AMD vs. Nvidia features

[Ventanni]

My take, told in a way that's not so negative:

Nvidia:
PhysX — Although it has its criticism, it's probably the most widely used hardware accelerated physics engine in games. If you play Planetside 2, this is a gem to enable.
ShadowPlay — For the professional gaming crowd, this is actually a really nice feature. If you haven't already, go to Twitch.TV and see take a look at how many streams there are. Twitch.tv is like YouTube except the content is live, and isn't limited to just gaming.
G-Sync — From everything I've read, this is a game changer.
FaceWorks — Neat.
CUDA - Very powerful for the research and development sector. There is a reason why more super computers are powered by Nvidia, and that's because of CUDA. Although you might think this is absolutely irrelevant for gamers, professional GPU sales help fuel the R&D for future Nvidia products. They are, afterall, the same GPUs, so you definitely want the professional crowd taking notice.

AMD :
Mantle API — This API has enormous potential for the gaming industry in that it would allow for vastly more detail and content to be rendered in a single frame then previously before, however I don't think it'll completely take off unless AMD decides to extend support to Nvidia. Let's just be honest here, Nvidia has more impact with game developers than AMD does. It's like Nvidia has the keys and AMD has the car. Unless they get together and cooperate with Mantle, no one is going anywhere.
TressFX — I thought this was neat, but it's only been used in one game so far.
Eyefinity — Excellent feature, but Nvidia has its own version now.
FreeSync — Currently unproven, but neat.

Biggest game changers or potential game changers from both companies:
-Mantle
-G-Sync
-Eyefinity/Surround
-Shadowplay

 

[blastingcap]

My take, told in a way that's not so negative:

Nvidia:
PhysX — Although it has its criticism, it's probably the most widely used hardware accelerated physics engine in games. If you play Planetside 2, this is a gem to enable.
ShadowPlay — For the professional gaming crowd, this is actually a really nice feature. If you haven't already, go to Twitch.TV and see take a look at how many streams there are. Twitch.tv is like YouTube except the content is live, and isn't limited to just gaming.
G-Sync — From everything I've read, this is a game changer.
FaceWorks — Neat.
CUDA - Very powerful for the research and development sector. There is a reason why more super computers are powered by Nvidia, and that's because of CUDA. Although you might think this is absolutely irrelevant for gamers, professional GPU sales help fuel the R&D for future Nvidia products. They are, afterall, the same GPUs, so you definitely want the professional crowd taking notice.

AMD :
Mantle API — This API has enormous potential for the gaming industry in that it would allow for vastly more detail and content to be rendered in a single frame then previously before, however I don't think it'll completely take off unless AMD decides to extend support to Nvidia. Let's just be honest here, Nvidia has more impact with game developers than AMD does. It's like Nvidia has the keys and AMD has the car. Unless they get together and cooperate with Mantle, no one is going anywhere.
TressFX — I thought this was neat, but it's only been used in one game so far.
Eyefinity — Excellent feature, but Nvidia has its own version now.
FreeSync — Currently unproven, but neat.

Biggest game changers or potential game changers from both companies:
-Mantle
-G-Sync
-Eyefinity/Surround
-Shadowplay

NV has Eyefinity too. It's called "Surround."
NV also has more functional 3D support, Adaptive VSYNC, and some Adobe programs don't accelerate on Radeons (I think?) though this is rapidly changing

On the AMD side I would add TrueAudio. You can't really list FreeSync as it's not out yet, and probably won't come out for desktop monitors for a long time. I would also add that both major consoles are GCN-based, so it's not inconceivable that PC game ports from consoles would run better on AMD dGPUs.

I have little interest in Shadowplay and heard that MSI has something similar that works for both companies. Something in or related to Afterburner?

 

[Anarchist420]

after just reading the first page...
nvidia has superior filtering (that could be even better if negative LOD was still clampable for apps and if one could still force full trilinear mipmaps in the driver) and SGSSAA via the driver which works in more games than AMD's does. nvidia also has a superior cooler and came up with temp target and power target. on AMD's side, DP that isnt crippled. true audio doesnt mean a whole lot considering the power of CPUs.

OP, welcome to AT on your first post. You seem to have forgotten quite a few software features that nvidia includes. Let me give you a hand. Adaptive vsync, Driver FXAA, TXAA, driver Ambient occlusion, downsamping via the driver, monitor overclocking, per application power profiles (adaptive or max performance), 3D vision (HD3D is abandoned and not supported any longer), 3+1 surround on all Kepler GPUs, and nVAPI.. HD3D like I said isn't supported, and requires the user to pay TriDEF for a driver. AMD does not add game profiles for HD3D any longer, while 3D vision does. Freesync is vaporware and proof of concept only. Eyefinity has significant software bugs and issues on all 79xx and 280X and earlier cards. Just thought i'd point that out. Eyefinity is a "feature" on the 290 and 290X but i'd hesitate to call it a feature on 280X and 79xx and earlier GPUs. Unless tearing and microstutter is your thing. So we'll chalk that "feature" up for the 290 cards only.

+1.

 

[Gloomy]

How is TressFX an AMD feature? It runs perfectly fine on Nvidia GPUs. Ditto on FXAA and Adaptive VSync for Nvidia. Radeon Pro has those (FXAA sucks anyway... SMAA all the way imo...). And FreeSync doesn't exist!

 

[tg2708]

]How is TressFX an AMD feature[/B]? It runs perfectly fine on Nvidia GPUs. Ditto on FXAA and Adaptive VSync for Nvidia. Radeon Pro has those (FXAA sucks anyway... SMAA all the way imo...). And FreeSync doesn't exist!

It is an amd feature, they created it. Nvidia just made it work for their gpu's.

 

[Spidre]

Physx looks really nice, but I've yet to see a game that impliments it well (AC4 came so close if they didn't go bananas with the smoke and make it look like a forest fire every time you shot a gun).

TressFX works on Nvidia (probably not as well) but looks horrendous in game and tanks performance. I think it was implemented to make screen shots look purdy.

There should really be two columns for each company, current and future. Both companies have a lot of stuff coming out in the next year or so, but none of it is proven yet, and useless for anyone buying now. I've heard that Nvidia has something called HBAO+, but it looks like vaporware to me.

 

[Carfax83]

Physx looks really nice, but I've yet to see a game that impliments it well (AC4 came so close if they didn't go bananas with the smoke and make it look like a forest fire every time you shot a gun).

The AC IV implementation was subpar imo, as the game was never designed with PhysX in mind. PhysX was added afterwards as a patch.

Games with good to excellent PhysX implementations are always built from the ground up with PhysX, and include the Batman Arkham series, Borderlands 2, Metro series, Mafia 2, Warframe and Planetside 2.

This year Witcher 3 will ship and it will supposedly use a ton of PhysX effects.

*Edit* Call of Duty Ghosts PhysX implementation has some nice effects as well. The fur effects used on Riley and the the Wolves looks pretty awesome:

Call of Duty Ghosts fur tech

I've heard that Nvidia has something called HBAO+, but it looks like vaporware to me.

HBAO+ isn't vaporware. It's been used in four games so far, Splinter Cell Blacklist, AC IV, Batman Arkham Origins and Call of Duty Ghosts.

Witcher 3 will use it as well, and so will Watch Dogs.

It's by far the best and most accurate ambient occlusion available for games and makes a big difference in overall scene quality. You can also force it's implementation in certain games using the NVidia control panel, or NVidia inspector.

 

[sushiwarrior]

My take:

Nvidia:
PhysX — Poorly incorporated and unrealistic physics that's laughably cartoonish, despite being around for over 8 years is still barely used in games despite being free, poor product overall
ShadowPlay — I barely have time to play games nevermind steam/comment/watch recaps, cool if you're in high school and doing nothing else I guess
G-Sync — Looks awesome but yet to be incorporated on a screen that doesn't suck, and still isn't available yet so I'll give it a TBD
FaceWorks — Only works on a Titan, who cares
CUDA - Great if you work in a research lab, otherwise close to useless

AMD:
Mantle API — As of yet, vaporware, when it actually produces something it'll be worth considering.
TressFX — Exactly, one game, and we've had hair modeled for at least a decade so again, who cares, BS PR
Eyefinity — ability to connect quite a few displays to one or two cards. Great if you want six displays on one card (wonderful for heavy-duty content creation, etc.), otherwise it's not much more over nvidia's Surround.
FreeSync — Vaporware as well unless they bring something to market
FireStream


You didn't really miss anything, but that's my point. Most of these are worth considering when buying a card and yet people somehow still get suckered in with the marketing. Unless you have some very specific requirements for your computing, just buy whatever card offers the best bang-for-your-buck. I'd overclock the 7950 before wasting all that money on another card from this generation from EITHER camp.

Pretty spot on, almost every feature is generally marketing driven, the only important ones IMO are PhysX (which you can generally do on CPU anyways) and Eyefinity/Surround, which both do preeeetty much equally well.

I would always buy based on price/performance and user experience, not based on features like that. Unless it's something you're really, really interested in or would deem a requirement.

 

[jj109]

+1 ShadowPlay. From what I've seen while playing around with it, it grabs the frame directly from the framebuffer every 1/60 ms, resulting extremely smooth and tear-free video capture.

 

[Final8ty]

+1 ShadowPlay. From what I've seen while playing around with it, it grabs the frame directly from the framebuffer every 1/60 ms, resulting extremely smooth and tear-free video capture.

ShadowPlay has no bearing on Gameplay unlike all the other features mentioned as they are all there to enhance gameplay..

 

[96Firebird]

ShadowPlay has no bearing on Gameplay unlike all the other features mentioned.

And?

Does that mean its not a feature?

 

[Final8ty]

And?

Does that mean its not a feature?

Who said anything about it not being a feature, i didn't.
I pointed out that it does not enhance gameplay like the others.

 

[96Firebird]

Then I guess I'm confused why you posted that here...

 

[Final8ty]

Then I guess I'm confused why you posted that here...

That's your problem.

 

[n0x1ous]

That's your problem.

Looks at sig - understands why said post was added.

 

[Final8ty]

Looks at sig - understands why said post was added.

If AMD had it i would give the same answer and such a feature as been available by 3rd parties for ages, so dont try to second guess me, If i was going to be envious it would be Multi GPU in Windowed mode which NV has that AMD still does not.

Oh wait look at my sig, i should be knocking NV Multi GPU in Windowed mode because of my sig and not praising it.

I simply pointing out a fact of not effecting gameplay like the other features and some people got all defensive as if i was knocking the feature, some people clearly need to lighten up.

Warning issued for thread crapping.
-- stahlhart

 

[MrK6]

Looks at sig - understands why said post was added.

Defending a company is your own issue, don't attack others or try to drag them with you to do it.

 

[Black Octagon]

OP: lots of features have been mentioned in this thread but not many of them if any are game changers. Like you, I'm currently on an AMD GPU, and when next in the market for a new card the only features that will meaningfully affect my purchase are G-Sync and Mantle. Beyond that, it's good old performance-per-dollar (acoustics matter too).

Mantle had not yet landed and G-Sync seems truly incredible despite the premium you currently need to pay. That said, I see absolutely zero need to upgrade right now from a 7970 (or your 7950) so I wouldn't personally be looking to upgrade till late 2014 / early 2015 at the very earliest. YMMV

 

[Lonbjerg]

+1 ShadowPlay. From what I've seen while playing around with it, it grabs the frame directly from the framebuffer every 1/60 ms, resulting extremely smooth and tear-free video capture.

It does.
I used to use FRAPS and then Handbrake (uping raw AVI to youtube gave audio sync issues) before...resulting in 30-50% performance loss in videos.

Now I just use shadowplay at virtually zero perfomance loss...only thing I miss is the option to record more than stereo audio.

The difference in performance is MAJOR:

FRAPS + Handbrake:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ijQfVQN37Ic

Shadowplay:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ae-pZcGzQRc

Notice the difference between the ingame FPS..and the replay FPS(upper left corner).
Besides that I don't have to waste time on trans-coding anymore.

 

[n0x1ous]

Defending a company is your own issue, don't attack others or try to drag them with you to do it.

Post makes no sense. No one says a word about whether said feature benefits game play or in some other way, then he comes in trying to act like it's not a useful feature for some users. Fail to see where I am defending any company..... Don't get so defensive. Just calling it like I see it.

 

[Final8ty]

Post makes no sense. No one says a word about whether said feature benefits game play or in some other way, then he comes in trying to act like it's not a useful feature for some users. Fail to see where I am defending any company..... Don't get so defensive. Just calling it like I see it.

It is a useful feature, i never said it was not, its just not a game changing feature and its as simple as that, that's not a criticism, it is what it is.

Maybe it could be said that its a fact that did not need to be pointed out, but dont go putting words into my mouth when i said nothing of the sort of being useless.


I just made an observation of the features and spoke my mind, thinking out aloud, there was no negative intent but people will be people and make up whatever they want it to mean besides the fact, sorry if that had offended some people.

And with that im out.

 

[n0x1ous]

It is a useful feature, i never said it was not, its just not a game changing feature and its as simple as that, that's not a criticism, it is what it is.

Maybe it could be said that its a fact that did not need to be pointed out, but dont go putting words into my mouth when i said nothing of the sort of being useless.


I just made an observation of the features and spoke my mind, thinking out aloud, there was no negative intent but people will be people and make up whatever they want it to mean besides the fact, sorry if that had offended some people.

And with that im out.

Fair enough - thanks for the explanation.

 

[Lonbjerg]

It is a useful feature, i never said it was not, its just not a game changing feature and its as simple as that, that's not a criticism, it is what it is.

Maybe it could be said that its a fact that did not need to be pointed out, but dont go putting words into my mouth when i said nothing of the sort of being useless.


I just made an observation of the features and spoke my mind, thinking out aloud, there was no negative intent but people will be people and make up whatever they want it to mean besides the fact, sorry if that had offended some people.

And with that im out.

Actually it is gamechanging....try recording ARMA3 (or aný other game with no replay) gameplay online with FRAPS...and you will find that Shadowplay enables a recorded gameplay I.Q. previously not possible.

 

[Lonyo]

Actually it is gamechanging....try recording ARMA3 (or aný other game with no replay) gameplay online with FRAPS...and you will find that Shadowplay enables a recorded gameplay I.Q. previously not possible.

Well, true for basic users like most of the people here are, however, someone earlier said:

ShadowPlay — For the professional gaming crowd, this is actually a really nice feature. If you haven't already, go to Twitch.TV and see take a look at how many streams there are. Twitch.tv is like YouTube except the content is live, and isn't limited to just gaming.

That isn't accurate.

You are right in that for someone like you (a more casual user) it's a great benefit, since it basically means it's easy to sort out streaming with no performance hit.
For a professional, like someone else mentioned, it's not useful because it's very limited (for now at least).

As with most features, it's early in the life cycle, so it's limited and not as full featured as if you use the older, developed methods.
If you are a casual person who just wants to throw a basic stream on Twitch or record some gameplay, it's fine.
If you stream your games regularly and want to have things like overlays and mess about with different audio and scenes, it's not useful as it's so basic at the moment.

It's like the PS4/Xbox One situation where it makes it accessible for the casual user.

 

[Lonbjerg]

Well, true for basic users like most of the people here are, however, someone earlier said:

That isn't accurate.

You are right in that for someone like you (a more casual user) it's a great benefit, since it basically means it's easy to sort out streaming with no performance hit.
For a professional, like someone else mentioned, it's not useful because it's very limited (for now at least).

As with most features, it's early in the life cycle, so it's limited and not as full featured as if you use the older, developed methods.
If you are a casual person who just wants to throw a basic stream on Twitch or record some gameplay, it's fine.
If you stream your games regularly and want to have things like overlays and mess about with different audio and scenes, it's not useful as it's so basic at the moment.

It's like the PS4/Xbox One situation where it makes it accessible for the casual user.

How do you define a "professional"?
Google contaced me (not the other way around) about becomming a Youtube partner og getting Ad sense when I crossed 350.000 views....is that a casual user?

And I tried being "fancy" with editing years ago...to much time waste doing editing than actual gaming:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDmOFtNx3A4&list=TLw9ObwFth1fPNfYgLZsIr6giGWiGAQ36i

Took me around 12 hours back in the days...I will rather game than waste time being fancy