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

[Heinz68]

Ok so before it gets lost in the noise, let's recap the accusations here. So you guys are saying:

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.

Just wanted to make sure whether it still looks ridiculous as it is when you put everything together.

Way too much assumption and speculations in your post. The bottom line is, the in-game AA option was working in the demo "by changing the ids of ATI graphics cards" which hardly is any driver problem.

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.

[SamHughe]

Way too much assumption and speculations in your post. The bottom line is, the in-game AA option was working in the demo "by changing the ids of ATI graphics cards" which hardly is any driver problem.

It is true, there is some exaggeration and maybe a little bit caricaturization of the facts in my statement but hardly any assumptions or speculations. I just re-wrote what the people have been implying throughout this thread. It does look ridiculous when you actually write it and put in front of you instead of implying, doesn’t it? So yes, this thread IS “filled with way too much assumption and speculations.”

[jaredpace]

the only facts are that the AA mode is disabled when ati hardware is detected. the rest is your opinion.

[Nightcover]

the only facts are that the AA mode is disabled when ati hardware is detected. the rest is our opinions.

fixed

[eric66]

Ok so before it gets lost in the noise, let's recap the accusations here. So you guys are saying:

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.

Just wanted to make sure whether it still looks ridiculous as it is when you put everything together.

trying to be funny or something ? fact is aa gets disabled in game when it detects ati card so smart boy do you want to explain why it happens ?

[Luka_Aveiro]

trying to be funny or something ? fact is aa gets disabled in game when it detects ati card so smart boy do you want to explain why it happens ?

Are you sure AA method doesn't create any bugs at all using ATI hardware? Like, artifacts, etc?

You can't rely on a Demo to judge the overall gameplay and engine ability, it's just a Demo, not the final product you pay for.

yes, it is very weird that AA is disabled with ATI cards, but there's got to be a valid reason for it, I can't believe nVidia "bribed" the devs to disable it, that's got to be the most lunatic thing I have ever heard.

And so, there is got to be a good reason for it to have happened, I would love to know why, because ragarding the answer, the bribe could be true.

[MpG]

trying to be funny or something ? fact is aa gets disabled in game when it detects ati card so smart boy do you want to explain why it happens ?

He's parroting what people are saying in this thread. And sadly enough, doing a fairly good job of it.

[Farinorco]

It is true, there is some exaggeration and maybe a little bit caricaturization of the facts in my statement but hardly any assumptions or speculations. I just re-wrote what the people have been implying throughout this thread. It does look ridiculous when you actually write it and put in front of you instead of implying, doesn’t it? So yes, this thread IS “filled with way too much assumption and speculations.”

Let's say that you are rewriting the whole thing with the purpose of making certain people's opinion to look idiotic to reinforce your possition. Any other way to explain it is a mere euphemism.

Rephrasing it in a more neutral and similar to real world way, it would look like:

*Fact: Batman AA has a custom implementation of AA that is only working on NVIDIA cards, but that has been proven to work also on ATI cards on the demo by changing the IDs of the ATI cards (something not possible to do in the retail game because of anticopy protection).

*Deduction (from AMD, and fairly logical): since changing the IDs of the ATI cards in the game make the ATI cards perfectly capable to run that AA: (1) Obviously that AA is compatible with ATI cards, and has been programmed over a standard layer that both ATI and NVIDIA share (probably Direct3D...). (2) The game is purposely checking the videocard used to not allow the AA to be run on ATI cards.

*Fact: Batman AA is a TWIMTBP game, so that means that NVIDIA is supporting the game, by giving either money or man-months of work (so, money in the end) to their developers (nothing bad in here).

*Deduction (from some of us): since the AA is obviously implemented over a standard layer shared by both ATI and NVIDIA cards, and it's running well on ATI cards when the game is cheated to think that the card is not an ATI card, it seems at least "little probable" that there are technical reasons to not allow ATI users to enable the AA.

Even some of the people who are defending NVIDIA and the developers of B:AA in this case, don't refute any of this. Some of them are arguing that since NVIDIA has implemented (or helped to implement) that custom AA, they don't have to allow users of other hw to run it, even if perfectly compatible. . Some others (like you) say that ATI should complain less and do the same thing.

So we say: "Ahm, OK, TWIMTBP games start to implement features that could run on any standard hw only for NVIDIA users because they support them, other sw (DIRT 2 DX11, Havok and Bullet OpenCL acceleration, and some others) that is supported by AMD starts to run only on ATi hw even when it could work on NVIDIA hw, and that benefits us, the consumers, how exactly?"

It doesn't sound so stupid when you don't try to artificially make it sound stupid, don't you think?

[MpG]

Nvidia Bites Back (HWC)

Nvidia's statement on the matter. Food for thought, regardless.

From Article:

...

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.

...

[flippin_waffles]

Are you sure AA method doesn't create any bugs at all using ATI hardware? Like, artifacts, etc?

You can't rely on a Demo to judge the overall gameplay and engine ability, it's just a Demo, not the final product you pay for.

yes, it is very weird that AA is disabled with ATI cards, but there's got to be a valid reason for it, I can't believe nVidia "bribed" the devs to disable it, that's got to be the most lunatic thing I have ever heard.

And so, there is got to be a good reason for it to have happened, I would love to know why, because ragarding the answer, the bribe could be true.

I'm not so sure. There didn't appear to be a valid reason for Ubisoft disabling dx10.1 in Assasin's Creed. There has been an ABUNDANCE of similar situations in the past, I think at some point a spade has to be called a spade. I would have thought the excuses would have ran dry a long long time ago, and yet people are still debating the merits of TWIMTBP.

The straw that broke the camels back for me, was when Futuremark's latest benchmark suite became a TWIMTBP title, and completely killed any chance of fair and fun benchmarking. It was relatively neutral up until that point, and they both completely lost all credibility with that move IMO.

I mean if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, sounds like a duck, swims like a duck, flies like a duck, lays eggs like a duck, and even smells like a bloody duck, sooner or later it has to be called a damn duck.

[Charles Wirth]

I also got the Nvidia response from my inquiry.

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

[highoctane]

NNNNNNOOOOOOOOOooooooooohhhhhhhh.................. ..........

I guess we wait for the next witch hunt now!

[LC_Nab]

If that statement is true , Then why cant you see the eye candy that they implemented when you run the game with Ati cards ? Any one finds that interesting ?????

[Shadov]

No explanation has been given on why ATI Radeon cards run Batman demo with AA just fine with a changed device_id

Typical PR response to point the attention elsewhere...

[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.

[marten_larsson]

So, what we knew:

Lots of good points

I agree. This would be like AMD disabling DX10.1 in Nvidia hardware. Not that it matters since the DX10.1 hardware Nvidia has is anyway..

[flopper]

so, maybe a gamedeveloper could make a game run in color on ati hardware, make sure nvidia cards run grey and black and white, and let see how the nvidia camp would respond.

[Kaldor]

There a couple of sayings that immediately come to mind that that sum this up perfectly:

If it smells like ____ it must be ____.
Follow the money.

Right now Nvidia is up to their normal crap. They are basically doing damage control because the 300 is at least a couple of months behind the 5XXX cards and if they can shed a bad light on the new AMD hardware to try and raise doubts in the consumers minds.

Farinorco pretty much sums up the entire issue within a couple of posts. God forbid people use some logic. I dont need to repeat what hes posted.

DilTech, Ive never had this problem your talking about. My 47" Visio LCD (1080p) has no problems and Ive tried with an 9700 Pro, 9600 XT, 7600 GS, 8800 GTX, 9800 GTSM, 4850, and 4870X2, all connected by HDMI, so in other words about 6 years worth of video cards. I honestly dont even know what driver version my 4870X2 is running.

[clayton]

If I had to blame somebody it would be the developers.

[highoctane]

The game engine doesn't support AA, ATI looses nothing over what would have been released had Nvidia themselves not sat down and worked with the developer to implement it with their hardware.

If ATI wants AA they can just as easily go visit the developer and work with them on a patch to get the same implementation, or they can sit on their butt and blog about entitlements.

[marten_larsson]

The game engine doesn't support AA, ATI looses nothing over what would have been released had Nvidia themselves not sat down and worked with the developer to implement it with their hardware.

If ATI wants AA they can just as easily go visit the developer and work with them on a patch to get the same implementation, or they can sit on their butt and blog about entitlements.

As I said in the other thread: if you have some code that works on both hardware, why not use it? It should be what the developer wants, the game looking at it's best on any system - not only Nvidia...

Edit: And if we don't see an AA-patch soon this will be even more telling of what has been going on... If validation is all it takes, why not let the users do it, those that want to try it.

[Shadov]

As I said in the other thread: if you have some code that works on both hardware, why not use it? It should be what the developer wants, the game looking at it's best on any system - not only Nvidia...

Edit: And if we don't see an AA-patch soon this will be even more telling of what has been going on... If validation is all it takes, why not let the users do it, those that want to try it.

As if ATI Radeon HD cards can not be found on the market and ATI would tell the developers to go to hell when asked about cards.

Furthermore AA is such a ground breaking feature that needs to be validated by an army of software engineers...

Don't you get the impression we are going a bit to far with the "plausible" excuses approach?

[marten_larsson]

As if ATI Radeon HD cards can not be found on the market and ATI would tell the developers to go to hell when asked about cards.

Don't you get the impression we are going a bit to far with the "plausible" excuses approach?

Yeah, this is getting silly and the arguments defending this is just making it more obvious why it is wrong.

[Hell Hound]

I vote No Havoc acceleration on the Geforce,Source Half Life E.p 3 Only On ATI.

[OCguy]

This guy may have spoke a tad too soon.