nvidia, the way its meant to be played - NOT

[SpellSinger]

NV is bashing 3DMark03 for not being a valid gaming benchmark and demanding that games be used for benchmarking. Nvidia is pissed cause the shipping products don't score well and their DX9 product is a flop.

What are they going to do about "The way its meant to be played" program. They are paying ISV's to optimize for NV hardware and exclusively locking out ATI.

For example UT2003 was obviously payed for the logo and splash screen in the game but it is being used almost everywhere for benchmarking. Doesn't seem fair. I don't see ATI whining, I see them releasing fast hardware and seriously ramping up their software development to compete and win.

And what about Electronic Arts only using nvidia logos on their boxes. How much did this cost NV? It must be an exclusive agreement as EA used to use ATI logos and the games still perform very well on ATI. Why not include an ATI logo? I read somewhere that Tiger Woods and Madden 2003 support PS1.4.

And Microsoft including a nvidia advertisement in RallySport Challenge and Asheron's Call 2. They are both fantastic on the 9700 and I'm sure ATI would have advertised in these games, given the chance.

More and more it is looking like nvidia is not playing fair!!! and ATI is working harder to make a solution that not only competes but wins.

 

[jjayb]

Nvidia wants things done their way. They want game developers to code "their way". They want developers to use CG to take advantage of their hardware.

Seems ATI is more for following the API spec and let the hardware speak for itself.

 

[Glonk]

It wasn't until the very end of the beta (last update before launch) that Radeons became supported in AC2, and even then they had tons of crash problems. They're just now running stable in AC2.

 

[TheMightyPuck]

Haven't played AC2 for a couple months but it ran fine on my r9700 way back when. BTW, do I really have to pay for AC2 forever (http://map.gsfc.nasa.gov/m_mm/mr_limits.html) even if I don't play it?

 

[Anonymous]

AC2 worked fine with the Radeon cards. I was on the BETA from the start and had no serious issues. And I know that Turbine had one the 1st Radeon 9700 Pro cards, and they were in that ATI developer video as well.

 

[martrox]

Yes, I'll admit it. My name is martrox.....and I play AC2! And, I use a ATI 9700 at 1280X1024 with all the options set as high as possible, 2X FSAA and 16X AF and..... it runs great. Only problem is with the pixel shader(so I've heard) that messes up the transporting tube. Otherwise, fast & flawless.....

 

[DeanoC]

What are they going to do about "The way its meant to be played" program. They are paying ISV's to optimize for NV hardware and exclusively locking out ATI.

More and more it is looking like nvidia is not playing fair!!! and ATI is working harder to make a solution that not only competes but wins.

Thats simply not true, NVidia do NOT force ISV to use there stuff, obviously they (like all IHV's) do the whole cross marketing thing (logo etc) but thats nothing new. They have better deals if its an exclusive logo deal but so what? Everybody does it.

They want us to make it run well on there hardware but they don't penalise you if it also runs well on the other hardware. ISV are to blame for not supporting all cards equally. In fact I've had both ATI and nVidia dev rels help fix bugs with each OTHERS code paths at times (i.e. nvidia suggested what might be causing a crash on ATI and ATI told me about a bug in nvidia ps.1.1 version and how to work around it).

Dev Rels are good people, marketing is completey seperate. All dev rels will help solve any graphics issue with there cards, they will suggest and in some cases implement improvements to the rendering pipeline etc. Obviously (last gen) ATI helped with 1.4 shader mostly and NVidia helped with 1.1/1.3 shaders but in no way will they 'break' or cripple each other. They are willing to often write quite large and non-specific code paths if they think it will improve the overall look of a game, even adding things like bump-maps etc to art work.

And I was lead on "The way its meant to be played" logo game so I really should know!

 

[martrox]

I think this is an individual thing..... while I never had a problem with Unreal2, what about NwN? Definately written for nVidia cards.....

 

[DeanoC]

I think this is an individual thing..... while I never had a problem with Unreal2, what about NwN? Definately written for nVidia cards.....

From my experience I'd blame the ISV (Bioware?) first....

Just because they couldn't be arsed (possible due to time or publisher pressure) to make it run well on ATI, it doesn't nessecary follow that NVidia pressured them.

As I said, my "way its meant to be played" title (Silent Hill 2PC) had the logo and runs on PowerVR, Matrox, ATI and NVidia hardware. So you can't claim nvidia forced the developers to cripple it on other hardware. If it didn't run the only people to blame are the developer (as the IHVs will fix/workaround any bugs if you let them help/give them enough time).

The point is that us developers are usually to blame when it comes to compat issues, I've been just as guilty at times (like the time I didn't get a game tested on the Geforce 256, we released about 1 month earlier than the Geforce 256 and promptly had to issue a patch), in my defense (and I suspect Biowares) we are not perfect and its almost impossible to release on time and have no compat issues.

I suspect no conspiracy, just human nature. I don't doubt that the developers hating releasing something that ran badly on non-nvidia hardware or just plain didn't test it enough

 

[Joe DeFuria]

Yes, thogh I think there's a related issue to "not testing it enough". And that's using one platform for primary development.

For understandable cost and time reasons, most games, from what I understand, are developed primarily on one hardware platform, and then are "merely tested and debugged" on other platforms.

This leads to two things:

1) Development of code and limits that are generally friendly toward one architecure, while being agnostic or possibly unfriendly to other platforms.

2) The "illusion" that one set of drivers is better than another. (Invariably, when you develop on one platform, and "test" on another, there are issues on the second platform).

To be clear, I'm not putting forth conspiracy theories: developers choose a primary platform for development for a reason...usually picking what the majority of the installed base has. In the recent past, it's been nVidia architecture.

I suspect that this is changing though. Given ATI's overwhelming recent acceptance by gamers with the R300, I'd bet most developers are if not starting to switch to the ATI platform, are at least doing more serious developement work on it. If ATI continues to beat nVidia with better products, then we'll see a major shift of development platforms from nvidia to ATI, much like we saw the shift from 3dfx to nvidia....

 

[Tagrineth]

Nvidia wants things done their way. They want game developers to code "their way". They want developers to use CG to take advantage of their hardware.

Seems ATI is more for following the API spec and let the hardware speak for itself.

Does anyone else spot the irony here?

Think of 3dfx...

 

[martrox]

From my experience I'd blame the ISV (Bioware?) first....

Just because they couldn't be arsed (possible due to time or publisher pressure) to make it run well on ATI, it doesn't nessecary follow that NVidia pressured them.

I suspect no conspiracy, just human nature. I don't doubt that the developers hating releasing something that ran badly on non-nvidia hardware or just plain didn't test it enough

While I do agree mostly with your position, I do remember Biowares first reply to users was it was ATI's fault and that they couldn't make a change so it would work. There was such an uproar that they were forced to make those changes that they originally said were impossible. While this is by no means proof that nVidia pushed for this - they probably didn't - it does say something about a hardware manufactures percieved control of the market. And it's that exact perception that nVidia is pushing for with "way its meant to be played" , CG and their whining about 3DMark.

 

[Nagorak]

I think this is an individual thing..... while I never had a problem with Unreal2, what about NwN? Definately written for nVidia cards.....

Moral of the story: don't play games written by developers who can't program. Especially a luke-warm title like NWN...

 

[Anonymous]

Lets not forget that fateful PDF that Nvidia came out with regarding the KYRO II.....


As for thinking of 3Dfx, didn't sombodies high end version of their new graphics card get canned?

 

[Dave B(TotalVR)]

oops, forgot to log in;P

 

[Teasy]

Thats simply not true, NVidia do NOT force ISV to use there stuff

He said that they pay ISV's to use their stuff, not that they force them to use their stuff.

 

[Tagrineth]

Lets not forget that fateful PDF that Nvidia came out with regarding the KYRO II.....


As for thinking of 3Dfx, didn't sombodies high end version of their new graphics card get canned?

Actually I was referring to the GeForce2 vs. Voodoo5 battle - in which nVidia trumpeted GeForce2 as following API spec (especially OpenGL!) while Voodoo5 was nothing more than a 'GLide renderer'.

Situation reversed?

Seems almost like nVidia inherited 3dfx's entire situation...

 

[martrox]

Lets not forget that fateful PDF that Nvidia came out with regarding the KYRO II.....


As for thinking of 3Dfx, didn't sombodies high end version of their new graphics card get canned?

Actually I was referring to the GeForce2 vs. Voodoo5 battle - in which nVidia trumpeted GeForce2 as following API spec (especially OpenGL!) while Voodoo5 was nothing more than a 'GLide renderer'.

Situation reversed?

Seems almost like nVidia inherited 3dfx's entire situation...

Boy...... talk abour Revenge.........

 

[DeanoC]

Thats simply not true, NVidia do NOT force ISV to use there stuff

He said that they pay ISV's to use their stuff, not that they force them to use their stuff.

O.K. They don't pay you to use there stuff. (Us devs could do with the money ;-) )

You get free boards (I guess thats paying but then you get free boards off everybody), you get developer assistance and cross-marketing.

Its usually got nothing to do with the developers, almost the entire program is done via the publisher. All the developers have to do is cooperate with dev relations to make sure it runs well on there platform. Thats the same assistance you get wether your part of the program or not. Maybe you get priority access to the dev relations team? I don't know personally it felt the same for us.

I can only speak for myself, but as a person who has a "way its meant to be played" logo'ed game under his belt we were not (certainly not the developers anyway, can't speak for the publishers) treated anyway different from any other developer (we ask questions, have problems etc. They help us if they can).

nVidia want games to run well on there card, so does ATI, Matrox, Trident, PowerVR etc. They have a cross marketing scheme whereby if you game looks stunning (shows off there expensive video card) they will add you game to there marketing material and return you add them to your marketing material (box, loading screen, etc).

Why is this a win to developers? Because nVidia marketing budget is ALOT bigger than ours. Things like big OEM deals that will only take logo'ed titles, multi page ads in major newspapers and magazines, etc

 

[jandar]

then throw in an Ati ad in your game(s) for free then as well.

One or two textures wont cost you anything.

Do it for any Vendor, not just nVidia.