Nvidia Fires Back: The Truth About GameWorks, AMD Optimization, and 'Watch Dogs'

[vslavov]

So up till now we had only heard AMD's side of the story. Forbes got in touch with Nvidia's Director of Engineering, who explains their technology does in no way purposefully make games run worse on AMD cards. He claims their contracts do not restrict access to anyone.

To be honest, I expected this, I just don't know why AMD would jump like this.

 

To put this particular argument to bed, I told Cebenoyan I wanted crystal clear clarification, asking “If AMD approached Ubisoft and said ‘We have ideas to make Watch Dogs run better on our hardware,’ then Ubisoft is free to do that?”

“Yes,” he answered. “They’re absolutely free to.”

The full article is on Forbes: http://www.forbes.com/sites/jasonevangelho/2014/05/28/nvidia-fires-back-the-truth-about-gameworks-amd-optimization-and-watch-dogs/

[Askew]

Is this bullshit or not?

 

If they were free to take it, why refuse help? I would like to hear from Ubisoft what the reason for the refusal was, I can see that has been requested.

I’ve also reached out to a third party — Ubisoft — with several questions related to both AMD’s claims and Nvidia’s explanation of their GameWorks partnerships. If their response warrants exposure, you can expect to see it here.

However if indeed the accusations made by AMD of Nvidia are accurate, I'm not sure whether Ubisoft will accept to comment because of contingency for this situation potentially having being discussed beforehand.

 

 

Also

Most developers don’t give you the source code. You don’t need source code of the game itself to do optimization for those games. AMD’s been saying for awhile that without access to the source code it’s impossible to optimize. That’s crazy.”

^Is this factual?

[brownninja97]

yeha id like to know why they pair with nvidia when we all know that they would have to pay to use nvidias technology while amd is free or a lot cheaper.

[vslavov]

yeha id like to know why they pair with nvidia when we all know that they would have to pay to use nvidias technology while amd is free or a lot cheaper.

Does AMD have a similiar toolset to GameWorks?

[Misanthrope]

"Ideas" is not specific enough since those ideas could have nothing to do with engine optimization and the like. I guess we'll need more clarification and a bit more back and forth between em

 

[dragosudeki]

Meh, I don't truly care that much. Though if this is the reason why it doesn't look as great as they showed before, then I would. The graphics between the consoles and PC is quite comparable, even at Ultra, so I am a quite disappointed about that.

[sof006]

You can tell Ubisoft didn't optimize at all... The game runs like crap on my GTX 780 which is suppose to be able to play it with no issues.

 

 

I have to use high textures instead of ultra because of stuttering. Anyway Linus and Slick already proved that Watch Dogs runs more of less the same on Nvidia and AMD cards.

[Vitalius]

-snip-

I don't think it particularly matters guys (not just Askew). Ubisoft needs money. They couldn't finish the game either way. Their stock price dropped 25% (that's quite a large fall) in October of 2013 (read: During Watch Dog's development). 

That's probably why the game isn't what it was supposed to be. If they didn't have the resources to finish it and make it what they promised, how can it be expected for them to make it optimized for either team?

[Askew]

I don't think it particularly matters guys (not just Askew). Ubisoft needs money. They couldn't finish the game either way. Their stock price dropped 25% (that's quite a large fall) in October of 2013 (read: During Watch Dog's development). 

That's probably why the game isn't what it was supposed to be. If they didn't have the resources to finish it and make it what they promised, how can it be expected for them to make it optimized for either team?

 

That's an interesting angle, you're saying that the reason for a refusal of 'optimization tip X' could in fact be due to them needing to put a lid on the game time/money wise and just get it out of the door, rather than take on a new task of optimizing for a branch of PC hardware?

 

The only issue I have with the theory is the fact that the new consoles both have AMD architecture/hardware inside of them, and if the developers wanted input from someone why not AMD?

[Xorbot]

The other thread about the other article was pretty hot with posts.  Let's not forget to mention that if people are upset over Gameworks and specific features being utilized on nVidia cards, then those people should be stark raging mad over consoles.  To those people: are you seriously pissed about some extra smoke particle effects that are only available to PhysX?  How about consoles which are the truly crippling entity to the entire game industry.  Games for consoles are *massively* crippled compared to what their true PC-counterpart can become.

 

So here we have it: if nVidia and has so-called "blackbox" of libraries, then what are consoles?  The end result is that games frequently are tailor-made for consoles which result in 2048x2048 max-sized textures, average mesh detail, and mediocre shaders.  When these games arrive on PC as ports, they are incredibly inferior to what they can become, even on the mid-range PC capable of much higher-end DX11 effects.

 

Therefore not one person can be pissed about Gameworks until they are vehemently outraged by the presence of consoles, the true blackboxes of the games industry which are more like black holes for graphical fidelity, innovation, and gameplay immersion.

[Vitalius]

That's an interesting angle, you're saying that the reason for a refusal of 'optimization tip X' could in fact be due to them needing to put a lid on the game time/money wise and just get it out of the door, rather than take on a new task of optimizing for a branch of PC hardware?

 

The only issue I have with the theory is the fact that the new consoles both have AMD architecture/hardware inside of them, and if the developers wanted input from someone why not AMD?

Basically, yes. If they couldn't finish the game, how could they be expected to putting extra effort and time into optimizations for it. As long as it runs in playable state, it ships. That's the most economical thing to do imo.

[Askew]

Basically, yes. If they couldn't finish the game, how could they be expected to putting extra effort and time into optimizations for it. As long as it runs in playable state, it ships. That's the most economical thing to do imo.

 

And I expect the console versions were ready first (slight giveaway was the fact the boxed copies were turning up quite a while before launch, and they have to be pressed up and playable offline (thx sony) ect).

 

The question of 'at what stage in the development process was this 'help' offered' is now my main one, because if it was offered earlier and could have helped anything happen in a smaller time frame then it could have been accepted in accordance with the work ethic they'd adopted of 'speed'.

[Mister Snow]

 

 

Cebenoyan says that a game’s source code isn’t necessary to perform driver optimization.

But they said for Tomb Raider when it came out that it is not optimized for Nvidia cards because they had no accesses to the source code before the release of the game.

I guess you can do some level of optimization without game's source code but not that much. 

[Askew]

But they said for Tomb Raider when it came out that it is not optimized for Nvidia cards because they had no accesses to the source code before the release of the game.

I guess you can do some level of optimization without game's source code but not that much. 

 

What?

 

I remember what happened with TR 2013, the Nvidia cards ran like ass on launch.

 

Are you telling me that Nvidia stated that their drivers for TR13 weren't ready because of restricted access to the game's source code, and are now stating that AMD are 'crazy' for suggesting that such access is needed in order to optimize drivers for Watch Dogs?

 

I'd like an answer on whether it's needed or not from somebody who knows more about game development than I do.

[Mister Snow]

What?

 

I remember what happened with TR 2013, the Nvidia cards ran like ass on launch.

 

Are you telling me that Nvidia stated that their drivers for TR13 weren't ready because of restricted access to the game's source code, and are now stating that AMD are 'crazy' for suggesting that such access is needed in order to optimize drivers for Watch Dogs?

 

I'd like an answer on whether it's needed or not from somebody who knows more about game development than I do.

Yes. They have stated then that the reason for it running badly on Nvidia cards is that they had no access to the source code of the game until it was launched so they could not optimize the drivers. 

[Askew]

Yes. They have stated then that the reason for it running badly on Nvidia cards is that they had no access to the source code of the game until it was launched so they could not optimize the drivers. 

 

Hmm, someone on one side of that fence or another is telling porkies here...

[Sauron]

The point is: if amd can't see the gameworks code, how can they know how to make the game run better on amd hardware? that's the core problem. if gameworks is proprietary and amd can't know how it's made, they have their hands tied. of course ubisoft is free to accept suggestions on other parts, but if gameworks is the issue, and amd can't touch it, we're back at the start.

[Ashaira]

I may be wrong but my bet is on NVIDIA being the lying bastard here. sure AMD has made some BS PR but NVIDIA has done some flat out illegal things in their pursuit of pushing AMD out of the GPU market.

[Scheer]

The point is: if amd can't see the gameworks code, how can they know how to make the game run better on amd hardware? that's the core problem. if gameworks is proprietary and amd can't know how it's made, they have their hands tied. of course ubisoft is free to accept suggestions on other parts, but if gameworks is the issue, and amd can't touch it, we're back at the start.

 

Isn't Gameworks Nvidia's proprietary optimization like PhysX and Faceworks, etc? Why would AMD need to see how Nvidia optimized the game for their cards? That would be like Nvidia bitching because AMD is hiding their code for TressFX, which I bet they do...

 

I don't think that Nvidia is obfuscating the game engine or key parts, just the stuff that Nvidia cards will be using.

[JcGross]

Also

Most developers don’t give you the source code. You don’t need source code of the game itself to do optimization for those games. AMD’s been saying for awhile that without access to the source code it’s impossible to optimize. That’s crazy.”

^Is this factual?

Yes you fucking do. How else would you optimize it? If you can't see how the game actually renders stuff and what it puts into vram etc. how would you optimize it and make drivers that actually help it?

I think Nvidia is bullshiting on this one and tries to save face.

[LAwLz]

I may be wrong but my bet is on NVIDIA being the lying bastard here. sure AMD has made some BS PR but NVIDIA has done some flat out illegal things in their pursuit of pushing AMD out of the GPU market.

That's because you are biased towards AMD. It's word against word right now.

 

 

Isn't Gameworks Nvidia's proprietary optimization like PhysX and Faceworks, etc? Why would AMD need to see how Nvidia optimized the game for their cards? That would be like Nvidia bitching because AMD is hiding their code for TressFX, which I bet they do...

Yes GameWorks is a collection of things like PhysX and Faceworks. No, AMD do not need access to the source code for those things to optimize their drivers. In fact, AMD has already release a beta driver which dramatically improves Watch_Dogs performance by up to ~25% or something like that.

The original claim was that Nvidia's contract stated that Ubisoft were not allowed to implement suggestions in the games code from AMD that would make the game run better on AMD cards.

 

 

 

Yes you fucking do. How else would you optimize it? If you can't see how the game actually renders stuff and what it puts into vram etc. how would you optimize it and make drivers that actually help it?

I think Nvidia is bullshiting on this one and tries to save face.

Then how do you explain the latest Catalyst driver? Either AMD has access to the source code and used it to improve the performance in the latest driver, or you don't need access to the game's code to optimize the driver.

No matter how you twist on it, some things AMD have said doesn't add up. I think both companies are stretching the truth on this topic.

[Warcony]

I may be wrong but my bet is on NVIDIA being the lying bastard here. sure AMD has made some BS PR but NVIDIA has done some flat out illegal things in their pursuit of pushing AMD out of the GPU market.

 

What illegal things have they actually done? Accusations or propaganda doesn't count.

[Askew]

Then how do you explain the latest Catalyst driver? Either AMD has access to the source code and used it to improve the performance in the latest driver, or you don't need access to the game's code to optimize the driver.

No matter how you twist on it, some things AMD have said doesn't add up. I think both companies are stretching the truth on this topic.

 

Very interesting point, unless it were only a pre launch day restriction, I don't know how long it takes to formulate a driver profiling for a game.

[Eroda]

You can tell Ubisoft didn't optimize at all... The game runs like crap on my GTX 780 which is suppose to be able to play it with no issues.

 

 

I have to use high textures instead of ultra because of stuttering. Anyway Linus and Slick already proved that Watch Dogs runs more of less the same on Nvidia and AMD cards.

 

thats BS it runs worse because its not "next gen" like the consoles they have uber performance compared to dated PC parts

[kuddlesworth9419]

yeha id like to know why they pair with nvidia when we all know that they would have to pay to use nvidias technology while amd is free or a lot cheaper.

Ubisoft wanted Nvidia's tech. That tech also happens to come with direct help from Nvidia. Ubi licensed the tech like PhysX and all the other Games Workshop features and Nvidia helps them implement that stuff into the game. That is what the Games Workshop program does. I don't see how they would restrict AMD from seeing the game because that is all up to Ubi like the Nvidia representative said. Nvidia is just selling something to a company for them to use and help them out (it's actually quite a good system). If AMD didn't get the game or they just overlooked it well that is their fault. Besides it's not like Games Workshop has given AMD a disadvantage because Nvidia cards perform worse on Watch Dogs so there is hardly a problem (Nvidia cards have higher frame rate btu they stutter more). If Nvidia cards performed fine with the game and there were no problems with those cards but AMD's ran liek they do nwo then I would say there is a problem but I think it is pretty obvious that Ubi just didn't optimize their game for either platform and probably didn't take on Nvidia's advice and help on properly either.