Holy antialiasing Batman!

[randomizer]

Continued from here: http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/page-270849_33_150.html#t1999116

 

[gamerk316]

Just in time:

http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=791

The article is about the current state of NVIDIA; the portion that applies to this discussion is as follows:

Another recent controversy around NVIDIA (they seem to find them frequently) has to do with the company's The Way It’s Meant to Be Played (TWIMTBP) program and the relationship between it and game developers. Recently a marketing rep from AMD claimed that some recently released titles were "proprietary" and NVIDIA's involvement in development caused those software teams to unfairly tweak their games for NVIDIA's hardware. The titles in question? Batman: Arkham Asylum, Resident Evil 5 and Need for Speed: Shift. Batman was especially controversial as it enabled in-game antialiasing support ONLY on NVIDIA hardware while AMD cards were required to use control panel based AA. The difference there is that there are definite performance advantages to letting the game engine itself decide how and where to apply the image quality feature rather than "brute forcing" the entire scene.

In reality, I think this claim from AMD is pretty much unfounded - NVIDIA has long been accused of doing things like this but AMD has similar relationships with developers - see games like Battle Forge, DiRT 2 and Tom Clancy's H.A.W.X. The truth is that both sides of the coin work as closely as possible with developers to make sure the latest titles work as well as possible on their own hardware. But without a doubt, NVIDIA's development efforts in this area are much more extensive. The developer relations team at NVIDIA is significantly larger, has a significantly larger budget and in general works with more developers than AMD's. In the case of Batman's AA support, NVIDIA essentially built the AA engine explicitly for Eidos - AA didn't exist in the game engine before that. NVIDIA knew that this title was going to be a big seller on the PC and spent the money/time to get it working on their hardware. Eidos told us in an email conversation that the offer was made to AMD for them to send engineers to their studios and do the same work NVIDIA did for its own hardware, but AMD declined.

This was pretty much my stance from day 1 of this discussion. ATI didn't put forth the effort to get an AA engine built for the Unreal Engine, thus ATI users get hosed. Unlike some peoples initial claims that AA had been "disabled" for ATI users...

 

[Mousemonkey]

That was pretty much my response when JDJ first brought the issue to light a couple of months ago, but it's still not going to prevent the ATi fans from crying foul. A bit more fuel for the fire can be found here.

 

[Harrisson]

Misleading pcper article, not the best way to defend that incident Injecting some common sense and disclosing some lies by that author.

In reality, I think this claim from AMD is pretty much unfounded - NVIDIA has long been accused of doing things like this but AMD has similar relationships with developers - see games like Battle Forge, DiRT 2 and Tom Clancy's H.A.W.X.

Nonsense. Working relationships with devs are NOT what these issues are about, its about extending TWIMTB Payed from working with devs to support certain features (which is totally fine), to deliberately harming opponent (and players). Call me when AMD forced devs to remove something like DX10.1 if they didnt had it themselves, or to disable AA to harm performance and quality for gamers with opponents cards, or to disable features if other manufacturers card is detected. NONE of that has happened yet AFAIK, therefore Ryan Shrout claim is baseless.

In the case of Batman's AA support, NVIDIA essentially built the AA engine explicitly for Eidos - AA didn't exist in the game engine before that. NVIDIA knew that this title was going to be a big seller on the PC and spent the money/time to get it working on their hardware.

Now he is lying, and not because AA "didnt exist in the game engine", but because "it didnt exist before that" and "NVIDIA essentially built the AA engine explicitly for Eidos". Both bogus claims. AA was implemented and run fine on ATI cards on xbox360 (Nvidia had zero to do with it) and run just fine when ATI block was removed on PC port as well. Therefore AMD didnt even had to "implement" something that wasnt there, all Rocksteady had to do is to enable the feature already in place.

Eidos told us in an email conversation that the offer was made to AMD for them to send engineers to their studios and do the same work NVIDIA did for its own hardware, but AMD declined.

I dont believe for a second AMD refused to cooperate with devs, it makes no sense whatsoever. Either it didnt happened, or was done in a wrong way. I.e. if mail says something like this "Nvidia helped us with PhysX, why dont you do the same? CUDA is cool, implement on your cards", then I wouldnt be surprised if AMD declined

 

[Mousemonkey]

Misleading pcper article, not the best way to defend that incident Injecting some common sense and disclosing some lies by that author.

In reality, I think this claim from AMD is pretty much unfounded - NVIDIA has long been accused of doing things like this but AMD has similar relationships with developers - see games like Battle Forge, DiRT 2 and Tom Clancy's H.A.W.X.

Nonsense. Working relationships with devs are NOT what these issues are about, its about extending TWIMTB Payed from working with devs to support certain features (which is totally fine), to deliberately harming opponent (and players). Call me when AMD forced devs to remove something like DX10.1 if they didnt had it themselves, or to disable AA to harm performance and quality for gamers with opponents cards, or to disable features if other manufacturers card is detected. NONE of that has happened yet AFAIK, therefore Ryan Shrout claim is baseless.

In the case of Batman's AA support, NVIDIA essentially built the AA engine explicitly for Eidos - AA didn't exist in the game engine before that. NVIDIA knew that this title was going to be a big seller on the PC and spent the money/time to get it working on their hardware.

Now he is lying, and not because AA "didnt exist in the game engine", but because "it didnt exist before that" and "NVIDIA essentially built the AA engine explicitly for Eidos". Both bogus claims. AA was implemented and run fine on ATI cards on xbox360 (Nvidia had zero to do with it) and run just fine when ATI block was removed on PC port as well. Therefore AMD didnt even had to "implement" something that wasnt there, all Rocksteady had to do is to enable the feature already in place.

Eidos told us in an email conversation that the offer was made to AMD for them to send engineers to their studios and do the same work NVIDIA did for its own hardware, but AMD declined.

I dont believe for a second AMD refused to cooperate with devs, it makes no sense whatsoever. Either it didnt happened, or was done in a wrong way. I.e. if mail says something like this "Nvidia helped us with PhysX, why dont you do the same? CUDA is cool, implement on your cards", then I wouldnt be surprised if AMD declined

I can only assume that you did not see randomizer's answer in the other thread.

Er... Batman is DX9, and it uses the Unreal 3 engine which is a deferred shading engine. Deferred shading does not allow for the typical implementation of hardware-based MSAA due to the separation of the geometry and lighting stages. You can't just turn it on.

 

[Harrisson]

I can only assume that you did not see randomizer's answer in the other thread.

I did, and why do you think they used initial version of engine and havent modified it? You would say Nvidia did? They did a good job on ATI cards on xbox360 I.e. it doesnt matter what initial engine they used, as long as they adapted it for their game, and AA works on ATI cards on both console and PC (if you remove block). But probably its an illusion, some eyefinity mirage, because it shouldnt work, because Unreal3 engine doesnt have it.

 

[jennyh]

In the case of Batman's AA support, NVIDIA essentially built the AA engine explicitly for Eidos - AA didn't exist in the game engine before that. NVIDIA knew that this title was going to be a big seller on the PC and spent the money/time to get it working on their hardware. Eidos told us in an email conversation that the offer was made to AMD for them to send engineers to their studios and do the same work NVIDIA did for its own hardware, but AMD declined.

Does anybody actually believe that Eidos would have released this game with no AA if Nvidia hadn't decided to 'lend a hand'?

The whole argument about each company helping out is a nonsense also. Hell why not get ATI to do all the graphics, never mind the AA. Anyone else see how ridiculous that argument is?

Are we supposed to believe that ATI (and Nvidia) are gonna send people around to each company to help with every game that is ever made? What did Eidos do to deserve preferential treatment anyway - especially from ATI? Would they have splashed the ATI logo ingame? Or does that take a bit more than just 'helping out'?

If ATI had gone with this on Batman, what is to stop every other TWIMTBP title's devs from making the same demands of them? Why not if they can get ATI to do the AA in their game for them why would they bother doing it? That would be great, getting Nvidia's TWIMTBP cash and ATI to do the AA (at first, I'm sure more can be added later) in their games.

That is just how ludicrous this is.

 

[EXT64]

Since we're going on the word of PR departments, I'm going to bet it lies somewhere in the middle. I doubt we will ever know the truth, but if it really was as simple as 'sending a couple engineers' why wouldn't ATI do it? Just so they could complain about NVidia? I doubt it. So I'm inclined to think that there may be truth to NVidia 'helping' and ATI being 'invited', but it is not as simple as the article portrays. I have a feeling an 'entrance' fee was involved, and ATI probably just decided one game wasn't going to hurt sales too much and decided to pass.

 

[Mousemonkey]

Since we're going on the word of PR departments, I'm going to bet it lies somewhere in the middle. I doubt we will ever know the truth, but if it really was as simple as 'sending a couple engineers' why wouldn't ATI do it? Just so they could complain about NVidia? I doubt it. So I'm inclined to think that there may be truth to NVidia 'helping' and ATI being 'invited', but it is not as simple as the article portrays. I have a feeling an 'entrance' fee was involved, and ATI probably just decided one game wasn't going to hurt sales too much and decided to pass.

I agree with you but a lot of the discontent seems to arise from the fact that they were not catered for in their absence, using their competitors money.

 

[jennyh]

In the end, if Nvidia weren't 'helping out', these games would still be getting released and you can be sure that Batman would have had some form of AA that worked on both competitors cards.

There are plenty of games being released that aren't stained by TWIMTBP or whatever ATI's offering is called these days. Somehow they manage to have AA and the rest of the eye-candy that we *expect* of any title.

I fail to see why ATI should be expected to create AA for any software dev. It isn't their job to make games, or make AA for every title that doesn't have it.

In the end I doubt anyone has won here. Eidos must have lost sales, I've seen a bunch of people say on other forums that this was the final straw and they are now quitting Nvidia for good, and now ATI's name is being dragged down when the chances are they have done nothing wrong.

It could all have been easily avoided, and both Eidos and Nvidia must have known that this was going to cause controversy.

 

[amdfangirl]

TWIMTBP is like a bribe. Fix your game for our GPUs and we'll give you dosh, plain and simple.

 

[jennyh]

No way the Nvidia logo is being displayed fullscreen without money changing hands.

 

[jennyh]

Yes I read it all!

I'm sticking to it too. Aint no way nvidia are getting TWIMTBP full screen without money changing hands. Real money, not work = money.

 

[amdfangirl]

Hmm, AFAIK no money per se, ever changes hands with the TWIMTBP program.

The money that is involved is access to a team of nvidia's people who will test the game, find bugs, provide optimisations and ensure good driver support.

It is time=money rather than plain money.

Could be wrong but I don't think nvidia will obviously give bribes, they will take a more legit sounding route.

It is still a bribe. Not directly.

They are buttering them with engineers. It's just like paying a company with cocoa beans. Still payment. Nvida pays for all those engineers and gives them for free to the game makers. How is that not payment?

Mmm... cocoa beans...

 

[TheGreatGrapeApe]

SS, c'mon, even logic should tell you that that TWIMTBP ad costs money.

It doesn't change hands for the 'development program', however it definitely changes hands for the free PR from nV and the paid for Ads.

It's like saying no money changes hands for a senator when they go on junkets to Barbados paid for by a lobbyist. No, no money ever changes hands. :lol:

I'd care about this if I thought ANY of the parties were telling the truth and weren't spinning this; and also if it were a good game.

I also like the defered rendering argument, doesn't seem to pose a problem to someone like Humus; but hey, I'm sure the tight timeline with the nV guy 'going on vacation' made it difficult to optimize something without Big Brrother there to 'help', I guess they just didn't care enough to release it as such.

 

[jennyh]

I still think actual cash is changing hands here. Nvidia are sitting on $billions, they can afford to throw a few $million at games devs.

Think how much they stand to lose if they are seen being behind in benchmarks. Any 'lead' that Nvidia have is based on software optimisations in TWIMTBP games, without it they would be nowhere.

I read somewhere that ATI spent $6 million on HL2. I dunno how much of that was marketing or work done by engineers but $6 million is a lot. It makes you wonder just how much Nvidia must be spending on TWIMTBP.

 

[amdfangirl]

I like grapes.

 

[amdfangirl]

The cheap stuff you get drunk on.

 

[jennyh]

haha.

 

[gamerk316]

Does anybody actually believe that Eidos would have released this game with no AA if Nvidia hadn't decided to 'lend a hand'?

Actaully, yes. Other unreal games (Mass Effect anyone? Or maybe the half dozen other Unreal games that you have to force AA through the control panel?) shipped without AA, for the very same reason thats been said over and over again. The Unreal Engine does not nativly support AA, and adding it takes time, effort, manpower, and most importantly, money.

As for the 360, I should point out the 360 also has PhysX, so I guess based on the argument some people are giving, there is no reason why ATI can't port it to the PC platform? Its apples and oranges. Nevermind the fact that while ATI designed the GPU, Microsoft actually owns it.

Fact is, AA in an Unreal game is an extra feature, just like PhysX would be. NVIDIA is willing to work with devs (gets the devs locked in, which benifits them), and for whatever reason, ATI will not (or can not) do the same.

 

[Harrisson]

SS, c'mon, even logic should tell you that that TWIMTBP ad costs money.

It doesn't change hands for the 'development program', however it definitely changes hands for the free PR from nV and the paid for Ads.

It's like saying no money changes hands for a senator when they go on junkets to Barbados paid for by a lobbyist. No, no money ever changes hands. :lol:

Exactly, money can change hands in many forms (dev support, free HW, PR, etc), and in some cases IMO in cash as well. For example ATI made several quite open leaks how they payed millions for some games bundles (I remember at least several occasions), while Nvidia is much more rich and aggressive. Also I dont remember ATI strong-arming devs like Nvidia does, and not because of morality, simply there is different level of money involved IMO. In what way - we dont know, but I'm positive its much more than ATI ever did.

 

[jennyh]

Actaully, yes. Other unreal games (Mass Effect anyone? Or maybe the half dozen other Unreal games that you have to force AA through the control panel?) shipped without AA, for the very same reason thats been said over and over again. The Unreal Engine does not nativly support AA, and adding it takes time, effort, manpower, and most importantly, money.

What about the other 100 or so games running it?

Fact is, AA in an Unreal game is an extra feature, just like PhysX would be. NVIDIA is willing to work with devs (gets the devs locked in, which benifits them), and for whatever reason, ATI will not (or can not) do the same.

Physx is one of the 'integrated partners' of the unreal engine. ATI know better when to leave this stuff alone but unless we know exactly what the conditions were for them to 'help out', we'll just forever be guessing at what really happened.

 

[IzzyCraft]

And then what about the 100 games no supporting it?

Throwing out arbitrary numbers to make a point is not helpful imo.


There is about 50 games out and like 35 games coming out that use the UT3 engine. Not all of them have AA and not all of them are on the PC

Really it brings down your vastly exaggerated numbers.

If i check only games that are out that run on windows i get roughly
30 games and most of them are crap games i never knew excised

So if i just take what mass effective, batman aa and +1 and then assume all of the shitty games i never head of also have native AA support that makes 1 out of every 10 games that use the UT3 engine (hell if some of them even count cuz they are more like UT2.5 with some extensions)

I get 1 out of every 10 games on windows running UT3 doesn't have native AA and i'm sure the ratio is much higher.

I used wikipedia as a source and a few other random places that list UT3 games got the jist of the numbers check which games were on windows and just divided by 3

So nice try making random shitty claims being ultra conservative with games that are out now it's 1 out of every 10 games that use UT3 engine because i doubt all of the shitty games i never heard of have any AA.

Hell if i take the good games and i'll just assume half i'm not counting tom Clancy 10 times over that brings it down to 1 out of every 5 games lack AA on the windows using UT3

 

[randomizer]

Does anybody actually believe that Eidos would have released this game with no AA if Nvidia hadn't decided to 'lend a hand'?

Perhaps. STALKER (also a TWIMTBP title) uses deferred shading and required a driver workaround to enable AA when using DX9 instead of DX8 post-release that only worked on 8 series and higher GPUs. I am unsure if AMD ever released a workaround.

 

[jennyh]

Ok wait.

You know that...3 or 4 games using Unreal 3 don't have AA? Actually you mentioned all of 2 while guessing at the rest?

How about instead of just dividing by 3, find out if those games support AA or not?

Then we'll see if more do or not.

So far it's Batman and Mass Effect out of the entire list of Unreal 3 engine games and until you can prove otherwise then these games *are* in the minority.