AMD GDC2016 Thread

[Elixer]

You were not the audience for this. Gamers were not the audience. The audience is game developers @ GDC. AMD is simply trying to show the real developers what they've been doing over the past 6 months and what they plan to continue investing in.

Incorrect, Huddy himself said that he wanted someone to "raise their hand" so he can explain something that all devs already knew about.
So, this wasn't mainly geared at devs. It was meant as a PR stunt to introduce VR to the masses, and some other stuff.
Devs could care less about showing a what, 15 sec clip of Hitman...
Devs could care less about have "VR classes" in schools.
I would say 97% of the stuff that was talked about was worthless to the devs, so, no, this wasn't geared toward them at all.

Devs want hard facts, they want to know what the limit is that they can do, and stuff along that nature, not this PR fluff.

As for my 'not anything new' remark, yes, most of what was said everyone basically knew.
There was nothing that was said that was a surprise to anyone.

 

[Silverforce11]

If they talk about Polaris or Zen in-depth, people will just accuse them of a paper launch right?

So what else is there to talk about at GDC, except for the VR push to mainstream, for all involved, it's not even about games anymore, it's the VR experience in all forms of media.

Best to save all the indepth info just prior to launch, IMO.

 

[sandorski]

Incorrect, Huddy himself said that he wanted someone to "raise their hand" so he can explain something that all devs already knew about.
So, this wasn't mainly geared at devs. It was meant as a PR stunt to introduce VR to the masses, and some other stuff.
Devs could care less about showing a what, 15 sec clip of Hitman...
Devs could care less about have "VR classes" in schools.
I would say 97% of the stuff that was talked about was worthless to the devs, so, no, this wasn't geared toward them at all.

Devs want hard facts, they want to know what the limit is that they can do, and stuff along that nature, not this PR fluff.

As for my 'not anything new' remark, yes, most of what was said everyone basically knew.
There was nothing that was said that was a surprise to anyone.

It wasn't a Class, it was just a demonstration of tech. Most of the presentation would be interesting to a Dev.

 

[3DVagabond]

Incorrect, Huddy himself said that he wanted someone to "raise their hand" so he can explain something that all devs already knew about.
So, this wasn't mainly geared at devs. It was meant as a PR stunt to introduce VR to the masses, and some other stuff.
Devs could care less about showing a what, 15 sec clip of Hitman...
Devs could care less about have "VR classes" in schools.
I would say 97% of the stuff that was talked about was worthless to the devs, so, no, this wasn't geared toward them at all.

Devs want hard facts, they want to know what the limit is that they can do, and stuff along that nature, not this PR fluff.

As for my 'not anything new' remark, yes, most of what was said everyone basically knew.
There was nothing that was said that was a surprise to anyone.

You knew about the Sulon Q? The Radeon Pro Duo that was being touted as having a blower? Got that cleared up. Polaris 10 having the performance to run VR @ 60fps was good to see.Total War Warhammer was good to see. I hope they do it right. I'd love that game. The Talos Principle coming with Vulkan.

An up to date road map.

If you have no interest in VR or DX12 then I suppose a lot of it was a waste of time.

 

[iiiankiii]

You knew about the Sulon Q? The Radeon Pro Duo that was being touted as having a blower? Got that cleared up. Polaris 10 having the performance to run VR @ 60fps was good to see.Total War Warhammer was good to see. I hope they do it right. I'd love that game. The Talos Principle coming with Vulkan.

An up to date road map.

If you have no interest in VR or DX12 then I suppose a lot of it was a waste of time.

Yo, the tech behind everything AMD presented was pretty awesome. However, the presentation was lackluster. Seriously. It really was boring. It's nothing new. AMD is piss poor at marketing. They really can't seem to get it right in that regards.

 

[metalliax]

As for my 'not anything new' remark, yes, most of what was said everyone basically knew.
There was nothing that was said that was a surprise to anyone.

What you *supposedly* already knew was simply rumors. Yes, we all know that they were most likely accurate at this point, however AMD did confirm several of them today.

 

[swilli89]

You knew about the Sulon Q? The Radeon Pro Duo that was being touted as having a blower? Got that cleared up. Polaris 10 having the performance to run VR @ 60fps was good to see.Total War Warhammer was good to see. I hope they do it right. I'd love that game. The Talos Principle coming with Vulkan.

An up to date road map.

If you have no interest in VR or DX12 then I suppose a lot of it was a waste of time.

Wow, so no HBM2 for Polaris? So Vega really is the next high end successor.

 

[metalliax]

Yo, the tech behind everything AMD presented was pretty awesome. However, the presentation was lackluster. Seriously. It really was boring. It's nothing new. AMD is piss poor at marketing. They really can't seem to get it right in that regards.

How can you not understand that this was not a generic marketing event tailored to the online community of fanboys and enthusiasts.

 

[metalliax]

Wow, so no HBM2 for Polaris? So Vega really is the next high end successor.

Polaris 11 most likely cannot be better than Fiji. It can however be equivalent to Fiji performance-wise @ significantly lower power (100-120W). Vega should be here between November and January, as HBM2 won't be available in consumer graphics cards until late Q3 at the earliest.

 

[3DVagabond]

Wow, so no HBM2 for Polaris? So Vega really is the next high end successor.

It's not available yet, is it? Besides these aren't flagship chips. The big one's probably gonna be the 480.

 

[Silverforce11]

Wow, so no HBM2 for Polaris? So Vega really is the next high end successor.

Ofc, we suspected as such for a long time now and it's logical. Only tiny and small chips need apply for the node transition.

That's what we have, Polaris 11 is a tiny chip, ~120mm2, Polaris 10 is a small chip, ~232mm2. These aren't even real "mid-range," that's normally around 300 to 380 mm2.

So Polaris 10 is more a low-midrange chip. If it's capable of beating the 390X, that's pretty impressive already.

Basically to get their 2.5x perf/w claims over 28nm GCN, they would have to match Fiji at 100W. So that's the ballpark.

 

[swilli89]

It's not available yet, is it? Besides these aren't flagship chips. The big one's probably gonna be the 480.

So Polaris 10 as the 480, Polaris 11 as the 470, and Vega as Fury 2? I'd rather they have the Vega as 490 considering how beloved the 390 has become, and save the Fury name for the X2 or a special high clocked, high memory version.

Ofc, we suspected as such for a long time now and it's logical. Only tiny and small chips need apply for the node transition.

That's what we have, Polaris 11 is a tiny chip, ~120mm2, Polaris 10 is a small chip, ~232mm2. These aren't even real "mid-range," that's normally around 300 to 380 mm2.

So Polaris 10 is more a low-midrange chip. If it's capable of beating the 390X, that's pretty impressive already.

Basically to get their 2.5x perf/w claims over 28nm GCN, they would have to match Fiji at 100W. So that's the ballpark.

Its amazing to think what this Polaris 11 can do for the mobile segment! As a 290x owner, I'm definitely going to be waiting for a Vega to power whichever VR rig I decide to go with.

 

[Elixer]

You knew about the Sulon Q? The Radeon Pro Duo that was being touted as having a blower? Got that cleared up. Polaris 10 having the performance to run VR @ 60fps was good to see.Total War Warhammer was good to see. I hope they do it right. I'd love that game. The Talos Principle coming with Vulkan.

I knew about the Sulon Q a few hours before the show, as for the Radeon Pro Duo, devs don't care if it has a blower or not, nor do most any people who would buy this beast.
There wasn't any hard numbers about Polaris 10, except a rough estimation of it will run VR @ 60fps (minimum? maximum?), but that in itself don't say much, and under what restrictions, and what gear.

The DX12 & Vulkan stuff (as well as GPUopen) were OK bullet points, but again, this talk wasn't aimed at devs. Devs already know all this.

While having a roadmap is nice, having an actual launch dates is better.
Devs want to know when something is coming out, so they can plan for it, and at what cost. They are trying to make things that the most people can enjoy, not the very few at the top.

This is why I said, this was all (lackluster) PR fluff, and not for Dev consumption.

I was expecting things like this https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0JB7TSe49lg56u6qH8y_MQ and other technical related material, like DX12 & Vulkan toolsets, best way to debug these new APIs, best way to utilizes the API, and things of that nature. AMD made the card, they would be in the driver seat telling people what is the best way to program for their cards, and all that good stuff.

They could have at least showed polaris 10 running Ashes of the Singularity, with some epic battle going on, but, instead, they showed Hitman? And it was the tutorial in Hitman as well for a few secs. Yeah, smooth going there.
Which nincompoop thought that would be a good game to demo polaris 10 with?

 

[IllogicalGlory]

It looks like what AMD said about Polaris was correct - they aren't aiming for the performance crown. Vega is their high-performance arch/chip. Hopefully they can move a lot of chips in the mobile/OEM/midrange market. Still a disappointment for people who want to upgrade. Maybe I'll go GP104, but probably not.

Just have to wait for GP100 and Vega.

 

[3DVagabond]

I knew about the Sulon Q a few hours before the show, as for the Radeon Pro Duo, devs don't care if it has a blower or not, nor do most any people who would buy this beast.
There wasn't any hard numbers about Polaris 10, except a rough estimation of it will run VR @ 60fps (minimum? maximum?), but that in itself don't say much, and under what restrictions, and what gear.

The DX12 & Vulkan stuff (as well as GPUopen) were OK bullet points, but again, this talk wasn't aimed at devs. Devs already know all this.

While having a roadmap is nice, having an actual launch dates is better.
Devs want to know when something is coming out, so they can plan for it, and at what cost. They are trying to make things that the most people can enjoy, not the very few at the top.

This is why I said, this was all (lackluster) PR fluff, and not for Dev consumption.

I was expecting things like this https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0JB7TSe49lg56u6qH8y_MQ and other technical related material, like DX12 & Vulkan toolsets, best way to debug these new APIs, best way to utilizes the API, and things of that nature. AMD made the card, they would be in the driver seat telling people what is the best way to program for their cards, and all that good stuff.

They could have at least showed polaris 10 running Ashes of the Singularity, with some epic battle going on, but, instead, they showed Hitman? And it was the tutorial in Hitman as well for a few secs. Yeah, smooth going there.
Which nincompoop thought that would be a good game to demo polaris 10 with?

Why so much hate? You actually seem angry. :\

 

[IllogicalGlory]

I really wish they had run the Steam VR test like that article said they were going to. Instead we get fifteen seconds of Vsync gameplay.

 

[MrTeal]

It looks like what AMD said about Polaris was correct - they aren't aiming for the performance crown. Vega is their high-performance arch/chip. Hopefully they can move a lot of chips in the mobile/OEM/midrange market. Still a disappointment for people who want to upgrade. Maybe I'll go GP104, but probably not.

Just have to wait for GP100 and Vega.

Did they say anything about Vega in the presentation? It looks like that lines up with the start of 2017, but it's hard to say.

 

[Silverforce11]

Its amazing to think what this Polaris 11 can do for the mobile segment! As a 290x owner, I'm definitely going to be waiting for a Vega to power whichever VR rig I decide to go with.

Yup, as an R290X owner, the early next-gen SKU won't make me upgrade. I just don't like to upgrade for a bit better performance at lower wattage, I wanna see massive performance gains from upgrading else its just a hassle.

The real upgrade will be GP100 and Vega, and that's 2017 unless some people like to believe NVIDIA is going to release a big GP100 GeForce this year. -_-

 

[Bacon1]

Yeah, AMD is just streets behind in terms of PR.

Also: https://twitter.com/PellyNV

You should ask him where those "Fun FACT" Async compute drivers are, since they are still marketing their cards as having the ability to run async compute.

I disagree. It was bad. It felt disjointed. These type of public PR events aren't about drowning the people with technical data. Focus on what makes the product amazing. Be more precise, to the point, and less technical. The technicality should be written on paper and handed out. I don't want to feel like I'm listening to a class lecture.

The show is called GDC (Game Developers Conference), the live stream was for regular joes and other interested people that wouldn't be able to make it to a developers conference.

Incorrect, Huddy himself said that he wanted someone to "raise their hand" so he can explain something that all devs already knew about.

He specifically said "Can someone pretend so I can give an explanation to those on the live stream"

 

[Bacon1]

Yup, as an R290X owner, the early next-gen SKU won't make me upgrade. I just don't like to upgrade for a bit better performance at lower wattage, I wanna see massive performance gains from upgrading else its just a hassle.

The real upgrade will be GP100 and Vega, and that's 2017 unless some people like to believe NVIDIA is going to release a big GP100 GeForce this year. -_-

I'm thinking about upgrading depending on how it turns out, since I run @ 2560x1600 and this card was doing Hitman @ 1440p @ 60 min. Might be finally time to swap out the 290 for it, might even be able to do it for almost no money spent depending on resell value

 

[Elixer]

Why so much hate? You actually seem angry. :\

Not hate, just dissapointed.
They could have done things much better, which is the typical AMD flaw with their marketing.

For the life of me, I can't understand why they don't fire them, and get people who know what they are doing.

 

[boozzer]

well if it is 290 in a 75 watt package, I can see how good it is for a laptop. my 980m is about the same as a 770, a 290 would beat it by a few miles, especially in dx12 games.

 

[metalliax]

Not hate, just dissapointed.
They could have done things much better, which is the typical AMD flaw with their marketing.

For the life of me, I can't understand why they don't fire them, and get people who know what they are doing.

AMD did fire their Chief Marketing Officer in January 2015. You need to pull back a bit, as you're completely ignoring the context / message of this presentation. It may have had some awkward moments, however it was aligned well to GDC environment.

 

[tential]

Yup, as an R290X owner, the early next-gen SKU won't make me upgrade. I just don't like to upgrade for a bit better performance at lower wattage, I wanna see massive performance gains from upgrading else its just a hassle.

The real upgrade will be GP100 and Vega, and that's 2017 unless some people like to believe NVIDIA is going to release a big GP100 GeForce this year. -_-

Will upgrade irregardless for low wattage crossfire while I wait for Vega....

 

[3DVagabond]

Not hate, just dissapointed.
They could have done things much better, which is the typical AMD flaw with their marketing.

For the life of me, I can't understand why they don't fire them, and get people who know what they are doing.

Well, I can't defend their marketing as a whole, but that doesn't automatically sink this presentation.

This sure wasn't a Super bowl halftime presentation. Although, I don't think it was as bad as nVidia holding up mockups and claiming them to be the real thing.

I personally don't think Jen-Hsun is all that flash of a presenter either. He's just egotistical and it gives him an air of confidence. That's not the same thing. And while you give props to Huddy, I think he's typically very poorly prepared and commits far too many gaffs. Luckily in a scene like this he doesn't have to answer any questions.

I liked seeing the engineers and game devs presenting. I saw genuine excitement for their art.

Was it an event worthy of Hollywood? Nope. Could it have been done up more? Sure. For what it was though, a presentation to the industry that the public was allowed a part to, it was perfectly fine IMO.