AMD's Gaming Evolved snags FarCry3

[thilanliyan]

http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/news/games-news/amds-gaming-evolved-program-snags-far-cry-3/

Good on them...they need all the good marketing they can get.

 

[tviceman]

AMD has certainly gained quite a bit of steam with gaming evolved program. Lately, it seems like there are just as many GE titles as there are TWIMTBP titles. Hopefully the healthy competition can bring to the PC what PC gamers are supposed to have - noticeably better experiences than the consoles.

 

[Blitzvogel]

Sweet deal for my Radeon 5850. I'm about to go preorder the game too.

 

[railven]

Oh crap:

In the past, this program wasn’t particularly popular but with many triple-A titles like Bioshock Infinite, Tomb Raider, Hitman: Absolution and Medal of Honor: Warfighter now jumping onto the Gaming Evolved bandwagon, things are rapidly changing for AMD and its customers.

I've been waiting for that game since it got announced and sadly delayed into 2013

I love me some Bioshock, I hope they use the Forward+ Lighting technology. Not that I think Infinite will be suspense/horror ala its predecessors, but I want to see it get more use and hopefully adopted faster.

Ummm...sorry, FarCry3 woooooh, something-something, sorry not a huge FarCry fan haha.

 

[SirPauly]

noticeably better experiences than the consoles.

Indeed!

 

[blastingcap]

AMD has certainly gained quite a bit of steam with gaming evolved program. Lately, it seems like there are just as many GE titles as there are TWIMTBP titles. Hopefully the healthy competition can bring to the PC what PC gamers are supposed to have - noticeably better experiences than the consoles.

Quality beats quantity, imho.

Luckily GE has included some really good titles like Deus Ex: HR, Battlefield 3, and Shogun 2, recently.

 

[Spjut]

Good to see


I'm expecting FC3 to scale well, the engine was solid already in FC2. Don't want to change this HD 4870 quite yet

 

[-Slacker-]

Great to hear AMD's marketing efforts are getting momentum, as marketing has typically been their greatest weakness. It looks like this is going to be a big title from all the trailers that have cropped up so far.

 

[RussianSensation]

Interesting. So all it took was AMD throwing $ at developers and now the latest wave of modern games are running faster on AMD hardware. I expected AMD to fight the marketing war but they sure are a lot more aggressive than expected.

- Sleeping Dogs, Dirt Showdown, Sniper Elite V2

Shows how optimization really works in the industry. You throw $ and your cards perform faster?

I wonder how NV let Medal of Honor Warfighter slip out of their hands.

That looks like a huge list of A- level games right there and NV is not involved with any of them? How did that happen?

Does that mean if some of these titles use contact hardening shadows, direct compute for global illumination that reviewers will throw them out from their average since it's "unfair" to NV? TechReport and AT don't include Dirt Showdown in their testing/conclusion for this reason. If more and more games start using Direct Compute, sooner or later a major title will run like a dog on NV hardware. I feared this would happen if we end up with AMD and NV both optimizing for their architecture. Naturaly they'll each want to expose their own architecture's strength but then the gamer almost needs AMD and NV card depending on the game if this continues. :biggrin:

Will it be a war of Direct Compute vs. Extreme Tessellation (AMD vs. NV)?

 

[blastingcap]

Interesting. So all it took was AMD throwing $ at developers and now the latest wave of modern games are running faster on AMD hardware.

- Sleeping Dogs, Dirt Showdown, Sniper Elite V2

Shows how optimization really works in the industry. You throw $ and your cards perform faster?

I wonder how NV let Medal of Honor Warfighter slip out of their hands.

That looks like a huge list of A- level games right there and NV is not involved with any of them? How did that happen?

Sometimes you lose today's battles to win tomorrow's wars. Where is AMD in mobile? Where is AMD in cloud gaming? Where is AMD in pro graphics and HPC?

NV is smart. They want to avoid fighting a losing war with Intel like AMD. To do this, NV has leveraged its resources more effectively. Less money in GeForce and letting a few titles slip through their fingers to end up in Gaming Evolved. More money in Tesla and Quadro and Tegra and cloud gaming and other as yet unannounced projects.

Remember that tech conference demo of breaking glass and fluid and JHH saying on stage to the (mostly Tesla-oriented) crowd something along the lines of "we have billions of dollars in gaming GPU revenue, which we can leverage to create HPC-oriented GPUs"? Then recall how they had hundreds of thousands of pre-orders for Kepler pro cards. Then recall how GK110 is destined for pro cards first. NV has a decently defensible position in GeForce so its just holding the fort there and spending its resources on other, nascent markets. There is nothing wrong with that, and as a NVDA shareholder I'd be angry if NVDA were NOT focused on non-GeForce stuff.

Let's face it, GeForce is not a fast-growing, sexy market anymore. GeForce = [pick once-hot, now-not hottie], Tegra = Megan Fox, Tesla = [pick your favorite hottie]. And Quadro is like a better-aging GeForce, like a J-Lo or something.

Quadro/Tesla make enormous profits. A LOT of it, even though they don't break it down that way since they share R&D with GeForce. http://www.anandtech.com/show/5830/nvidia-q1-fy2013-earnings-report-924m-revenue-60m-net-income

Lower-end desktop discrete (GeForce) is on the wane and will vanish in a few years, gobbled up by iGPUs/APUs. Ditto laptop discrete GPUs.

Even at the higher end, desktop gaming is not the growth industry it used to be. Mobile, casual, and cloud gaming is where it's going to be at.

 

[MrK6]

Sometimes you lose today's battles to win tomorrow's wars. Where is AMD in mobile? Where is AMD in cloud gaming? Where is AMD in pro graphics and HPC?

NV is smart. They want to avoid fighting a losing war with Intel like AMD. To do this, NV has leveraged its resources more effectively. Less money in GeForce and letting a few titles slip through their fingers to end up in Gaming Evolved. More money in Tesla and Quadro and Tegra and cloud gaming and other as yet unannounced projects.

Remember that tech conference demo of breaking glass and fluid and JHH saying on stage to the (mostly Tesla-oriented) crowd something along the lines of "we have billions of dollars in gaming GPU revenue, which we can leverage to create HPC-oriented GPUs"? Then recall how they had hundreds of thousands of pre-orders for Kepler pro cards. Then recall how GK110 is destined for pro cards first. NV has a decently defensible position in GeForce so its just holding the fort there and spending its resources on other, nascent markets. There is nothing wrong with that, and as a NVDA shareholder I'd be angry if NVDA were NOT focused on non-GeForce stuff.

Let's face it, GeForce is not a fast-growing, sexy market anymore. GeForce = [pick once-hot, now-not hottie], Tegra = Megan Fox, Tesla = [pick your favorite hottie]. And Quadro is like a better-aging GeForce, like a J-Lo or something.

Quadro/Tesla make enormous profits. A LOT of it, even though they don't break it down that way since they share R&D with GeForce. http://www.anandtech.com/show/5830/nvidia-q1-fy2013-earnings-report-924m-revenue-60m-net-income

Lower-end desktop discrete (GeForce) is on the wane and will vanish in a few years, gobbled up by iGPUs/APUs. Ditto laptop discrete GPUs.

Even at the higher end, desktop gaming is not the growth industry it used to be. Mobile, casual, and cloud gaming is where it's going to be at.

So Megan Fox is a pretty face with no talent and a quick flash of fame. Ironically, that very well could be Tegra if the mobile sector doesn't want to trade battery life for performance. I'm not arguing that it will fail, but it's a venture like any other (also I'm not sure why you'd applaud a company bailing on the past time that keeps most of us up to date with our hobby). Differentiation and diversification in this day and age of technology is essential to survival. AMD secured all the contracts for the next generation consoles (unless that changed). What will pay off? Time will tell.

 

[beno619]

So Megan Fox is a pretty face with no talent and a quick flash of fame. Ironically, that very well could be Tegra if the mobile sector doesn't want to trade battery life for performance.

Tegra has so much potential as a HTC One X owner I can honestly say that THD games are the best looking on mobile devices I have used and most run at very fluid frame rates. The power saving core Is genius as the phone only loses like 4% charge overnight so over 8 hours or so.
It's not incredibly power efficient but plenty fast, all it needs is a die shrink to 32 or 28 nm combined with features already stated to rule.
Tegra 3 has been a hit even tho its a bit of a power hog.

 

[Red Hawk]

Good for AMD. I believe that the TWIMTBP and GE programs are overall good for PC gaming. They help developers implement effects that otherwise wouldn't get implemented at all. Can it cause games to favor one side's GPUs over the other? yes, of course AMD or Nvidia are going to focus on what their cards are good at. If you don't like the performance hit, feel free to turn off the effects and play as if AMD or Nvidia hadn't supported the game at all. Meanwhile others can enjoy those effects.

 

[Silverforce11]

Will it be a war of Direct Compute vs. Extreme Tessellation (AMD vs. NV)?

Except AMD has a functional slider to fix issues with useless tessellation in games, i dont think NV has something to help their dx11 compute (not until GK110 comes anyway!).

 

[Skurge]

Tegra has so much potential as a HTC One X owner I can honestly say that THD games are the best looking on mobile devices I have used and most run at very fluid frame rates. The power saving core Is genius as the phone only loses like 4% charge overnight so over 8 hours or so.
It's not incredibly power efficient but plenty fast, all it needs is a die shrink to 32 or 28 nm combined with features already stated to rule.
Tegra 3 has been a hit even tho its a bit of a power hog.

Tegra 3 is good, but not TBH. Krait kills it CPU wise and is a little faster GPU wise. Exynos 4412 murders it GPU wise. S4 pro and Exynos 5 will be out before the next iteration of tegra. Krait basically dominates the US market and everywhere else it's Samsung.

 

[HisDivineOrder]

Good for AMD. I believe that the TWIMTBP and GE programs are overall good for PC gaming. They help developers implement effects that otherwise wouldn't get implemented at all. Can it cause games to favor one side's GPUs over the other? yes, of course AMD or Nvidia are going to focus on what their cards are good at. If you don't like the performance hit, feel free to turn off the effects and play as if AMD or Nvidia hadn't supported the game at all. Meanwhile others can enjoy those effects.

In reality, every generation it seems that the GPU makers patch up what's missing. During the 6xxx series, AMD had horrible tesselation and were behind in compute. Now they excel in Compute and improved their tesselation. nVidia was horribly power inefficient and hot (even comparing Kepler to 460/560), but now they've got an architecture to improve that, too.

Once you start comparing the GK104 to the AMD card it was built to beat (ie., Pitcairn), you realize that nVidia will be fine once GK110 is called out from the delay-induced shadows it was put into because you see that both companies address their weaknesses with each gen. GK110 still gains ground on Compute and improves upon tesselation while improving power efficiency from Fermi 480/580.

But right now Compute is not being used a lot. Most gamers are still using cards from the 8800/280 series, so pushing the boundaries with console ports tends not to work out very well. Hence, nVidia taking its time to get GK110 to market because it's not needed.

And when games actually start using extreme levels of Compute, they have GK110 already designed and ready for release. For now, the higher power efficiency of GK104 trumps rarely used DirectCompute. And given that AMD took six months to release a high performance driver update that leveled the playing field, I think I'll give nVidia at least as long to match it before I call the game over and done with.

If anything is sad, it's that nVidia's mainstream part beat AMD's high end out the gate. If AMD had the performance they now have with 12.7 and 12.8, then perhaps nVidia would have released the 680 series as the 660 it should always have been and the pricing would have been lower from the get-go. That didn't happen and so here we are. Mainstream is now $330-$430 for many gamers who used to spend only $200 on GPU's.

I'm sure nVidia and AMD are both very pleased, but I'm also sure it's probably inevitable as discrete GPU's become increasingly niche.

 

[sontin]

There is no problem with DirectCompute and Kepler. It's right the opposite:
In a lot of Games with DirectCompute nVidia is faster because of it. There are only a few examples which shows the other side: Metro2033 with DoF (bandwidth) or Dirt:Showdown with advanced lighting (less compute units).

You need only to look at Sleeping Dogs or Dragon Age 2: Kepler is as fast as or faster than the 7970 because DirectCompute is used to accelerate effects.

 

[railven]

There is no problem with DirectCompute and Kepler. It's right the opposite:
In a lot of Games with DirectCompute nVidia is faster because of it. There are only a few examples which shows the other side: Metro2033 with DoF (bandwidth) or Dirt:Showdown with advanced lighting (less compute units).

You need only to look at Sleeping Dogs or Dragon Age 2: Kepler is as fast as or faster than the 7970 because DirectCompute is used to accelerate effects.

Don't those two sort of contradict themselves? HD 5k series had problems with tessellation due to less tessellation units.

Of course it was only a problem in extensive tessellation scenes, but the same applies to Kepler and DirectCompute scenes.

 

[boxleitnerb]

I think people talking about "problems" with compute and Kepler are implying an overproportional drop in performance. The 7970 has roughly 30% more compute power than the 680 and is roughly 30% faster. Looks normal to me.

 

[sontin]

Don't those two sort of contradict themselves? HD 5k series had problems with tessellation due to less tessellation units.

It's sound so easy but it's so hard to put more units into the chip. AMD has not the architecture for it.

Of course it was only a problem in extensive tessellation scenes, but the same applies to Kepler and DirectCompute scenes.

No, it's not. The front-end is always limiting the performance of the cards. A 7970 is only faster when you significant increase the pixel processing workload. Or why do you think a card with 81,5% of computer performance and 73% of the bandwidth is faster in 1080p (even with AA and AF) than the 7970?

 

[railven]

It's sound so easy but it's so hard to put more units into the chip. AMD has not the architecture for it.

Exactly, which supports what I said and why I found your statement conflicting.

No, it's not. The front-end is always limiting the performance of the cards. A 7970 is only faster when you significant increase the pixel processing workload. Or why do you think a card with 81,5% of computer performance and 73% of the bandwidth is faster in 1080p (even with AA and AF) than the 7970?

I'll assume both are stock, at which one is running at higher clocks. We all know B/W isn't the ultimate deciding factor in overall performance.

In compute heavy work loads, the 7970 is faster due, in your own words, less compute units on the GTX 680 - which is a problem.

 

[Silverforce11]

There is no problem with DirectCompute and Kepler. It's right the opposite:
In a lot of Games with DirectCompute nVidia is faster because of it. There are only a few examples which shows the other side: Metro2033 with DoF (bandwidth) or Dirt:Showdown with advanced lighting (less compute units).

You need only to look at Sleeping Dogs or Dragon Age 2: Kepler is as fast as or faster than the 7970 because DirectCompute is used to accelerate effects.

http://www.hardware.fr/articles/876-18/benchmark-sleeping-dogs.html

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/graphics/display/geforce-gtx-660_9.html#sect5

Looks even worse when settings are cranked, applying the full set of dx11 compute features (its too embarassing for me to link it directly, thats how bad it is):
http://www.hardwareheaven.com/revie...-7990-graphics-card-review-sleeping-dogs.html

Guess what, another game with plenty of dx11 compute accelerated effects:

 

[mablo]

Tegra 3 is good, but not TBH. Krait kills it CPU wise and is a little faster GPU wise. Exynos 4412 murders it GPU wise. S4 pro and Exynos 5 will be out before the next iteration of tegra. Krait basically dominates the US market and everywhere else it's Samsung.

Indeed. It also very power hungry. I have the One X and the fifth power saving core doesn't make up for the power draw when in use in my opinion. The only thing Nvidia have going for it is throwing $$ at developers for optimizing games for Tegra. Maybe also price, thinking about the Nexus 7.

OT: Deus Ex 75% off at Steam.

 

[sontin]

Exactly, which supports what I said and why I found your statement conflicting.

They can't add more units. I hope it makes it more clear.

I'll assume both are stock, at which one is running at higher clocks. We all know B/W isn't the ultimate deciding factor in overall performance.

Both at stock:
http://www.computerbase.de/artikel/grafikkarten/2012/test-nvidia-geforce-gtx-660/4/
http://ht4u.net/reviews/2012/nvidia..._gtx660_sc_msi_n660gtx_tf_oc_test/index38.php (with AA/AF)

In compute heavy work loads, the 7970 is faster due, in your own words, less compute units on the GTX 680 - which is a problem.

No, it's not a problem. The problem is that nVidia is selling less compute performance for the money. The GTX680 runs in nearly every setting with 100%.

 

[railven]

They can't add more units. I hope it makes it more clear.

Umm...exactly, yet again, and you continue to support my original question of your statement. I hope that makes it more clear.

Both at stock:
http://www.computerbase.de/artikel/grafikkarten/2012/test-nvidia-geforce-gtx-660/4/
http://ht4u.net/reviews/2012/nvidia..._gtx660_sc_msi_n660gtx_tf_oc_test/index38.php (with AA/AF)

So, yes, higher clocks - can overcome the difference in through put, which it does.

No, it's not a problem. The problem is that nVidia is selling less compute performance for the money. The GTX680 runs in nearly every setting with 100%.

It is a problem, just like the lack of tessellation units were for the HD 5k series - which is why I offered that as a comparative from the start.

It's the reversal of the tessellation issue. AMD beat their chest for years, then nVidia stomped them with their implementation. Well nVIdia beat their chest for years, and now AMD is stomping them with their implementation.