Next gen = better optimization?

[Dr. Gregory House, M.D.]

Now that both "next gen" consoles are here, (for the moment at least) their specs are nearly similar to PC. Does this mean we'll start seeing better optimization? Cuz honestly, I feel like my rig is pretty substantial, and I don't want to be held back by crap optimizing like ACIV... *shudder*

[Dr. Gregory House, M.D.]

引用自 MA☝Omgwtfbbqstfu™：

引用自 DomCobb1：

So you're saying they're basically low end PCs? Cuz I get that haha, but why is it such a pain for big companies to delay the PC game for a bit for better optimization?

Because the pc market is small and riddled with piracy, and its trouble having to develop for multiple os/configurations, even windows comes in multiple flavors. It comes down to $$$$, gta5 launched on console and got to 1 billion in days or whatever it was, what kind of pc game would do that?

Just an example of the neglect of pc
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=718181
need for speed was found to be frame locked to 30fps for no reason on pc lol

The reason Rivals was locked was for a few reasons: Balancing on online multiplayer, lower hardware could run it better, and the consoles are locked to 30. And it sucks how immature 12 year olds pirate games because they want it NOW, they ruin it for the rest of us

[MA☝Omgwtfbbqstfu™]

heh well, the companies always come up with excuses. Remember sims online function? Cloud computing was necessary? nope:P Theres no valid reason to cap the frames for multiplayer or whatever, the frame cap/target was for consoles, where they can design to a spec. It has no place in pc software as anything other than an optional setting.

[Dr. Gregory House, M.D.]

引用自 MA☝Omgwtfbbqstfu™：

heh well, the companies always come up with excuses. Remember sims online function? Cloud computing was necessary? nope:P Theres no valid reason to cap the frames for multiplayer or whatever, the frame cap/target was for consoles, where they can design to a spec. It has no place in pc software as anything other than an optional setting.

Oh, I know. The only reason I didn't buy Rivals was cuz of the cap. Oh how NfS is going downhill. You can probably tell by my user pic, but I'm a HUUUGE nfs fan. Lol, I wish companies would delay PC games to polish them :P

[Wendschlag]

Developers have a conflict of interest, and usually low budgeted junk applications wins over in the end. I love how one multiplatform game comes out that peforms decently on modern hardware, and media outlets act like this is shape of things to come. It is very doubtful, and I will believe it when I see it.

[Jhemp12]

video game developers take alot of heat for "poorly optimized" pc ports yet alot of the time it's not really their fault..alot of it has to do with direct x and drivers which they have little to no control over..you can expect better optimized pc ports when amds mantle is released and devs take to it..they will have much more control with the mantle api than they do with the direct x api

[Dr. Gregory House, M.D.]

引用自 joshhempfleng：

video game developers take alot of heat for "poorly optimized" pc ports yet alot of the time it's not really their fault..alot of it has to do with direct x and drivers which they have little to no control over..you can expect better optimized pc ports when amds mantle is released and devs take to it..they will have much more control with the mantle api than they do with the direct x api

Just looked Mantle up, out of curiosity does this only apply to AMD GPUs...?

[Jhemp12]

amd wants to allow their competitors to use it as well but from what i understand it will be available for all amd graphics core next cards which includes the hd 7xxx series and the r9 series cards.

[MA☝Omgwtfbbqstfu™]

引用自 DomCobb1：

引用自 joshhempfleng：

video game developers take alot of heat for "poorly optimized" pc ports yet alot of the time it's not really their fault..alot of it has to do with direct x and drivers which they have little to no control over..you can expect better optimized pc ports when amds mantle is released and devs take to it..they will have much more control with the mantle api than they do with the direct x api

Just looked Mantle up, out of curiosity does this only apply to AMD GPUs...?

Yep and even worse, basically if pc is a lot of trouble, very few are going to "optimize" for a niche within a niche. They can barely release pc ports that work in the first place as we've seen. Anyways its like physx, whenever you create some "special" thing like that it doesn't last because devs aren't going to waste much time for a fraction of their customers.

引用自 joshhempfleng：

amd wants to allow their competitors to use it as well but from what i understand it will be available for all amd graphics core next cards which includes the hd 7xxx series and the r9 series cards.

Nvidia saying no is almost certain. Theres no advantage for them to help amd.

[senseidongen]

引用自 MA☝Omgwtfbbqstfu™：

引用自 joshhempfleng：

amd wants to allow their competitors to use it as well but from what i understand it will be available for all amd graphics core next cards which includes the hd 7xxx series and the r9 series cards.

Nvidia saying no is almost certain. Theres no advantage for them to help amd.

I disagree - surely if we could have a standard, open API that works on kepler and GCN architecture that would allow better optimisation and drive down the sometimes prohibitively expensive cost of a gaming PC and therefore allow better market penetration, why would that not be in their interests?

To me it smacks of Intel's dirty underhand tactics trying to get AMD out of the CPU market back in the mid 2000s - the bigger player more interested in market domination than free market competition/joint technical innovation (much as AMD and intel have enjoyed in the past, for example)

[MA☝Omgwtfbbqstfu™]

引用自 senseidongen：

引用自 MA☝Omgwtfbbqstfu™：

Nvidia saying no is almost certain. Theres no advantage for them to help amd.

I disagree - surely if we could have a standard, open API that works on kepler and GCN architecture that would allow better optimisation and drive down the sometimes prohibitively expensive cost of a gaming PC and therefore allow better market penetration, why would that not be in their interests?

To me it smacks of Intel's dirty underhand tactics trying to get AMD out of the CPU market back in the mid 2000s - the bigger player more interested in market domination than free market competition/joint technical innovation (much as AMD and intel have enjoyed in the past, for example)

Its got nothing to do with whether you agree or disagree, nvidia had no say in this amd technology, so obviously they aren't going to bother, its not to their advantage, its entirely amd's thing for a reason, they built it for their stuff. You don't see physx on amd either, this stuff tends not to be shared, it doesn't matter what you imagine to be ideal, these companies are in fierce competition with one another, they aren't going to play nice.

It smacks of nothing, amd's making the power move, they are "intel" in this situation being that they are in every console at this point and are mated to a cpu even, whats nvidia have? Just gpus really outside mobile chips.

And its got nothing to do with driving down costs. Its not a console market. Its like saying you can save money by playing 2001 games on a 300 dollar pc system now, it misses the point that on pc, you use every last bit of power you get, and so do the developers. If your gpu is 15% more efficient, it doesn't mean you save much of anything, it just means the bar for normals moved over a little bit. Not that it would really because the problem with such optimization is that its not worth it. Pc hardware evolves fast, its not static like consoles. The idea of optimizing to be "close to the metal" doesn't work when it keeps changing. Its kind of ignoring why we have high level api in the first place, ask yourself why such a thing was developed and what problems did it solve. Consoles resort to hand optimization because why? They are built to be cheap and rapidly go obsolete with frozen spec. Pc doesn't have this problem, especially this time. The consoles aimed low this time, its why they are so cheap. In 6 months their price performance advantage will be entirely gone vs pc hardware, and it will only get worse from then on.

Don't be naive, amd didn't create mantle to be benevolent to nvidia, its entirely for furthering their own position. Nvidia vs amd is far more even match than amd vs intel, never mind that in this case nvidia is the underdog.

[senseidongen]

引用自 MA☝Omgwtfbbqstfu™：

引用自 senseidongen：

I disagree - surely if we could have a standard, open API that works on kepler and GCN architecture that would allow better optimisation and drive down the sometimes prohibitively expensive cost of a gaming PC and therefore allow better market penetration, why would that not be in their interests?

To me it smacks of Intel's dirty underhand tactics trying to get AMD out of the CPU market back in the mid 2000s - the bigger player more interested in market domination than free market competition/joint technical innovation (much as AMD and intel have enjoyed in the past, for example)

Its got nothing to do with whether you agree or disagree, nvidia had no say in this amd technology, so obviously they aren't going to bother, its not to their advantage, its entirely amd's thing for a reason, they built it for their stuff. You don't see physx on amd either, this stuff tends not to be shared, it doesn't matter what you imagine to be ideal.

It smacks of nothing, amd's making the power move, they are "intel" in this situation being that they are in every console at this point and are mated to a cpu even, whats nvidia have? Just gpus really outside mobile chips.

Don't be naive, amd didn't create mantle to be benevolent to nvidia, its entirely for furthering their own position.

I appreciate that my opinion on the matter has no bearing on what actually happens, I just get frustrated when good ideas aren't given the opportunity they deserve. GPU accelerated PhysX is a good idea; Mantle is a good idea. There's probably no reason why you couldn't modify each to work on their competitor's architecture, but that'll probably never happen. I understand why, but it still makes me sad.

Ok I was maybe a bit rash to make that comparison; but nvidia should support this sort of technology if they have the option to in my opinion. All said, I know that AMD are a business who fundamentally have to think about profit and market standing etc. and that Mantle is predominantly another part of their business. I just wish any tool that makes PC optimisation easier and better to allow PC to better compete with consoles could be universally adopted.

[MA☝Omgwtfbbqstfu™]

引用自 senseidongen：

引用自 MA☝Omgwtfbbqstfu™：

Its got nothing to do with whether you agree or disagree, nvidia had no say in this amd technology, so obviously they aren't going to bother, its not to their advantage, its entirely amd's thing for a reason, they built it for their stuff. You don't see physx on amd either, this stuff tends not to be shared, it doesn't matter what you imagine to be ideal, these companies are in fierce competition with one another, they aren't going to play nice.

It smacks of nothing, amd's making the power move, they are "intel" in this situation being that they are in every console at this point and are mated to a cpu even, whats nvidia have? Just gpus really outside mobile chips.

And its got nothing to do with driving down costs. Its not a console market. Its like saying you can save money by playing 2001 games on a 300 dollar pc system now, it misses the point that on pc, you use every last bit of power you get, and so do the developers. If your gpu is 15% more efficient, it doesn't mean you save much of anything, it just means the bar for normals moved over a little bit. Not that it would really because the problem with such optimization is that its not worth it. Pc hardware evolves fast, its not static like consoles. The idea of optimizing to be "close to the metal" doesn't work when it keeps changing. Its kind of ignoring why we have high level api in the first place, ask yourself why such a thing was developed and what problems did it solve. Consoles resort to hand optimization because why? They are built to be cheap and rapidly go obsolete with frozen spec. Pc doesn't have this problem, especially this time. The consoles aimed low this time, its why they are so cheap. In 6 months their price performance advantage will be entirely gone vs pc hardware, and it will only get worse from then on.

Don't be naive, amd didn't create mantle to be benevolent to nvidia, its entirely for furthering their own position. Nvidia vs amd is far more even match than amd vs intel, never mind that in this case nvidia is the underdog.

I appreciate that my opinion on the matter has no bearing on what actually happens, I just get frustrated when good ideas aren't given the opportunity they deserve. GPU accelerated PhysX is a good idea; Mantle is a good idea. There's probably no reason why you couldn't modify each to work on their competitor's architecture, but that'll probably never happen. I understand why, but it still makes me sad.

Ok I was maybe a bit rash to make that comparison; but nvidia should support this sort of technology if they have the option to in my opinion. All said, I know that AMD are a business who fundamentally have to think about profit and market standing etc. and that Mantle is predominantly another part of their business. I just wish any tool that makes PC optimisation easier and better to allow PC to better compete with consoles could be universally adopted.

Seems I edit too slow lol.

Anyways I was just adding a bit on why mantle isn't quite what it seems to be.

Physx is probably not a good idea, its a modification of some other companies project to build some separate physics card, as such the code is inefficient or something. No idea if patents are involved muddying the waters, but as it is, its not really a good thing to spread around.

Mantle doesn't make it easier, thats the problem. Theres no magic. Universal api for graphics were created to make things easier for developers, you have to realize this. Because before that, it was custom "optimized" code, which was a nightmare, and fragmented the market, we had things like gl quake.. and glide api... google it. It forced developers to waste time on multiple platforms within pc effectively, you split time, you don't have time to optimize for either really. Glide games did run a bit faster sure, but only on 3dfx hardware. It doesn't make sense for a developer to choose sides like that though. Mantles just this all over again. Again, it makes sense for consoles because they are frozen in time, but it doesn't at all for pc because pc's advantage is that even as inefficient as it is, with windows and universal api, pc hardware evolves so quickly it doesn't matter.

Just remember, pc's advantage is that it changes, consoles advantage is that it stays the same. Thats why "optimizing" works for one but not the other...well in the way you are saying.

[senseidongen]

引用自 MA☝Omgwtfbbqstfu™：

Seems I edit too slow lol.

Anyways I was just adding a bit on why mantle isn't quite what it seems to be.

Physx is probably not a good idea, its a modification of some other companies project to build some separate physics card, as such the code is inefficient or something. No idea if patents are involved muddying the waters, but as it is, its not really a good thing to spread around.

Mantle doesn't make it easier, thats the problem. Theres no magic. High level api for graphics were created to make things easier for developers, you have to realize this. Because before that, it was custom "optimized" code, which was a nightmare, and fragmented the market, we had things like gl quake.. and glide api google it. It forced developers to waste time on multiple platforms within pc effectively, you split time, you don't have time to optimize for either really. Mantles just this all over again. Again, it makes sense for consoles because they are frozen in time, but it doesn't at all for pc because pc's advantage is that even as inefficient as it is, with windows and higher level api, pc hardware evolves so quickly it doesn't matter.

I'm sure you're right specifically about PhysX - I should have been clearer that I meant the idea of GPU accelerated physics processing in general isn't a bad idea.

Yeah that was my initial impression but AMD claim that Mantle was requested by game developers and it is also claimed that it can make porting a bit easier (which isn't necessarily a bad thing). I think I will reserve judgement till we see what extra performance it brings compared to DX11 in Battlefield 4 - if the gain is significant (~20% boost or better) then I think it's potentially something worth pursuing for the industry.

I see what you're saying and I can't help but reluctantly agree. To be honest, a good PC game has enough tweakable settings that as long as you have a reasonable amount of power, you can play any game you like so I try not to worry about it... too much :P

[Dr. Gregory House, M.D.]

引用自 senseidongen：

I'm sure you're right specifically about PhysX - I should have been clearer that I meant the idea of GPU accelerated physics processing in general isn't a bad idea.

Yeah that was my initial impression but AMD claim that Mantle was requested by game developers and it is also claimed that it can make porting a bit easier (which isn't necessarily a bad thing). I think I will reserve judgement till we see what extra performance it brings compared to DX11 in Battlefield 4 - if the gain is significant (~20% boost or better) then I think it's potentially something worth pursuing for the industry.

I see what you're saying and I can't help but reluctantly agree. To be honest, a good PC game has enough tweakable settings that as long as you have a reasonable amount of power, you can play any game you like so I try not to worry about it... too much :P

So what if a PC game has tweakable settings? If I pay $250 for a graphics card, I expect quite a bit of performance, seeing as it costs more than half of a PS4. And I'm not crying because I can't get 15,000 fps out of ACIV Black Flag, but I would expect a GPU that is able to run FC on Ultra settings with a consistent 55fps to run this game on medium at 60fps. I don't see why game companies don't see an issue with this, I'd rather have a delayed game with polish than what companies have been recently doing with their games (BF4, ACIV, etc). If Ubisoft messes The Crew up so help me...