Darryl Still on The Way Its Meant To Be Played

Bouncing Zabaglione Bros. said:
Very interesting. So it is more like a romance than a business deal, and then in the end it's still the suitor who is willing to buy the biggest diamond ring and give the "bride's family" the biggest payoff who finally gets the prize.

There was a title I read about (can't remember the name now) where Nvidia supposedly wrote shaders for the developers, but kept copyright on them, insisting that their work was only to be used for the Nvidia path, so there was some kind of deal done beforehand for some of the dev-rel stuff.
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Yeah for the most part, well as a developer I wouldn't want to go exclusive if another company can also help me lol, thats the way I look at it, I'm sure others do too, unless the developer is big enough to sustain themselves at endless costs :D . Yes I know nV still does keep copyrights to some of the shaders they write for developers (specially around launch time of a new product, if that developer has access to nex gen cards), this is the whole thing about the g80, ATi wanted a couple or more developers, (I know there were at least 2 developers involved), to release some "code" later on I found out it was indeed shader code, which nV gave the permission to release but only after the g80 was launched. Now doing code that only works on nV cards, if it did happen it was probably before my time, my company joined with around the time the Fx was launched, but didn't really get serious till the gf6.
 
Bouncing Zabaglione Bros. said:
However... we've seen a lot of TWIMTBP games that have run as well or better on ATI hardware over the years. Does this mean that Nvidia is spending more for the marketing exclusives and getting the headlines, but ATI is spending less and focussing it tightly on the dev-rel efforts, and therefore developers are making better games for ATI?

The alternative is that ATI hardware has been better and been able to close the gap that Nvidia opened with intensive efforts on the development side. Maybe TWIMTBP was really needed by Nvidia to make up for the shortfalls they had in their hardware from NV30 to G80? I certainly got the impression that TWIMTBP really came of age during the NV30 debacle when Nvidia started "educating" developers on how to use PP, CG and all the other hand-holding that Nvidia needed to give to the developer for NV30, and TWIMTBP grew from there.
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This is absolutely ridiculous. ATI and NVidia hardware are not identical. Some games will play better on one than the other because of the games inherent design. That doesn't mean that whichever it played better on is somehow superior overall, it simply means that in that specific title for whatever reason it is better. Shortfalls from nv30 to g80? The nv30 yes, but otherwise get over it. The mantra that ati is far superior and creativity you exhibit trying to support it is amazing. You should start writing fiction, although you probably need to work on your plausibility. Such ridiculous assertions will break immersion for the reader.
 
Bouncing Zabaglione Bros. said:
However... we've seen a lot of TWIMTBP games that have run as well or better on ATI hardware over the years.
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Let's assume that Nvidia's developer assistance here is actually that - developer assistance. Don't you think that ATI hardware would benefit as well, raising performance across the board? I think I understand where you're coming from though. Nvidia hardware sucks and they need to teach developers all these tricks and workarounds to eek out usable performance. These optimizations don't help ATI hardware at all because it doesn't suck. Does that about sum it up?

From an engineering standpoint Nvidia does have a history of cutting corners - 128-bit bus on NV30, PP, aggressive trilinear and AF optimization/cheating, slow DB. Maybe even slow GS this time around. The only time people complained about ATI's stuff was during the SM3.0 hype and most dont really care about the lack of VTF on R580.

Having said that, if the TWIMTBP program does not intentionally hurt the competition then I have no clue what people are complaining about. If it raises Nvidia's esteem in developer circles and puts their branding in front of more consumers then it's fair game IMO. And even more so if it really does contribute to developer knowledge and better games as this guy claims.
 
trinibwoy said:
Let's assume that Nvidia's developer assistance here is actually that - developer assistance. Don't you think that ATI hardware would benefit as well, raising performance across the board? I think I understand where you're coming from though. Nvidia hardware sucks and they need to teach developers all these tricks and workarounds to eek out usable performance. These optimizations don't help ATI hardware at all because it doesn't suck. Does that about sum it up?
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I think that was the point when TWIMTBP as a developer support service really came into it's own. Nvidia needed it to help developers on what was a more complicated hardware to develop good code for. I'm sure Nvidia didn't want to be helping out ATI as well, and some of that dev-rel (such as PP shader code) wouldn't have helped ATI anyway as ATI didn't even have PP in their hardware.

Sure, later Nvidia hardware was much better, but Nvidia had the good sense to keep TWIMTBP running. It's obviously a good support and marketing infrastructure, developed when Nvidia really needed it, kept running because the benefits became obvious.

trinibwoy said:
From an engineering standpoint Nvidia does have a history of cutting corners - 128-bit bus on NV30, PP, aggressive trilinear and AF optimization/cheating, slow DB. Maybe even slow GS this time around. The only time people complained about ATI's stuff was during the SM3.0 hype and most dont really care about the lack of VTF on R580.

Having said that, if the TWIMTBP program does not intentionally hurt the competition then I have no clue what people are complaining about. If it raises Nvidia's esteem in developer circles and puts their branding in front of more consumers then it's fair game IMO. And even more so if it really does contribute to developer knowledge and better games as this guy claims.
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I think the suspicion is that because of it's success and the way the logo is seen on so many games, that Nvidia was buying exclusivity, and exclusivity often means locking out the competition. That of course benefits Nvidia owners, but the worry is that people who don't own Nvidia cards somehow receive a worse product. That's generally not been the case though, so other competing companies like ATI/AMD are still managing to keep their end up (either because of their dev-rel or their hardware), despite not having the high profile of TWIMTBP.
 
The excusivity contract is a co-marketing contract. There is sometimes money involved with bundled software, but this is outside the dev program.

We have seen it before, with Doom 3, right before launch.

Saw it with HL2, but that was like 1 year or year and half before launch lol, because Valve really screwed things up.

Hero's of Might and Magic: Dark Messiah, same thing.

Of course nZone also has alot promotional atmosphere as well, its just a way we scratch your back, you scratch ours at the end with co-promotions, getting that TWIMTBP logo and nV on as many boxes as possible its powerful marketing, I know people thinking the game is going to play great on the Fx because of that logo. Shit it works.
 
Compare the size of Nvidia's Devrel to the ATI Devrel. Of course the statistics I heard in the past may have changed some. I think it would be pretty telling just how important Nvidia thinks working with developers is.
 
Geo said:
Interestingly, he claims only one instance of direct "money changing hands" as part of the program. "Interesting" because you'd think he'd be in a position to know, and the cynics in the community have always had a jaundiced view of such devrel promotional programs and have promoted conspiracy theories regarding their true means and aims.
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I doubt most of the game developers NV approached are idiots.

And to be honest, I honestly don't see what's the problem -- I'm not gonna die if I chosed not to buy a game out of "principle".

PS. I found certain things in the "article" more interesting than the one you chosed to highlight, Geo.
 
trinibwoy said:
Let's assume that Nvidia's developer assistance here is actually that - developer assistance. Don't you think that ATI hardware would benefit as well, raising performance across the board? I think I understand where you're coming from though. Nvidia hardware sucks and they need to teach developers all these tricks and workarounds to eek out usable performance. These optimizations don't help ATI hardware at all because it doesn't suck. Does that about sum it up?

From an engineering standpoint Nvidia does have a history of cutting corners - 128-bit bus on NV30, PP, aggressive trilinear and AF optimization/cheating, slow DB. Maybe even slow GS this time around. The only time people complained about ATI's stuff was during the SM3.0 hype and most dont really care about the lack of VTF on R580.

Having said that, if the TWIMTBP program does not intentionally hurt the competition then I have no clue what people are complaining about. If it raises Nvidia's esteem in developer circles and puts their branding in front of more consumers then it's fair game IMO. And even more so if it really does contribute to developer knowledge and better games as this guy claims.
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There have been a few TWIMTBP games that were nvidia only.
Some train game I believe, for one. (so nobody cared)
And not sure if Metal Gear Solid 2 was even TWIMTBP, but it only ran on nvidia cards at release.
 
Fox5 said:
Some train game I believe, for one. (so nobody cared)
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That was BridgeIT! an updated version of PontiFex.. not a train game but a bridge building/construction sim.

And not sure if Metal Gear Solid 2 was even TWIMTBP, but it only ran on nvidia cards at release.
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? Oh seriously, then I have to uninstall it as soon as I can because I never encountered a hitch when playing it on ATI hardware.

Other than marketing a TWIMTBP game doesn't actually make nV hardware run better as there have been numerous examples of those titles that just ran better on ATI hardware. the fact that the guy that wrote the shaders works for nV doesn't always mean that some hardware problems will automatically resolve.
 
neliz said:
That was BridgeIT! an updated version of PontiFex.. not a train game but a bridge building/construction sim.


? Oh seriously, then I have to uninstall it as soon as I can because I never encountered a hitch when playing it on ATI hardware.

Other than marketing a TWIMTBP game doesn't actually make nV hardware run better as there have been numerous examples of those titles that just ran better on ATI hardware. the fact that the guy that wrote the shaders works for nV doesn't always mean that some hardware problems will automatically resolve.
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I said at release MGS2 didn't run on ATI hardware, they soon released a patch that allowed it to. (in fact, I believe that patch is needed for later nvidia cards as well)
It's possible they released a new sku of MGS2 with the patch already applied, but I got the game well after its initial heyday and the version I had came sans-patch.
 
well no it doesn't have anything to do with them, this is what THQ was looking for :smile: and nV said they don't want to bid for it because they already put in a butt load of effort with their game program.
 
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