[jimbo75]

What I don't get is how this can be happening. AMD has so completely outmanoeuvred Nvidia in gaming it's almost impossible to believe.

Did the Nvidia money just dry up, or have they pissed off the devs with Shield or what?

[jimbo75]

Also, what's the chance of their being some sort of HSA optimization that AMD is determined to keep secret for as long as possible?

[3dilettante]

There would have to be some significant compensation to EA in order for it to accept the blowback of guaranteeing game quality issues for a significant fraction of the PC market, or EA just cares that little about the PC market.

My first guess is that they're being paid for this exclusivity, and/or AMD is agreeing to do a lot of co-developing of the software.

[jimbo75]

I agree it's basically a guarantee that AMD is paying a lot of money for this level of exclusivity, but surely Nvidia has a lot more they could be paying, and a lot more to lose by not paying? That's the part I just don't get - it's almost like Nvidia gave up on the gaming market a year ago.

[3dilettante]

The codevelopment angle may be stronger than just money.
If it were out of laziness, EA would want to use as much of the work put into the AMD-based consoles towards the PC versions as it could.
AMD could be lending software engineering resources to the consoles that COULD be used for the PC market's Radeon cards, but AMD might be pulling an Nvidia and restricting its transfer.

Nvidia would be paying more money because it would require more effort on EA's part to disrupt the consistent platform model, especially if AMD is willing to be helpful only as far as it helps AMD.
If there are proprietary features in the console code that cannot be shared externally, it might delay when Nvidia can get involved or require effort to replace those hooks. AMD would already have access to all those things, though.
If money is used as a sweetener, so much the better for EA.

[gkar1]

Originally Posted by jimbo75

I agree it's basically a guarantee that AMD is paying a lot of money for this level of exclusivity,

Or that Nvidia has been paying too little and relied more heavily on their market share leader halo to get developers to code for them.

[3dilettante]

EA has updated saying that there is no exclusivity banning other vendors from participating.
AMD is still a heavy co-development presence for BF4, at least.

[Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.]

Originally Posted by jimbo75

What I don't get is how this can be happening. AMD has so completely outmanoeuvred Nvidia in gaming it's almost impossible to believe.

Did the Nvidia money just dry up, or have they pissed off the devs with Shield or what?

AMD has started to put serious money and dev resources into it. And with all the next gen consoles, plus a chunk of the PC market, going AMD specific targets the biggest audience.

[Alexko]

Originally Posted by 3dilettante

There would have to be some significant compensation to EA in order for it to accept the blowback of guaranteeing game quality issues for a significant fraction of the PC market, or EA just cares that little about the PC market.

My first guess is that they're being paid for this exclusivity, and/or AMD is agreeing to do a lot of co-developing of the software.

As I suspected, the answer is simpler: IGN's story is just bullshit.

Originally Posted by The Tech Report

Update: Frostbite Technical Director Johan Andersson has posted on Twitter that the IGN story is "not true." He says a statement is coming to correct the apparent error, but it doesn't look like the IGN story has been updated with a correction yet. We'll keep an eye on it and update this story as it develops. Thanks to TR commenter JohnC for the tip.

Update 2: The IGN story has now been updated with an official statement indicating that DICE's partnership with AMD "does not exclude DICE from working with other partners to ensure players have a great experience across a wide set of PCs for all their titles." Additionally, AMD says its Gaming Evolved program "undertakes no efforts to prevent our competition from optimizing for games before their release." Nvidia should have early access to Battlefield 4 and other Frostbite-powered titles, allowing GeForce drivers to be optimized before games are released.

[3dilettante]

Originally Posted by Alexko

As I suspected, the answer is simpler: IGN's story is just bullshit.

That's too bad for AMD: you only get the chance to twirl your mustache and laugh evily once in a great while.

[Alexko]

Originally Posted by 3dilettante

That's too bad for AMD: you only get the chance to twirl your mustache and laugh evily once in a great while.

True, but they've been pretty clear, and on multiple occasions, that they don't do that sort of thing. If they went back on their word now, it might do irreparable damage to their brand—not worth the extra revenue that might be generated from NVIDIA's potential bugs in the first few weeks following a few game launches.

[Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.]

Originally Posted by Alexko

True, but they've been pretty clear, and on multiple occasions, that they don't do that sort of thing. If they went back on their word now, it might do irreparable damage to their brand—not worth the extra revenue that might be generated from NVIDIA's potential bugs in the first few weeks following a few game launches.

And yet at the same time we've been blaming AMD for not stepping up to the plate and employing the same efforts as Nvidia have been making for years in order to provide extra features and performance on the release day of a big title.

[jimbo75]

AMD doesn't have to disallow access to Nvidia to win here. It's clear Nvidia has no answer to whatever AMD is doing in Showdown so a bit more of the same should be all that's required. Ensuring octo-core optimisations should mean that even the cpu's look good against Intel.

I do still wonder if we'll see some kind of HSA enhancement with hardware support in the new cards. Something like this could be a real legitimate game changer.