AMD vs Nvidia extra features

[nims0c]

What extra features can one take advantage of as an AMD or Nvidia GPU customer? For example, FreeSync vs G-Sync, VSR vs DSR, Nvidia Gamestream(?), Nvidia GRID(?), etc.

[Kinda Bottlenecked]

You have PhysX for Nvidia and TressFX for AMD

[Blake mcBlake]

Nvidia game works / game ready drivers.

[SkilledRebuilds]

AMD's GPU Video (GameDVR) capture is limited to certain games they list in their app or have compatibility with...

Shadowplay can be used for all games, does not need an official stamp of approval or anything...

 

This was the deal breaker for me.

 

Multi-GPU Drivers being ready upon release (or closeby) is another factor for SLI/Crossfire users, AMD tend to be behind the 8-ball here.

This is a deal breaker for MANY.

 

Other than that, I've had great experiences with both camps, both control panels, have used both DSR and VSR, they are pretty much the same at the end of the day in regards to how it looks, just enabled/used in different ways, and have no complaints with either of their methods.

 

 

What extra features can one take advantage of as an AMD or Nvidia GPU customer? For example, FreeSync vs G-Sync, VSR vs DSR, Nvidia Gamestream(?), Nvidia GRID(?), etc.

[minibois]

AMD: Freesync, Tress FX (very much not prevalent), Mantle (discontinued), AMD DVR (their recording software)

Nvidia: PhysX (not that prevalent), GSync, Nvidia streaming (to a Shield device), DSR, shadowplay

[Raudi_]

AMD's GPU Video (GameDVR) capture is limited to certain games they list in their app or have compatibility with...

Shadowplay can be used for all games, does not need an official stamp of approval or anything...

 

This was the deal breaker for me.

I've gotten it to work in all my games. Same with Shadowplay, just takes some tinkering. But you can't use it with games that are running Mantel API.

[SkilledRebuilds]

I tinkered for hours,.. it just wouldn't work..

Tried many driver sets alongside the Gaming Evolved app, still no go...

 

Shadowplay was flawless and worked out of the box as intended.

 

/Just my first hand experience on day 1-3 before I gave up and bought a capture card for my AMD GPU system.

[Enderman]

I use shadowplay every day, it works perfectly

almost 0 performance drop while recording

 

Also I find geforce experience very convenient since I just click a button and 2 minutes later my drivers are updated

[MrYuriy]

The biggest one is probably going to be NVIDIA GameWorks, IMO. Also, NVIDIA is MUCH better & faster about giving you drivers to fix and/or improve performance. They also have GameReady Drivers which are released prior to Triple A title games coming out.

 

As far as AMD goes, honestly.. Much of what they had is kind of becoming irrelevant (unfortunately) in one way or another; for example, Mantle. But if I had to say one, I would say FreeSync. (Although NVIDIA also has GSync..)

[Dabasepc]

NVIDIA once again win

[Badger906]

I'm by no means a fan boy of nvidia, but you have to hand it to them, nvidia experience is great, shadow play is fantastic, physx.. well nobody cares about that but hey hey its suposed to be better than tressfx

[Prysin]

 

Multi-GPU Drivers being ready upon release (or closeby) is another factor for SLI/Crossfire users, AMD tend to be behind the 8-ball here.

This is a deal breaker for MANY.

 

Other than that, I've had great experiences with both camps, both control panels, have used both DSR and VSR, they are pretty much the same at the end of the day in regards to how it looks, just enabled/used in different ways, and have no complaints with either of their methods.

just going to correct you here

 

AMD is really quick with crude CF profiles. They work, but not very well. Within a month or so they generally release more efficient drivers, and scaling becomes really good.

 

ive been running 2x 7950 in CF for 3 years, and recently (around late march) i bought a 295x2 on sale.... 3 years and 3 months of CF usage in new and old games.... Yes they drop the ball sometimes, but atleast they scale WAY better then SLI has done for years, and after Nvidia made fun of them, have less frame timing issues then SLI too....

 

 

As for Gameworks... It is a gimmic people use to explain trivial stuff.

The real "killer" isnt gameworks, its tesselation. Nvidia knows AMD sucks at it (albeit recently, AMD did improve their geometry engines a notable bit in the Fury X and also optimized their 300 series cards). So naturally, Gameworks titles just relies heavily on tesselation. Nvidia doesnt need to add ninja codes, dump enough tesselation into the mix and AMD suffers simply from their own architecture and engine system. On the other hand, set an AMD card to do raw compute power (AMD titles do more compute related functions, so Nvidia does well in those, but not for the reasons you may think).

 

 

@MrYurly

AMD is darn slow with their Omega drivers (super stable). But their beta drivers, which ive been using for little over 3 YEARS (all of which has been with a CF setup of some sort), comes out right before, or within the first week of a new game launch. Sure, it would be nice if ALL the drivers released ahead of the game, but their first driver for a game is usually pretty solid for a "beta" driver.... To this date, ive only had 5 hickups with beta drivers. Most of these were resolved within 2 weeks of the driver being published. More then i can say about Nvidia which used 2 months and 2-3 patches to fix ONE error. In the process of "fixing" they just kept making it worse, and the Nvidia driver was supposed to be a stable driver, not a beta one from what i can gather..... THAT is just embarrasing.

 

So, AMD drivers vs Nvidia drivers.... Their the same.... Nvidia does have a slight edge due to their utilization of certain liberaries to speed things up, but these liberaries are standardized systems used within DX. So i see no reason why AMD hasnt added them yet. Perhaps they will, and once they do, there wont be any real difference between the two companies drivers to speak of.

 

 

 

I'm by no means a fan boy of nvidia, but you have to hand it to them, nvidia experience is great, shadow play is fantastic, physx.. well nobody cares about that but hey hey its suposed to be better than tressfx

 

To be honest, PhysX is a concept that was good, but has turned into a joke.... Take Havoc Physics. Purely CPU bound, software driven physics engine, it beats both TressFX and PhysX effortlessly. Even Dice's Frostbite 3 engine has better a better physics system then PhysX can produce....

 

Nvidia should make PhysX open source. It is the only way to profit from it in any real way. Perhaps reserve the right to certain functions, or only sell "premade" chipsets that can be intergrated onto a PCB, but not tampered with (so that you can say, buy special versions of a AMD or Intel motherboard with onboard physics module...)

If they did that, they could milk more money out of consumers (special board with special Nvidia stuff.... gotta have a royalty on that), but they could also sell PhysX as a real product. Perhaps even make it a industry standard for calculating and rendering physics systems.

[Nena Trinity]

Both has good just look up each and see what you like!

 

[MageTank]

What extra features can one take advantage of as an AMD or Nvidia GPU customer? For example, FreeSync vs G-Sync, VSR vs DSR, Nvidia Gamestream(?), Nvidia GRID(?), etc.

 

Let's start with AMD. 

 

With AMD, you have access to the following features:

 

• Virtual Super Resolution (VSR)
• AMD FreeSync
• AMD LiquidVR
• AMD PowerTune
• AMD TrueAudio
• AMD EyeFinity
• AMD Crossfire
• TressFX

Now, Nvidia has features that are very similar to each AMD feature listed above. Here is the following list:

 

• Dynamic Super Resolution (DSR)
• Nvidia G-Sync
• GameWorksVR
• GPU Boost
• Nvidia Surround
• Nvidia SLI
• PhysX
• Nvidia Gamestream/Shadowplay
• Gameworks

 

Notable comparisons are DSR and VSR, which are pretty much the same thing. Pound for pound, G-Sync and Freesync operate under the same concept, which is to remove tearing without causing too much input lag. Both companies have their own VR tech, both have means of controlling the clock speeds of their GPU's. Both companies offer the ability to have surround monitors, and both have multi GPU technologies. Both have their own way of going about physics.

 

What sets Nvidia apart from AMD is two specific technologies. Some people like them, others do not. Let's start with the elephant in the room, Nvidia Gameworks. This is a double edged sword for Nvidia, and everyone that uses it. While Nvidia is claiming to be pushing developers into producing higher quality games and are offering their own support in doing so, others view it as Nvidia trying to get developers in their pocket, potentially harming competitors such as AMD. It does not help that Gameworks titles tend to run sloppy on AMD. This is a debate for another thread though.

 

Lastly, we have Nvidia Gamestreaming. Nvidia has been pushing this concept for a few years now, and user results may very. For myself, i found gamestreaming to be a love-hate relationship. When it works, it is great. When it does not, it is absolutely frustrating. Sadly, in my personal experience, i have found that having an enjoyable experience on it is a crap shoot, and the requirements for a great experience is already high enough. Even with gamestreaming approved hardware, i still get dropped connections, compressed image quality, and even terrible input delay. The fact that any Geforce Driver update, or Geforce Experience update can also have a huge impact on whether or not streaming will even work also makes the concept hard to swallow. Nvidia's GFE software is very hit and miss. While some find it useful thanks to the Nvidia Shadowplay offering, others despise it for its shoddy gamestreaming experience, and general bloat feel. After trying to make it work for over a year, i just recently threw my Nvidia Shield on ebay, because i got tired of messing with it. This is not to say you will have the same issues as i did, because i know some people praise it (@LinusTech has been vocal about his love of Gamestreaming, and the shield in general). I would just say that if you are buying an Nvidia GPU with game streaming in mind, just be mindful of the limitations you may experience because of how new and unrefined the technology is.

 

That being said, both AMD and Nvidia produce graphics cards with H.264 decoders on them. AMD's decoder is referred to as VCE or Video Coding Engine, while Nvidia's is referred to as NVENC. 

 

While these technologies are capable of swaying ones decision on buying a GPU, i would highly recommend you aim for the best price:performance of these options. Especially if you just care about general gaming. If you have a need for one of these specific technologies, then yes, feel free to base your decision on that fact. However, you may not be getting the best bang for your buck if you do. Sorry for the long wall of text, it is just difficult to explain these differences in a simple manner without offering some backstory to how they work.

[nims0c]

-snip-

 

I don't mind long posts. Yours was very information and I appreciate that.

 

I realize now that there isn't a particular technology that I need from one team or the other. As you suggest, I'm going to base my decision on price:performance. I'm going to look out for new R9 390 variants and see how they stack up against existing GTX 970 offerings.

[Guest Console Peasant]

I don't mind long posts. Yours was very information and I appreciate that.

 

I realize now that there isn't a particular technology that I need from one team or the other. As you suggest, I'm going to base my decision on price:performance. I'm going to look out for new R9 390 variants and see how they stack up against existing GTX 970 offerings.

both have useless features imo

nvidia is a bit better features wise