Nvidia Gameworks worth it?

[EunSoo]

Hi! For a while I have been planning to get a 390X or 380X, but whenever I bring up the topic, my brother keeps shooting down those options and tells me to buy an Nvidia card because of software and unlocked-parts of the card that lets the developer give the game better graphics and textures and such. I remember him throwing out the words like 'Nvidia Gameworks' and 'PhysX.' Do those things actually give better textures and such in reality? Thanks!

[afyeung]

Not better textures. Gameworks API allows developers to add effects Nvidia already programmed. AMD cards can run most of these features but you might want to turn tessellation down to keep performance up. PhysX is similar but it's specifically physics based effects and does not work at all with AMD cards. However few games use this. 390x and 380x are in a completely different ball park BTW.

[Kobathor]

PhysX is REALLY COOL in the few games that actually use it to its full potential. Most games don't use it.

Gameworks is garbage. I'd get the 390x over its nVidia counter-part, same with the 380x.

[Starelementpoke]

5 minutes ago, SCGazelle said:

Hi! For a while I have been planning to get a 390X or 380X, but whenever I bring up the topic, my brother keeps shooting down those options and tells me to buy an Nvidia card because of software and unlocked-parts of the card that lets the developer give the game better graphics and textures and such. I remember him throwing out the words like 'Nvidia Gameworks' and 'PhysX.' Do those things actually give better textures and such in reality? Thanks!

In the games that have it, yes. They also cause AMD cards to run quite poorly usually. It's been given the name,"ShitWorks" around here. Just wait for Polaris and Pascal, they're coming around soon. And PhysX and Gameworks isn't in every game, check to see if the games you're playing or going to play have them before you decide.

[don_svetlio]

GameBreaks is a blackbox that developers have spoken out against - it's a terrible solution which decreases performance on both AMD and NVidia cards

[Enderman]

7 minutes ago, don_svetlio said:

GameBreaks is a blackbox that developers have spoken out against - it's a terrible solution which decreases performance on both AMD and NVidia cards

uh, of course it decreases performance...

increasing ANY graphics settings will decrease performance...

Do you expect to have thousands of hairs on an object rendered for free? Magical extra graphical fidelity with no performance impact? LOL

 

the point is that its optimized for nvidia GPUs which is why it decreases a lot more performance on AMD cards

 

this is not an issue because most games you can TURN IT OFF and not have the performance decrease if you prefer worse graphics/effects, but there are some stupid developers which implement it without a setting in the options so that its always enabled, and that sucks for everyone

[afyeung]

10 minutes ago, don_svetlio said:

GameBreaks is a blackbox that developers have spoken out against - it's a terrible solution which decreases performance on both AMD and NVidia cards

I don't see too many devs speaking out against it lol. Also many gamers legitimately like features such as HBAO+ which looks better but not worth the performance hit IMO

[don_svetlio]

1 minute ago, afyeung said:

I don't see too many devs speaking out against it lol. Also many gamers legitimately like features such as HBAO+ which looks better but not worth the performance hit IMO

HBAO+ was here before GameBreaks - we're talking about the Tess-based crap

[afyeung]

Just now, don_svetlio said:

HBAO+ was here before GameBreaks - we're talking about the Tess-based crap

Lol. Metro LL is a prime example of this. Very high tess. cuts my framerate in half for 0 perceivable visual difference. The difference in framerate is so big, it's shocking lol. 20-30fps in the outdoor area with tess. very, not playable at all. While tess. off, locked 60fps. For witcher 3 I didn't even bother trying to play with hairworks lol.  

[don_svetlio]

1 minute ago, afyeung said:

Lol. Metro LL is a prime example of this. Very high tess. cuts my framerate in half for 0 perceivable visual difference. The difference in framerate is so big, it's shocking lol. 20-30fps in the outdoor area with tess. very, not playable at all. While tess. off, locked 60fps. For witcher 3 I didn't even bother trying to play with hairworks lol.  

Hairworks off - 55fps
Hairworks on - 40fps

R9 280

[afyeung]

1 minute ago, don_svetlio said:

Hairworks off - 55fps
Hairworks on - 40fps

R9 280

Not bad. I still think stock hair looks pretty good

[i_build_nanosuits]

6 minutes ago, don_svetlio said:

HBAO+ was here before GameBreaks - we're talking about the Tess-based crap

godrays, lightshafts...ambient occlusion...MFAA, TXAA...there is A LOT of good stuff in the gameworks kit...like in batman, if you have a 980ti, turn those on and it looks really really good!

 

 

[don_svetlio]

2 minutes ago, i_build_nanosuits said:

godrays, lightshafts...ambient occlusion...MFAA, TXAA...there is A LOT of good stuff in the gameworks kit...like in batman, if you have a 980ti, turn those on and it looks really really good!

 

 

And what do 99% of people do? Those who have 660 Tis and 760s?

[Unhelpful]

1 minute ago, don_svetlio said:

And what do 99% of people do? Those who have 660 Tis and 760s?

Turn it off.... There's exactly 0 downside to gameworks, except when some retards implement it as turned on by default.

[i_build_nanosuits]

1 minute ago, don_svetlio said:

And what do 99% of people do? Those who have 660 Tis and 760s?

660ti and 760 are barely 1080p capable cards anymore...in current demanding games.

But with a 780 or a 970 you'll want HBAO+ ON and most likely lightshafts/godrays those type of things and they will have less impact on performance than if you use say an R9 290/390.

[don_svetlio]

Just now, i_build_nanosuits said:

660ti and 760 are barely 1080p capable cards anymore...in current demanding games.

But with a 780 ro a 970 you'll want HBAO+ ON and most likely lightshafts/godrays those type of things and they will have less impact on performance than if you use say an R9 290/390.

Kepler has the same performance decrease as GCN 1.1 - only Maxwell cards can tolerate most of these

[i_build_nanosuits]

Just now, don_svetlio said:

Kepler has the same performance decrease as GCN 1.1 - only Maxwell cards can tolerate most of these

i disagree, i used to game on a GTX 780 for a long time and i can tell you that in many games i use to have many of these effects turned ON and the games were all running fine at 60FPS+

[don_svetlio]

Just now, i_build_nanosuits said:

i disagree, i used to game on a GTX 780 for a long time and i can tell you that in many games i use to have my of these effects turned ON and the games where all running fine at 60FPS+

Witcher 3 hairworks? How is that on a 780?

[Monarch]

 

8 minutes ago, don_svetlio said:

Hairworks off - 55fps
Hairworks on - 40fps

R9 280

 

Why don't you blame AMD for having terrible tessellation performance?

 

24 minutes ago, don_svetlio said:

GameBreaks is a blackbox that developers have spoken out against

 

By developers you mean Johan Andersson, technical director that works for EA DICE, which are partners with AMD, so I think it's obvious why he spoke out against it.

[i_build_nanosuits]

Just now, don_svetlio said:

Witcher 3 hairworks? How is that on a 780?

this one is a trash one i never turned it on even with the 980ti...bad example...like i said, MANY of these are GREAT...not ALL of them. Shitworks in witcher 3 is indeed the worst...that and the smoke on the batmobile...this is like a 35FPS hit lol :p...but the other 3...like in the picture of my game menu i posted, are entirely worth it with minimal performance hit (around 10FPS for the whole 3)

[Starelementpoke]

1 minute ago, i_build_nanosuits said:

this one is a trash one i never turned it on even with the 980ti...bad example...like i said, MANY of these are GREAT...not ALL of them. Shitworks in witcher 3 is indeed the worst...that and the smoke on the batmobile...this is like a 35FPS hit lol :p...but the other 3...like in the picture of my game menu i posted, are entirely worth it with minimal performance hit (around 10FPS for the whole 3)

10 FPS total or 10 FPS per game?

[i_build_nanosuits]

Just now, Starelementpoke said:

10 FPS total or 10 FPS per game?

in batman the arkham knight...the interactive smoke/fog is like -30FPS

the other 3:

-interactive paper/debris, enhanced rain and enhanced lighshafts -- those cost around -10FPS combine...which is worth the trade off IMHO.

[don_svetlio]

11 minutes ago, Monarch said:

 

 

Why don't you blame AMD for having terrible tessellation performance?

 

 

By developers you mean Johan Andersson, technical director that works for EA DICE, which are partners with AMD, so I think it's obvious why he spoke out against it.

Because Tress FX ran perfectly fine on my laptop's 750 Ti and even better on my 280? Cause Tess is a crappy way of doing things and Direct Compute is much more efficient?

[Monarch]

14 minutes ago, don_svetlio said:

Because Tress FX ran perfectly fine on my laptop's 750 Ti and even better on my 280? Cause Tess is a crappy way of doing things and Direct Compute is much more efficient?

 

That's your opinion, but mine is that HW looks better. 

 

Tress FX looks pretty bad here.

 

 

But speaking of HW, your complaint was that performance hit is too big. It's too big because of 2 reasons. High tess level, and AMD's poor tessellation performance. I still don't get why you're complaining about only 1 of those.

[don_svetlio]

11 minutes ago, Monarch said:

 

That's your opinion, but mine is that HW looks better. 

 

Tress FX looks pretty bad here.

 

 

But speaking of HW, your complaint was that performance hit is too big. It's too big because of 2 reasons. High tess level, and AMD's poor tessellation performance. I still don't get why you're complaining about only 1 of those.

Most people here disagree with you