AMD says Nvidia’s GameWorks “completely sabotaged” Witcher 3 performance

[Notional]

Is it possible that the hairworks licensing agreement prevents the dev from reducing it? We may never know due to NDA.

 

Good point, that could very well be an issue. And yeah, we would never find out.

 

I personally still think it's a closed DLL problem, where CDPR can only call functions, and not dictate settings, but that is just speculation.

[Victorious Secret]

What is confusing about it?

 

Because CDPR picked the superior partner to assist in their game. He would be creaming his pants if AMD was more involved. 

[BonSie]

Is it possible that the hairworks licensing agreement prevents the dev from reducing it? We may never know due to NDA.

Well apparently you can change the settings, but Nvidia might indeed say no.

But that would be really weird.

[Razzaa]

Because CDPR picked the superior partner to assist in their game. He would be creaming his pants if AMD was more involved. 

Ya. That was my point lol. It would have been confusing if they picked AMD.

[Notional]

What is confusing about it?

 

CDPR's politics and ethics, are almost the exact opposite of NVidia's. They have a lot more in common with AMD on that part. Of course, that might not matter that much, usually, but CDPR has really burnt their fingers on HairWorks so far.

 

 

Because CDPR picked the superior partner to assist in their game. He would be creaming his pants if AMD was more involved. 

 

TressFX is superior in technology to HairWorks. I assume Witcher 3 is just a TWIWMTBP title, like Witcher 2 (and 1? Not sure). I wonder what it takes to get that title on a game? Surely not free.

 

I would rejoice, if every gamer, despite their choice of hardware vendor, would get the full experience the game has to offer. It's bad enough that NVidia is screwing over AMD, but now they are screwing over NVidia users too (see @BonSie's post.)

[Victorious Secret]

Ya. That was my point lol. It would have been confusing if they picked AMD.

These are the same people who probably advocated for carburetor instead of the far superior EFI systems back in the day.

[TorqueS]

Ya. That was my point lol. It would have been confusing if they picked AMD.

Why would that be?

Games like Tomb Raider, Crysis 3, DMC Devil May Cry have the AMD sticker on them and they aren't bad games, are they?

It's not really an argument, I know, but I don't know...all this quarrel over this game, it feels like politics for me rather than entertainment.

It's a good game, it runs fine(for the most part), I'm not going to watch Geralt's hair all the time.(Triss' and Yennefer's on the other hand... ), game blazes on ultra with R9 270 at 900p, it's DRM free, so i could pirate it to decide if i'll buy it or not (which I will, but ya know it's still 30-40E).

 

You know, i wouldn't be surprised if CDPR tried to switch to TressFX in a further patch.(but it would be extremely hard I suppose). Just a speculation of mine, don't start throwing tomatoes...

[zMeul]

Of course he said that, he doesn't know how to open his mouth without blaming, criticizing or otherwise simply being derisory to NVidia. 

sadly that's AMD's M.O. - for everything they can;t do or can't get fixed, Intel and/or nVidia are to blame

 

out of curiosity, when was the last time Intel and nVidia blamed AMD for "something"

[Razzaa]

 It's bad enough that NVidia is screwing over AMD, 

AMD does just fine screwing themselves over. AMD needs to create a better marketing strategy. Crying and complaining they cant compete because they are getting screwed over, isnt going to help them recover. Creating tasteless memes and immature videos obviously isnt working either. Less talking and more doing, AMD.

 

These companies exist to make money. If that isnt their main goal, they are doing it wrong.

[DaRk0]

We've been working with CD Projeckt Red from the beginning. We've been giving them detailed feedback all the way through. Around two months before release, or thereabouts, the GameWorks code arrived with HairWorks, and it completely sabotaged our performance as far as we're concerned. We were running well before that...it's wrecked our performance, almost as if it was put in to achieve that goal."

 

 

We knew Witcher 3 was going to be Gameworks title like what - since August last year?

 

According to PC Gamer, Witcher runs just fine on AMD cards if HairWorks is disabled.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/2925074/amd-radeon-graphics-run-witcher-3-just-fine-unless-nvidia-hairworks-is-enabled-and-thats-ok.html

[Notional]

AMD does just fine screwing themselves over. AMD needs to create a better marketing strategy. Crying and complaining they cant compete because they are getting screwed over, isnt going to help them recover. Creating tasteless memes and immature videos obviously isnt working either. Less talking and more doing, AMD.

 

These companies exist to make money. If that isnt their main goal, they are doing it wrong.

 

The primary thing people looks at, when getting a new graphcis card (outside of price), is performance benchmarks. When NVidia is pulling bs like this, it distorts the actual performance of not only AMD cards, but also Maxwell cards, compared to kepler cards.

 

I agree marketing has been less than optimal; no doubt.

 

AMD is first to market with HBM. That's doing a lot. Being tier 3 in DX12, all they way back with the 7000 series, when Titan X is just a tier 2, is thinking FAR ahead.

[Notional]

We knew Witcher 3 was going to be Gameworks title like what - since August last year?

 

According to PC Gamer, Witcher runs just fine on AMD cards if HairWorks is disabled.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/2925074/amd-radeon-graphics-run-witcher-3-just-fine-unless-nvidia-hairworks-is-enabled-and-thats-ok.html

 

That just proves his point: Witcher 3 is very well optimized (also on AMD systems). HairWorks is NOT. When even CDPR did not get the HairWorks DLL's until 2 months before launch, does really say a lot.

[Elapo]

You know, i wouldn't be surprised if CDPR tried to switch to TressFX in a further patch.(but it would be extremely hard I suppose). Just a speculation of mine, don't start throwing tomatoes...

 

Oh god, as long as they keep the option to disable both.

 

IMHO, both hairworks and TressFX look HORRIBLE. The stock hair looks WAY better. They both look like the hair consists of a few straight pieces (though I must admit I prefer hairworks, if I had to choose, seems slightly better. Probably because the only example of TressFX is a few years old though), and the simulation often fucks up, usually in cutscenes. Lara's ponytail looked like it was alive in some cutscenes. In TW3, Geralts pony tail looks like it is weightless. 

 

Really, rigged hair moves more natural than the "simulated" solutions. It's ridiculous. Both solutions are absolute shit, and not worth the extra power required.

[Guest Generallee]

 

[Guest Generallee]

AMD does just fine screwing themselves over.

AMD needs to create a better marketing strategy. 

Less talking and more doing, AMD.

 

[mr moose]

Well, the question is *how* they send those tessellation commands to the GPU. DX11 (and I assume OpenGL has a tessellation api somewhere) has a API which handles tessellation and both GPU makers have designed their cards to perform those commands at a decent level.

 

I have no proof of this, but I strongly suspect the HairWorks code is sending tessellation commands to the GPU in a non standard way which rely heavily on the specific Nvidia architecture of the Maxwell cards.

 

Even if AMD cards were amazing at tessellation, I expect it would still run poorly on them.

 

We will know very soon, however I don;t think it's how they are being sent, but the sheer volume that needs to be processed that is the issue.

 

Optimization should always lie in the game, not the driver itself. But even if that was the case, AMD cannot really optimize, because GameWorks is a black box for them. And if they could, there is still only very little you can do at the very end of the graphics stack, as stated by an ex valve programmer.

 

 

You missed the point, almost could have predicted that though.

 

or maybe people are just worried this might be a trend. like DLC and microtransations, which aren't so micro anymore.

 

but maybe you're right. maybe no one has a valid point. just you.

 

Plenty of valid points in this thread, unfortunately some people just like to whinge instead.

 

See, I'm not 100% on this, they had the opportunity to write a driver supporting CUDA on their GPUs, but I never saw any offer of a contractual guarantee on it. If they were offered the boilerplate and none of the articles I saw mentioned it, so be it, its on AMD; but I cannot blame them for not jumping into CUDA if they didn't have a true license agreement protecting their investment of time and resources should nVidia change their mind on the free access after the fact. If you saw that they were in fact offered the full contractual guarantee I defer to your reading on the subject, but what I have seen only told of free access and the opportunity to incorporate support into their driver, no agreement or legal protections.

 

This is all basically assumption.  We have no idea what the offer details are except what was publicly announced.  To try and make claims regarding contractual protections (or the lack of) is hearsay.  AMD already told us their reason for not taking up CUDA was because they thought openCL was the future and the reason they didn't take up Physx was because they thought Havok was better.  It is very unlikely, given AMD take every opportunity they can to attack nvidia, that they would shy away from making a bigger deal out of this if there was any legitimate foundation to do so.

 

 

 

sadly that's AMD's M.O. - for everything they can;t do or can't get fixed, Intel and/or nVidia are to blame

 

out of curiosity, when was the last time Intel and nVidia blamed AMD for "something"

 

Um...  there was...    I recall....    I think...     nope can't think of one.

[DaRk0]

That just proves his point: Witcher 3 is very well optimized (also on AMD systems). HairWorks is NOT. When even CDPR did not get the HairWorks DLL's until 2 months before launch, does really say a lot.

 

I wouldn't say this proves his point. CDPR had access to HairWorks for a long time. If they didn't have access, Nvidia wouldn't be able to show off HairWorks effects back in August 2014 - http://www.geforce.com/whats-new/articles/gamescom-2014-witcher-3-gameworks Someone is obviously lying here.

 

Witcher is running fine on AMD hardware without these effects, and that's it. I don't see the problem here. No one should expect from Nvidia to bring these effects to AMD hardware. I'm sure Huddy is very well aware of this. If they really want same level effects on their hardware, let Huddy assemble a team and develop them. He's the gaming 'scientist' after all.

 

What I do have a problem with is Kepler performance. I own Kepler GPU, and even though I didn't play the game yet, I've read that people are having performance issues, however, I do hope this will be resolved. Nvidia obviously prioritized Maxwell on launch.

[Opcode]

AMD does just fine screwing themselves over. AMD needs to create a better marketing strategy. Crying and complaining they cant compete because they are getting screwed over, isnt going to help them recover. Creating tasteless memes and immature videos obviously isnt working either. Less talking and more doing, AMD.

 

These companies exist to make money. If that isnt their main goal, they are doing it wrong.

If you make a marketing stink about something AMD can fix, AMD will fix it and you will lose your advantage. It forces Nvidia and AMD into a battle of who can implement things best. If you make a marketing stink about something AMD can't fix like proprietary code in GameWorks, AMD can never fix it. It allows Nvidia to change from a marketing item they can push where AMD can compete, into one they can't. I'm just wondering how long Nvidia can hide behind their media meat shields before people realize that Nvidia has been making a lot of choices lately that hurt their older customers just as much as AMD users. Personally, these are the reasons why I think AMD should just invest already into OpenWorks so things such as proprietary software bundles like GameWorks will simply die off. That will end the whole "optimized for Nvidia/AMD" argument immediately. I also find the "less talking and more doing, AMD" chant from Nvidia enthusiasts quite ironic as that's what AMD's CTO told Nvidia to do. Kind of funny how people who blindly back a company will twist words from one side and make it seem like it came from another. Nvidia should stop spewing at the mouth and invest more time into actually working. AMD has made HBM available for Nvidia who which will use it with Pascal the same way Nvidia obtained GDDR3 and GDDR5.  :rolleyes:

[MegaDave91]

Turn Hairworks off and carry on fellas. Simple. Done. Finished. I've turned it off and it is by no means a game-changer. 

[Notional]

I wouldn't say this proves his point. CDPR had access to HairWorks for a long time. If they didn't have access, Nvidia wouldn't be able to show off HairWorks effects back in August 2014 - http://www.geforce.com/whats-new/articles/gamescom-2014-witcher-3-gameworks Someone is obviously lying here.

 

Witcher is running fine on AMD hardware without these effects, and that's it. I don't see the problem here. No one should expect from Nvidia to bring these effects to AMD hardware. I'm sure Huddy is very well aware of this. If they really want same level effects on their hardware, let Huddy assemble a team and develop them. He's the gaming 'scientist' after all.

 

What I do have a problem with is Kepler performance. I own Kepler GPU, and even though I didn't play the game yet, I've read that people are having performance issues, however, I do hope this will be resolved. Nvidia obviously prioritized Maxwell on launch.

 

You're assuming the demo with HairWorks, is the same version as the one in the final build. Afaik, this is the first game to use HairWorks, so it's not far fetched to assume, to demo was an unfinished build of HairWorks. CDPR said they got the final version 2 months before launch. Idk. if that is 2 months ago, or two months before the original launch date, last year.

 

I got to ask though: You don't see a problem with vendor specific graphics? Vendor specific effects? Then what do the gamer actually get, when buying a game?

 

You're mad that your graphics card sucks at it, but not every other gamer, who has AMD? How is that good for the industry?

[Briggsy]

Turn Hairworks off and carry on fellas. Simple. Done. Finished. I've turned it off and it is by no means a game-changer. 

 

If anything, Its pretty immersive breaking when someone who runs through swamps all day has nicely washed and brushed hair. The hair physics is mostly still there with Hairworks turned off, and even looks unwashed and knotty like it should. Maybe if this was a barbie game, the soft clean hair thing would make sense.

[DaRk0]

You're assuming the demo with HairWorks, is the same version as the one in the final build. Afaik, this is the first game to use HairWorks, so it's not far fetched to assume, to demo was an unfinished build of HairWorks. CDPR said they got the final version 2 months before launch. Idk. if that is 2 months ago, or two months before the original launch date, last year.

I got to ask though: You don't see a problem with vendor specific graphics? Vendor specific effects? Then what do the gamer actually get, when buying a game?

You're mad that your graphics card sucks at it, but not every other gamer, who has AMD? How is that good for the industry?

I'm not assuming anything. It's on Nvidia's webpage. They are showing off HairWorks on a Witcher 3.

Where did I say I'm mad? I'm not mad at all. I said I have a problem with Kepler's performance, because these are still very capable GPUs, but I do hope these issues are going to be resolved.

Well, as far as graphics goes, it's pretty much identical on both GPU vendors. Effects would be on the same level for both vendors if developers would be capable enough to code them into their engine. Nvidia obviously didn't think that and they offered help. I mean they have engineers and programmers dedicated just to these kind of stuff. Pretty sure AMD can do the same, instead of blaming Nvidia in the press.

[Dabombinable]

It is the height of irony for you to:

 

1. Tell me I have no proof

2. Tell me to stop spreading misinformation 

And he/she still doesn't proved his/her own evidence to disprove anyone either. Just ignore him/her-and make sure that what you just correct any misconceptions he/she gives people.

[Notional]

And he/she still doesn't proved his/her own evidence to disprove anyone either. Just ignore him/her-and make sure that what you just correct any misconceptions he/she gives people.

 

What evidence do you want? To what statements/posts?

[Dabombinable]

What evidence do you want? To what statements/posts?

All posts where you claim something.