Nvidia played dirty to cripple AMD performance in Watch Dogs

im considering to buy a nvidia card just for shadowplay, i think amd is not supporting his consumers the way it should in this respect

but in this watch dogs thing nvidia is playing real dirty

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jasonevangelho/2014/05/26/why-watch-dogs-is-bad-news-for-amd-users-and-potentially-the-entire-pc-gaming-ecosystem/

those 2 cards are not the same, not in the same cathegory, but they play watch dogs the same

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/1056?vs=1037

wow. amazing the 770 does that well against the r9 290.

but i guess it comes down to the workload type? what if our metric was say .... the new wolfenstein game?

"How the turntables" - Michael Scott

check the anandtech benchmarks link in the original post

just wait for drivers in a week.

i purposefully didn't check it because i'm quite au fait with the relative performance of the two cards. r9 290x should beat the 770, it should beat it comfortably.

so yeah, i'm not sure why you'd like me to check the benches because, having checked them, my conclusion is the same. i'm amazed that, in watch_dogs, the gtx 770 holds up that well against the significantly more powerful r9 280x.

but still my question remains. because, for wolfenstein the gtx 770 performs worse than an r9 270.

see what I mean? I think it comes down to the workload type.

the tests done by the forbes guy are with the new unreleased amd watch dogs drivers

check the article, it says drivers and post release optimization wont help a thing, and amd agrees with it

its a disgrace for amd users, nvidia just gave up competing with hardware and now are using software deals to kill amd

just wait for drivers in a week.

Damn, I had no idea. I don't like this type of practice at all (this is coming from an nvidia owner. I have two 780ti).

i guess we will never know for sure, what i know is that my 7870 is on 30% load and still crappy 30fps, the specific details that kill amd performance might be top secret on nvidia

ah yes, i see your point about the crippling.

well if they're doing it deliberately, that would push me away from their products rather than towards them.

imagine ive been wating for this game for a while and only now i know it will never run decent on my PC

i guess thats going to be the first time PS4 beats my U$400 PC

All the more reason to NOT buy from nVidia if you care not having your wallet gouged by those bastards.

Im not biting ! If Nvidia wants my money they need to do better about the power/price ratio. Otherwise , im AMD user for many years now and im really a happy owner overall

But consoles using AMD so should that already give PC with AMD cards a slighty boost just from start?

Well I mean, given the recent Bitcoin inflation of Radeon cards, I think that argument goes both ways.

i dont think its going to be the case

watch dogs is the kind of game that make pc gamers want to upgrade

so nvidia used their money and influence to aprouch ubisoft and work close to the dev team implementing code that works better on nvidia cards

the developers also work on optimizing the game code to run the best it can on ps4 and x1

but there is no interest for ubisoft to optimize the game on amd pc cards, they have a deal with nvidia and the specics that give nvidia a boost are protected by the contract they made, leaving 40% of the PC market in the dark with unexplainable low performance

Of course some guy at AMD is going to be butthurt about his product not performing as well. There is no story here. Nvidia isnt playing dirty, they are partnering to get the best performance for their customers. The same is true for AMD and some other games. It doesnt hurt gamers at all..

That is a completely different scenario. The bitcoin price inflation for AMD cards was simply a supply and demand situation. AMD cards were flying off shelves and you couldn't really find any, thus the higher prices. AMD is not using underhanded tactics to try to gain an advantage like Nvidia is.

Thats OK then, AMD users will pick up this game later when it plays properly, or not bother. Well done Ubisoft.

Blame Nvidia for Ubisoft's programming. Classy.

I'm sorry but this is ridiculous. Nvidia makes a nice suite of tools to help devs get better performance in their games much more easily and AMD doesn't. Not Nvidia's fault for building this kind of tech to help get more out of their GPUs. Why isn't AMD doing the same?

this is sometihng different, nvidia is dealing with the devs to implemnt code that cant perform well on amd cards

they could leave the developers alone and let them use code that could run well on both cards

but instead they aprouched them to make sure the other company products would be criplled, not to make sure that the game could look better and be better

its like your product is a car that runs the same on gasoline or diesel, the other company makes a car that runs the same on gasoline or ehtanol, so you go to the engine developer and make sure they release engines that work on diesel only, this way you kill the other company without giving your consumers any real advantage

Why the hell would Nvidia go out of their way to provide extra tools for devs that are built for the two radical different designs between AMD and Nvidia? Where's the logic? They'll focus on building tech that works on their GPUs. That's logical. It's not Nvidia's fault that Ubisoft chose to use those tools.

This is a pathetic lash out at Nvidia for them just trying to best support their own products.

It feels like Ubisoft took water over the head make this game to so many platforms, had been better just release the game for PC,Ps4,Xboner and skip ps3/360/WiiU...and put the time make the game better with destructible cars/environment

It's stupid and short-sighted of Ubisoft to get involved with anything like this. PC gamers will take their business elsewhere if they feel their rigs are beings needlessly hampered by such shennanigans. And as the article points out, AMD is still 40% of the market.

nvidia sucks AMD ftw

you see the tressfx thing, it performed 50% better on amd cards in the beggining, but is a open technology and nvidia had access to the code developed by amd and as soon as new drivers arrived nvidia cards were performing the same as amd

in watch dogs case they opted to make a deal to keep amd in the dark

i admire nvidia for they consumer support with things like shadowplay

also admire them for their advacements with new archtechture that give gtx 750 ti a 40% performance boost with the same transistor count and same 28nm manufactoring process

thats the kind of things that make the technology advance and keep a good competition

but this software deal is just plain dirty

@leandrro:

Or they are just trying to get the best performance for their customers.

AMD does things like this, but most of the stuff they makes for devs is available for Nivida to use and for Nvidia to make sure the stuff works properly on their cards. TressFX is one of those things. Nividia does not do this with their stuff. Nvidia designed stuff to where it only works well on their cards and does not give AMD the chance to make it work for them. That's the difference. Sure Ubisoft deserves most of the blame for going ahead with this crippling 40% of the PC gaming market, but Nvidia can also be blamed for practicing such things.

In real-world gameplay, I doubt I'll feel the slight advantage or disadvantage. Other games have been skewed in favor of one or the other brand.

I really dislike how nividia or amd goes out to these devs and sign some contract with a game to make it play like shit on the others.

@jun_aka_pekto said:

In real-world gameplay, I doubt I'll feel the slight advantage or disadvantage. Other games have been skewed in favor of one or the other brand.

You do realize that chart is comparing a GTX 770 to a 290x, right? Now way should a 770 be beating a 290x in any game.

Past ATI cards have had superior performance at the highest settings while ceding the lower settings to Nvidia. Perhaps AMD had been on a roll for so long, people had forgotten past AMD/ATI cards.

To me, it's nothing new.

genuine question:

wasn't crysis 3 an 'amd gaming evolved' supported game?

r9 290x is only about 10% better than the gtx 770 under that workload.

ebbydense: http://www.anandtech.com/bench/GPU14/815

I personally am waiting for the next cards from AMD and NVIDIA. I plan to buy something fit for a King.

Hasn't this sort of thing been happening for ages? Also both and and nvidia are releasing drivers for watch dogs at launch

As a general rule, Nvidia cards tend to have an advantage at less than Ultra settings and tend to drop off quicker (than ATI/AMD cards) at the highest settings.

Look at benchmark sites that show numbers using different detail settings. It's a peculiarity that I've seen since the original Radeon.

At the Anandtech benchmark, Crysis 3 is at High. Here, the GTX 780 maintains an advantage. But, go to Very High and the R9 290 leapfrogs over the GTX 780:

@jun_aka_pekto: ok well using that same crysis 3 benchmark as the high one ... well, they didn't have benches for the GTX770 and R9 290X for 'low', but they did for medium.

so if i'm understanding you correctly, we should see a greater performance from the nvidia card under lower detail relative to the amd card.

for medium quality the GTX770 hits 101.2, R9 290X hits 115.7. a ~14% advantage. before on high it was 12%. so yeah man i see what you're saying, it checks out.

but the thing is though, i wouldn't pit the r9 290x against the GTX770. it's competitors are the GTX780 and 780ti, innit? i think that's what our mutual acquaintance, the toxic seahorse, i think that's what he was talking about.

@leandrro: You should be expecting much more of that in the future.

Give the GTX 770 some credit. It's not just Watch Dogs where the GTX 770 can steal the R9 290x's thunder. In these, it's the retail R9 290x vs the GTX 770. These games follow the same trend as Watch Dog's as the resolution increases.

That's exactly what I was saying. The chart wouldn't be that bad if it were the 780 or 780Ti. The 770 shouldn't be that close to the 290x regardless of settings.

well personally im getting 60 fps on my r9 290 so i didn't notice, But when i drive threw a busy city or car chase it can do down to the 30's momentarily. The frame rate is all over the place.. I am on an i5 so i dunno if that have anything to with it. On foot its always 60 fps. I will wait and see if the patch and the drivers from AMD today does anything for watchdogs. An r9 290 should not be matching a gtx 770..It should be way ahead. If ubisoft is going to continue with such dirty deals with nvidia in their game works program where AMD have no feedback, I'll be going on the ubisoft forums to let them know i wont be purchasing any game from them in the for seeable future till its fixed. Im sure i can get a lot of AMD gpu users to rally behind that post as well. This better be just an accident and the patch fixes it. Cause Assassins creed 4 and far cry 3 runs great on AMD.

Do you always ignore the point?

Nvidia are a bunch of scumbags.

http://www.trustedreviews.com/opinions/radeon-r7-265-vs-geforce-gtx-750-ti-which-is-best-for-1080p-gaming

"It’s no surprise AMD took an early lead – Battlefield 4 is a flagship title from AMD’s in-house gaming programme, so the firm’s engineers will have visited DICE and optimised the game for Radeon cards."

"Crytek’s latest shooter is the most demanding title here, and it’s another game that’s been tweaked by AMD’s engineers."

"Batman is a new game for our graphics card testing, and it’s the only title to veer from AMD dominance. It’s part of Nvidia’s The Way It’s Meant To Be Played programme, so it’s optimised for the green team’s hardware; it’s no surprise this was the GTX 750 Ti’s best test."

They both do this, It's just Nvidia go further and provide tools for extra optimizations. At least it means 'The Way It's Meant To Be Played' is a little more than just a marketing line.

To be honest this is less on Nvidia and more on Ubisoft. You can't blame Nvidia for working with developers to get the best support for there games, that's what any company will do if it end up selling more product. Ubisoft are the guys writing the code at the end of the day, if they choose to nerf AMD in favor of Nvidia that's on the studio.

Nvidia cards cost more when it comes to price/perfomance so Nvidia can use that money to court developers to optimize for Nvidia more and not for AMD...

the thing is, battlefield 4 runs at same level on equivalent amd and nvidia cards

the same goes for tressfx, wich is a technology developed by amd, provided to the developers the same way as watch dogs and batman tech provided by nvidia,

but amd's tressfx is open technology and then tomb raider also runs the same on equivalent nvidia cards

nvidia is using their money and power to give tools to developers but bribes them to make it unsuitable for amd cards or just not reveal the tricks that make it run better on nvidia cards

this is dirty, its a clear bribe, we expect a smaller game like batman to subjected to it, but even a greedy company like EA would not do it with battlefield

i guess ubisoft choose his side, money over gamers

/thread.

Pretty much.

This, plus the game still runs like shit even on Nvidia hardware, (probably not as shit as AMD hardware but shit is still shit).

NVidia and ATI have been playing DIRTY since the Radeon 9700 Pro came out and challenged Nvidia's once-monopolizing DX marketshare back in the 2000's.

Ever since, it's been all about sleazy deals and cheating on benchmarks.

This always happens with pc games. It's usually patched in a week.

cant you read? amd is doing the same, it has tressfx but instead to use it to falsely state that their cards perform better, they release it also to nvidia cards

amd goes much further, they made mantle api, it is open to be used with nvidia cards also, it really changes pc gaming, getting rid of directx allthogether and improving performance about 33%, in fact i think among many amd flaws they sure do a better dev support