More ATI Driver News from Derek Smart

[Dave Baumann]

]Too late, its alreeady happening the they [mods] aren't probably going to do anything about it because it fits right in with their fanboi agenda.

Personally I would suggest you look inward to understand why this thread has gone downhill – not that I actually expect you to do that and now expect a torrent of abuse back.

There is no ‘fanboi’ agenda from the mods here; there is a forum with a lot of reasonable people (not all, but most) who want a reasonable discussion, however its evident, thus far, that they are not going to get this from you – you made that very clear as soon as you started posting.

 

[PolyMoronic]

Trolls tend to dissapear if your ignore them... Just a little trick in dealing with DS

 

[laciltame]

Kassandra

No but I have a good idea what you do for a living and who for ...

ATI driver quality is notoriously bad, and below the standards of other reputable graphics cards manufacturers

ATI driver quality decreases even from that level

Serious claims for a newbie...want to give some examples to back that up ??

I know, I'm a newb, but I just had to make this small statement. If you had read her whole post, not just noticed that one part you would have seen that she actually said this:

First of all, I'd like to hint everybody to the fact that Derek Smart's main claim is that

ATI driver quality is notoriously bad, and below the standards of other reputable graphics cards manufacturers

ATI driver quality decreases even from that level

Those are DS's claims, not hers.

If I'm outta line, let me know, but I just had to point that out.

 

[Joe DeFuria]

an A-class title today is maybe a B-class title in a year. or maybe no title at all (as publishers tend to be rather picky re the deadlines). that's why devs bitch on the IHV for this and that.

Right.

But that's also why IHVs respond with stuff like "we'll get to it eventually" and don't seem very "responsive". Because while developers are having issues with titles not yet available, the consumers are having issues with games already shipping. And they tend to get the most visible priority, because that's the "most damaging" so to speak. The vast majority of consumers could care less if a card is having issues with some title in development. They care about things they actually use being fixed.

You think publishers are picky with deadlines? Try consumers being picky about the "money I spent on this card to play this game!"

All I'm saying is that Derek is on one hand bitching from a developer perspective. That's fine. But then he purports that this means anything of tagnible significance to consumers. That IHVs have nothing else to worry about other than satisfying developer demands, so why don't they just do it, and immediately?

it's possible, indeed. though, technically speaking, it'd be cheaper for ati if they simply come up with a simple, short article showing how derek screwed up in his code (not necesserily using his name there), and handle that article to a fansite, don't you think?

No, actually I don't. It'd be cheaper for ATI to just ignore the developer.

and dropping support for a given piece of hardware is by far the easiest thing to do technically, but it's a lose-lose scenario for all parties involved, and especially so for the devs, that's why devs prefer bitching to showing the finger to IHVs.

Yes, it is lose-lose. And that's what the dev-IHV relationship is all about. Since dropping support is lose-lose, the one who FIXES (or works around) the problem tends to be the one that has "more to lose".

For example, if Carmack stood up and said "ATI, implement a W-buffer emulation or your cards won't get support for Doom3", then I suspect ATI has more to lose than Carmack does if support is in fact dropped.

But if some little guy like Derek Smart or Joe Develoer says "ATI, implement a w-buffer emulation layer..." well, I dunno. Joe Developer / Derek probably has more to loose.

Derek claims to need a w buffer. ATI basically said: "no." Now, I suspect that Derek won't drop 9700 support. (Because he probably needs the ATI users more than ATI needs him). But the game might have some quality issues on 9700 cards.

Seems to me it's all about Ego. Derek hates the fact that he is treated as "the little developer", and others with more visible and popular titles seem to take priority over him. I think he just has to learn to deal with it.

I'm not saying he has to change his game to appeal to more and more people. His game is his vision. But if his vision doesn't appeal to as wide an audience as Doom3, then he should NOT expect to get the same support from the IHVs.

 

[Derek Smart [3000AD]]

]Too late, its alreeady happening the they [mods] aren't probably going to do anything about it because it fits right in with their fanboi agenda.

Personally I would suggest you look inward to understand why this thread has gone downhill – not that I actually expect you to do that and now expect a torrent of abuse back.

There is no ‘fanboi’ agenda from the mods here; there is a forum with a lot of reasonable people (not all, but most) who want a reasonable discussion, however its evident, thus far, that they are not going to get this from you – you made that very clear as soon as you started posting.

Oh puhleeze. Spare me the he made me do it bullshit. How old are you? Nine?

I only cussed once in a post where I was saying that I didn't give a fuck about who the ATI rep was. You protested and I changed it to damn instead. To me, its the same thing.

I'll leave you to respond to the rest of the rubbish you and your friends have been posting and which bear little or NO relevance to the subject matter as I originally stated them several pages prior.

The fact that you folks not only advertized that I had registered (I'm sure thats illegal in some States) to post, coupled with other posts talking about the popularity of this thread since I'm going to be in it, just CLEARLY indicates what the agenda was before you BASTARDS started this shit. So, clearly, YOU had it coming.

All I was doing was REPEATING what I had posted elsewhere so that a bunch of anon jackasses didn't go around taking my posts out of context.

I stand by EVERY WORD that I have written and could care less how many fanbois get their knickers in a twist. That'll teach 'em not to wear female underwear.

And FWIW, so far, I have received 17 emails from folks posting here (9 are devs) indicating that what I said was true. The only difference is that I don't fucking anwer to anyone but ME. Thats the joy of owning your own damn company, doing your own damn thing and sticking to your guns NO MATTER WHAT.

So, you ladies can attack me ALL you want, it won't change a damn thing. At the end of the day, the ATI drivers, until they are fixed, will continue to suck and cause problems for gamers and devs alike - as they HAVE done so many years in a row - regardless of the fact that they have gotten better. So, keep trying to take the focus away from this farce and on me. You stand as much chance of going to heaven as us sane [devs+gamers] folks do of forgetting about ATI's piss poor driver development record.

All I know is, like MT a LOT of functionality is broken in the 9700 drivers. I don't give a toss if PacMan runs fine or not. Obviously I was RIGHT or ATI would not have been able to reproduce the problem nor inform me that they were going to fix it asap. If there was nothing wrong and it was all on me, WHAT would they have to fix.

I swear, if stupidity were measured with a pair of calipers we'd need some really large ones, considering some of the posts I have seen here.

 

[Dave Baumann]

First of all, I'd like to hint everybody to the fact that Derek Smart's main claim is that

• ATI driver quality is notoriously bad, and below the standards of other reputable graphics cards manufacturers
• ATI driver quality decreases even from that level

I think we understand that, and part of the issue remains that not everybody agrees with him, certainly not all the consumers.

He quotes a few problems with ATI drivers that have arisen during his development work to prove that point - not just the MT issue, which imo is abused a bit here to draw attention from what Derek really tries to say by pointing to some statement of his that seems questionable and thus suitable to shed a bad light on all of what he is saying about ATI drivers.

I’m not sure it has been abused, Derek’s stance is that it broken – most other people stance is “Is it really broken globally or just not working in your game?” There is no evidence to show that this is broken globally since it has not been visually noted in any application that uses multi-texturing as yet. Further to that, ifrom reading Derek’s subsequent posts he still hasn’t actually answered the question instead arguing that Bencharmarks will not show the issue(?) and he’s using DX not OpenGL (despite DirectX games not showing any issue).

 

[Doomtrooper]

I'd like to add my $0.02 anyway.

I realize that yet but this statement along with the rest of post agrees with what was posted, and I would like to see the evidence since we have ATI people visit this forum.

 

[Joe DeFuria]

Sigh...

Obviously I was RIGHT or ATI would not have been able to reproduce the problem nor inform me that they were going to fix it asap. If there was nothing wrong and it was all on me, WHAT would they have to fix.

Let me see if I have the facts straight here:

1) You discovered some issue with MT on Radeon 9xxx series cards, on a title you are currently developing.

2) No other title that we are aware of on the market (that ATI Dev team has direct access to to test) exhibits the problem.

3) You reported the issue to ATI.

4) ATI responded, said they reproduced the problem and intend to fix it ASAP.

5) What the hell are you bitching about again?

 

[Derek Smart [3000AD]]

Derek claims to need a w buffer. ATI basically said: "no." Now, I suspect that Derek won't drop 9700 support. (Because he probably needs the ATI users more than ATI needs him). But the game might have some quality issues on 9700 cards.

Seems to me it's all about Ego. Derek hates the fact that he is treated as "the little developer", and others with more visible and popular titles seem to take priority over him. I think he just has to learn to deal with it.

You fooled me with your first post, because quite frankly, the reason I stopped responding to you is the baseless rubbish you continue to post from that point on. I doubt, seriously, that you even read what you write.

For one thing, I CAN drop support for the 9700 if I wanted to. And FYI, I told them that yesterday. I did that before with the 8500, until they fixed the damn drivers. They know that. You must thing that ATI have no idea that I'm pissed about their driver development. The emails I get from my first line of contact and the higher ups, say otherwise. And I've stated before, they HAVE gotten better. A LOT better. But the problems with the 9700 are just plain inexcusable and borne of the need to relesae this card, knowing FULLY WELL that the drivers weren't up to the task in some areas.

You must be one of very few delusional folks who underestimate my industry reach, history and power. Thats usually the first mistake. And thats why I'm still around, unlike so many others who are gone from the scene. People who underestimate me, usually only get one chance to get it right. Yes, I'm a small developer - no question about that, but I have a loud voice. At least its loud enough for me.

Second, obviously, contrary to your silly beliefs, ATI dev support, take the complaints of ALL devs seriously or they won't bother dealing with me now, would they? Even when Mike offered to field a conference call with their developers regarding a workaround for the lack of a W buffer (see my very first page with all the ATI quotes), my response was

Nah, that won't be necessary. Just have them give you the Z buffer ranges supported by the 9700 and I'll figure something out. I only noticed it when I sent that email. I didn't notice it before because my engine first checks for a W buffer and if it isn't supported, falls back to Z buffer. I noticed some tearing artifacts indicative of a low precision/range
and decided to peek at CAPS and found the problem.

Anyway, once I have the info I just asked for, I should be able to come up with something I think. We're not a panic stations yet

I have NO problems with ATI dev support (the buffer between devs and the driver dev team). My problem lies with the driver dev team and IMO, the poor dev support folks are just caught in the middle.

Finally, why the hell would JC want W buffer support in drivers? The fact that you even use this example, just goes to show how clueless you are. He's NOT doing ANYTHING that even REMOTELY requires the benefits of a W buffer. *sheesh*. And do you think that even HE has the power to influence the architecture of a card? Even if he wanted to (which I know for a fact that he's not even likely to get involved in such)?

Fanboi nonsense always make me laugh

 

[Doomtrooper]

Derek,

Maybe if you brought the tone level down and left out a few less 'idiot' references this thread could turn into something is useful.

 

[pikkachu]

haha,Mr.Derek Smarty Pantsy is actually
Derek Perez doing his PR monkey trash talk

 

[Dave Baumann]

I'll leave you to respond to the rest of the rubbish you and your friends have been posting and which bear little or NO relevance to the subject matter as I originally stated them several pages prior.

And most of us are still waiting for the sensible responses to the questions we’ve raised.

The fact that you folks not only advertized that I had registered (I'm sure thats illegal in some States)

Tell me you’re kidding! Its ‘advertised’ on the forum index when new registrants come in – you’ve used phpbb, you know that.

coupled with other posts talking about the popularity of this thread since I'm going to be in it, just CLEARLY indicates what the agenda was before you BASTARDS started this shit. So, clearly, YOU had it coming.

You seemed to be so keen on preaching netiquette to others, can’t you recognise it yourself? It was a joke as denoted by the Anyone who has been here for a while knows what OpenGL guy is like and having read some of your past posts it could have made for an interesting discussion. If you want to get bent out of shape over a joke then fine.

All I know is, like MT a LOT of functionality is broken in the 9700 drivers. I don't give a toss if PacMan runs fine or not. Obviously I was RIGHT or ATI would not have been able to reproduce the problem nor inform me that they were going to fix it asap. If there was nothing wrong and it was all on me, WHAT would they have to fix.

We are not saying that its not broken in your case, we are asking if this is because of the way that you are using it because there is no evidence in current games that indicates MT is broken.

 

[Derek Smart [3000AD]]

5) What the hell are you bitching about again?[/b]

1. Its in ALL my games. That includes BCM and BCG (which I'm currently working on)

2. If you READ my FIRST post, you would see that I wasn't bitching about the MT issue specifically. And that goes back to the reason I started posting here to begin with. This statement by some anon git

Here are some responses from knowlegeable 3D programmin' folks to the latest points Derek brings up in this thread...

They seem to think yer full o' it.

http://www.beyond3d.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2438

And my response prior to coming here to post (after I had read all the posts up to the point of me registering) and make my points clear was

Yeah, you must be reading the Swahili translated version. Go back and READ the posts again, fool.

Again if you READ my first set of posts, you will see that the post in which I reported the MT issue, started of with FYI and then I made three points which were relevant to others who had a vested interest in the drivers and the thread I was involved in.

Here, I'll post it again for you because you make it seem like I'm here bitching about MT. Which goes to what I was saying before - ALL that you and your friends have been doing is TWISTING the very premise of the discussion and trying to make it about ONE THING. It seems that If you can't dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bullshit seems to be the mantra for you folks posting outside the realms of this discussion.

]/me peeks from under covers

OK, this horse ain't dead yet, so....

FYI

1. They broke multi-texturing in ALL the current 9000/9700 drivers. The version on the CD and the version on the Beta site. I reported it last week. Just got confirmation five minutes ago. And I am assured that they will get a fix out asap
   
   For you developers, let me repeat that and see if it has any impact yet. They broke multi-texturing.
   
   Go back to what I said before How do you break table fog? Such a simple and critical driver component?. Same applies to MT.
   
   These are shots from the upcoming Battlecruiser Generations.
   
   Compare these two identical scenes taken from within my terrain editor
   
   MT normal on 8500
   MT broken on 9700 Pro
   
   There are about four MT layers in that scene. The normal terrain + the detail terrain + the site texture all mapped to the same co-ord. As you can see from the broken one, the models are resting on the land (as normal) but because the MT is broken, the site texture (up which the models rest) and the two texture layers upon which the site texture rest, are not mapped. As a result, you can see right through to the water table (since this site in particular is ASL).
   
   And on the GF4 Ti4600
   
   MT on station (ignore that SF marine poser. He's just showing off his new duds
   MT on damaged station
   MT on destroyed station being rebuilt
   
2. They removed W buffer support from the 9000/9007!! And they don't ever plan on supporting it because, according to them this will de-stabilize the driver and the card would take a significant performance hit
   
   I didn't even know this until I saw tearing artifacts in my game recently, then peeked at the driver CAPS return values and it was telling me to, well, fuck off, I don't support W buffer So I asked ATI and they confirmed it.
   
   So, any game (such as mine) that requires W buffer support, is, well, fucked on the 9000/9700. In the case of my games, there will be some tearing and other artifacts due to the limited resolution/range of their Z Buffer (see next issue). The good thing is that I had the hindsight (in a previous patch update), to fallback to Z buffer if the driver didn't support W buffer (which all next gen cards support btw).
   
   Let me explain the impact of removing W buffer support from a card. They literally put the card (in this aspect) back in the realm of legacy 16 Bit cards, some of which, in fact, did support a W buffer. I guess they think that all games of the future are limited to FPS, RTS and the like - you know, games that don't need such ranges. Expect to see some problems on sims, especially flight sims with large ranges (depending on how the developers handle their buffers).
   
3. The Z Buffer resolution/range is locked at 24 bit. No 32 Bit support. End of story. No discussion.

There you have it.

 

[jb]

Even if he wanted to (which I know for a fact that he's not even likely to get involved in such)?

OT:
But just for my own benifit at one time did not JC sit on thecincal advisor board for 3dfx? Not saying he was related to 3dfx just thought that he and others got together and gave some input to 3dfx on where they should be going with their hardware... Sorry just wondering if that was remoatly accurate or just crap I thought I remembered.

 

[Derek Smart [3000AD]]

Here is your post about it, from page one of this thread

It seems that Derek has just registered. I think I've just thought of a new revenue stream for B3D - I'm sure people will pay to see OpenGL guy vs Derek!

jb, I think you are right about JC being on the advisory board of some card manufacturers. Has nothing to do with my assertion that he doesn't directly influence board architectures. If he did, ATI would be in better shape now, wouldn't they?

 

[Dave Baumann]

But just for my own benifit at one time did not JC sit on thecincal advisor board for 3dfx?

Yes, he was on advisary boards for all the vendors. IIRC he even did some OGL driver coding for ATI at the Radeon release.

 

[Joe DeFuria]

For one thing, I CAN drop support for the 9700 if I wanted to.

Then why don't you? Let me guess.....it's out of the goodness of your heart that you want to support the 9700? Or is it that the fewer cards you support, the less sales of your game?

But the problems with the 9700 are just plain inexcusable and borne of the need to relesae this card, knowing FULLY WELL that the drivers weren't up to the task in some areas.

In areas that impact the consumer, or the developer? One would think you would be the last person griping about releasing code that is "known not to be up to the task in certain areas."

You must be one of very few delusional folks who underestimate my industry reach, history and power.

"I don't think it's possible to underestimate it."

Second, obviously, contrary to your silly beliefs, ATI dev support, take the complaints of ALL devs seriously or they won't bother dealing with me now, would they?

Of course they take them SERIOSULY. However, they don't have infinite resources and must prioritize the addressing of the issues.

Finally, why the hell would JC want W buffer support in drivers? The fact that you even use this example, just goes to show how clueless you are.

Erhm...I guess you wouldn't know a hypothetical if it hit you in the face.... Obviously, your typical "in the corridor" FPS doesn't need ultra-high precision depth buffering. It's a HYPOTHETICAL.

*. And do you think that even HE has the power to influence the architecture of a card?

Lol...Yes. You don't? Talk about delusional....

Perhaps you think it's "coincidental" that today's most advanced graphics cards seem to "fulfill" the needs of Carmack's desires moreso than yours?

 

[Dave Baumann]

]Here is your post about it, from page one of this thread

Errm, yes, I know - it was done in jest.

 

[Doomtrooper]

Derek,

There is some very good technical people on this forum (from game developers .ie Daniel Vogel Epic Games, to ATI, PowerVR and Nvidia engineers), there is representatives from every major IHV here..so if want to debate this is the place to be

 

[KimB]

I just have to chime in and say that I see absolutely no reason for basic rendering problems. It should most definitely be possible to write a relatively simple program that tests nearly every possible configuration of various rendering states, and checks for proper rendering. It would take a significant amount of computing power to do the testing, but that should be well within the bounds of any large chip manufacturer.