onetimeposter
Banned
Titanio said:
AFAIK I was banned for pissing off a few mods and make a joke comment that Major Nelson said there was no 2 SKUs.
Gamespot Interview with AGEIA
- Thread starter onetimeposter
- Start date
AFAIK I was banned for pissing off a few mods and make a joke comment that Major Nelson said there was no 2 SKUs.
onetimeposter said:
I don't think you understand - I don't trust you with my email address.
Apparently you made up Major Nelson emails/messages to warn people "against believing in rumours". So forgive me now if I don't believe you. You don't think it's natural to doubt you after that?
Last edited by a moderator:
onetimeposter
Banned
Titanio said:
ok now your just making excuses. You want proof or not , or are you just whinning
mckmas8808
Legend
Shifty said:
I don't think that one person has said that physics will make a life-changing improvement though. I would like to see that post if someone did.
Almasy said:
Now people this is exactly how I feel. Hideo has already talked about this months ago with MGS4. I hope more devs can understand this.
Couldn't you just as easily make up a forwarded email as you can an email that you cut and paste on here? I wouldn't exactly call it proof, if you made up the email that is.
The only proof is if someone else emails and gets a similar response. Forgive people for not trusting you based on past actions, but that is how it works. I don't claim to know your history, and I don't really care because the email seems more of an uneducated PR response rather than something that is solid information anyways.
The information from GDC presentation that was pretty clear holds a bit more water than a response from a third party PR firm who didn't seem very clear on the specifics of the architecture of the engine or physx chips. Now, don't get me wrong, I don't think this is a big deal -- it is neat to hear that we can expect things from PS3, but I am also expecting it from Xbox360 in one way or another. PS3 and Xbox360 are far too close in power to say one thing is possible on one console but isn't on the other -- the exclusives are the place where we might see differences, and even then graphics will probably be similar and gameplay/stories/gamequality/etc will be the differentiators.
In short:
Your proof isn't proof. And it doesn't matter either way.
The only proof is if someone else emails and gets a similar response. Forgive people for not trusting you based on past actions, but that is how it works. I don't claim to know your history, and I don't really care because the email seems more of an uneducated PR response rather than something that is solid information anyways.
The information from GDC presentation that was pretty clear holds a bit more water than a response from a third party PR firm who didn't seem very clear on the specifics of the architecture of the engine or physx chips. Now, don't get me wrong, I don't think this is a big deal -- it is neat to hear that we can expect things from PS3, but I am also expecting it from Xbox360 in one way or another. PS3 and Xbox360 are far too close in power to say one thing is possible on one console but isn't on the other -- the exclusives are the place where we might see differences, and even then graphics will probably be similar and gameplay/stories/gamequality/etc will be the differentiators.
In short:
Your proof isn't proof. And it doesn't matter either way.
onetimeposter
Banned
Bobbler said:
look at the picture. if ur still not convinced ill send an even higher resolution picture if you have msn or anything
onetimeposter
Banned
onetimeposter said:
*crickets chirping* wow, a picture is worth a thousand words
onetime - do you really not understand why people are sceptical after the stunt you pulled with the Major Nelson communique on TeamXbox? Don't get offended if you receive little notice here, and certainly don't expect apologies for it, be you correct or not. You should expect people to be sceptical. You may well be telling the truth, but I think most people would feel a lot more comfortable about these emails if someone else was (also) receiving them. And I mean directly from AGEIA, not forwarded from you.
onetimeposter
Banned
Titanio said:
why dont you email the following emails:
bizdev@ageia.com
investor@ageia.com
sales@ageia.com
email all the above and ask a specific question and wait for the reply. Im taking an innitiative while you SPECULATE and debate whats true and whats not. Why dont you find out proactively instead of waiting reactively
onetimeposter said:
I can accept the general points of the articles as sound. There's plenty I'd like to ask them about specifics but little they're likely to answer directly.
I have emailed Andy Keane, we'll see what happens. (I've not passed myself as representing anyone but me either btw. I note you signed yourself off as representing TeamXbox, at least in your original email to the PR rep).
onetimeposter
Banned
Titanio said:
thats the only way they respond. make yourself a Beyond3d rep
Well I got this response:
"The summary of the information below is that AGEIA would like to go on record that we do not have data to support performance comparisons for the PS3 or Xbox360 that would impact any of our physics features. Specifically, statements that the Xbox360 cannot run fluid simulations are not correct. In addition, conclusions about relative performance should not have been stated or implied in our presentations.
Our recent presentations created confusion and debate. Please allow us to clarify the statements we made and correct inferences in things we did not say.
Tom Lassanske is one of the lead AGEIA technical people working with developers. The presentation that caused this issue was given at several conferences, including Microsoft GameFest. The presentation at GDC Europe was presented by one of the European staff, not Tom.
The summary of the section of the presentation is below.
The middle section of the 58-slide presentation is all about how platforms with different processor configurations can map to physics simulation, ranging from single core PC to platforms with more processors. A developer requires at minimum “game-play†physics, but must anticipate that different hardware will have different levels of capability for more advanced simulation. Physics has a different characteristic for level of detail in that the game must handle a wide range of capabilities directly. There is no intrinsic knob that can be turned to reduce the level of detail such as screen resolution in graphics.
The presentation uses implied assumptions on the relative power of the platforms from single core, dual core, console and PC-with-PhysX platforms, based on publicly-available information. The only platforms for which there is actual comparison data at AGEIA are the single core PC, dual core PC and PhysX platforms. There is no current data on the PS3 or Xbox360 on relative performance. The implied difference in performance was from assumptions about the number of compute elements and memory architectures, and how well these might fit to various simulation algorithms as enabled by typical game developers. The difficulty in predicting performance across platforms is that physics is inside a game loop where many other game-related processing is taking place. Again, we don’t have a simple metric like fill-rate that is greatly dependent on the capabilities of the graphics chip and less dependent on what is going on in the game.
The statement has been made that there is a problem with fluid simulations on the Xbox360. There is no data to support this statement nor was this meant to be implied. The Xbox360 obviously has a great deal of compute power and the PowerPC processor is a very capable processor for physics simulation. Our SDK already runs on the Xbox360 and that SDK includes fluid simulation. This is the same SDK that operates on the single core PC and dual core PC. Again, we have not experienced any problems operating any type of simulation on any platform.
The goal of a cross platform SDK is to expose the same features so we enable developers to target that same level of physics features, although, as I stated earlier, the physics effect might have to be scaled across different platforms. Our sources of game titles for our PhysX product are the console and PC title developers that need the highest performance out of their chosen platform. We will do our utmost to get the highest performance from any platform or a competitor will do it instead.
The last point is to correct a factual error in the last paragraph of the ExtremeTech article. The physics computations of the boulder demonstration were running in software in the first case (typically between 4-6 fps on high-end PC processors), consuming almost all of the CPU cycles; and on the PhysX processor in the second case (typically between 40-50 fps), consuming around 20% of one processor (mostly for graphics, with some small overhead for PhysX synchronization). In the past we have hesitated to quote these numbers because of the difficulties in interpreting their meaning. In the case with the PhysX processor on our boulder demonstration, the CPU is doing very little work and thus has idle cycles that could be used for other purposes (making the game more fun), so the differences in frame rate are not meaningful. A more meaningful comparison is one where the software-only demonstration gives the physics a fraction (10%) of the CPU time, as is typical in all games, compared with a PhysX processor example where the same game is running and the PhysX processor offloads the physics calculations. The same comparison can be made between a software-only demonstration on a dual core PC with the appropriate loading and a PhysX plus dual core system. In both comparisons, you would see a much greater difference in capability."
Sounds like the PS3/X360 commentary was "expected" capability rather than based on benchmark data.
"The summary of the information below is that AGEIA would like to go on record that we do not have data to support performance comparisons for the PS3 or Xbox360 that would impact any of our physics features. Specifically, statements that the Xbox360 cannot run fluid simulations are not correct. In addition, conclusions about relative performance should not have been stated or implied in our presentations.
Our recent presentations created confusion and debate. Please allow us to clarify the statements we made and correct inferences in things we did not say.
Tom Lassanske is one of the lead AGEIA technical people working with developers. The presentation that caused this issue was given at several conferences, including Microsoft GameFest. The presentation at GDC Europe was presented by one of the European staff, not Tom.
The summary of the section of the presentation is below.
The middle section of the 58-slide presentation is all about how platforms with different processor configurations can map to physics simulation, ranging from single core PC to platforms with more processors. A developer requires at minimum “game-play†physics, but must anticipate that different hardware will have different levels of capability for more advanced simulation. Physics has a different characteristic for level of detail in that the game must handle a wide range of capabilities directly. There is no intrinsic knob that can be turned to reduce the level of detail such as screen resolution in graphics.
The presentation uses implied assumptions on the relative power of the platforms from single core, dual core, console and PC-with-PhysX platforms, based on publicly-available information. The only platforms for which there is actual comparison data at AGEIA are the single core PC, dual core PC and PhysX platforms. There is no current data on the PS3 or Xbox360 on relative performance. The implied difference in performance was from assumptions about the number of compute elements and memory architectures, and how well these might fit to various simulation algorithms as enabled by typical game developers. The difficulty in predicting performance across platforms is that physics is inside a game loop where many other game-related processing is taking place. Again, we don’t have a simple metric like fill-rate that is greatly dependent on the capabilities of the graphics chip and less dependent on what is going on in the game.
The statement has been made that there is a problem with fluid simulations on the Xbox360. There is no data to support this statement nor was this meant to be implied. The Xbox360 obviously has a great deal of compute power and the PowerPC processor is a very capable processor for physics simulation. Our SDK already runs on the Xbox360 and that SDK includes fluid simulation. This is the same SDK that operates on the single core PC and dual core PC. Again, we have not experienced any problems operating any type of simulation on any platform.
The goal of a cross platform SDK is to expose the same features so we enable developers to target that same level of physics features, although, as I stated earlier, the physics effect might have to be scaled across different platforms. Our sources of game titles for our PhysX product are the console and PC title developers that need the highest performance out of their chosen platform. We will do our utmost to get the highest performance from any platform or a competitor will do it instead.
The last point is to correct a factual error in the last paragraph of the ExtremeTech article. The physics computations of the boulder demonstration were running in software in the first case (typically between 4-6 fps on high-end PC processors), consuming almost all of the CPU cycles; and on the PhysX processor in the second case (typically between 40-50 fps), consuming around 20% of one processor (mostly for graphics, with some small overhead for PhysX synchronization). In the past we have hesitated to quote these numbers because of the difficulties in interpreting their meaning. In the case with the PhysX processor on our boulder demonstration, the CPU is doing very little work and thus has idle cycles that could be used for other purposes (making the game more fun), so the differences in frame rate are not meaningful. A more meaningful comparison is one where the software-only demonstration gives the physics a fraction (10%) of the CPU time, as is typical in all games, compared with a PhysX processor example where the same game is running and the PhysX processor offloads the physics calculations. The same comparison can be made between a software-only demonstration on a dual core PC with the appropriate loading and a PhysX plus dual core system. In both comparisons, you would see a much greater difference in capability."
Sounds like the PS3/X360 commentary was "expected" capability rather than based on benchmark data.
Last edited by a moderator:
Someone gonna get their hands smacked. Unless of course that was explained at the conference but the reporters hashed the reporting, which I think more than likely. They should have posted their PPT slideshow on B3D before hand so we could help iron any bugs and miscommunications out of it
Shifty Geezer said:Someone gonna get their hands smacked. Unless of course that was explained at the conference but the reporters hashed the reporting, which I think more than likely. They should have posted their PPT slideshow on B3D before hand so we could help iron any bugs and miscommunications out of it
I think it's quite possible they were careful in the presentation to stay within the bounds of what they could talk about based on publically available information on architecture. SenatorMonkey's report on the fluid/cloth comments talks about distinctions they made between architectures, afterall. That still doesn't explain Lassanke comments like "Besides, he said, in PS3, physics calculation of thousands of objects, tracking of tens of thousands of objects, and limitless effect physics and fluid simulation are possible." which are quite specific and do relate to capacity/performance. Unless of course he was just "predicting" based on "architecture" here too
It's interesting though, that while they claim they have no benchmark data for either console - and technically I'm sure this must be true as they would not have had final hardware yet, so they can say that - I'm sure they do have some data from ongoing development on unfinished hardware (they simply must, it'd be impossible not to). And I doubt they would have a discussion based around "architecture" or publically available specs that was at odds with what they were seeing in development - what would be the point, it would simply confuse expectations for devs across these different platforms, and these talks were aimed at giving devs a look at what to expect.
I think it comes down as mentioned by someone else, to a technicality of only being able to discuss publically available info, or based on publically available info. They can claim here that they have in order to satisfy Sony/MS even if, really, that's not entirely true and the discussion was based on more than just that.
Last edited by a moderator:
They definitely do have 'benchmarks' even if not official. Developing the same engine on all platforms, they have the final CPUs available to them which is the main point (aprt from RAM BW which I think is fairly near final). They will have run the same test simulations on every platform to make sure their implementations all work the same, and they would have seen the resultant FPS of the animation. They will know that, say, a single core PC runs one simulation at 4-6 fps and a PS3 runs it 40-50 fps, which gives a rough benchmark. Unless they have totally segregated development so no team has access to the information of other teams, and no-one knows the results of these simulation development tests from other platforms, they definitely know which machines run faster than others. Or I guess they could have used different test cases for each platform, which would be dumb and pointless, and even then would give an idea of particles/rigid bodies/collisions/deformations a second. I think that's why the response made mention of 'publically available' information.Titanio said:
Honestly, if they don't know how well their engine runs on different platforms they're imbecilic developers!
Similar threads
