjoy it to its full, but can still have a taste. but so far that has yet to happen and no game yet makes me want it so bad ill buy a new gpu for it.

I totally agree Normally I'm not very positive about NVIDIA but I'm on their side in this AA-battle.

[Final8ty]

please chill with the anti-nvidia trolling. i think people get your point. what really concerns me is people somehow think ATi is some perfect company coming to save us from the evils of nvidia. its video card specious.

No one said that ATI are perfect.
The word your looking for in case you have never heard them before is: the better or worst of 2 Evils is how most people look at companies as everyone knows what the bottom line is.

[Glow9]

Honestly Im just worried this will end up in a huge game titles auction house.

Wanted to try Batman 2? Sorry buddy you have an ATI Radeon card, this game runs only on GeForce. Are you interested in Dirt 3 or Alien Vs Predator 2... Sorry game works only on ATI Radeon.

While both companies will survive this is very bad for consumers.

Someone has to make it clear to Nvidia to not use and set such business practices before others adapt it and things start going downhill...

^^^ This

[Nedjo]

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

and yet there's AA support in GoW under DX10 path...

[AbelJemka]

People who kills AMD saying it's their fault not giving developpers support are naive.
People who thinks that Nvidia's TWIMTBP program isn't excluding AMD from contacting developpers are naive.

[highoctane]

People who think of themselves as other than naive are generally the most naive since they don't know enough to realize how naive they themselves are.

[Farinorco]

As the discussion about the response of NVIDIA has been moved to a new thread from the initial thread about this matter, I'm going to quote myself to not rewrite what I've said on the other one:

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.

[hatter]

XbitLabs reports Physx only for Nvidia sub-system

In spite of the fact that Nvidia Corp. once promised to enable processing of physics effects made using PhysX application programming interface (API) on any graphics processing units (GPUs), the company recently started to disable PhysX support on systems that use ATI Radeon graphics cards for rendering and Ageia PhysX or Nvidia GeForce processors for physics effects computing

http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/video/d...b_Systems.html

[zalbard]

Honestly Im just worried this will end up in a huge game titles auction house.

Wanted to try Batman 2? Sorry buddy you have an ATI Radeon card, this game runs only on GeForce. Are you interested in Dirt 3 or Alien Vs Predator 2... Sorry game works only on ATI Radeon.

While both companies will survive this is very bad for consumers.

Someone has to make it clear to Nvidia to not use and set such business practices before others adapt it and things start going downhill...

+1000

[Manicdan]

people are taking one sentence of the situation and reading way to much into it

what company in their right mind would butcher a game for half the population or prevent them from playing it at all. with prices for games freaking everyone out, lets imagine the price doubled since they can only sell them on half the PCs. that would ONLY happen if the game was paid for entirely by Nvidia or ATI, but even those kinda of things (like their tech demos) are not always hardware exclusive.

the biggest games can cost the most money to make, and will need to be sold to every person available to cover expenses.

i think this discussion should be taken away from what the current situation is by ignoring these facts and finger pointing, and think about it from a publisher/developer/hardware/consumer/economics perspective of what would happen in similar cases.

[LordEC911]

Again, what are you implying? Fugger lies to everyone and fabricates a response from NVidia because he's a NVidia fan?

No, I was simply wondering where this response came from... if it was posted on a website, which I found out later that it was, or if he received it from an email/PM which he did.

I believe the rules apply to everyone which you can read in the sticky, every news thread needs a source. Not like it matters though since it is Fugger and there is no reason to not believe him, which is why I didn't say anything about it, plus he could of just posted an article on the homepage and linked to it.

I was just trying to verify where that info came from, which I am allowed to ask on this forum and Fugger responded promptly which I appreciate.
Please don't try and twist my words or make assumptions on my intentions.

Edit- Though I am not sure on what the reasoning was behind needing a new thread on this matter...

[AbelJemka]

People who think of themselves as other than naive are generally the most naive since they don't know enough to realize how naive they themselves are.

[Farinorco]

people are taking one sentence of the situation and reading way to much into it

what company in their right mind would butcher a game for half the population or prevent them from playing it at all. with prices for games freaking everyone out, lets imagine the price doubled since they can only sell them on half the PCs. that would ONLY happen if the game was paid for entirely by Nvidia or ATI, but even those kinda of things (like their tech demos) are not always hardware exclusive.

the biggest games can cost the most money to make, and will need to be sold to every person available to cover expenses.

i think this discussion should be taken away from what the current situation is by ignoring these facts and finger pointing, and think about it from a publisher/developer/hardware/consumer/economics perspective of what would happen in similar cases.

Well, maybe Batman 2 running only on NVIDIA and DIRT 3 or AvP 2 running only on ATi is a exageration.

But how about Batman 2 running only AA (ehem) and AF on NVIDIA, and DIRT 3 and AvP 2 running only certain DX11 effects on ATi, or Diablo 3 (or other Havok titles) running only GPGPU accelerated Havok effects on ATi, or Crysis 3 running only the Very High shader effects on NVIDIA?

And maybe the former was an exageration. Maybe not. We have it now the exact same situation with videoconsoles...

[zanzabar]

I downloaded the demo and I must admit the Physx really make the games visual experience complete. Without it, it would be rather bland.

and on the demo physX even though only using 1 core is usable on mode 1, but wit people found that out then in the retail physX now has paper everyware (the diffrence from mode 1 and 2) and with more paper u cant use the cpu. physX is also single threaded now that NV has it when agea had it all games had multi threaded physX that used physX.

NV is just full of , its the same thing as ultra on doom3


and the game is dx9 u can force msaa in the drivers not that it needs it

[rogueagent6]

Let me get this straight, the hardware vendors have to hold the hands of the software devs just because they don't know how to code properly? Maybe the hardware vendors should just start publishing their own games.

Follow the Direct X spec, and it will run on the hardware. Bottom line.

Nvidia subsidized the the incompetence of the software devs, plain and simple. If you don't believe that then keep drinking the kool-aid.