News Nvidia: Without TWIMTBP, PC gaming would be dead

chizow, yep, I'm very, very aware of Nexus.. I just haven't written a great deal about it yet. I was saving that for my Fermi piece

oh, the joys of being jetlagged to buggery thanks to delayed flights!

 

your posts are full of damnfoolishness and useless nvidia hate.how did you even come up with something this ridiculous?

 

I love all the bashing people do to nVidia.. Lol.


I don't agree that they saved PC gaming, but you can't argue that they help games look best on nVidia hardware. If they do it willingly for it to look like **** on AMD hardware or not can't be determined accurately from a code-standpoint and like everyone demonstrates clearly, it's only going to be viewed in a negative way, regardless of the code reasons why it looks better on nVidia and not AMD/ATI.

W/e.. no-one will be pleased with w/e nVidia say/do anyways when it comes to the TWIMTBP program

 

Shouldn't it be TWIMTBF ("The Way It's Meant To Be Faked") these days...?

 

Not really. People have been taking sides and arguing their corner for decades.

Spectrum/Amstrad
RISC/CISC
Intel/AMD
3dfx/Matrox
Nvidia/ATI
Apple/Windows/Linux
Orange/Lemon-Lime


If you really have a burning issue with Nvidia, go ahead and contact them. Seriously. Last time I contacted them, they were (admittedly busy,) but happy to answer my questions.


On topic, it's good to see that there are some companies backing PC gaming.

 

That's something I can agree with! I believe this is in fact very important reason why PC gaming is on decline. Big publishers are making games for causal gamers because they think it's the largest community on both - consoles and PC. But PC is land of hardcore gamers...


I think that nVidia is actually doing a good job helping smaller developers with their games but they're definitely not the reason PC gaming is alive. However they're helpful as long as they don't enforce PhysiX. Vendor specific API(which is on par with others) is a BAD thing and should be forgotten. Does anyone remember GLide???

 

Hey do not forget Atari vs Commodore

 

I always used to stick by ATI for the quality of their cards, performance and overall price point, then almost 2 years ago, nvidia's cards finally won me over and at the moment ATI's 58xx cards have my eye (shame about the price atm).

Yes Nvidia have made a valid and noteworthy contribution to gaming, as have any number of other graphic card manufacturers, both past and present, except Intel who should stick to what they know, cos if they really knew anything about graphics hardware, they'd have given us something better years ago.

For once, manufacturers should stop trying to fob us off with poor revamps and "whining" about the competition and for once give us true value and performance with stable drivers and cool running hardware that doesn't require our own personal power station to be able to run their hardware.

Personally, i would be happier seeing fewer cards released with greater jumps in performance and sensible pricing than rushing another card out the door.

 

Personally, I'm an ATI fan. Have been for years. I have never claimed anything else.

However, and ideal situation for me would be seeing AMD's hardware meeting nVidia's programming prowess, in a way that would benefit the industry as a whole.

Why are they fighting each other for cash, screaming "It's mine!" when they could both benefit from working together? nVidia sounds like a bully, they way they present themseves.

Huang:

"Look at this bit of non-functional stuff I'm gonna make. Give me a few months, and see how my programming team will have hardware. Until then...just wait, why don't you?".

Windows7 is coming, and are they ready with hardware for the launch? Does that sound like someone working with the rest of the industry, furthering the idea of bringing people digital entertainment?

How can they possibly claim they are supporting the pc gaming industry, when new stuff is here in a couple of weeks, and their hardware isn't ready?

 

Heheh aye, that's quite a trek from GTC across the Atlantic, I'm guessing your footnote means you attended in person. Look forward to the write-up on Nexus. They had a page or two about it in their Fermi whitepaper but wasn't all too interesting.

I'd also be interested in your thoughts on the whole "AMD says PhysX Will Die" bit from our earlier discussion on that piece, given what we know and have seen now. I think some of the recent developments we've seen clearly show Nvidia innovating when it comes to GPU physics and in doing so, advancing PC gaming overall. I'd also say AMD's recent shift from pushing Havok as their solution to the relatively obscure Bullet Physics also shows they were being disingenuous at the time of the article and that they really have no solid answers, solution or plan for GPU physics on their hardware.

It seems to me AMD has gone fully viral with their anti-Nvidia campaign with some of the recent news bits, which of course stem from AMD blogs and interviews and not "official channels". AMD's excuses all focus on trying to deflect blame on Nvidia for deficiencies in their own hardware and driver support. If you get another chance to speak to AMD about it, ask them why they just don't write a CUDA driver for their hardware and suport PhysX natively instead of applying their free rider approach to technology. If they simply took ownership of their own hardware all of this nonsense about workarounds then goes away.....

 

Hi, given some of the comments and replies you made to gavomatic57, I really have no interest in going into detailed replies with you. I'll just say free rider economics don't apply well in any capitalist industry. If this were some not-for-profit or educational research concern you might have a point but that's clearly not the case here. I'm not sure what makes you think there should be an open IP exchange in the GPU business when it doesn't apply anywhere else in business or society.

 

I completely understand wanting ROI. And to me DirectX IS an open IP exchange platform. I don't think nVidia should be sticking thier fingers in the software development, when they are a hardware company, but I guess, in the end, that's a moot point when clearly nvidia has become so focused on both.

I'm angered over having my PCI Phys-X card broken by software developed by nVidia, and having them claim they don't break things. As a business, the re-application of the nv-4x series was a beautiful masterpiece, as the ROI was very large there, but thier purchase of Ageia has heavy-handedly ruin the gaming experience on one of my machines.

And had nV supported DX10 in hardware when it released, maybe it would have been more of a success. I'm very concerned their actions may result in the same for DX11. DX10 wasn't supposed to have "cap bits", and nVidia has effectivly replaced that functionality on the software side, when it comes to the competitor's hardware. Are we going to see the same in DX11...? It sure looks like it, capitalism or not.


At the same time, I also think AMD should pony up, pay a liscencing fee, and get nV software running on thier chips. I never said AMd wasn't perfect, but nV is over-agressive.

 

Funny, I distinctly remember my 8800GTS arriving before Vista was released. I remember having to wait for the drivers to be posted to their website on launch day thanks to the time difference. It arrived way before AMD's first DX10 offering, which turned out to be slower than Nvidia's 8800GTX and was more power-hungry under load.

Clicky

Its all academic anyway, AMD will be gone soon. Maybe Nvidia will buy their x86 license when they fold??

 

That would make me happy too. nVidia programming, AMD hardware...Intel would then just pay to make then work together...though Lucid may fix that regardless. Either way...I'd like to see the guys @ AMD stay in charge. Remember that they are still recovering from Hector's foolishness.


As it is now, AMD holds nothing other than liscencing and rights, anyway. Well, maybe some real-estate and office furnishings too...heh.


But Intel still needs Larabee on market first. And if Huang sold nV...he'd have an easy retirement...or does he just really trust noone?

 

I don't think you understand, if you don't buy Nvidia products, they don't owe you ANYTHING. If you buy AMD, you get what you pay for. It seems the majority of the comments from angered AMD fans are from people who can't come to grips with these basic realities. The whole situation is encapsulated perfectly by the common fallacy that Nvidia is somehow hurting consumers with their TWIMTBP and PhysX programs when in reality, these features benefit ALL of their customers which are an overwhelming 2:1 majority by ANY metric.

Also, DirectX is not an open IP exchange platform, its a proprietary standard stewarded by Microsoft with input from IHVs and ISVs like Nvidia, AMD, etc. They set the rules, after that its free game for whoever makes best use within those rules.

Nvidia doesn't push PhysX because they wanted to get into software physics development, hell they give it away for free. They simply saw PhysX as a great opportunity to help them sell their hardware and further their GPGPU efforts. Its obvious these potential advantages weren't lost on AMD as Richard Huddy went through the same paces years ago, if they weren't so cash poor you might see a big red PhysX by AMD instead:

http://www.bit-tech.net/custompc/news/601680/amd-considers-buying-ageia/page1.html

Have proof of this? Or are you just taking cues from random bits of internet misinformation? The last PPU driver release was Aug of 2008, so I'm not quite sure how Nvidia would disable PhysX on your system if you didn't update that driver. The driver lock-out only went into effect with the 190 drivers, which aren't needed at all for the PPU to function. From the few reports I've seen, the Ageia PPU still works up to the capabilities of its limited hardware capabilities.

Huh? Nvidia had the only functional DX10 hardware on the market when Vista launched by a long shot, the R600 wasn't available in quantity until May 2007, some 4 months after Vista's retail General Availability launch. If anything, Nvidia was punished by being first to market as ATI's failed R600 launch allowed them to regroup and support DX10.1 almost a year later with SP1. DX10 was a failure due to Vista' s poor adoption rate and market acceptance. Win 7 will be Microsft's second shot at it and all early indications show it won't repeat Vista's failures. As for cap bits, there's always going to be a need to query hardware as standards and hardware capabilities are always constantly evolving. These fundamentals are essential to progress.

Its been offered to them, they not only declined, they've repeatedly downplayed and belittled PhysX to the point I'm not even sure that offer is still on the table. Instead they have these talking heads spouting nonsense about how important they consider physics and pushing different standards with no results to show for it on their hardware. At some point, AMD's customers are the ones who need to wake up, stop taking AMD's cues and realize nvidia is not to blame, AMD just needs to step up their game with more action and less rhetoric.

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/hardware/2008/12/11/amd-exec-says-physx-will-die/1

 

Holy hell batman. There is more partisan-ism than the Obama election. Honestly Nvidia did a damned good investment in TWIMTBP. Nothing more nothing less. In terms of PhysX it was simply an investment protection of sorts. Nothing really wrong anyways.

That said I've been Buying ATI for a while now, if only because they're so much cheaper.

 

Elton: It's been fun to watch

 

yea too bad them consoles can't keep a big company like AMD alive and well. AMD was so close to going bankuprt that they needed to steal money from Intel! The way microsoft have treating pc gamers lately should give pc gamer more reason to boycott AMD from the picture. The sooner AMD goes bankuprt the faster them consoles are going to go by by.

 

I guess there are still people out there who blindly listen and follow everything Intels spin team sews out. But that is another story.. What this boils down too is has nothing to do with ATI not having the same so called values Nvidia has. Ot os kist ATI is basically not doing something they really should not be and calling it oh we are protecting the PC gaming industry. I have used both sides products so I am not a fanboy of either side. I have multiple gaming rigs at home here with both set ups. Nividia is basically spending the money not to save the PC gaming industry but to try a sneaky low way to get rid of there competition. Anyway you slice it I will use batman as an example that game was a TOTAL snow job. They paid the company then low and behold when the gasme released it was disabling AA on ATI cards that is BS right there. Then when they are busted on it they act like it was some sort of bjug they never knew about. I am sorry but that bloat does not float. Both sides are wll know for sneaky tactics but Nividia by far plays dirtier. I honestly wish ATI/AMD would start using the same tactics. But I bet Nvidia would cry so load and so fast and there would be a lawsuit right away if you saw games designed on ATI start disabling AA and other things along with since havok is now going to be the norm for windows and for quite a few gaming software physx if suddenly nvidia cards were cut out of that. While both have some questionable practices it seems ATI is the more mature of the 2 children.

 

Right on mate!

if you think about it, if ATI started behaving like nvidia does, then nvidia would be more stringent about disabling AA and it would be a vicious terrible cycle.... Does anyone want a world where half the games have AA on ATI hardware and half have AA on nvidia hardware? no, no one wants that because we would all have to own two video cards or have some diligent hackers in the community.