Ian McNaughton goes out against The Way it's Meant to be Played

[Mad1723]

AMD prides itself on supporting open standards and our goal is to advance PC gaming regardless whether people purchase our products.

Unfortunately, not everyone shares our philosophy. Nvidia has recently sampled some newly released The Way it is Meant to be Played titles, including Batman: Arkham Asylum, to press in hopes that they would use these titles to benchmark against the HD Radeon 5870 and 5850. There are some known issues with these proprietary TWIMTBP titles.

Batman: Arkham Asylum
In this game, Nvidia has an in-game option for AA, whereas, gamers using ATI Graphics Cards are required to force AA on in the Catalyst Control Center.

The advantage of in-game AA is that the engine can run AA selectively on scenes whereas Forced AA in CCC is required to use brute force to apply AA on every scene and object, requiring much more work.

Additionally, the in-game AA option was removed when ATI cards are detected. We were able to confirm this by changing the ids of ATI graphics cards in the Batman demo. By tricking the application, we were able to get in-game AA option where our performance was significantly enhanced. This option is not available for the retail game as there is a secure rom.

To fairly benchmark this application, please turn off all AA to assess the performance of the respective graphics cards. Also, we should point out that even at 2560×1600 with 4x AA and 8x AF we are still in the highly playable territory …

Need for Speed: Shift
In another TWIMTBP title, we submitted a list of issues that we discovered during the games’ development. These issues include inefficiencies in how the game engine worked with our hardware in addition to real bugs, etc.. We have sent this list to the developer for review. .

Unfortunately you will be unable to get a fair playing experience with our hardware until the developer releases a patch to address and fix our reported issues.

Resident Evil 5
AMD was unable to receive builds of this game early enough to get a chance to test and address any open issues. We will work with the developer to test and adjust any compatibility or performance issues that we encounter.

Ian just explains the problems encountered by many players recently from TWIMTBP games from Nvidia.

Am I the only one tired of Nvidia's shady acting to avoid looking bad. I know it's business and that nearly everything is permitted, but it starts looking like Nvidia is using some shady techniques....


Source:http://blogs.amd.com/play/2009/09/11...u-should-care/ (further down in the comment is where this comment is located)

[trinibwoy]

Right because ATi cards never have performance issues and bugs in non-TWIMTBP titles.

[Chickenfeed]

The sad thing is there is more truth to this than some would like to admit. I'm sure some people might think " Oh they are just trying to excuse their less than optimal performance in so and so games " but that isn't the case. I wouldn't have expected anything to have changed and if anything it only looks like its getting worse.

Now knowing this for some it might be an incentive to just jump ship and/or stick to Nvidia products but personally I'm not cool with these "cheating" tactics. I am glad they are being called out on this. I doubt it will effect their influence with developers but at least people will know about it for the sake of fair comparison.

Oh by the way did I mention I am 8feet tall? (when I start measuring at 2feet on a tape measure at least...)

[CedricFP]

I am amazed at the omission of an in-game AA option from Batman.

Weak.

[Mad1723]

Right because ATi cards never have performance issues and bugs in non-TWIMTBP titles.

They do have issues, myself having had one for 1 year. I wasn't able to have display on my LCD for a year because of a DVI issue under Vista/7. So I went through performance issues, bugs and stuff.

But the thing is that the way Nvidia is acting is to provoke problems that normally don't exist.

[trinibwoy]

Nvidia, like any other company is trying to find an advantage wherever possible. This is business, not kindergarten. It's really no different than Codemaster's engines having a preference for ATi hardware. The BAA AA issue is something else though but given UE3's issues with AA I'm not going to jump to conclusions on why it's Nvidia only.

[Jamesrt2004]

meh nvidia suck. tbh to prove the points the cards should be pretty damn even in every game right.. apart from a few driver bugs, they should be all damn similar in perforamnce across the board, just seems its not... and stuff like this just does NOT help ever :/

[MpG]

Sometimes I think that every Nvidia beta driver claims to improve performance, while every ATI beat/hotfix is to deal with bugs and problems. I know that's far from from accurate, but it's the impression I can't help but get sometimes, and I suspect Nvidia's stronger developer presence has something to do with that.

If ATI would just come out with their own version of the TWIMTBP program, where they actively worked with developers pre-game, instead of just complaining about not getting builds early enough, and merely 'submitting lists', some of these points probably wouldn't exist on day-0 of the games' release. I'm sure funds are still a little tight overall, and there may even be a bit of a non-compete clause for developers to get Nvidia's assistance, but even still...

[gOJDO]

These games have ty graphics anyway, and their gameplay is below average, especilly NeedForSh*t which is more pathetic with every new try by EA...So who cares...?

Anyway I was playing them fleuntly @1920x1200 MAX settings with a Radeon 4890 @1000/4600MHz. So with two 5870 OC-ed @9xx/5xxx I doubt that there would be problem running these titles fluently @ max settings with max AA and AF.

[Xoulz]

Ian just explains the problems encountered by many players recently from TWIMTBP games from Nvidia.

Am I the only one tired of Nvidia's shady acting to avoid looking bad. I know it's business and that nearly everything is permitted, but it starts looking like Nvidia is using some shady techniques....


Source:http://blogs.amd.com/play/2009/09/11...u-should-care/ (further down in the comment is where this comment is located)

Honestly, what's the big deal?


This clandestine method is needed, to help nVidia's re-branded hardware look as fast as ATi's last gen...

nVidia no longer matters. No need for the nf200 chip, SLI or their massive video cards & massive prices. Their new card will not be able to compete @ the $99 ~ $199 price points. ATi has the Holiday season to themselves. Nvidia is looking bleak, imo.

Anyways, do you blame Nvidia for a TWIMTBP big title game, then requesting it be used in benches...? knowing it's shady business? Do you blame them for having to re-brand their cards..?

Jen-Hsun Huang has lost his touch..





Damn, I need to hit dat bong again...

[zalbard]

I actually recall a few games with this logo that ran on ATI better, lol.

[DilTech]

First, ATi did try to do there own program... Problem is, they can't afford the test lab that NVidia offers to every developer who signs up to the program. It failed absolutely miserably, and outside of HL2 and Guildwars, it didn't get into any hot selling games IIRC. Sure, they took CoJ from NVidia, but how many copies did that title even sell? Most people just downloaded it and bench marked it, and if you remember ATi had the developers force shader AA even though for the title it didn't make a SINGLE CHANGE visibly while causing a much bigger hit enabling on NVidia hardware. ATi also pulled a few things in HL2 that you could fix by making the game think you were running an ATi card if you were running an FX card. In other words, ATi attempted to strong arm as well, the problem is they don't have the backing to do such things.

Now, on with the show...

You see, while it's sad that NVidia got added features put into the new batman, one must remember that like it or not the new batman IS one of the big games this year. The fact that there are features not working on ATi's cards is something people reading the reviews SHOULD know, whether they claim it to be fair or unfair, it STILL EXISTS. As a reviewer, it's their responsibility to inform the consumer of issues that exist with a card and various titles... By not doing so, they prove themselves as biased...

Moving right along, about the whole RE5 thing. It's not exactly like NVidia has this massive frame boost in said title over ATi. ATi just has issues in their driver in said title apparently(wouldn't know, beat it on console back in march). As such, pointing this out claiming it as unfair is a joke. You see, NVidia is putting out quite a bit of cash and hardware to test their hardware on it early... If ATi did the same(like they tried to do once, but were WAY to picky about who they'd work with) then they'd be in the same boat. Basically, NVidia are reinvesting some of that cash you spend on your card to make sure it works properly with games, and that I see nothing wrong with.

As for NFS: Shift... It's EA. Seriously... You aren't going to get them to change the code on their engine because of how it reacts with your hardware. You surely aren't going to get them to fix bugs, they won't even do that on closed console games! Even more so if you aren't going to help them do it. Want it working right on your hardware? Fix it in your drivers. There's really no reason why it should interact fine with one line of DX10 hardware and not the other, unless the problem lies with the driver and NOT the programming....Remember, DX10 was created so as to NOT have to make separate coding paths between the 2 vendors, yet they are wanting the code changed so it runs better on their hardware?

Man, I just realized how snobby this all sounded, but again I point out that I do have an ATi card. This whole "well, this company did this this and this" attitude between the two. Shut up and let your hardware speak for you, don't give us excuses because you can't do this or that... Seriously.

[jaredpace]

Yup, this is pretty low.

[Eastcoasthandle]

This kind of stuff should be exposed. Kudos to AMD for making this kind of stuff public.

[Serra]

It is sad that either side would stoop to things like this (IMO), yet they both do.

While I understand the concept behind the statement "It's only business", and the end of the day it boils down to individuals making choices which are not fully ethical.

[SafeFire]

I don't get what the fuss is about, besides marketing hype.

It's AA, playing the game without it won't ruin the game entirely...

[flopper]

I just wonder how much the gamedeveloper got payed from Nvidia to do this forced AA issue on ati cards.
They sold out the public, should be flogged and hanged and all their games should be made available for free.

cheap bastards
Money talks.

[lockee]

I don't get what the fuss is about, besides marketing hype.

It's AA, playing the game without it won't ruin the game entirely...

Benchmarks sell hardware. Maybe Nvidia discovered its cheaper to buy developers than control every major review site on the web.

[eric66]

batman thing is pathetic at best. don't know how someone can support such action paying for proper support is different thing making other hardware to not work properly is another thing w/e nvidia gets really low this days sad .....

[flippin_waffles]

I don't get what the fuss is about, besides marketing hype.

It's AA, playing the game without it won't ruin the game entirely...

I think the biggest issues are reviews. A simple few settings can change the entire dynamics of a review. If they don't use identical settings, how is any comparison going to be valid. So I think you are right in that these are basically shady marketing tricks, but ones which will affect the overall impressions of a card, or lack thereof, which probably help or hurt sales.

[Charles Wirth]

Nvidia working closely with game developers validating in game features is a bad thing? Showing us they had to find out the hard way, proves how little they worked with the developers.

ATI needs to step up and develop better programs to assist game developers (hand holding).

ATI has good cards at a fair price, good quality products and improving each generation beyond expectations. Capitalize on the momentum you have already.

Exmaple, ATI dropped support with me, why should I support them? Some of the complaints may not be Nvidia's fault at all.

CoJ sold copies?

[Manicdan]

just as long as an nvidia game does not block ati features on purpose for simply trying to hurt competition, its all fair

[Piotrsama]

Benchmarks sell hardware. Maybe Nvidia discovered its cheaper to buy developers than control every major review site on the web.

QFT.

batman thing is pathetic at best. don't know how someone can support such action paying for proper support is different thing making other hardware to not work properly is another thing w/e nvidia gets really low this days sad .....

I don't know who's lower, Nvidia or the developers of Batman acknowledging to do what they did.

[freeloader]

It would seem the people at Nvidia and Intel both went to the same business school. The school of, "Screw your competitors and consumers at any cost".

[SimBy]

nV is pathetic, nuff said.