AMD vs. NVIDIA - Are they even playing the same game?

[ajaidev]

"In the GPU world there are many flavors, despite the perception that you either get AMD or NVIDIA. There is Matrox, WildCat/3D Labs, S3, VIA and a few more. But in the end what you hear the most about are NVIDIA and AMD. These two companies are compared back and forth in a game of favorites that would make a selfish 4 year old proud. Still, can you really compare them in equal terms?..."

http://www.tweaktown.com/articles/30...ame/index.html

Very un-detailed but a so-so read. He should have focused on hd2xxx and series 8 and had thrown some fermi and LRB speculation in there. Not to mention the speculation of ATi 6xxx.

[SocketMan]

At the same time, I also feel that AMD/ATI has always had an upper hand in terms of overall image quality. I just feel that lately their execution on ideas and new directions has been abysmally poor and is something they need to work on. They have some great minds and there is no doubt that the new 5xxx series is an incredible product, but unless they are willing to work directly with the developers on a closer basis, they will continue to find themselves behind the power curve in many cases.

*************************************************
I thought that a hardware company should make hardware, and a game developer - should develop games.
How did I get it all so mixed up ?!?

[eleeter]

You might want to quote that, makes it seem like you wrote it.

I agree with you though, ideally it should be the game devs that takes it upon themselves to code and optimize, it removes any bias or cheating/crippling of performance. But in reality, tossing millions at the game studios in the name of "developer relations" seems too much for some of them to resist. It's not going to go away, at least in the short term.

[Nedjo]

Originally Posted by SocketMan

I thought that a hardware company should make hardware, and a game developer - should develop games.
How did I get it all so mixed up ?!?

You're absolutely correct!

At the same time, I also feel that AMD/ATI has always had an upper hand in terms of overall image quality. I just feel that lately their execution on ideas and new directions has been abysmally poor and is something they need to work on. They have some great minds and there is no doubt that the new 5xxx series is an incredible product, but unless they are willing to work directly with the developers on a closer basis, they will continue to find themselves behind the power curve in many cases.

Writer of these words absolutely doesn't have clue about ATI's relationship and the level of support it gives to game developers!

Instead of pulling these words from the end of his back... he should give some arguments to back them up!

It's unbelievable that some people think of them self so high, so they write editorials (or how they called in these days - bloggs), without knowing anything about the background of the subject they write about!

[saaya]

i have no idea what he was going at...
seriously... there is no conclusion, nothing new, no new idea or point of view... just random very very simplified explanations of nvidias and atis gpus in the past few years....

and im not sure, but... he seems to way oversimplify the vec5d thing...
physix is "bulky" code? and only the "fat" core of atis vec5d shader processor can execute it, hence ati cards cant really run physix and cant really do gpu physics well? 0_o
so now bullet time and other gpu physics needs to write gpu physics codes in "smaller code bits" so it can work on atis gpus?
that sounds like he doesnt really know what hes talking about... bulky code, big code chunks, small bits of code... huh?
the "fat" core can execute additional instructions that are rather uncommon, even for gpu physics afaik... so... this doesnt make any sense...

[trinibwoy]

If the game code is all small and simple instructions, then the AMD GPU has a very large upper hand, even considering the faster speed of the NV shaders. If the game code is in complex and bulky blocks then AMD only has 320 stream processors that can execute that code and then at a significantly slower speed.

Hmmmm, nonsense like this is bad enough when posted on a forum but it's really sad when posted as an article on a website. The author has either never written a line of code in his life or is simply terrible at using the english language.

[grimREEFER]

I thought this was gonna be about how nvidia derives their gaming cards from their professional cards and how ati derives their professional cards from their gaming cards.

[zalbard]

Nvidia is selling cards for fools (renamed stuff) and professionals (Quadro, upcoming Fermi).
AMD is bothered about the gaming market much more it seems.
Well, that way there is less competition and more money making opportunities I guess...

[saaya]

Originally Posted by trinibwoy

Hmmmm, nonsense like this is bad enough when posted on a forum but it's really sad when posted as an article on a website. The author has either never written a line of code in his life or is simply terrible at using the english language.

see i know WAY WAY less about coding than you, close to nothing, and even I had one of my eyebrows rise when i read that...

being nice, you could say he oversimplified it and the result can be easily misunderstood... but tbh, i can't see how you could understand what he wrote in a way that matches reality

Originally Posted by zalbard

Nvidia is selling cards for fools (renamed stuff) and professionals (Quadro, upcoming Fermi).
AMD is bothered about the gaming market much more it seems.
Well, that way there is less competition and more money making opportunities I guess...

well many professionals = rich fools

nvidia supports the industry, but only if it does what they want
amd offers much less support, if any, and lets the market evolve

its not like its a chosen strategy though... both strategies evolved out of their needs... nvidia needed more optimizations to get perf up a couple of years ago, which is when the TWIMTBP programme started, and amd doesnt pump cash into game development cause... they simply dont have any

[Aerwidh]

I don't really see any point to this article. It mostly feels like ramblings and random comments here and there

[lism]

Originally Posted by saaya

... and amd doesnt pump cash into game development cause... they simply dont have any

Now what is pumping cash into games good for?

If AMD deliveres SDK's and all for their products, is'nt a developer supposed to learn and program their games for full benefitt's of Radeon cards?

Nvidia is paying some game-developers to have some exclusive rights in games, not to pay for better support on overall computers. For instance the Meanth to be played logo, the Dx10.1 patch that was removed because it runned better on Ati cards and so on.

I'm pretty sure Ati does the right thing by just bringing out an outstanding price / performance with DX11 these days, you as a customer can buy whatever brand and so on you want and for a very little price.

[postumus]

AMD's money is better spent paying down their massive debt

[postumus]

Wow just read the article, or as much of it as I could stand. It's terrible, someone lock this thread lol.

[XS2K]

Originally Posted by lism

Now what is pumping cash into games good for?

If AMD deliveres SDK's and all for their products, is'nt a developer supposed to learn and program their games for full benefitt's of Radeon cards?

You are wrong because we don't live in a perfect world,if you paid attention to what is going on in the PC games market for the past 2 or more years you would see that we are threated like second hand customers,with crappy console ports and console like "features".
Because in the Capitalist world profit is all that counts paying game developers to optimize code for your products is a good business for the consumers and if Nvidia or ATi is offering a better end-user experience then that's the company people should choose when purchasing a card.
I have had ATi cards for the past 2 generations but damn they have poor support in some games,NFS Shift,Borderlands and more,yes they work out a patch in 2-3 weeks but untill then it's too late.

[Power5]

Its sad, but I have to agree. ATI needs to start spending some money on developers if we want our wonderful ATI cards to be optimized in any games. This is about the only way we are going to keep getting good 'PC' games. Now, if ATI starts paying money to developers and we keep getting console ports, then we need to wack some developers.

[SKYMTL]

AMD is working closely with developers as well these days. They seemed to have learned their lesson and nearly every 1st gen DX11 game you will see in the next 2-3 months will have an ATI logo on the startup screen.

[Manicdan]

Originally Posted by SKYMTL

AMD is working closely with developers as well these days. They seemed to have learned their lesson and nearly every 1st gen DX11 game you will see in the next 2-3 months will have an ATI logo on the startup screen.

good, ATI really needs to get their name out there

[highoctane]

Originally Posted by Power5

Now, if ATI starts paying money to developers and we keep getting console ports, then we need to wack some developers.

There's no stopping the console ports, the developers are simply going for the broader audience where the most money can be made.

However ATI working with developers should definitely give more value added service to the customers with games that should be better optimized to take advantage of their hardware architecture.