NVIDIA shows signs ... [2008 - 2017]

[Sxotty]

Btw this is why people play consoles now. They don't have to deal with this shit. They don't have to worry about dumb IHV politics. They don't have to worry about which game needs MSAA forced through the control panel. They don't need to edit configuration files. Or have to rename .exe's. They plug in the disc and it just works. Developers should not be forcing their customers to jump through anymore hoops than they already have to.

Have you been to a console forum? The vitriol and hate is ridiculous. Features differ on consoles and people absolutely freak out. If rage has better textures on BR people stamp their feet and cry, throw a tantrum. It is about 1000x worse.

I, for the love of god hope that DiRT2 has a vendor check that only allows 640x480 on non-AMD hardware because, clearly, AMD helped CodeMasters a lot there.

I would like to see that it would be quite humorous. Hopefully codemasters does it and then we can see what happens.

 

[Davros]

wouldn't surprise me considering codemasters programed their games in such a way as to allow them to sell cheat codes
the cheap-ass money grabbing scum

 

[trinibwoy]

Getting AA in B:AA is adding something new? Oh surely trini, you jest!
Work started on B:AA just before GoW was realeased on the PC (with AA) and they updated the engine several times during development

Getting AA in a UE3 game is new yes.

http://www.develop-online.net/features/496/EPIC-DIARIES-Batman-Arkham-Asylum
http://blogs.ign.com/WBIE_Batman/2009/08/07/126330/

Once again, you're grasping for straws. So you're saying Epic doesn't know UE3 inside out and that's why UT3 has no AA support?

 

[Panajev2001a]

As a generalisation I'd say he's not far wrong, okay you have some games where they go "Wow look physics", then make limited use of it.

Red Faction: Guerilla has some silly moments in it too....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gR9cNAfRr4g

True, but besides some "hacks" put in to make the game playable (the problem with that kind of games is to try to avoid the situation in which the player ruins the game for himself/herself) and which worked abusing some of the game's systems (the remaining supporting beam has unrealistic properties, but the physics engine running the entire simulation is doing its job) the game's physics simulation is something quite complex and fresh in the gaming landscape and which still allowed for very nice graphics (another strength of GeoMod 2.0).

 

[digitalwanderer]

I don't know. I just find the notion of a developer getting paid to put a conditional around its otherwise universal AA implementation to be so far-fetched to be completely unbelievable. That perspective is simply reinforced by the previous absence of AA in UE3 games, and frankly that's the only reliable fact at this point.

Well at least we find the idea of "a conditional around its otherwise universal AA implementation" to be a bad, and I do disagree with the absence of AA in UE3 games previously.

Getting AA in a UE3 game is new yes.

No it isn't, the you can enable AA in the original UT3.

 

[DegustatoR]

People have to stop thinking nVidia put AA in B:AA while it was clearly there.

No it wasn't. I don't know any UE3-game which has MSAA support in DX9 renderer.
(And yeah, forced =/= supported in the engine.)

 

[Silent_Buddha]

Maybe ATI will give them the finger and just tell users...

Here's the procedure to provide Batman Arkham Asylum the Nvidia VendorID so you can enable the AA which works perfectly on our hardware...

AA is only disabled due to Nvidia having no other way to sell their cards this holiday season, enjoy.

Regards,
SB

 

[madyasiwi]

Clearly ATI card couldn't handle UE3 DX9 + forced AA properly. Just because the jaggies are gone doesn't mean it will render everything as intended. Here is one graphical glitch (there maybe others) that happen when you force AA on Bioshock (DX9) + Catalyst 9.8. Flickering 'illegal shadows':









Kudos to NVidia for their effort to sit down with the developer and sort the UE3 DX9 AA issue with their hardware, instead of just busy making bombastic product launch or pompous tech demo that doesn't work as advertized or never get released at all.

 

[neliz]

No it wasn't. I don't know any UE3-game which has MSAA support in DX9 renderer.
(And yeah, forced =/= supported in the engine.)

Okay, so now it's nVidia making sure the developers didn't put the DX10 checkbox in the settings menu?

As someone over in the B:AA thread mentioned, what are the changes that the vendorID check also checks for DX10 and thus allows AA that way?

No matter how this story gets spinned, they could've simply put the DX10 checkbox in and let everyone with DX10 cards enjoy and leave the DX9 nvidia AA option in there.

Both options have a very strong hint of someone paying someone to make sure that the best options for everyone stay out of the sight of the user.

 

[trinibwoy]

No it isn't, the you can enable AA in the original UT3.

It should be easy for you to produce a screenshot of the in-game menu offering an AA option then. Cause my fully patched Steam version surely doesn't have one.

they could've simply put the DX10 checkbox in and let everyone with DX10 cards enjoy and leave the DX9 nvidia AA option in there.

Lol, is Nvidia running a charity now? Why should "everyone" benefit? And have you guys even played through the game to see whether forcing AA on AMD cards doesn't have any negative side effects like in those Bioshock shots? I'm gonna guess no.....

 

[neliz]

Lol, is Nvidia running a charity now? Why should "everyone" benefit?

nVidia has nothing to do with AA in the DX10 codepath.

And have you guys even played through the game to see whether forcing AA on AMD cards doesn't have any negative side effects like in those Bioshock shots? I'm gonna guess no.....

I'm happily running forced AA on other UE3 games (Mass Effect) under both XP and Vista without such anomalies. I can't remember seeing anything freakish in GoW either.

 

[trinibwoy]

nVidia has nothing to do with AA in the DX10 codepath.

Maybe not, but all we have is circumstantial evidence pointing to exactly that. This is all unnecessary though. If devs would just take care of business like they're supposed to we wouldn't even be having this conversation.

I'm happily running forced AA on other UE3 games (Mass Effect) under both XP and Vista without such anomalies. I can't remember seeing anything freakish in GoW either.

Ok.

 

[ChrisRay]

Nvidia "typically" prefers to have AA handled in game rather than the control panel and will sometimes work with a dev to that end. Nvidia has several hex hacks for enabling AA in game enviroments that don't have developer support. Control Panel supported AA typically exists if Nvidia can find a workaround to getting AA to work in games that do not natively support it. But its not always perfect and at times can be subject to rendering errors. Any and most of all games that support AA from within the game will only allow for "Enhanced" AA control panel settings. Which will try to work Coverage sampling or things like transparency SS onto the base MS AA rendering method. This is Nvidia's preferred way of doing AA because it allows them to tweak it by still using the games method for implementing AA.

In regards to Batman. Nvidia seems to have it set to "Enhance" as expected.

 

[DegustatoR]

Okay, so now it's nVidia making sure the developers didn't put the DX10 checkbox in the settings menu?

Somehow I don't think that DX10 is a "checkbox". Somehow I think that it's not NVIDIA's decision to not have such "checkbox" but Eidos.
And now and yesterday it's still the same: NV's making your games graphics better while AMD's doing presentations and marketing speeches.

 

[Dave Baumann]

And now and yesterday it's still the same: NV's making your games graphics better while AMD's doing presentations and marketing speeches.

What on earth are you talking about?

AMD has a very active ISV dev rel group that assists developers in making games better. If you hadn't noticed there was a body of DX10.1 games released, and guess how they manifested? When you start seeing DX11 games, again, guess how they came to be.

The ironic thing is, though, the dev rel group acts as a dev rel group and and assists the developer it making their title run better on a given API; in one case I know about, we not only did we spend time helping the developer optimise their title with DX10.1 but also spent time on thier own general DX10 path, meaning that everyone gets benefit - but, hey, perhaps thats just being "charitable".

 

[mapel110]

Dave Baumann, from your point of view, is ATI on the same level with nvidia concerning dev support?

In the past there were always messages, that the dev support of ATI is not as good as it should be, especially compared to nvidia.

 

[DegustatoR]

What on earth are you talking about?

AA, PhysX, DX10, etc. Is that really hard to understand?

AMD has a very active ISV dev rel group that assists developers in making games better. If you hadn't noticed there was a body of DX10.1 games released, and guess how they manifested?

I noticed that there wasn't a single one AAA game with DX10.1 support. And the only DX10.1 game which has some kind of a noticable DX10.1 implementation got it via a patch after everyone on Earth finished playing it (Clear Sky).
And i'm wondering how long will it take NV to get one now, after they've implemented DX10.1 into their low-end line. If BAA or LP are any indication this will probably happen sooner than you think.

When you start seeing DX11 games, again, guess how they came to be.

Then we'll talk about it when we start seeing them? Or do you really think that NV won't have any DX11 launch titles for G300 while AMD will have plenty of them for Cypress?

The ironic thing is, though, the dev rel group acts as a dev rel group and and assists the developer it making their title run better on a given API

API has nothing to do with this. At all. It's all about the hardware and selling this hardware. Nor AMD neither NV sell APIs.

in one case I know about, we not only did we spend time helping the developer optimise their title with DX10.1 but also spent time on thier own general DX10 path, meaning that everyone gets benefit - but, hey, perhaps thats just being "charitable".

That depends on what title that is.

 

[trinibwoy]

The ironic thing is, though, the dev rel group acts as a dev rel group and and assists the developer it making their title run better on a given API; in one case I know about, we not only did we spend time helping the developer optimise their title with DX10.1 but also spent time on thier own general DX10 path, meaning that everyone gets benefit - but, hey, perhaps thats just being "charitable".

Well I'm sure Nvidia also provides general assistance as well given their investment in developer tools and resource sharing. AMD's nice guy approach is commendable and if that works for them then fine. However, you seem to be implying that being nice guys is somehow more effective or adds more value for your customers. Well it isn't and it doesn't based on the results. Same with marketing - can you imagine what Nvidia would have done with the advantages RV770 had this time around? Look at how they pimped the hell out of G71 even though it wasn't top dog - but it had size and power-efficiency advantages just like AMD has today.

 

[rpg.314]

Same with marketing - can you imagine what Nvidia would have done with the advantages RV770 had this time around? Look at how they pimped the hell out of G71 even though it wasn't top dog - but it had size and power-efficiency advantages just like AMD has today.

I suppose that is one of the disavantages of being the small guy.

 

[trinibwoy]

I suppose that is one of the disavantages of being the small guy.

Perhaps, but it's also a matter of investment. The folks at the top in AMD obviously don't believe they can benefit from stronger marketing else they would've done something about it.