NVIDIA DirectX 11 Questionnaire – A Response to AMD’s Views

[NickK]

The Questionnaire

PR masquerading as Q&A..

My favourite points are:
a) a full U-turn on DX11 now they can say they have a solution for it and MS had dragged them over the coals closely followed by their investors.
b) the use of a single game developed for nVidia so they can wave it like a flag that's so blatant it's a perfect demonstration of the altered reality marketing bods live in..

I suppose the problem is that nVidia area so "in-yo-face" (John Prescott stylee) about everything compared to AMD who just appear to bumble along like Boris Johnson.. both companies will get there but as it's the first time since the big release race the caused the split in business strategies it seems they're both struggling with their new paths and how to get the most out of it.

Having said that - nVidia do focus on the "gaming experience" as a holistic driver but the problem is they've moved beyond "where there's a pixel there's nVidia" to attempting to bang a square peg in a round hole to drive that forward..

 

[Andric]

Using Batman as a solitary stick to beat ATi with indeed rather lame. wtf do they think they're kidding?

probably quite a few of those who regard these companies more like a footbal teams than hardware vendors.

 

[hideki]

wow, I wonder if that PR guy could use a sentence without PhysX and 3DVision. That interview does make them look rather petty.

 

[zytok]

ATi have some issues (I've switched away recently myself) but to try to make out that a GTX250 is better than a 5870 is scandalous. Batman is a cracking title but there's some severe shens going on hardware wise.

 

[CaptainRAVE]

I wish they would concentrate on their own tech rather than worrying about ATI. And they do seem to be worried!

 

[RavenXXX2]

Batman with no physx on my 5870 = 60+ constant and still only 34% GPU usage, with full physx which consists of a bit of toilet paper floating around drops my FPS to 15 and still with only 34% GPU usage, all these crap effects could easily be done on the CPU or the single GPU and still have max FPS, NV you are scum.

 

[Oh Ed not again.]

That was laughable. Roll on the demise of NVidia in it's current form, here's to a buy out or a staff exodus to Intel's graphics division.

 

[drunkenmaster]

Batman with no physx on my 5870 = 60+ constant and still only 34% GPU usage, with full physx which consists of a bit of toilet paper floating around drops my FPS to 15 and still with only 34% GPU usage, all these crap effects could easily be done on the CPU or the single GPU and still have max FPS, NV you are scum.

I agree, though I do partially blame AMD. They should have gotten their "TWIMTBP" program off the ground sooner, otherwise known as the, throw money at people to make them your friends program. But AMD really couldn't afford it, for the last year they should have been courting companies and giving more support(IE money) to dev's to counter Nvidia as their rich oil buddies can certainly afford to.

Or they could have long ago taken the moral high ground and really should have started legal matters over anti-competitive practices. I'd prefer the later, but could live with the former(begrudgingly) however they've done neither which is a bit of a dropping the ball situation. The problem being, even if they couldn't win the court case, bringing it to light and having people investigate Nvidia would at the very least, scare them into behaving, best case scenario is every developer stands up in court and said, yeah, we'll pay you to screw AMD, if you don't go along with it, we'll make your game crash on our hardware, you never know. It was a win-win situation for AMD though.

You really shouldn't have to offer say, the Batman makers money aswell as personel just to get them to not screw you. Nvidia make noise about lack of support AMD give, but I'm fairly sure the help to dev's is there should they want it, offered willingly infact, but when one side pays you and one doesn't, things get unfair fast and prefential treatment couldn't be more obvious.

What is a little funny is, no matter how many games have Intel inside logo's, theres never a difference in performance between games on Intel vs AMD, ok games are gpu limited. However Intel, despite their money and support, haven't ever, afaik, had anyone cripple a game when working on an AMD cpu.

So Nvidia, its possible to pay money, support companies, help them optimise without the backstabbing, sabotage and unsportsman like conduct. Intel have the money to buy Nvidia, shut them down and blow up every asset they have(which isn't much) without batting an eyelid, yet they never sabotaged AMD in terms of software and support.

 

[panda_uk]

why don't they compare it with physx enabled on a 5870 then make a statement, hmmm I wonder.

 

[unknownsock]

I've got a feeling this is going to end up in court within the next couple of years.
ATI have really done good since the 4*** series.

 

[reflux]

This made my mind up, I just bought a 5850. Nice one Nvidia.

 

[varkanoid]

I find it quite funny that I read on Nvidia's webpage they are pushing a new Anti-Virus program that runs via the GPU.

I can't see Intel buying Nvidia when they've been pushing Larabee or whatever its called ? Or is suggesting Intel buying Nvidia the sign that Larabee is pants.

I like both Nvidia and ATI cards, now ATI card with ATI drivers as stable as Nvidia's would be nice.

 

[unknownsock]

What is a little funny is, no matter how many games have Intel inside logo's, theres never a difference in performance between games on Intel vs AMD, ok games are gpu limited. However Intel, despite their money and support, haven't ever, afaik, had anyone cripple a game when working on an AMD cpu.

Although Intel did get a hefty fine not so long ago, which was against AMD.

 

[zytok]

why don't they compare it with physx enabled on a 5870 then make a statement, hmmm I wonder.

er cos you can't have GPU Physx on a 5870, think that's the point in question. nVidia are saying that their cards are better than ATi's because Batman with Physx runs better than on ATi cards which is undeniably true but paints an unfair picture of the situation in general.

 

[londonbairn]

When I was reading that article, I thought it was an interview with the Iraqi Information Minister

 

[Greebo]

er cos you can't have GPU Physx on a 5870, think that's the point in question. nVidia are saying that their cards are better than ATi's because Batman with Physx runs better than on ATi cards which is undeniably true but paints an unfair picture of the situation in general.

The point is if Nvidia hadn;t got them to run physx on one cpu core only when you don't have a Nvidia card then the difference would not be there. I;m sure there's a mod around which then enables all the cores and then an ATI card runs the game just as well as the Nvidia card with Physx on in both.

 

[D13]

Interesting article, shame there were so few questions.

Batman with no physx on my 5870 = 60+ constant and still only 34% GPU usage, with full physx which consists of a bit of toilet paper floating around drops my FPS to 15 and still with only 34% GPU usage, all these crap effects could easily be done on the CPU or the single GPU and still have max FPS, NV you are scum.

Hang on, why are nvidia scum? they bought out aegia why should they allow it to be used on ati hardware (what would be the incentive for buying out aegias at all?). At the end of the day we all make purchasing decisions with our eyes open, ati offer among other things strong performance at affordable price, but there cards do not grant access to physx effects. Regardless of whether those effects are any good, that is your choice

 

[LoadsaMoney]

******* hilarious that, ATi could say, our 3850 hammers their GTX 295 in Hawx in Dx10.1, as its the exact same thing isn't it, they cant do Dx10.1, the 3850 can, so it will hammer it in it, ATi cant do PhsyX, so of course they gona get hammered in something they can't do as well.

I love it, comedy Gold.

 

[drunkenmaster]

Although Intel did get a hefty fine not so long ago, which was against AMD.

Yeah, I realised that half way through, but that was a selling/distribution issue, which is far far more frequent in business, than actually sabotaging 3rd party software to work worse on someone elses hardware. THats a whole other level, they were done for essentially paying companies to not stock AMD chips, but they were paying people to use their own hardware, I dunno, its not hugely different.

But then they didn't pay Dell to run AMD machines at half speed either, which might be a closer analogy. Meh, thing is, AMD did get on it with Intel and forced them to stop, not sure why they haven't pressured Nvidia yet.

 

[RavenXXX2]

When they deliberately cripple another cards performance when its obvious that card in question can run them crappy effects with ease, then yes they are scum, and to take AA out for ATI cards makes them even bigger scum.