AMD: Nvidia "completely" sabotaged Witcher 3's performance

As always the battle for who to optimize more and in this case AMD claims they got shafted in favor of Nvidia HairWorks

First, it was shiny new racing sim Project Cars that drew the ire of the Reddit community, with users claiming that the game is built on a version of PhysX that "simply does not work on AMD cards." Never one to turn away from a good Nvidia-bashing, AMD's corporate VP of alliances Roy Taylor responded with a tweet, saying "Thank for supporting/ wanting an open and fair PC gaming industry."

Naturally, with the complaints flowing in thick and fast, Project Cars developer Slightly Mad Studios joined the fray, and proceeded to place the blame for the game's issues squarely on AMD. "We’ve provided AMD with 20 keys for game testing as they work on the driver side," said Slighty Mad Studios' Ian Bell. "But you only have to look at the lesser hardware in the consoles to see how optimised we are on AMD based chips.

A CD Projekt Red developer (speaking to Overclock3D) weighed in on the performance issues, saying: "Many of you have asked us if AMD Radeon GPUs would be able to run NVIDIA’s HairWorks technology—the answer is yes! However, unsatisfactory performance may be experienced, as the code of this feature cannot be optimized for AMD products. Radeon users are encouraged to disable NVIDIA HairWorks if the performance is below expectations."

The trouble with GameWorks, at least as AMD tells it, is that Nvidia isn't willing to share the source code for its proprietary graphics APIs like HairWorks and HBAO+. Without that source code, AMD can't optimize its drivers for Nvidia's tech.

Which brings us to the next question: why did CD Projekt Red choose to include HairWorks but not AMD's TressFX? It's entirely possible to include tech from both companies, and as Nvidia claimed to PC Perspective, it's "agreements with developers don’t prevent them from working with other IHVs [independent hardware vendors]."

Ultimately, though, there's an additional amount of time and cost attached to including two very different types of technology to produce largely the same effect.

The article is super long, I just copy pasted a few lines.

http://arstechnica.co.uk/gaming/2015/05/amd-says-nvidias-gameworks-completely-sabotaged-witcher-3-performance/1/

didn't Nvidia get sued for that practice in the past?

isn't that more of the developers fault

yeah this is Nvidia being a dickhead. They don't have to release the source, just provide it to AMD who can work on driver optimization. i know there could be some issues with them being the competition but all AMD API''s are open source....

Basically Nvidia are money grubbing bastards

That's pretty shit, but things like this as well as the exclusive gpu based things like Physx are part of the reason I only look to purchase Nvidia GPU's now.

I'd say **** Nvidia, but my laptop has a 960M in it. Desktop rig has AMD's crossfired though. This seems like giant BS. Its sounds like its not actually adding features, it getting devs to add code that intentionally bogs down AMD cards. Then they throw it in AMD's face and say "make it work lol" knowing full well AMD can't do crap about it without Nvidia's source code. Thats stupid and anti-competitive. The games probably run fine on the PS4 and Xbone because that code isn't there.

Good to know not to buy Project Cars. Frankly, Shift 2 was garbage, and I don't like supporting devs that support crap like this. They know full well why it runs good on the consoles and not on AMD PC's.

Isnt even Nvidia users turning off haireffects and PhysX in games to get better performance?

Nvidia are the best, Cobra Kai forever.

How scandalous for AMD PC users. :(

they made the same claim after AC Unity

they made this claim long before then

the issue has to do with Nvidia helping devs squeeze before performance out of their games so much so the games are basically tailored to Nvidia hardware at the expense of ignoring development for AMD hardware

I second that nVIDIA are being a bunch of pricks. They've always have been. At least AMD is nice enough to offer open API's. That, and they don't price gouge as much as nVIDIA does on their GPU line. You know what, we should do with all of this proprietary crap that constantly plagues development.

Eh, Physx looks gimmicky anyways.

Physx is open source now. TressFX is not however, along with all the Gameworks crap that everyone just turns off.

You don't say? Huh, I guess I was wrong about Physx then.

If the market share was reversed, you can bet AMD would do it to NVidia in a heartbeat. I kind of take what AMD is saying with a grain of salt (or an entire salt lick...) because they make crappy drivers. ATI made horrible drivers, and AMD has continued that tradition - apparently not figuring out that if you make advanced hardware, you need to invest in making solid, performing drivers to match.

Perhaps DirectX12 will level the playing field a bit - allow people to mix and match both camps' cards to get the best of both worlds. Until then, AMD will just need to step up their game if they want to compete (for now).

lol, AMD is salty

Nvidia has many shady practices. Such as gimping the GTX 960 with a sub par 128 bit bus.

Nvidia has always been a bunch of shady dirtbag assholes. I would have bought an AMD card this year if they at least announced them by now.

Even though I have a 970, I still recommend everyone turn off those added nvidia effects like hairworks and HBAO+. They look like total garbage, and they drain performance significantly.

I don't even have HairWorks enabled on my 970. Way too much of a hit.

Not hard to fix..... rendering,ini turn down the hairworks AA to like 2 instead of 8

Yeah I saw the post on that. I'd bother with it, but the lack of HW really doesn't bother me. Nice feature, but nothing crazy.

lol people blaming Nvidia...... AMD tends to blame everyone but themswelves.....

The game in general uses a good amount tessellation and using Hairwork's adds more heavy tessellation on all objects that use it. And all AMD GCN based gpu suck at tessellation. Their good with direct compute but perform poorly with tessellation. While Nvidia's Kepler performs ok with tessellation but poor with direct compute, And Maxwell handles both quite well. Maxwell handles tessellation better then Kepler by 2-3x faster. AMD users can bypass the performance hit by going into their control panel and limiting tessellation to like 8x or 16x this will solve over usage of tessellation . Also editing the rendering.ini file changing hairworksAA from 8 to 2x will help as well. Also 1.03 patch of the game lowered tessellation usage in hairworks speeding things up some.

AMD blaming Nvidia for sabotage is just plain stupid.

Nvidia has a clear monopoly on the PC gaming industry... Not sure how they're getting away with it. But I like their products and don't give a shit what they do towards AMD or anything like that. Just find it curious how their practices are legal.

its the one thing i dont like about nvidia (currently a 780M owner). they develop all this cool tech but then make it as difficult as possible for other hardware manufacturers to use it. in the end no one wins. nealry half the PC gamer market cant use it (or cant use it well) and developers in general are reluctant to use it because it runs like crap on too many computers. no point in implementing the feature.

with tressFX AMD made it known how it works and gave all the information needed to get good performance. Nvidia had a driver update sorted quickly and any issues nvidia had with tressFX became history quickly.

i dont expect nvidia to write AMDs driver for them but i dont like it when they also make it unnecessarily difficult to get up to speed. AMD have to reverse engineer the problem.

so, like so many of these cool features, we are again in a situation where developers wont integrate it themselves and the only games that will use it are games where nvidia does most of the leg work to get it running in the game. this nonsense has to stop. it benefits no one.

It's quite noticeable on large creatures. But yeah, too much of a hit for it to be worth it really. And whenever the camera gets anywhere close to geralt's hair because of some obstacle or wall the fps goes down to like 10 for an instant (because of the progressive rendering of hairworks based on distance, and the built in AA).

The sub-par driver support for my 780ti is extremely depressing. My performance was on par with gtx 980 earlier in the year. Definitely not the case anymore.

They were able to somewhat optimize a game on two consoles based on AMD hardware.

When considering upgrades......

My system with 2 potential GTX 970s would use 480W

My system with 2 potential R9 290X would use 780W

So for needing 2x the power, and causing 2x or more the Heat, do I get 2x the performance?

No. K Thx Bye AMD.

I ran it for the first little while, and it definitely looks nice. Not a huge deal breaker.

Really cool tech, mind you.

R9 290 series is what? 2 years old?

Maxwell is less than a year old. AMD FIJI architecture (the competitor of maxwell) doesn't come out until June.

The major benefit of the r9 290 is it's lower price. R9 290 is in the price range of a gtx 960 but offers way more performance.

We have to see what FIJI brings to the table to see how they compare with the 900 series.

Nvidia plays dirty. Doesn't surprise me one bit.

@uninspiredcup: sweep the leg

Kobra_kai is my psn gamertag

AMD tends to blame everyone but themselves.....

You didnt see "Nvidia" complain about the games using Mantle..... the games that were promoted by AMD.

Witcher 3 in general uses a good amount tessellation and using Hairwork's adds more heavy tessellation on all objects that use it. And all AMD GCN based gpu's poorly handle tessellation. Their good with direct compute but perform poorly with tessellation. While Nvidia's Kepler performs ok with tessellation but poorly with direct compute, And Maxwell handles both decently . Maxwell handles tessellation better then Kepler and GCN.

Why the hell would a company share technology with its competitor? Lol.

@Gue1:

Read http://www.reddit.com/r/witcher/comments/36jpe9/how_to_run_hairworks_on_amd_cards_without/

How to run Hairworks on AMD cards without crippling performance

It's the same method for Crysis 2 NVIDIA patch. Excessive tessellation with large overdraw issues that doesn't improve visuals.

Project Cars issue

Up to 40 percent frame rate improvements with Windows 10 on Radeon HD R9-280X. Wait for Windows 10's release on July 2015

http://wccftech.com/nvidia-responds-witcher-3-gameworks-controversy/

As a result of the backlash, Nvidia changed its policy to allow game developers access to the source code as of mid April of last year. However according to AMD, this did not alter the situation, as game developers engaged in the Nvidia GameWorks program were still not allowed to work with AMD to optimize the code for their hardware. Something which Nvidia initially denied but later Nvidia’s Tom Petersen and Rev Lebaradian admitted. Witcher 3 developers, CD Projekt Red, reaffirmed this again two days ago.

@04dcarraher: GCN Tonga handles Hairworks similar to 960

The claim that AMD have horrible drivers is parrot drivel and you should stop parroting misinformation.

I still prefer Nvidia. I like their hardware, software and driver support. I keep on hearing about people having performance issues on AMD cards. It's up to AMD to improve anytime they want.

I don't think Nvidia should share anything. Think about it, they are a graphics company, they are pro active, they invent decent new graphics hardware and software technologies. Why should they share, because AMD are passive and don't try to lead the way themselves.

AMD passive? That makes no sense. You have Gsync by Nvidia which is proprietary and then you have Freesync by AMD which is open source. They both accomplish the same task but Gsync increases the price of monitors by $100. You got Hairworks by Nvidia and Tressfx by AMD.

@Pedro: ...or I could be making an observation based on the number of AMD systems I've put together - every single one of them has driver issues of some sort. Like the ALi Alladin chipset... the ATI Radeon driver problems with Windows 95... I've seen driver issues with my mother's system, which is an A88X based A10 system - great for web surfing and occasional video things. It took a serious amount of tinkering and under-clocking to even get that thing working properly - almost all the performance boosting features in the A10 cause Windows 8 to lock up or stop responding - took me three times to get the OS to even install on it.

So, parroting, huh?

The only AMD system I have that hasn't given me trouble is serving as a FreePBX server box and that's because it isn't really pushed all that hard (No GUI, no fancy features needed, etc...).

I'd really like to see AMD/ATI and nVidia be on equal footing, but that can't happen as long as they don't address these problems. AMD hardware has some pretty impressive features listed and the designs of some of their products are pretty innovative. They just shoot themselves in the knees with the drivers and supporting software.

Maybe it's just perception thing then. But they need to stop whining and get competitive.

Anyway, personally AMD products just don't excite me right now. They come off as the stuff you get when you just want bang for your buck. It's up to AMD to market their stuff right and to get people excited about their stuff. Stop blaming the competition.

I don't hear about that too often. Is it as literal as it sounds. You really had to turn the clock frequency down to get it to work?

@HalcyonScarlet: Yeah, it's advertised as a 3.7 Ghz chip with 4.0 available through Turbo Boost. Not only would turbo-boost cause the system to just hang for no reason, I had to clock down to 3.5 GHz to get the system to remain stable. The graphics power on it are impressive for a 'budget build' machine, its just a shame I can't get it to live up to its higher potential - it would really future-proof the system.

Referencing Windows 95 is truly grasping for straws. A10 are APUs and anyone expecting steller performance from those are being unrealistic whether its Nvidia, AMD or Intel. So, you are parroting. I have extensive experience with both Nvidia and AMD, this claim that AMD drivers are terrible is nothing but unfounded trash talk. Out of all of the machines that I have constructed and supported Nvidia has been the only one that has had driver issues and I am not talking about handful of computers but over hundreds(not stating that hundreds fail but hundreds that I have worked on). Thats not to say that either company has drivers issues, they are more or less on the same level with Nvidia being the only ones that have failed because of drivers.

Tonga is the exception, ie GCN 1.2,

You are aware that AMD has been sabotaged by Intel in the billions undermining their earnings dramatically.

Surely AMD are aware of this issue right?

This sounds like something someone in 2nd place would say. AMD needs to fix their drivers and make a CPU that's worth a damn.

AMD have stepped up game since late 2012. But AMD general DX11 optimizations and overheads are awful compared to Nvidia's. They have to specifically optimize and fix it's short comings every time a popular game comes out. A recent example is Project Cars, running the game in Win8 and then running Win 10 seen a massive gains.

@Pedro: Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows XP (though the latter was a system a friend built, not me). I've even seen some of the newer AMD notebooks have driver issues. I owned a Sony notebook computer that had a ATI Mobile Radeon chip in it that had driver issues and performance problems. So, your gonna nick-pick my argument because I didn't lay down an extensive listing of the systems I've seen problems with? Oh come on...

I'm not expecting stellar performance out of an APU processor, but at least *ADVERTISED* performance out of it is my baseline of comparison. When it won't even operate as designed, that's a sign to me that there is a problem. Either its a serious hardware deficiency or its supporting software problems - and I am placing my bets on the supporting software. Why? Its where a TON of companies fsck things up. They make FANTASTIC hardware, but forget to back it up with software to make it all work.

You keep glossing over all the praises I've had for AMD/ATI in your blind defense of an entire company - both past and present. I mean, nVidia has had some stinkers too, if I remember right - its just the nature of the business. So....believe me or don't believe me. I don't care - it won't change what I've seen and experienced; no matter how loudly you want to call dissenting opinions 'trash talk'.

Which is one of the reasons I have never bought an Nvidia card in my life, they are over priced and they do stupid shit that fragments PC gaming, is a lose for all gamers.